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Laser Printers

Many more of my clients are opting for laser printers as their primary printer. And why not! Laser printer costs have dropped dramatically over the past two years and consumables are as much as 60% less than ink jet printers. Their prints won’t smudge, their ink (toner) NEVER dries out, and they are generally much faster than ink jets.

Monochrome  laser printers can be found for less than $100 and perform admirably for email, word processing and Internet prints. For about $250 you can look at color laser printers. Color laser printers won’t give you the photo quality that ink jets provide, but they’re not bad for the occasional print and are awesome for greeting cards, flyers, and brochures. I still think that computer users are better off printing out pictures with services such as Shutterfly or Club Photo or using local services like drug stores and grocery stores. It’s cheaper, they look better and last longer than prints made at home.

Why I like small cars

I spend my day driving from house to house or office to office as the case may be. I can’t imagine doing my job with a large SUV or even a full size car.

I drive an older Honda Civic and I love it for several reasons.

1. It’s a Honda so it is designed for dependability rather than power – I don’t need a lot of power to drive the streets of Grand Junction.

2. It makes tight U turns. I imagine I pass the house or business that I am supposed to be going to about 10 times per week. I love being able to turn completely around on the average street.

3. I can reach almost any point in my car while driving. I can reach a disk in the back seat, a drink in the cup holder and the stereo all without looking away from the road.

New Computer Specs

Computer prices continue to drop and get more powerful. I answer the question, "What should I buy?", many times every week. The answer seems to change about every six months. Today, I’m going to list my advice that should hold for at least six months:

Primary use is Internet, email, small games, and word processing:

  • Any processor 512MB of RAM
  • Any size hard drive
  • Mimimum CDRW Drive

Primary use is as above + digital photography:

  • Pentium IV (NOT Celeron) or AMD equivalant
  • 1 GB of RAM Built-in card reader 100 GB Hard Drive DVD burner
  • Separate video card (not built-in) or ability to add one

Uses are as above + video editing and/or high end games or other processor intensive program:

Google News Alerts

We talk frequently of the new and useful tools that Google offers. One of the best is the Google News service. Google uses their powerful search technology to bring you news stories from many angles. If you really are a news junkie, you can use Google Alerts and RSS to get those news stories routed to your email or customized portal page like My Yahoo or even Google’s cutomizable home page.

To use the Google Alerts or RSS feeds, simply search for a topic at Google News, then click on the "News Alert" link on the left side of the page or the the RSS feed button. Take some time to really look around Google News…you won’t be disappointed. 

Save some text editing keystrokes

Use these hints that I notice that computer users forget about when editing text in emails, file names, word processing etc:

  • When text is highlighted in blue, simply start typing the text that you want to replace it with…NO NEED to hit the backspace or delete key.
  • If you need to delete just a few characters of text and the blinking cursor is in front of the text, use the delete key. If the cursor is behind the text, then use the backspace key. No need to reposition the cursor, just use the delete and backspace key interchangeably.
  • If you need to delete a large block of text, use your mouse to highlight it, OR click ONE time at the beginning of the text you want to delete, then scroll to the end of the text, hold down your shift key and click ONE time again. All the text between the two clicks will be highlighted.
  • To select all text on a page or email to delete, use the Edit –> Select All function or Ctrl + A
  • When filling out web forms, remember that you can push the TAB key on your keyboard to move between information fields (boxes you type in) instead of having to reach for the mouse and click on each box.

Just wait and try again

So many computer problems can be solved by simply shutting the computer off, waiting a few minutes then trying again. This is especially true with the Internet. Whether you are using dial-up or high speed, restarting your computer (and high speed modem) is the number one thing to try. Internet companies even repeat this mantra while you are waiting on hold for them to help you.

One other tip with Internet problems is wait for more than just a few minutes. The Internet is a giant organism…it lives, breathes, and has hiccups. These hiccups can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours. When a problem occurs accessing web sites or email and you have already tried shutting the computer on and off, DO NOT ASSUME that the problem is on your computer. More often than not, the problem lies with the Internet itself or your provider. Wait a half hour to hour, then try again. If access continues to be interrupted after two or three hours, then and only then call for help. 

What makes a website pleasing to the eye?

At the beginning of the year we redesigned our website to function better. While we love the function of our site we would like to make it nicer to look at. Please email us with your favorite website designs and tell us why you like them. You can also post your website as a comment to this post by clicking on the link comment link below.

Please provide the address for the site.

 

“I want to go back to AOL”

This painful statement came from a customer of mine who made the leap to DSL (at the request of her kids, not me) a couple of months ago. She dumped dial-up and AOL and opted for DSL with a local Internet provider.

Changing from AOL is never easy and many ex-AOLers go through major withdrawls. However, once the shivers go away and a person gets settled with a real Internet provider, they are quite happy. AOL does things their own way and this keeps many a customer for them. Luckily, their high prices, slow connections, and abismal support has led millions away to a better place.

Sending pictures via email

Computer users are always grateful to learn new tricks of the trade. One ‘trick’ that was implemented with Windows XP more than five years ago continues to escape many computer users…send pictures via email efficiently. Sure you might be sending digital photos as attachments, but can you send more than one at time? Are you resizing your photos before sending them so they don’t require horizontal and vertical scrolling? Do they travel quickly through the Internet or do they take a long time to transmit?

No matter now…this tip will get you sending multiple, appropriately sized photos quickly with Windows XP.