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:
I have spent more than 10 years helping computer users get the most out of their computers. Without hesitation, I can say that the biggest obstacle any computer user encounters is change (which is precisely why I can’t figure out what Microsoft was thinking with Vista and Office
2007).
Some computer users who work in an office or on a PC with other roomates or kids would like to password protect their email, calendar, contacts, etc in Microsoft Outlook. Until today, I didn’t know how to do that. As you know, when I learn something new, I pass it on to you. Remember, this tip is for OUTLOOK users NOT Outlook Express users:
The next time you open Outlook, you will be prompted for the password you just set thus protecting access to your Outlook data.
I believe that I’ve written about this before, but since I ran into this phenomenom at least three times over the past week, it bares mentioning again. Many dial-up Internet users using Windows 98 or Me buy a new computer and after taking it home setting it up and jumping online with their dial-up systems find that the Internet and email are just as slow as their hold systems. I then get the question, "Why?"
There is a new virus going around that pretends to be a postcard from a friend, family member, schoolmate, etc. Within the email are links to where you can download the "postcard."
In reality you will not be getting a postcard, you will be getting a virus. How sneaky.
While this method of spreading viruses usually doesn’t work well because the host site is taken down quickly, I thought this one was worth commenting on not because of the nastiness of the virus or the way it spreads.
In some cases Outlook doesn't save your password, even if you enable the option to save the password. This error is caused by a malfunctioning of the Protected Storage Space from Windows. To solve this problem, run the registry editor and navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Protected Storage System Provider. You will find a key with a long name starting with S-1-5-21 which you have to delete (probably it's save to create a back-up of this key by File, Export). In most cases the problem is solved and next time the passwords will be saved. Be carefull: by doing this you will lose all stored passwords. Read the back-up page how to recover these passwords.
When we vacation, checking our snail mail is either left up to a house sitter or a neighbor. However, email is something we don't usually delegate to these fine folks who keep track of our snail mail and newspapers. Did you know that you can check your email from almost anywhere in the world?
It's true and this week's tip shows you how to do it. All email is sent not to you, but first to your provider. They don't read it, but it sits on their computers until you retrieve it, thus allowing you to check it remotely. While you are away from your home computer on vacation, the mail sits and accumulates on the provider's computer. You can check in on your email by logging into your provider's web site from any computer that has Internet access and read and write email.
This is a three part video tip showing how to setup and use email in Ubuntu Linux using the included Evolution software. Evolution is a full fledged Personal Information Manager (PIM) that can perform calendaring, tasks, email, contact management and more. Think of it as Outlook for Linux, but easier.
I have seen a lot of power supply failures lately. This seems to happen every summer but I don't keep detailed enough statistics to prove it. I am not sure why it happens either. It could be that people turn off their computers for summer vacation and it is the first time the computer has really been turned off in a long time. This might give things a chance to cool down and become brittle. Maybe it is just a coincidence.
In addition to the power supply failures, I have seen a variety of other problems lately that are typically rare such as hard drive failures, power button failures, and dead printers.
This week the tech world was given a nice surprise as Microsoft and many partners announced the SideShow device. The SideShow is a PDA-like device designed to be used with a Vista PC.
While details are still vague and only prototypes have been shown, the SideShow looks like it may prevent many windows users from switching to iPhone.
The SideShow is designed to link up to a computer via Bluetooth and it can be used for chat, email, playing solitaire, media player and perhaps even web browsing and document creation.