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Computer Tips

3 Reasons NOT to upgrade or buy to Microsoft Office & 5 Alternatives

Microsoft has primarily moved to a subscription model for its Office suite…costing you recurring fees. After 25+ years of using Microsoft Office and watching others use Microsoft Office, I can say without hesitation that it is a waste of hard earned money for most people. Don’t be pressured or swayed into purchasing it.  Here’s why: 3 Reasons NOT to upgrade… Read More »3 Reasons NOT to upgrade or buy to Microsoft Office & 5 Alternatives

Apple Solitaire

Free Solitaire for Apple Macintosh users

After years of looking and trying different programs, I think I found a great, free program for new Apple users that will help ease the move from Windows. Yes, believe it or not, a huge stumbling block for many of my clients in making the move to Macintosh is Solitaire, Free Cell, and/or Spider Solitaire.

Prior to today, I guided folks to the web in search of a solitaire program available from Hoyle or playing online Solitaire from Yahoo and other online sites. All these ideas were not 100% satisfactory replacements for their Windows games.

Today, I discoveredRead More »Free Solitaire for Apple Macintosh users

Picasa Logo

How to use Picasa to backup ALL your photos to an external hard drive – Video Tip

One of my long time customers called me the other day with a question about not being able to backup his photos using Picasa without errors. Upon some research, I discovered that he was simply hitting the burn button to quick. To avoid repeating his problem, wait for Picasa to finish calculating the backup job before hitting the burn button.

While doing this research, I also discovered how to use Picasa to backup all your photos to an external hard drive or Read More »How to use Picasa to backup ALL your photos to an external hard drive – Video Tip

How to locate where your photos are saved – Video Tip

Many of us use photo management software (Picasa, Photoshop Elements, Corel, Kodak Easy Share, Canon Zoom Browser, etc) to manipulate, organize, and share our photos. Unfortunately, too many computer users think their photos exist in these programs. They don’t. Our digital photos are like any other piece of information on our computer…they exist in a folder somewhere on our hard drives.… Read More »How to locate where your photos are saved – Video Tip

Ubuntu 10.04 released tomorrow, manual today

Microsoft released Windows Vista a little over three years ago, and it hit the market (and customers) like a rock right between the eyes. Hardware configurations were too underpowered, hardware support was horrid, and tons of third party software did not work with it (including some of Microsoft’s own).

Supporting this abomination was even harder.

Out of the clouds, however, came sunlight because being enormously frustrated with what users were stuck with, I looked into options. The best option I could come up with was Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an Open Source (click link to read definition) and free operating system. The first version I discovered in 2007 was Feisty Fawn (7.04). It impressed me immediately. It loaded fast, looked usable (simple), and didn’t try to wow you with too much fluff…it just worked, and worked well. Sure, it wasn’t as refined as Windows, but it also blew the doors off of Windows in performance andRead More »Ubuntu 10.04 released tomorrow, manual today

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Picasa – Still the best

I get to see tons of software in my weekly travels, and that includes photo management software. Picasa, from Google, remains my favorite photo management and downloading system for Windows, Macintosh, AND Linux (Ubuntu). It offers:

  • Great flexibility in organizing and tagging photos
  • Easy to use download function
  • Good integration with online photo ordering services
  • Wonderful way to share photos via online albums, Facebook and of course email
  • Nice photo archiving backup function (although I wish they would add backup to external hard drive)
  • And it’s free!!

Over the years, I have put together a series of tips and videos demonstrating how toRead More »Picasa – Still the best

How to start page numbers from a number other than 1 – Video Tip

My daughter needed to know how to start automatic page numbering in Microsoft Word 2007 with a number other than one for a school publication. She and her classmates couldn’t figure it out, so she asked me. I put together a quick video to demonstrate the technique for her, and decided to share it with you as well. Enjoy.

Handouts for Grand Junction Family History Fair

Since many handouts collected at trade shows or seminars end up in the garbage or forever relegated to the plastic bag they were stuffed in, I’m providing today’s handout online for your downloading and viewing or printing convenience. Thanks for attending the class today! High Tech Does Not have to be High Stress – Family History Fair Handout Computer Maintenance… Read More »Handouts for Grand Junction Family History Fair

Drag & Drop Attachments in Gmail – Video Tip

Google rolled out a great new feature for Gmail this week that allows users to drag files from folders directly into an email. It only works with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox at the moment, but it works extremely well and makes attaching files a lot easier. Take a look at the video below to see how it works.

Lots of RAM upgrades lately

The past six months or so, I have performed at least 4 RAM upgrades per week. RAM is the temporary memory that gives  our computers the best chance to perform at optimum speeds. I am doing more of them because folks are electing to hold on to their older computers instead of buying a new one. With the RAM upgrade and some other optimization, most folks can get another 2 or more years out of an existing computer.

When I get a call from a computer user telling me that their computer is slow, it usually needs one or all of these three adjustments:

  1. RAM upgrade
  2. Startup optimization (other articles on this topic)
  3. Less problematic (and free) antivirus/security software like AVG or Microsoft Security Essentials

You can do Read More »Lots of RAM upgrades lately