Skip to content

Riding Shotgun with Rick

7 Days with Windows 7 – Day 1

I worked late today, but did start and am only using my laptop installed with the beta version of Windows 7. Windows 7 will be released later this year or early next year and take the place of Windows Vista. I wanted to test it a little more thoroughly, so I’m dedicating the next 7 days to use only Windows 7.

In today’s installment, I highlighted some of the changes in the new operating system on the desktop, the programs menu, and the taskbar. You will see a different taskbar and quick launch toolbar, an updated and improved Start menu, faster searching and Control Panel navigation. I point these out it in theRead More »7 Days with Windows 7 – Day 1

Rick Answers his email Videocast – 035

Sort of a Part II to this week’s Videocast 034 since I had so much email to catch up on this week. Again, great questions, this edition includes questions from Beverly, Sandra, Aaron, Margie, Karen, Bill, Douglas, Jose, Nilesh, Diane, Michael, Ralph, Kari, Martha, Neil, and Leo.

Interesting data in my site stats

I use Google Analytics to monitor my site data. I check the statistics about once per month, but after checking yesterday, I noticed a few interesting trends:

  • Less than 3% of visitors coming to HelpMeRick.com use a dial-up connection. I thought this would still be up around 10% or higher.
  • Firefox visitors trail Internet Explorer visitors by less than 14%
  • Google Chrome (which has been out less than a year) visitors nearly out numberRead More »Interesting data in my site stats

French police force save millions by using Ubuntu

This might be one of the largest government agencies making a whole sale change to Ubuntu and leaving Microsoft behind. Ubuntu Linux is a free open source operating system that can very capably replace a Microsoft Windows operating system. This article describes how France’s national police force will change all 90,000 of their computers to Ubuntu by 2015, and they… Read More »French police force save millions by using Ubuntu

Stop a document from printing – Video Tip

We all run into a problem sooner or later where something we printed didn’t print correctly or we want to stop it from printing. In today’s tip, I explain how to stop the printer from printing and then clean the print job from your computer.

  1. Turn off your printer using its power switch
  2. Immediately watch for a message by your clock that has anything to do with your printer
  3. Click the little bubble message (if you see it)
  4. If you don’t see the options in steps 2 & 3, then:
    1. Click Start –> Control Panel
    2. Double-click Printers
    3. Double-click your printer
  5. When the printer queue dialog box appears, click one time on the document you want to delete
  6. Click Document from the menus, then Cancel (If you have multiple documents, click Printer –> Cancel all documents from the menus)
  7. Once the documents disappear (should be just a few moments), you can close all open windows and turn your printer on again.

I have a few more little tips and you can see this technique in action by watching the video below (2 1/2 minutes):

Improved Site Searching

I worked on the searching situation here at the new HelpMerick.com, and I think you will find it much more responsive to your needs. Use these tips to help find the information you need out of the nearly 2000 articles on the site: Use multiple words (ex: home networking, or email attachments) Always check your spelling Try different forms of… Read More »Improved Site Searching

New computer users

Today alone, I ran across two brand new computer users. It irritates me when I see commenters on some of my YouTube videos and elsewhere on the web make fun of the fact that some people can’t copy and paste or create a table in Microsoft Word or perform any number of computer tips I  teach through this site and… Read More »New computer users

Google Docs privacy leak

Headlines garner attention, but do people then read the article. This week an article is making the rounds about a Google Docs security problem. Turns out that the problem only affects an extremely minor number of users who already shared document and then happened to perform a very particular set of steps. In other words, the chances of a problem… Read More »Google Docs privacy leak