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Important Covid-19 (coronavirus) Update

First, THANK YOU for your ongoing support since 1995. In this extraordinary time, I want to express how much I miss visiting with you personally during home/business appointments or at the monthly computer user group. The memories of our camaraderie and friendship are priceless. I wish everyone health and peace during this unprecedented event we are all experiencing. Lastly, like many other… Read More »Important Covid-19 (coronavirus) Update

Shopping for a computer? Choose a Chromebook or iPad instead

Black Friday and holiday shopping deals are a week away, if you are still ONLY looking at Windows or Apple computers when you are shopping for a new computing device or upgrade, you are limiting your choices and increasing the complexity. Take this short quiz (click yes or no) and then keep reading: If you chose the ‘perfect…’ answer more… Read More »Shopping for a computer? Choose a Chromebook or iPad instead

How good are your passwords?

And you have more than one password right? If you don’t, you should…seriously…good security starts with good passwords that you change regularly. Today, I came across a site that will demonstrate how weak or strong your password based on the average time it would take to crack your password. It will either scare the heck out of you or it… Read More »How good are your passwords?

Use the address bar

It always amazes me (even after ten years) how unintuitive computers can be for many users. One call I fielded today was from a computer user who has been using computers for many years, but had a befuddling question. She was trying to browse to her bank's web site, but couldn't get there. After talking with her for a few moments, it became apparent that she was typing the address to her bank in a search engine's search box instead of the address bar. The clue came when she exclaimed, "I get a list of credit unions instead of my own."
 
address bar vs search bar

I explained to her that if she knows the address of where she wants to go, use the long white address bar at the top of the browser.

How to fix a slow computer

Any article on fixing a slow computer would be incomplete if it didn’t talk about prevention. Learning about your computer is paramount to preventing problems. Following are articles I recommend that all computer users familiarize themselves with to prevent problems: Backing up your important information Recommended approach to security Using Microsoft Security software Learn how to search the web and… Read More »How to fix a slow computer

Create Your OWN Personalized Newspaper Online – Video Tip

In this month’s group, we talked about and demonstrated how to set up a web page that can be personalized. I like to use a customized web page (portal) as my home page (first page that shows up when I start my browser). We looked at the Yahoo portal (My Yahoo) and the newer Google customized home page.

Both services require that you register and setup a user name and password. Once you register, you can customize your page to include weather information, stock portfolios, sports news and scores, news from industries or topics that you choose, comics, and even content from other web pages. Both services are free and give you the flexibility to add, subtract and edit any type of data that you choose.

  • After you sign in, first look for the

Practice smarter browsing to avoid malware – Video Tip

It seems that spyware, adware and other malware that doesn’t quite fall in the category of a virus grows by the day. Unfortunately, even the best protected computers and computer users can get hit by these sneaky destruction machines by tricking us (social engineering) to thinking we are either using, viewing or downloading something other than it is. In order… Read More »Practice smarter browsing to avoid malware – Video Tip