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Riding Shotgun with Adam

Reboot, wait, and don’t panic about email problems

I started out with a full morning of appointments two of them were email problems. They had called me early in the week reporting that they could not get into their email.

By 9am this morning both appointments had cancelled because the problem had cured itself. If you search through this site you will find no less than five tips and articles about how internet problems of all types are generally not your fault if you haven’t made any changes.

As it turns out both Internet services that my two clients were using had email problems this week. Simply by waiting the problem out the ISPs got the problems fixed and email was back up on its own.

Use the Ethernet port for broadband

If you have broadband Internet and you had the company set it up for you, it is very likely they connected it using the USB cable instead of the Ethernet cable.

The Ethernet cable has an end on it that looks like a giant phone jack and it is the most reliable way to connect your computer to your broadband cable or DSL modem.

Scanners, printers, joysticks, mice, keyboards, and digital cameras are just a few of the dozens of devices that can be connected to your computer’s USB ports. Since this is the case, you must load drivers to get your computer to recognize your broadband modem when connecting through USB.

Printers don’t come with cables

This is a short one today, but it is something a lot of people don’t know.

When you buy a new printer it typically will not come with a cable. You must also purchase a USB cable. If you are switching from an old printer you can use the old cable as long as it is USB.

Old printers that worked on Windows98 were typically parallel printers and that cable will not be compatible with the new printer.

Before you shell out $20-$30 at the office supply store for a USB cable, check your local discount store (Wal-mart, Target, Kmart) as the cables are typically between $7-12 and you can save a little. 

Care and feeding of your wireless mouse

Wireless mice are not truly wireless.

In addition to the mouse, you also have to plug in a little radio receiver that transmits and receives signals to and from the mouse.

If you buy a wireless mouse, there are a few things you should know.

1. The batteries run down. There are rechargeable varieties, but most mice use regular batteries. If you fail to change the batteries as needed then the mouse will quit working as everything else that takes batteries does.

2. If you unplug your mouse or the batteries run down, it is very likely that you will have to reconnect the signal to the mouse. This usually requires pressing a little connect button on the bottom of the mouse and on the receiver.

Technology solves problems tracking medical records

Have you ever been to a doctor’s appointment where the doctor asked you a lot of questions then referred you to another doctor only to have that doctor ask you all of the same questions all over again?

Are you tired of answering questions about whether you have any allergies? Are you ever curious why the doctors ask you when your last tetanus shot was? Don’t they ever write this stuff down?

As it turns out, doctors offices each track your records, but only certain information gets passed on when you go to the hospital or to a different doctor.

The solution to this problem in on the Horizon. I began my morning meeting with a doctors office that is a client of mine and a local group called Quality Health Network.

Be specific when ordering habanero sauce

The concept of "going easy" on a certain ingredient at a fast food palce is subjective at best.

Today I ate at one of my favorite fresh mex places and I asked them to go easy on the habanero salsa. I love hot foods, but I don’t like for the spice to cauterize my taste buds to the point that I can’t enjoy the flavor of the food.

She took a big heaping scoop of the salsa and dumped in on the burrito. "Is that OK?" she asked.

It would have been nice if she would have asked about the quantity of sauce before she dumped it on the burrito, but I took it any way. As it turns out, the burrito was very spicy, but I survived it.

External hard drives need USB 2.0

A few years ago the speed of USB ports moved from roughly 12mbps to 480mbps. In order to get the new speed, you much have USB 2.0 ports.

USB 2.0 comes standard on all computers on the shelf today, but if your computer is three years old or older, you may need to add USB 2.0 ports to your computer if you are running a high speed device.

Important devices to run on USB 2.0 ports are MP3 playes – like the iPod, external hard drives, or large flash drives packed with a lot of information. Scanners also work much faster on USB 2.0 ports.

In order to reach the full benefits of USB 2.0 both the device and the port much be designed for USB 2.0. 

Moving from AOL isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it

I am currently helping two clients make the move off of AOL after many long years of being AOL customers. While each client is having a few problems making the adjustment, each has stated that they small issues are worth it to get away from AOL.

There are a few things that you need to get ready for when making the switch from AOL. 

1. There is no easy way to backup your address book and move it over. You can print it out and then manually add each address to your new email program. The best way I have found to do it, though, is to send emails to everyone in your AOL address book with your new email address. Ask for each person to send a reply to your new address. Then, as people reply you can click "add sender to address book."

Nothing is by the book

There are two things that make the businesses Rick and I run different from running a computer shop or working as the IT guy in a big company.

1. We see dozens of computers each week and no two of them are the same in any way.

2. Rarely is anything done by the book.

Every person has their own preference for desktop wallpaper, word processing program, Windows version, printer, antivirus, digital camera, web browser, etc.

Tools of the trade

Every profession has its tools. I have found a number of great tools that help get me through the day.

If you or someone you know tinkers with computer, here are some of the essential tools.

1. Swiss Army USB flash drive knife – This is a genuine Swiss Army knife with a built in USB flash drive, flashlight, ball point pen, screwdriver (perfect size for computer screws), scissors and knife.

2. External hard drive enclosure – this is a cool device that lets you place any hard drive into it to convert it into an external USB drive. These are perfect for transfering data from one computer to another.