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Riding Shotgun with Rick

Dial-up users: Are you tired of waiting for email with large attachments?

I have been utilizing this tip much more lately as dial-up users get pummeled with email containing pictures that haven't been resized and an endless parade of forward spam with large attachments from friends and family with high speed connections. For every one megabyte of space an attachment contains, it takes 5-8 minutes for a dial-up user to download it. Many joke emails, slide shows or movies being passed around today can be 5mb or larger…tying up the dial-up users phone line for an hour or more!  If you don't want to tell the offending parties to take you off their list, you can do one or both of the following procedures to gain some control over you email again.

Microsoft Word Features You Might Have Overlooked

Most computer users (myself included) never get close to using everything a piece of software has to offer. Microsoft Word is a great example of this theory. You could work with Word for years and never know all the power that it is possible of yielding. This week, I'm going to point out what I think are some of the features you are likely to use if you knew about them. Thesaurus

Sure you know how to use Word's spell check, but did you know you have access to a pretty good thesaurus as well. Here's how:

1. Highlight a word
2. RIGHT Click on the word
3. Click Synonyms from the menu
4. If you like one of the suggestions, click on it and it will replace the original word for you.

Sometimes the Internet doesn’t tell the whole story

My children were out of school today for the President's Day holiday. We had planned to go skiing with another family at our local ski resort. My son and I woke early and were eating breakfast and decided that we should check the weather on the mountain. We checked the resort's web site and the National Weather Service web site. Both indicated that it could be a 'breezy' day with a chance of snow. We finished eating, packed, and made the forty-five minute trek up the mountain. About half way to the resort, I noticed that the clouds were looking pretty dark (rainy not snowy) and the wind had picked up substantially. As we made the final ascent to the ski area, the wind picked up enough to shake the pine trees on the side of the road quite easily and I could feel the van struggling to keep its bearing. When we pulled into the resort, all the flags were flying straight out and not given any chance to relax. 

Dummie’s Books and Idiot’s Books

DummiesI don't hate many things (except lima beans), but I despise the Dummie's and Idiot's line of books. Why? At least three reasons:

1.  Philosophically, I believe that buying any of these books plants a seed in your head that you are not intelligent enough to figure out a subject (you can now get this abomination of a series on everything from marriage to cooking, and computers to stamp collecting). I believe that NO human being is incapable of learning and learning does NOT start with admitting that you are dumb. Dumb (in the sense of these books) is defined as "not having the capability to process data". By that very definition, it is a waste of money to buy the books in the first place. The entire premise is counter productive to learning.

Web Appliances revisited

I wrote a number of months ago about the need for a new web appliance. A web appliance is a device that only accesses the Internet. Web TV (now MSN TV) is the only device that sort of falls in this category. What I envision (and wish I had the knowledge to build) is a flat screen monitor with built-in speakers and a cordless bluetooth connection to talk to a mouse, keyboard, and a printer. It would also have a card reader to interact with a digital camera and a wireless and/or Ethernet port for high speed Internet access.

It would not have a hard drive or anyway to load applications. All programs and document storage would be online ala Google Docs and Gmail. The vast majority of clients I work with do only three or four things: Internet, email, games, and maybe some word processing and/or digital photography. All of this (and more) can be currently accomplished online thus circumventing the need for anything but an Internet connection. Also, this type of user would benefit greatly by not needing to worry about backup and where their documents are when they need them. It would take away the need for the user to learn and understand file management (which is sorely missing for most computer users).

UPDATE: AVG and Windows Vista

Grisoft released an update to AVG Antivirus today that will make it work properly with Windows Vista. Grisoft does a good job of continually offering updates to fight the latest threats and correct any problems with compatibility that it finds. Current AVG users will get the updates automatically, but if you are new to AVG and Vista, then click on our link in the "Links and Resources" section at the top of any of our site pages.

A visitor asked about ZoneAlarm and Vista compatibility and after some research I found that many of the ZoneAlarm products are not fully ready for Vista yet. If you are a ZoneAlarm user, click on this link to reach ZoneAlarm's site and fill out their form that will give you notifications of updates as they become available.

Delete only one entry from Internet Explorer Address Bar (history)- Video Tip

The address bar in Internet Explorer (or any web browser) allows you to type in known web sites and visit them quickly. Sometimes you might want to clean out individual entries from the address bar or history, but this isn't possible in Internet Explorer unless you edit the registry. Watch the video below to learn how to perform this delicate Windows tweak. The video has a surprise ending to make this process a whole lot easier!

Here are the registry steps for Internet Explorer to delete an individual entry from the address bar:

  1. Close any open windows or programs
  2. Click Start
  3. Click Run
  4. Type: regedit
  5. WARNING: Registry editing is for experienced computer users only.

A rare Microsoft Access Tip

Many years ago, I attended a Microsoft Access (database program) class and one tip stuck in my head, but I forgot the exact steps. The tip was a keyboard shortcut to copy the exact information from the previous record's field to the new record's field. For example, if you are entering a database of people from New Mexico, instead of having to type Albuquerque(the most common city in the database) every time you get to the "City" field, this keyboard shortcut could be invoked instead. 

This tip evaded me for years, but today I finally found it and wanted to document it here for any Access users and myself. The shortcut is to push the Ctrl + '   (Control + Apostrophe) keys on the keyboard! Works great. 

It’s 11:13pm, do you know if your computer is protected properly?

In the last two weeks, I have seen way too many computers with viruses and spyware. The computer industry just isn't doing their job as a whole stressing how important computer security is. So, I pose the question again: Do you know if your computer's security is adequate and up to date?

If you are a regular Castellini on Computers/HelpMeRick.com listener/visitor, I hope you  know the answer. But it is a valid question to ask your friends and family.