Skip to content

Riding Shotgun with Rick

Internet Speed does not determine computer speed

I’m always surprised at how many computer users equate the speed of their computer with the speed of their Internet. If you have a brand new computer, it will not make your dial-up connection faster. Likewise, if you have an older computer, a fast cable or DSL connection will not make the computer faster.

Internet speed only makes your Internet experience faster or slower. If you have a high speed connection and your computer slows down or the Internet speed seems slow, the problem is due to the computer not your Internet connection…most of the time. Calling your Internet provider for computer speed problems is like calling the Department of Transportation because you ran out of gas on the highway.

Adobe Reader 9 update – DON’T DO IT!

Adobe released version 9 of their PDF (Portable Document Format) Reader program. Once the king and almost sole PDF reader on the market, it, like so many other mainstream programs, has become bloated beyond recognition. This software bloat slows down the performance of even the fastest computers, and for this reason, I firmly stand against software bloat.

Solution to strange folders synchronizing error in Outlook 2007

I ran into a problem with Microsoft Outlook 2007 that I never seen. When Outlook was running, a small icon in the system tray was working like crazy on synchronizing folders. Synchronizing folders in Outlook 2007 is usually reserved for large office environments where users share calendars, contacts, etc. This particular computer user was on a standalone system.

The little icon itself wasn’t the problem, but the fact that it was trying to synchronize folders to nowhere ate up large chunks of computer power slowing down the system to almost unusable. After some web searching and poking around some of the tech web forums (nothing was found on Microsoft’s support site), I found that many other people were having the same problem, but no real solution was found.

More Linux success stories

I want to keep singing the praises of an operating system that I used to make fun of on our show; Linux. In partial defense of myself, Linux traditionally has been known as the geeks operating system, and a user needed to be permanently attached to a forum for help and have an affinity for the command prompt or as its known in Linux, the terminal.

Why overseas tech support doesn’t work so well

Frequently, computer users hire me to call and talk to tech support for them. That may seem like a waste of money to some people, but consider that many computer users have to over come TWO language barriers. Yes, I said two language barriers.

The first language barrier for both the overseas helper and the computer user seeking help is understanding each other. We have a hard time understanding the accent and language use of the person trying to help, and they, too, have a difficult time picking up our use of the English language and our accents that are foreign to them.

Fun, private, and easy-to-use photo sharing web site

Last week, a customer of mine sent me a site called Schwup from Muvee Technologies. Muvee designed Schwup from the ground up to be site where multiple people could contribute to the same web photo album. For example, if you just returned from a weekend trip to San Diego to see the U.S. Open and play golf, you and your buddies could return home and all upload photos to the same album so each could have access to them.

There are many photo sharing options on the web, but Schwup aims to be slightly different by offering a free service that can be accessed by multiple people through an invite system, and currently offers no storage limitations.

KAFM Community Radio Show

Over the past six months, Adam and I have been fortunate to start a relationship with our local public radio station(not affiliated with NPR). Currently, we do between 1/2 hour and 1 hour one day a week…the third Wednesday of each month between Noon-1 PM Mountain Time.

Eee PC on the airplane

I haven’t had a chance to use my Eee PC on an airplane until recently. Usually, who am I kidding, I always fly coach. If you flown in the past few years, you know how tight they are spacing rows and even seats back there. I can’t imagine anyone trying to use any other laptop on a plane comfortably. Even with the guy in front of me leaning his seat all the way back, I could use my Eee PC without any problems.

Search our site for eee to learn more about the Eee PC. It is small, yet fully functional and capable. I’m writing this story and uploading the picture from my phone to it so that I could share it with you.

Bresnan Email Woes

Although this tip targets one particular Internet provider, ANY computer user will benefit from the advice I give at the end of the article. In Western Colorado, a company called Bresnan provides a large swath of the cable services…including cable Internet. Overall, I have no problems with the Bresnan service. They run an extremely speedy and pretty stable Internet connection.

However, my beef with the service has always been their sub-standard email service.

  • Only 50 megabytes of space per email address (most services offer 1000 megabytes and up)
  • Horrific spam filtering…filters legit email, and lets a lot of spam through
  • Web mail application is among the worst I’ve seen

Over the past few weeks, Bresnan customers have been pleasantly surprised to see that all of the sudden 99% or more of their spam messages have stopped arriving in either their screened mail folder or their inbox. They were happy. What they and I didn’t start to figure out until this week was