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Riding Shotgun with Rick

Busy weekend

My work week isn’t over. I have five computers/hard drives that I’m working on this weekend. My most exciting task is to setup an older XP HP machine with Ubuntu Linux. My customer had a huge XP problem and couldn’t use her restore CD’s to get it going. After some discussion of her options, costs, and time involved, she decided to give Ubuntu a try. This customer is retired, but is writing a book, uses a digital camera, is an AOL user, and emails a bunch. However, she loves here computer and has been using one for many years and has no qualms about trying something new.

Are we moving too fast??

Wow, I am getting more pleased every day with our site. Sometimes you can find up to five new posts on our site in one day! Coming from a staff of two, that isn’t too bad. But are you catching it all?

The newest info is always at the top of our page, and then it moves down through the site as we post new information. If you have missed a few days, click the numeral “2” at the bottom of the page, and then “3” and “4”, etc to catch up on the latest happenings.

Reading the comments on our site is always interesting and sometimes entertaining as well. We strongly encourage ALL our visitors to leave comments, suggestions, and even criticisms on the site. It’s easy to do, just click “Add Comment”, and comment away!

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 001

Today, I tried something new and did a videocast of me answering your email. Today, I answered emails from: Terry, Bresada, Stephanie, Stephen, Robyn, and Dan.

Leave a comment below and let me know how you liked this method of answering your questions.

Backup – Again

I will keep bringing this topic up again and again until every visitor to HelpMeRick.com makes a regular habit of backing up their valuable data. Already this week I have received three calls from computer users who lost valuable data due to a computer crash. In addition to the calls, I received another four or five emails from computer users in the same situation.

I know backup is monotonous, but it is also vital to protecting your digital information. For more than ten years I have written and soap boxed about backup and provided many tips on how to best approach this misunderstood and often forgotten computer skill. Establishing a backup routine is not difficult and once it is up and running is painless to maintain.

Skype – Better than the phone?

Skype Tonight my brother and I talked again using what is becoming our regular medium…Skype. We both of have inexpensive web cams and a basic microphone and call and talk to each other for an unlimited amount of time for absolutely no cost. Video calls are fun because not only can we see each other, but we can show each other items that we might be talking about and also let other family members (including pets) get involved in the conversation.

TechTV Appearances

I reached into the “way back” machine and found these clips of my interviews on TechTV’s “Call for Help” and “The Screen Savers” shows in May of 2001 when I was promoting my book. Enjoy or be frightened…leave a comment and tell me which.

“The Screen Savers”

“Call for Help”

Disposable tech?

All-in-one printers have dropped so low in price the last couple of years that it poses a dilemma when the machine goes on the fritz. Decent all-in-ones can be found for right at $100 and some as low as $79. When one starts to malfunction, you need to really evaluate how much time and money is too much to spend on an inexpensive piece of equipment.

My thought is that if your printer cost around $100-125 new, I wouldn’t spend more than 1/2 that amount to get it fixed. If you are under warranty, by all means push the manufacturer for a fix. But once it is out of warranty, think long and hard on how much time and money is too much for the printer.

Ubuntu – Day 14 – Final Report

 
Ubuntu Header graphic

I can’t believe it has been two weeks already that I’ve used Ubuntu Linux exclusively. If I had to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be “satisfying.” And my regular readers/listeners know that I can’t sum anything up in one word, so I will use this format to provide a complete synopsis of my Ubuntu thoughts.

Newsletter arriving?

After spending the last three weeks searching for a solution to our newsletter woes, I decided to completely rework our old system. Friday’s newsletter is on its way tonight, and I hope you are all getting it soon. Please be patient as we work through this horrible problem. Turns out that if we want to move to something a little more reliable and flexible, it would cost us upwards of $200/month, and since we don’t have any email or web sponsors, we need to keep running the newsletter as is.

Again, thanks for your patience.

Ubuntu – Day 13

Haven’t used my computer at all today except to write this blog entry. I will answer some email later, but again, Ubuntu does that without any problems at all (except that I miss my Cloudmark spam filter). I have one more day before I return to my Windows machine and use it as my primary again. I did hook a regular mouse to this laptop and it makes it easier to run the machine than relying full time on the touch pad. Thankfully, this laptop has a button that can turn the touchpad off when I’m typing since my palms tend to rub on the touchpad and then throw me out of the box where I was typing.

Tomorrow night, I will give a longer summary of my 14 day Ubuntu report and how I feel it would work for other computer users.