Many people are installing Office 2007 and then discovering that their spell check for Outlook Express is set for French. This is fine if you are writing emails in French, but most of us aren’t.
Microsoft is aware of the problem and their solution is the upgrade to Windows Vista.
Our solution is do download and install this free spell check program.
Another less than elegant solution is to:
As I wrote about on Friday, this was a busy work weekend for me. I think three of the computers I worked on offer an interesting comparison in operating systems.
One laptop was a brand new HP with 2 GB of RAM and Windows Vista, but the owner wanted me to install Windows XP and take off Windows Vista. He uses it primarily for traveling and downloading his digital photos while traveling and just didn’t like the lack of speed with Vista. The install of Windows XP went smoothly, but finding some of the XP drivers for it took quite a bit of looking around. All is running well now, and the with 2GB of RAM and a dual-core processor, the little laptop is very fast. Bootup time is under 70 seconds.
The next laptop was another Vista machine with 1 GB of RAM that a client bought for her mom who is a first time computer user and is 83 years old I believe. She will take the laptop with her to Connecticut next week. I took off all the pre-installed junk and installed AVG anti-virus and configured a Gmail account to work with Windows Mail (Vista’s version of Outlook Express). Because her mom has some sight problems, I bumped up the text size and DPI setting to make it easier to work with for her. Also, I disabled all of Vista’s fancy eye candy and effects. Despite all these tweaks, the computer still
When it comes to installing new software programs I have two rules that should get you through the process and keep you out of trouble.
1. When in doubt, click on the affirmative (Next, OK, Finish, I Agree, etc).
2. ALWAYS WATCH FOR CHECK BOXES!
The second rule is becoming more important as search engines and other sites that provide ad-sponsored services promote themselves by partnering up with other software companies. While installing a program like JAVA or Adobe Reader, you may be asked whether you want to install other programs such as Google Desktop or Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition. Simply unchecking these boxes will cut your install time significantly and save from other undesired hassles.
Here is an example:
I can’t believe it has been two weeks already that I’ve used Ubuntu Linux exclusively. If I had to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be “satisfying.” And my regular readers/listeners know that I can’t sum anything up in one word, so I will use this format to provide a complete synopsis of my Ubuntu thoughts.
Here is a link for that downloader program that helps download streaming video from the web.
After using this laptop for a solid week plus, I see pluses and minuses in laptop use. The Ubuntu continues to roll along perfectly. With Ubuntu, for the moment anyway, there is no need to install anti-virus or anti-spyware software because there are very few problems with Linux being hammered on like Windows. I’m running the base install of Ubuntu with no extra security software at all…definitely one reason that it is so fast compared to Windows Vista and XP. I did download and install the new Google Earth for Linux last night, and it works flawlessly in Ubuntu. I don’t use Google Earth often, but it is nice to have it and to see Google make a Linux version speaks volumes…in my opinion.
Sally called today and wondered how to get her iTunes to a micro-SD card that she can then listen to on her cell phone. I’m not sure of the legality of this program, but it appears to do the trick. It’s called Sound Taxi.
I’m going to do a short written update to my Ubuntu trek, but record my first official “Shotgun Podcast” here shortly.
After only three days, I gave up on Evolution email as my email program. I like the program a lot, but unfortunately, I get way too much spam not to have a better anti-spam solution. So, I downloaded and installed Thunderbird today which while not perfect and far from my Cloudmark Desktop solution on my Windows machine, it is much better than the Evolution method.
The majority of people I have seen this week have been dial-up Internet users. In every case the appointment lasted longer and cost more money than if they would have been on broadband. In other words, the appointment could have taken only a few minutes. Instead the appointment took so long that it cost as much as three month’s worth of broadband service.
I carry most of the tools for fixing computers on my flash drive but two of the computers were Windows 98 and several of the computers needed updates or other downloads that can only be acquired online.
I don’t do it too often, but this month I decided to hold an all Q&A (2 hours) user group meeting. It truly is amazing how many questions 30 or 40 ravenous computer users can generate. Sometimes one question leads to another, and an entire “topic” can take up a half hour. You have to be at one of the meetings to truly experience the type of knowledge and information that gets shared and explored. Some of today’s topics included: