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HelpMeRick.com endorses Blu-ray

As of today we are declaring the HD disk format war as over. Best Buy and Netflix are now backing Blu-ray. This brings the number of big companies that remain exclusive to HD DVD or remain uncommitted to a format down to a handful.

If you are debating over whether to go Blu-ray or HD DVD, there are two schools of thought. You can buy a Blu-ray and prepare for the future or you can buy an HD DVD and buy all of the cheap movies on clearance in a year or so when the format goes obsolete.

Microsoft and Toshiba were the biggest backers of HD DVD, but even Microsoft has said that they will follow the public demand.

What can we teach you today?

Castellini on Computers is so much more than just a website and show, we are men on a mission.

To some degree we even let our mission get in the way of our livelihood.

While Rick and I own and operate two separate businesses, we are united in the common goal of helping the digitally challenged survive in the digital world. Much of what we have done together in the past has been done for free as a public service.

We produce show and newsletter along with an ongoing website. The purpose of these projects is to share what we know so that others may use us as a resource for day-to-day computer solutions.

Using the “Middle Click” to make searching the Internet faster

Every time I show a computer user how to use the tab feature of their browser (found in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, and Safari), their eyes light up and they can’t believe what I showed them is real. Today was another such day. I helped an extremely knowledgeable young lady with her computer, and somehow the conversation drifted into searching the Internet. She nearly fell off her exercise ball when I showed her the trick.

Brain transplant

If I could impart one aspect of my computer knowledge to everyone who uses a computer, it would be the ability to understand file management.

File management, in the computer world, means how information (files) are stored and utilized on a computer system. Understanding file management, means understanding:

Use the Task Manager to troubleshoot program problems – Video Tip

While Windows is far from a perfect operating system, it does provide some tools to help deal with its imperfections.

One of the tools you can use to shut down a troublesome program without having to completely restart your system is the Task Manager.

For instance, if a program happens to freeze or stops responding to your mouse clicks or keyboard strokes, try this technique before reaching for the power button:

  1. Push Ctrl+Alt+Delete on your keyboard to brink up the Task Manager window (Close Program window in Windows 95, 98, and Me)
    • NOTE: Windows Vista users:  Ctrl+Alt+Del will bring up a screen where you have to click the Start Task Manager button before moving to the next step.
  2. Find and click ONE time on the program that is giving you trouble, then click the End Task button
  3. The program should close and disappear from the Task Manager list.
  4. If not, wait a few seconds and you should see another window pop-up…click the End Task button again or preat step #2

Using this technique should allow you to return to Windows and continue on with your computing…again, without the need for a full reboot of your system. It doesn’t work one hundred percent of the time, but it does work often enough that you will be rebooting your computer less. Watch the short video below to view this technique in action and learn a few other tricks not outlined here:

What is a blog?

I am sure that this isn’t the first article posted on this topic at HelpMeRick.com, but hopefully it will be the most complete.

There are three ways to define blogs: As news, as journals and as a ventilation system for people who want to be important.

In fact you could easily draw a vin diagram showing how most blogs overlap.

Blogs as News:

Blogs are websites that allow users to build and post to as easily as they send an email. This means that factors like web design, and computer literacy are of little importance.

How to fill out a PDF form with your computer

I fielded a call from a client today who wanted to know how to transfer a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form he received via email to Microsoft Word so he could fill it out using his computer, save it, then email it back. My short answer was that he couldn’t do it.

Technically, it can be done through a series of computer hocus-pocus, Jedi mind tricks, a great deal of knowledge about the Windows clipboard, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word and a lot of time. Knowing that this client didn’t have these tools at his disposal, I elected to tell him that it couldn’t be done.

Adobe Acrobat forms (PDF files) are not easy to edit or annotate because the purpose of a PDF is to preserve the formatting and integrity of the original document. Some PDF form designers can make their forms fillable using our computers, if they choose to do so. For example, many government sites like the IRS have forms that can be downloaded and printed or filled out right from our computers. Again, these forms are designed this way and not all PDF forms can be filled in via computer.

It bothered me all day that I still didn’t know of a better solution for this common question; how to fill in a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) form on the computer. I did some research tonight and found that our new favorite PDF reader (Foxit Reader) has this capability built-in (see illustration). However, the free version will let you fill it in, but if you save, print, or email the filled in form, it will have some verbiage along with it stating that the feature is a pay feature. If you pay Foxit $40, you can use the feature and not have the trial verbage printed on your form. If you need to fill out a lot of PDF forms, this looks to be a great solution.

I write and talk about Web 2.0 all the time and lo-and-behold there is a

Ubuntu client update

Today, I helped my customer who I installed Ubuntu for almost four months ago. “It has been working great so far”, he informed me. We mainly worked on fine tuning some aspects of the desktop and panels (Ubuntu toolbars). He also wanted to use a calendar, but didn’t know how to approach the included Evolution program which is similar to Microsoft Outlook. However, as I pointed out last summer during my “14 days with Ubuntu”, I like the direction Evolution is heading, but it is far from polished.

Although Evolution comes with Ubuntu automatically, I still recommend using

How to backup using SecondCopy – Video Tip

One of my favorite programs of all time is SecondCopy. SecondCopy offers a flexible and easy to use automatic backup program for any Windows computer user. You need to have a spacious backup drive that will hold what you want to backup like an external hard drive, flash drive, etc.

I recommend using this product for automated daily or weekly backups, but I still think it is imperative that you copy the backups this program makes to optical media (CD-R or DVD’s_ that can’t have electrical or mechanical failures on a regular basis as well.

Watch this short 3 minute video to learn how to use this great data saving program, Second Copy: