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Firefox or Internet Explorer doesn’t display all pictures or backgrounds

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:

  • Web sites don’t display all images
  • Text seems distorted
  • Backgrounds don’t display

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:

  1. Click Start
  2. Click Settings –> Control Panel
  3. Double-click the Accessibility options
  4. Click the Display tab
  5. Un-check the “use high contrast” box
  6. Click Apply
  7. Click OK

If your web site viewing is looking a little goofy, and pictures, menus and text aren’t displaying properly, give these steps a try!

You can do what I do

Smart RabbitI 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.

  1. You need to be able to be able to learn and learn quickly. Computers, software, peripherals and the infinite combinations of them change at a rapid pace. Learning to be flexible and adaptable is a must.
  2. Remember and/or document solutions that you discover so you can use them again. 
  3. Work with as many different computers and situations as possible. Every computer is different than the next because of the way they are configured, what software is installed, whether the software has been updated, what security packages are installed, and more make every computer a unique challenge. The more of them you work with, the better your foundation becomes for the next one.
  4. Read as many online troubleshooting blogs, tech newsletters, support pages, and magazines as you can possibly digest. And again, document and/or remember the information that you deem the most helpful or applicable to everyday computer users.
  5. Hone your Internet searching skills (I use Google almost exclusively) so you can quickly find answers to problems you may have not yet encountered. When I say hone your skills, I mean learn how to properly word a search phrase and re-word it if necessary. Learn how to quickly scan the results of a search for the most logical and applicable result. Learn how to use tabs in your browser to make your searches and reading even faster. Learn how to discern which possible solutions apply to your specific situation. And finally, learn how to properly implement the solution you just found.
  6. Learning to carry out a solution requires that you to learn how to safely and properly make use of tools like Windows Device Manager, the registry editor, the command prompt, task manager,  computer management tool, anti-virus, and anti-spwyare scans to name a few.
  7. Always keep track of the steps you take as you work towards a solution. By keeping track and leaving yourself some bread crumbs, you can often back track if a solution results in a dead end and you need to star over.
  8. And most importantly, follow Harry Callahan’s (Clint Eastwood) advice, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Computer problems can eat up more time than a late night infomercial. Know when to walk away and re-evaluate a situation.

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.

Is Skype quality getting worse?

Skype callSkype ranks as one of my all-time favorite web programs. For those who have never heard this name or weren’t sure what it is about, Skype allows you to make voice and or video calls from your computer to another Internet connected computer anywhere in the world for free. Skype also offers extremely low pricing for making computer to land line or cell phone calls as well.

I use Skype to communicate with my brother in Arizona, but over the past few months we have noticed a significant change in the quality of the calls. Neither of us has changed our Internet service or computer setups, so Skype is definitely the culprit. We both noted that Skype usage seems to be climbing. At almost any time we use Skype, we note that between 10 and 13 million other Skype users are online. Whether the vast number of users contributes to the problems we experience or not, it still makes a mind boggling statistic.

It used to be that we could make our video calls and talk for anywhere from 15 minutes to 90 minutes and not have any problems with call quality, dropped calls or video problems. However, over the past six months our calls are frequently dropped, suffer from extremely poor audio, or one of us will lose the audio from the other. Every fifth or sixth call, we will experience good quality again, but good quality calls are quickly becoming rare.

We both are using the current version of the Skype software and try not to run any other programs in the background as we talk…except maybe our browsers. We both fill out the How did we do? surveys after a failed call, but the problems continue to exacerbate.

I would love to hear from other Skype users out there:

How often do you use Skype? Are you experiencing good quality calls, poor quality calls or both? If poor, how often and what type of problems do you have? Are you a Mac Skyper, Linux Skyper, or Windows Skyper? How fast is your connection? Do you have any tips for making better use of Skype?

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think of Skype and please answer some of these questions as well. I’m curious.

What kind of computer do 3 teenagers use?

An extremely slow and sick computer!

Today, again, I ran across a family who has multiple teenagers (3 in this case) who use a computer that has become polluted with spy and adware. I see this situation again and again, week after week. This computer was less than 2 months old!

Give the typical teenager a Windows based computer (doesn’t matter if it is XP or Vista) and within weeks (sometimes hours) the computer is almost useless. Parents always ask me the next logical question, “Why did it happen?”

Google Chrome Overview – Video Tip

Last week, Google released their own web browser, Chrome, to compete with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Many of you have asked my opinion and wondered what it all means. In a nutshell, I think that any competition is good competition. And with a name like Google behind the project, that adds even more fuel to the fire.

Google Chrome is fast, easy on the eyes, but offers few features that aren’t already available in Firefox, Opera, and other browsers. However, I think that more people are likely to use it because of the Google name, and they won’t be disappointed. Watch my video below for a quick introduction to Google Chrome and more commentary.

I would love to hear your comments about Google Chrome as well.

Firefox 3.0 is ready for download – go ahead and do it

Firefox 3.0 is now available for full download for the masses.

It is reported to be the fastest version of firefox yet, and possibly one of the fastest browsers period.

We have tested it for a while and it appears to be ready for use. Be careful if you run a lot of extensions, you will want to research and make sure that your extensions are compatible with 3.0.

There are several new features to Firefox 3.0 which we will write about later and talk about on the show.

“If it is free, it must not be any good.”

This statement was uttered by an imbecile. A customer of mine told me last week that he heard this quote from a tech person from some company after a discussion of AVG Free.

The week before this customer’s computer was almost crippling slow primarily because it had one of the newer versions of Norton Internet Security installed. After taking Norton off the system (approximately 20-25 minutes to do so) and adding AVG, the system sped up by at least 50%.

You all know that story, however, I want to instead focus on the “free is inferior” statement. My first rebuttal is Google. Google is free and arguably one of the most useful offerings to mankind in the last 30 years. Is Google inferior?

CNET Web 2.0 Awards


CNET Web 2.0 AwardsGet used to me writing more articles about Web 2.0 applications…applications that run in your web browser. I’ve written many already, but today I’m writing about the  CNET people’s choice awards for best Web 2.0 applications in ten categories ranging from productivity to entertainment. This is CNET’s second year compiling the awards. This year almost 2 million votes were cast for over 300 Web 2.0 applications.

Many of my own favorites won awards including Zoho, Netflix, LogMeIn, Wikipedia, Gmail, Woot, Firefox, and Pandora. Click over to the article and read about some of these amazing applications.

Computing power is truly leaving the desktop and moving to the Internet. I personally think web computing makes perfect sense for a majority of computer users. Let me know what you think of Web 2.0 or what online applications are your favorites by leaving a comment below!

PayPal Agrees

Last week I wrote a tip called 7 Habits of highly inefficient Internet Users.   The very first habit I wrote about was the use of old browsers. Literally, the next day PayPal (the leading online payment source for eBay and person-to-person payments) announced that it would stop supporting old browsers and users who did not upgrade to more modern and safer browsers would not be able to use the service. This will not be an isolated incident. Some banks also require the use of at least Internet Explorer 6 with all its updates or Firefox 2.0.

Living online with your applications and data

Here I go again talking about online applications and data storage. I keep bringing it up because the idea makes more sense to me everyday.

In just my first two days of work this week, I found multiple examples of how computing online instead of on your desktop makes sense for so many people. It will be a long time before serious photographers, movie makers, engineers, and graphic designers can make do with online applications because their programs require a great deal of computer speed, power, and storage. However, for the bulk of computer users at home and many in small businesses, migrating data online and utilizing online applications can save a great deal of time and money.