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Riding Shotgun with Rick

More lost pictures…

I write often about backup because I'm passionate about the topic. Too often, I see customers who have never backed up there important data and recovering it is either impossible or financially unfeasible.

I visited a young mother today with a laptop that was afflicted with a virus that destroyed all her data. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to recover the data. She could probably send the hard drive into a service like DriveSavers , but the cost would be in the thousands. She elected to just have the drive reformatted and said she would start over when I bring the computer back. 

Always a love-hate relationship

Lately, I have been working with many Windows 98 and Me computers (and a few Windows 95). For basic functions, limited Internet browsing, solitaire, email, and word processing, these computers work fine especially with a high speed Internet connection. However, it is imperative that Windows 98 and Me users NOT install any software that was developed after 2003. Your hardware and software configuration may appear to meet the minimum requirements of the software, but let me assure you that the product will not work optimally and your system will slow down considerably.

This especially applies to security software. For Windows 98 and Me users: ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NEVER INSTALL NEW VERSIONS OF NORTON OR MCAFEE SECURITY PRODUCTS.

New radio show format

Two weeks ago, with little fan fare, I announced a dramatic change in format for our weekly radio show. Although I never discussed it with my co-host, friend and producer, Adam, he whole heartedly bought in on the concept and we are proceeding.

When I started the Castellini on Computers Radio Show in 1999, my intention was to provide a forum for beginners to learn about computers, technology and the Internet in a non-threatening yet entertaining forum. For better or worse, my desire to help people got in the way of my original goal of being as "non-geeky" as possible. We answered questions from all callers even if the question was applicable for only that one person. Despite our best efforts of trying to explain our answers and the caller's questions in layman's terms, we turned off many listeners. Our most common feedback about the show has always been, "I love your show, but I don't understand anything your talking about on the show." 

Phone tech support or NON-tech support?

Once again the ineptness of many of the phone tech support services reared its ugly head again. This time it was Sony's phone support. I worked with a client to set up his new Sony Vaio laptop (great screen by the way) and found that he was not shipped the Microsoft Office 2007 CD or certificate of authenticity that he paid extra for at purchase. Without the certificate, we could not activate the Office product. We called tech support and after 35+ minutes at three different people at two numbers, we were told that a call would be made back to my client within "three hours". 

Back in the saddle again…

Can you tell that I'm either a Van Halen fan or from a small town or both?

We had a great spring break vacation with our friends, but I'm back to reality again and the rigors of day-to-day work. Thankfully, my job satisfaction rating is off the charts. I love what I do and thank my lucky stars that I found a career that I enjoy doing each and every day.

I will take the credit for getting Adam started on smart phones (sorry Rachel) and like Adam I attempted to use my Treo while on vacation. Unfortunately, my carrier (Sprint) did not serve the part of the planet where we vacationed. Keeping up with email, getting directions, obtaining phone numbers for local restaurants, and using the phone were all rendered useless on my Treo without my cell signal. At first, I was very disappointed, but as the week wore on I found that being "unplugged" was a good thing. It forced me to leave the wonderful world I use so much in my Treo and turn instead to land line phones, phone books, and talking to the local citizens for suggestions, directions and ideas. Ahhh, I felt like I was in a 1950's black and white classic movie at times the nostalgia of yesteryear was so thick.

Weather on the road

I am traveling with my family this week on my kid's spring break. After making the habit of not taking my laptop on a trip a couple of year's ago, we have found that having the laptop makes information gathering much easier, more accurate and faster. One of the most used things I like to use the laptop for is weather forecasting. I'm no meteorologist, but having access to up-to-the-minute radar, satellite, and storm tracking information at my fingertips makes planning for the day's events come off with fewer weather related hitches.

Right now, my favorite online weather center is Weather Underground . I have used them for years and find their information extremely current and thorough. I will mix in a bit of the National Weather Service and Intellicast at times as well. In the last few years, I stopped visiting the Weather Channel's web site because of their almost garish advertising. Give some of these weather sites a try if you haven't already and also let me know where you like to check weather on the road or at home.  

Technology doesn’t work unless you use it

My family and I are taking a short spring break trip this year and have already run into a travel snafu. After booking our flights at the US Airways web site in January, we did not check again on our itenerary since we already had receipts, seat assignments and all travel information until a few hours before we left for the airport. Upon looking at the US Airways site, it appeared that our connecting flight in Phoenix had been moved up by three hours! No one had contacted us by telephone or email to give us this important morsel of information, but I also take the blame for not checking on the flights at least the day before. We jumped in the mini-van and hustled to the airport only to have our information confirmed and told that we would indeed not be able to get to our destination until the following day.

Faster Internet does not equal faster computer

A common misconception I run across often is that getting a faster Internet
connection will make the computer faster. The Internet is just one of many
functions a computer performs. Whether you connect via a phone line, DSL,
or cable has absolutely NO bearing on how quickly the computer boots up or
opens a particular program.

A faster Internet connection will allow you to receive large email
attachments faster, surf the web faster, and download updates faster, but
it does nothing else for speeding up other computer functions. If your
computer feels slow, that can be due to one or more factors including; not

Is Vista driving computer prices down again?

After the release of Vista we saw prices for desktops and laptops rise nearly 15% for equivalent Windows XP computers. Since Vista's release, the sales numbers for computers and Vista itself have been dismal and retailers are not happy. I opened up my local paper today at breakfast and found that Office Depot had three decent laptops on sale for under $900 all with 1 GB of RAM. One was $699. We haven't seen those kind of prices on laptops since before Christmas. It makes me wonder if Microsoft is giving some kind of incentive to manufacturers to lower their prices in order to help drive sales.

Do you really have that much time on your hands?

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I need to know. One of the most common responses I get from people who don't have a high speed Internet connection is, "I have plenty of time to wait and am in no hurry." While I admire the Zen like focus and calm nerves of these folks, I have to ask the obvious. "Really?"

Today, I worked with a customer who lives literally in the middle of the mountains…the nearest town (about 200 people) is more than 20 miles away and the phone line sounds like popcorn in a microwave and there is no cell service. She has been patiently using dial-up Internet service for more than 7 years connecting at speeds of between 12 kbps and 14.4 kbps on a good day. Yes, you read that correctly…12-14 kbps!!! That is half the speed of a poor dial-up connection…good dial-up connections range from 44 kbps to 52 kbps. An entry level DSL connection starts at 256 kbps. When I setup her new computer today, it took almost thirty minutes to download and install the flash plug-in for her browser. I ended up disabling graphics from showing in her browser and showed her how to view a graphic if she really needed to since a 54kb graphic would take nearly two minutes to load.