Definition
The word blog derived from web + log. Blogs became well known during the 2004 election process, but have been around since at least 1999. They started out as simple online diaries comprised of primarily text entries sorted by date…newest to oldest. Gradually, they morphed into full fledge web sites containing images and video along with the written information.
What is the purpose of a blog?
Thankfully, broadband (high speed) Internet is spreading further and further. I don’t walk into many homes anymore than don’t have high speed access, and I can’t remember the last time I helped a business customer who had dial-up access. With high speed Internet access, many computer users install a wireless router to the modem to allow multiple computer access to the Internet. Wireless routers are easier to setup than ever before and can be purchased for well under $50. However, with extra technology, comes extra problems.
With wireless, the extra problems can mean potentially slow, spotty, and unsecured Internet access. Follow these five steps to make your wireless Internet stronger, more secure and less problematic:
Thank goodness that high speed connections are reaching more and more areas of the country. And I am thrilled to see that more and more people are taking advantage of the faster connections. Two customers I visited today brought to light for me two important tips to keep in mind if you use DSL (Digital Subscriber Line … layman’s terms: fast Internet over a phone line) or plan to sign up for DSL service.
1. You MUST install a DSL filter on all phone lines in your house EXCEPT the one you use to hook the DSL modem too.
Today I ran into a problem that I hadn’t seen before. A customer’s MSN and Internet Explorer browser (including MSN email and web mail) would only print the HTML coding of a web page or email.
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is the programming that is used to present web pages to us and the coding behind text color, bold, etc. in email. We had cleaned some spyware from this users computer earlier in the day, and even printed out some pictures, but a few hours later I received a call about this strange symptom. At first, I thought it was just a forwarded email gone awry, but after arriving on the scene and seeing that word processing documents, test pages, pictures, and spreadsheets all printed fine, the culprit was definitely in Internet Explorer 7.
Adam and I first mentioned this nasty little virus earlier this spring on our radio show. The email that spreads it poses as an electronic greeting card from your friend or relative. Because the email is so poorly constructed, is never from a known address, and the link it displays in the body of the message is a number (NEVER, EVER Click a link that is constructed of a number, ex: http://91.188.176.15/) we didn’t put much credence in how much damage it could do.
This week’s tip addresses a rough area with Ubuntu Linux…using wi-fi (wireless) Internet. I have had some of the same problems utilizing wireless Internet as other people, so I set out to learn more about it and find as straight forward a solution as I could. What I found was called WiFi Radar. I wrote about it in Day 3 of my 14 day Ubuntu only series. In today’s tip, I submit to you the video version of that tip.
Web or Internet forums will forever change the way you gather information on the Internet. Individuals, organizations, and large companies setup forums to provide a meeting place for people with common interests and goals. Individual computer users like you and I generate 95% of the content/information in a web forum. The rules are pretty simple; if you have a question and it hasn’t already been answered, post a question to the forum, readers see it and respond if they have the answer. Of course, if you see a question that you know the answer to, by all means jump on board and answer it!
Depending on the topic and the reputation of the forum you visit, questions can get answered in as little as five minutes but rarely go more than 24 hours without an answer.
In today’s video tip, I explain how to:
The collective knowledge of Internet users is overwhelming and invigorating. Watch the video below to see how helpful using web forums can be…and again, you may have invaluable help for someone else as well.
Although I buy a few things per year on eBay, I haven't sold anything on eBay for a little more than two years. I had eight items that I needed to sell so I logged into my account today and found that posting an item for sale is much easier than it was two years ago. Creating the description (some items can be automatically built from a stock description) is easier, making your posting look professional and clean is easier, adding pictures is easier (first picture is free, then only fifteen cents per picture after that), and working through pricing your item (hint: always start at $.01 to lower your listing cost AND generate interest in your item).
Google offers hundreds of features and most of them go unused by the average computer user.
Google Images is one of the coolest features that the monster search site has to offer. Google Images allows you to search the web for graphics or pictures related to any search topic.
It's so easy to use:
1. Visit Images.Google.com
2. Type in a word or phrase that you want to search for
3. Hit ENTER key on your keyboard
4. The website where the image is found will load but you can get directly to the image itself by clicking on the thumbnail at the top of the page.
For many computer users, viewing some web sites can be frustrating because text tends to be too small. Since many of you might be using Internet Explorer 7, take advantage of the improved zoom functuon in it. To access the zoom function:
1. Click Page from the menu in the upper right of the screen
2. Click Zoom from the menu
3. Choose a Zoom value from the options (I recommend trying the 125% first and then move up from there)