Adobe released version 9 of their PDF (Portable Document Format) Reader program. Once the king and almost sole PDF reader on the market, it, like so many other mainstream programs, has become bloated beyond recognition. This software bloat slows down the performance of even the fastest computers, and for this reason, I firmly stand against software bloat.
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?
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.
Mapquest.com used to be synonymous with online maps. They offered online maps when few others did and did a good job. Unfortunately, Mapquest hasn’t changed much since the late 90’s except get more and more advertisements hovering around their slow and out-dated system. Their innovation and improvements seemed to stop around the same time AOL bought them.
For faster, easier, and better online mapping, I like two products; Google Maps and Microsoft’s Live Search Maps.
The past few days calls and emails started filtering in about the new AVG 8.0 version folks have seen appear on their free versions of AVG Antivirus. The common query is, “Should I upgrade?” No, home users of AVG Antvirus do not need to upgrade at all. The current free version of AVG will continue to be updated and as… Read More »AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice
“Why didn’t my computer come with a manual?”
One of the most common complaints we hear is about how new computers don’t come with manuals. I am here to explain why this is the case.
The sad answer is that if the computer company came with a manual, it would weigh more than the computer.
“But my old computers used to come with manuals…,” Is the next comment.
Back in the old days of computers there weren’t many uses. You would use computers for word processing, finances, Internet and email. In each case there were only a handful of options.
This weekend, an emailer asked the question of how to use the backups that we describe on our site. An excellent question I’m sure others have had as well.
Over the years, I laid out step-by-step methods for backing up your email address book, favorites/bookmarks, and even your email. To use these backups, simply use the “Import” function to bring them back into a new installation of a program or even a new computer.
Every time I show a computer user how to use the tab feature of their browser (found in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opera, and Safari), their eyes light up and they can’t believe what I showed them is real. Today was another such day. I helped an extremely knowledgeable young lady with her computer, and somehow the conversation drifted into searching the Internet. She nearly fell off her exercise ball when I showed her the trick.
Software upgrades can cost you much more than they help you. Very few computer users need to upgrade any software, except for daily updates for security software.
Today, I helped a couple who became frustrated after updating from AOL 9.0 to 9.1. They relayed to me that they went ahead with the upgrade because of the promise that AOL would be easier and faster with the upgrade. After the upgrade, AOL changed their Internet Explorer and Firefox home pages, made getting to email more time consuming, and even lost some of their bookmarks.
It didn’t take long to get them back to their familiar 9.0, but they were extremely frustrated by the changes made to their system.
Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it nor upgrade it.
I am resurrecting this great tip from my archives. This tip first appeared about four years ago on the show and then the web site. I wanted to share it again because of our new listeners and the extreme usefulness of the tip.
Printing information from the web can sometimes be frustrating. A long web page yields reams of paper when you only wanted a couple of pages. Read on to learn how to print only the pages you want!
Firefox/Internet Explorer/AOL
Highlight the part of the page you want to print with your mouse
Click on File —> Print