Discussion this week included problems receiving the Castellini on Computers newsletter, virtual memory questions, Mac G5 and two button mouse, Antivirus 2009 malware and much more. This week’s episode is brought to you by: Roo-Man, Craig, Karl, Debbie, Maci, Anne, Laureen, and Harold. Enjoy and keep the questions coming!
After two solid months of using my iPhone 3G, I decided it was time for a short update. As many of you know, I used a Palm device for many years, ending with the Treo from 2003 through this August. When the first iPhone came out, I was intrigued, but thought Apple missed the boat, for me, by not utilizing the fastest cellular data network and not allowing 3rd party applications. When they announced the new iPhone last January and finally released it this summer, they had added the fast cellular network service and opened the system for third party development. It caught my attention in a big way this as it has 7 million other new iPhone 3G owners since its release in July.
Overall, the iPhone has performed wonderfully and with the exception of no cut, copy and paste (when Apple? when?) it has performed admirably. I have been able to duplicate all the functions I used the Treo for, and added many new capabilities. I use the phone the most…after all, it is a cell phone. The visual voice mail system that lets you pick which message to listen to first or have the ability to visually pause, rewind or fast forward voice mail is stunningly implemented and makes managing voice mail much easier.
For extra applications, I settled on SplashID to manage my passwords, Grocery Zen to create shopping lists (I get through the store in at least 25% less time now), Now Playing to look up movie times, Pandora for listening to music (don’t have much time to do this, but it works well), Woot On! to check the daily Woot, but especially helpful when there is a Woot Off, WeDict for a dictionary, Wikipanion for great mobile access to Wikipedia, SportsTap keeps me up to date on sports I follow, Units application for converting volume, length, weight, etc. I also downloaded and occasionally use Word Warp, Sudoku, Tris (tetris clone), reMovem, and Blocks Classic for quick games. For future travel, I downloaded the mobile versions of Yelp and Hotels.com.
The built-in email application works well, and I use it daily in addition to browsing the web. The iPhone truly has exceeded
After running into this issue one to many times lately, I finally found a fast solution. Problem: Outlook users who want to export their address books (contacts) and import them into Gmail can get almost everything imported except street addresses. It’s maddening. Madness be gone, the solution is now just a few steps away.
For some reason, I have seen this issue about six times in the past few weeks with Windows XP computers. The browser (both Firefox and/or Internet Explorer) symptoms include:
The solution to your browser not displaying the images or backgrounds properly is removing the high contrast setting in the Control Panel. Here’s how:
If your web site viewing is looking a little goofy, and pictures, menus and text aren’t displaying properly, give these steps a try!
This week’s episode features answers to questions about Windows XP Service Pack 3, YouTube, a super utility that will fix everything and much more. Questions are brought to you by: Kerryn, CJ, Dick, Jim, Dave, G. Falt, John, Erik, Robert, Burce, John, and Mac. Enjoy!
Open Source software began soon after computers became main stream in offices and then homes. In a nut shell, Open Source refers to software developed under a set standard of rules that developers agree upon to make the software freely available, no penalties for copying or sharing the programs (in fact, it is encouraged to share the software), the source code (programming) must be made available to anyone, and the software must also have no restrictions on others making variations of the software. You can read an exact definition and read the licensing information at the Open Source Initiative web site here.
Open Source software seems to be gaining more and more traction in the computer world as budgets start to tighten in an uncertain financial climate. This week, OpenOffice.org released the newest version of their Open Source office suite software. I’ve been using the beta version of the software for a couple of months and find it to be quite good. OpenOffice is considered one of the bright lights in the Open Source software world and for good reason. It offers an extremely
I closed Outlook and started using Gmail exclusively one year ago. At first, I thought it would be a good experiment to see what Gmail was really all about, but I was also fed up with Outlook and its limitations. It took me two or three weeks to wean myself of thinking of my email in the same way that I used to with Outlook. For the experiment to work, Gmail had to satisfactorily accomplish 3 key functions of email that I handled pretty well with Outlook:
If Gmail could equal or exceed what I could do with Outlook, then I would consider it a success. Gmail’s spam filtering quickly impressed me. In fact, one year later, I can say confidently that Gmail’s spam filtering is superior to that of the Cloudmark system that kept me sane for years with Outlook. Feature #1, check!
I learned to use the Accounts feature in Gmail to successfully and seamlessly pull all my email addresses (and sort them) into my Gmail account. Beautiful; Feature #2, check!
Organizing my email, without the use of folders, proved to be the
If you would like or might even need a new computer, but aren’t crazy about spending $500-1500 in our current financial environment, consider upgrading your computer for free. Yes, I said free. The only investment you will incur is some time. “How”, you ask? By upgrading your computer’s operating system to one of the many Linux options. As many of you know, I started dabbling and learning more about Linux a little more than two years ago. Linux offers a secure, completely functional, modern operating system for free. Linux falls under the guise of Open Source software (available for free and developed by a collaboration of many programmers) and has spawned many different versions to suit all sorts of users.
The most popular version of Linux the past few years, and the one that hooked me, is Ubuntu. Ubuntu has risen to become, arguably, the leader in Linux operating systems. Ubuntu’s popularity stems from the solid community behind the product that supports and develops it, the incredible array of software that comes installed automatically including full Office compatiblity, networking, photo and multimedia tools, and even games. To get the equal functionality that Ubuntu gives users upon installation, a Windows user would have to shell out nearly $1000 for software alone. Ubuntu throws the knockout punch by offering all this for not only free, but also in a package written well enough that it installs in under 20 minutes and runs on hardware that would buckle under the weight of
This week’s questions are brought to you by John, Lynni, Chris, Nyla, Anne, Carla, Sandy, Leo, Ray, Raymond, GW, Mike, Papa, and Greg. Email questions, AVG questions, dirty mice, FavIcons and more make the cut this week. Take a look!
I love learning. My goal is to learn something new every single day I open my eyes. Luckily, I learn multiple new ideas, techniques, or facts every single day. When it comes to my job troubleshooting computers, I believe anyone can do it if they follow the formula I use.
I’ve laid out most of the steps and techniques I use every day to solve computer problems. Feel free to use them and develop your own skills. When you decide that you need more help, follow Callahan’s advice and then call in the professionals.