Some good questions this week, but some of them could be found already just by using the search engine right here at HelpMeRick.com.
Episode 14 of my email series is brought to you by questions from Darla, Rose, Anne, Barbara, Sharon, Jerry, Peter, Dick, Toni, Joe, and the number 700,000,000,000.
Here’s another installment of my email answers. Brought to you by the questions from Lesa, Maria, Oliver, Anne, Richard, Wilma, Dave, Don, Gary, Shannon, Bobbie, and Bill including questions about SCD (Slow Computer Disease), faxing, backing up email and believe it or not, not a single AVG question
Not likely. In the Sarah Palin case, her Yahoo email account was not hacked…her password was hacked. That means the hackers guessed Sarah Palin’s password (maybe it was hockeymom). Seriously, it could have been that easy. More likely, however, the hackers used sophisticated programs that were used to crack the password.
The number one defense you possess to safeguard your email, bank account, or any other online account is a strong password.
I know, I know…”It’s too hard to remember.”. Write it down! No one said you have to memorize it. Write it down, but keep it in safe place and don’t forget where you put it. OR, you can use any number of password manager programs. Read my Password Mania tip for more info.
If you aren’t running for Vice President of the free world, you automatically reduce your chances of being hacked by almost 1 billion times. But, don’t get lazy and leave your account information open to the chance of being hacked.
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?”
This week I answer some questions about faxing in Vista, email problems, security software, removing spyware and much more…brought to you by the questions from Guido, Shirley, Tina, Cindy, Ticia, James, Jo, Mariane, Margie, Sandra, Jackie, Nellie, DJ and John.
If your name is Mel, Jim, Barbara, Happy, Sandie, Buddy, Larry, or David and a few others…your email answer is here! Their questions ranged from hard drive data retrieval to Macintosh password management to AVG and many other questions as well…tune in by clicking play!!
Admittedly, Grisoft has not had a great summer with the roll out of their newest product, AVG 8. They tried to force the upgrade on users a little too quickly with quick deadlines. However, almost five months after the release of the new version, I still find users who haven’t upgraded yet, but Grisoft is still updating the older version.
The installation of the new version included some new features that are designed to scan links for bad web sites in your searches. This feature caused some problems for Windows Vista users and even caused some problems for email users.
Earlier this summer, AVG’s upgrade servers downloaded a bad update to many computers that caused an error that confused and dazed many users.
In this edition of my videocast, I answer questions about wireless problems with Ubuntu, sending faxes via the Internet, WinAntivirus 2009, and many others. Take a look and listen…I’m starting to integrate more video with the answers so the answers have even more meaning.
Would you like to get targeted news/web searches delivered to your email? Google Alerts can do that for you. Google Alerts allow you to get automated, customized news and web searches delivered to your email daily, weekly, or as breaking news alerts based on the criteria you provide. The service can be used without a Google account, but if you start using the service more, and you will, having an account will allow you to manage and tweak your alerts easier. If you already use Google for a customized home page, email, Picasa account, Blogger account, or any of the other Google services, you can use that same account information to use and manage Google Alerts.
In order to really grasp how beneficial Google Alerts can be, you need to try it out for yourself. There are no limits to how many alerts you can create. Here’s how:
Within a few hours, you will start to receive your email alerts. The email will be from Google Alerts with the subject Google Alert – Your Search Terms. The email will contain a list of the matches it found with the link to the story and where it is from and the first two lines of the story itself. You can delete or edit an alert at any time by going back to the Google Alerts web page and clicking the Manage your alerts link.
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Not everyone can get a cable or DSL Internet connection in their home…especially in rural areas. Cellular service, though, reaches pretty far these days. And in the past few years all three major cellular providers in the United States have rolled out broadband Internet via cellular signals. New technology developments allow users to easily use USB mobile broadband adapters (the little gadgets that pick up the wireless signals) with a desktop just as easily as a laptop.All three big providers offer plans starting at $60 per month for 5GB of data transfer.
5 GB of Internet data translates into about double or triple what the average daily emailer and web surfer would need in a typical month.
Speeds for mobile (cellular) broadband compare favorably with