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Shopping for a computer? Choose a Chromebook or iPad instead

Black Friday and holiday shopping deals are a week away, if you are still ONLY looking at Windows or Apple computers when you are shopping for a new computing device or upgrade, you are limiting your choices and increasing the complexity. Take this short quiz (click yes or no) and then keep reading: If you chose the ‘perfect…’ answer more… Read More »Shopping for a computer? Choose a Chromebook or iPad instead

3 Basic Tips for new Macintosh Users – Video Tip

This week’s tip focuses on skills that new Macintosh users will need to know in order to feel comfortable with their new Apple Computer.

In this video tip, I give new Mac users some important information about how to use the Macintosh HD (hard drive)icon, the Dock (which launches programs and documents), and a primmer on how application and folder windows differ from those in the Windows environment.

As with any operating system, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task, none of which are wrong. Enjoy the tip if you are a new Mac user or pass it along to a new Mac user!

Enable dictation for FREE with new Apple OSX Mountain Lion and later – Video Tip

Since I bought my first computer, I have been borderline obsessed with voice recognition, using your voice to input text instead of the keyboard. With the release of the newest version of the Apple operating system for their computers, dubbed Mountain Lion or Mac OSX 10.8 (and later), that function is now a standard feature of the system. It does… Read More »Enable dictation for FREE with new Apple OSX Mountain Lion and later – Video Tip

You can change your Internet Home Page – Video Tip

When you buy a new computer, the Internet browser comes pre-configured with a home page (first web site you see when you start your web browser). For PC’s, it is usually MSN. For Mac’s it is Apple.com. If you download Firefox (which everyone should be using), its default home page is a Firefox branded Google page. Sometimes your Internet provider’s web site takes over as your home page if you run one of their setup disks.

Through all of this, you had no say so as to what your home page is. Fortunately, it is a simple procedure to change the home page to anything you want. Here’s how to change it no matter what web browser you use (except Internet Explorer 7):

  1. Pull up the web site you want to see first when you start Internet sessions
  2. Click and drag the little icon next to the address of that site to the Home icon (looks like little house)
  3. Click Yes on the confirmation dialog box asking if you really want to change your home page

That’s it. Now if you are one of the many unfortunate souls who is using Windows Vista, watch how “elegant, quick and streamlined” Microsoft has made this process with Internet Explorer 7:

  1. Pull up the web site you want to see first
  2. Click the drop down arrow next to the Home icon…no not the one at the end of the toolbar, the one righ next to the Home icon
  3. Click Add or Change Home Page
  4. Read and decide whether you want to “use this page as your only home page” or “Add this web page to your home page tabs” (a question which will befuddle many computer users)
  5. Click the option of the answer you chose
  6. Click Yes 

See, that’s DOUBLE the intuitive steps that we have used for more than 10 years and all other browsers use! That’s Microsoft progress! That’s Vista! But Vista sure is purdy.

To see these steps in action, watch the video below:

Make reading the web easier than ever – Video Tip

Although we now have 19″ and larger monitors on most new desktop computers, the text seems to shrink. Why is that? It has to do with screen resolution (how much information can be displayed). Screen resolutions on today’s monitors are up to 3X that of monitors we used just 6-8 years ago. We can see a lot more information, but often the text is too small to view for some computer users.

Never fear. Using this week’s tip, you can easily and quickly enlarge the text of any web page using only your keyboard and mouse. This tip will work with any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc) and any operating system (Windows, Ubuntu, Mac OS X).

All you need is a mouse with a scroll wheel and your keyboard. This tip can be performed without the mouse as well, but I’ll touch on that later. First, when you are reading a web site, particularly news web sites and blog type sites like mine, look for an indication of a printer friendly page. Often designated as Printer Friendly, Print this article, or simply Print, clicking this link brings up a version of the article you are reading that is much less busy and cleaner than how the article presents on the web page itself. This alone may make enough difference for readability.

However, you can quickly increase the size of the text you are reading by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and spinning your mouse scroll wheel away from your body (towards the computer monitor). Amazing, no? Holding down the Ctrl key and spinning towards your body (away from the monitor) will shrink the text again.

The same result can be achieved by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the “+” or “-” keys as well. I think the mouse method is a little more intuitive and elegant.

Watch the short video below to see this tip in action and see the web as never before!