Adam first shared this with me a few weeks ago. Since then it has been copied many times and has garnered world wide attention. If you haven’t seen this video, you will have fun. High speed Internet will make viewing easier, but it is worth the wait even if you are using dial-up. Also, make sure to turn your speaker’s sound up.
Over the past month, I have encountered at least six bad routers. A router is a device that can be used to share high speed computer access to multiple computers either through Ethernet cabling or wirelessly. I'm not exactly sure what is happening, but I almost feel as if there is a correlation to the recent rash of router failures. I just don't know what that correlation is. It also doesn't seem to be related to a particular brand of routers. I have seen failed Linksys, Belkin, D-Link, and other brands or routers as well.
If you are using a high speed connection and you lose Internet connectivity, first follow my tip on troubleshooting high speed connections .
I have always enjoyed SciFi and superhero movies. My three favorite movies until I was in high school were Superman, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Since then I have learned to appreciate the art of finer cinema, but I still l will go back and watch each of these three movies at least once each year.
Superman Returns starts today but I probably won't go see it. I would love to take my family to it, but it would cost our family $36 if we sneak candy in.
Once we are in the theater we have to figure that at least two of the kids will need to use the restroom during the movie and so we will likely only see 110 minutes or less of a 120 minute movie.
I worked on a computer today which needed reformatting because of massive failure from viruses and spyware. They handn't followed the "Castellini on Computers Approach to Security" so the computer needed my help. When I need to perform a reformat, I need to have all the original software or restore CD's to get everything up and running again. If my customer doesn't have the disks, then I have to search the Internet for their particular system.
The most important disks contain the information that tells Windows how to interact with your attached hardware (drivers). Usually, they are contained on either a restore CD or a CD marked Drivers and Utilities. Keep in mind that you can save time and money by putting all the original documentation and any disks that came with your new system (except for the AOL disk) in a manilla envelope or big zip lock bag. This is all important and vital information to your computer.
Everybody is picking on AOL this week. MSNBC had a huge story on the poor quality of AOL's customer service and (as Rick pointed out) AOL made it to number one on PC World's "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time."
So, what's wrong with AOL? I will use an analogy to explain. Imagine a small pioneer road in the early 1800s. In the early days of roads the shortest distance between two points was any path that started and ended in convenient locales. How fast the road was to travel, the smoothness of the road, and the incline made little difference.
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.
Many people have asked me how to print their Internet Favorites. If you are like me and have hundreds of bookmarks or favorites, you might go through a ream of paper printing them. It is more efficient to back them up as I describe in this tip.
If you really want to print them, here are the steps:
1. From Internet Explorer, choose "File" – "Import and Export".
2. Click Next
3. Select Export Favorites and click Next.
4. Make sure the Favorites folder is selected, and click Next.
5. Select Export to a File or Address.
6. Click the Browse button and choose the Desktop
7. Click Finish
8. Click OK
9. Close all windows and double-click on the bookmarks file that is on your desktop.
10. Click File –> Print
11. When the Print box appears, click the Options tab.
12. Check Print table of links box (important step).
13. Click the General tab
14. Click Print (and have plenty of paper)
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:
Primary use is as above + digital photography:
Uses are as above + video editing and/or high end games or other processor intensive program:
I searched all over our site for this tool and I couldn’t find it, so I decided to do a Shotgun on it so that it would show up in a search on our page.
Some spyware is nastier than others. Some of my least favorite spyware goes in and corrupts the way your computer connects to the Internet. Essentially it routes your Internect connection through a special path so that the creator of the spyware can watch what you are doing online.
It does then by changing a feature of Windows called Winsock. Winsock is the method that your computer uses to talk to other computers on the Internet and elsewhere. If Winsock gets corrupted, you lose your Internet connection.
I have noticed that a small computer problem can quickly become a big computer problem if too much troubleshooting is applied too soon.
Today I saw a client who has been without Internet since late last week. Originally their antivirus had caught a small virus. Soon after that the Internet wasn’t working.
After looking at the situation, I don’t think those two problems had anything to do with each other. Sometimes the Internet provider or connection goes down.
Rather than giving the connection a few hours to come back up, my client disconnected everything.
When I got there today, I noticed that the wiring was all out of whack. Once I rewired the hub everything came back online.