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Listen to music online customized for your tastes…for FREE.

This past week I learned about an incredibly convenient and useful web site that allows you to listen to unlimited online music for free. The site is Pandora Radio. Sure there are other web sites and radio stations that let you do the same thing, but this one also customizes your station based on your musical tastes…for free…and without commercials.

Troubleshooting Your High Speed Internet Connection

This tip needs to come back to the front page again. I’ve helped many more people the last few weeks with this issue. Please print it and hang it by your computer…and send it your friends as well.

I posted this tip many moons ago, but wanted to bring it back to the front page because we have so many new high speed Internet users. Click the Printer Friendly option at the bottom of this tip, print it out and post it next to your computer…you will be glad you did.

Routers take high speed Internet signals and then distribute the signal (route) to multiple computers. Sometimes, however, the signal gets lost and an Internet connection cannot be made. This can be due to multiple reasons, but most can be rectified the same way. Before you reach for the phone or grumble under your breath, follow this simple and highly effective procedure to get your system(s) up and running again.

  1. Shut off all computers.

  2. Unplug the power from the high speed modem.

  3. Unplug the power from

Open Multiple Home Pages with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, OR Internet Explorer – Video Tip

Now that Internet Explorer has caught up (sort of) with modern browsers, I wanted to point out yet another function of tabbed browsing (click here for the popular and informative tabbed browsing tip ). If you like to check multiple sites every day or maybe use your browsing sessions for research, let your browser do some of the work for you by opening multiple pages at the same time.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Open the first page you would like to see every time you start Firefox
  2. Click File –> New –> Tab (or Ctrl + T) to open a new tab
  3. Open the next page you want to see every time you start Firefox
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many pages as you want to open automatically
  5. Click Tools –> Options from the menus
  6. Click the "Main" button at the top of the options screen
  7. Click "Use Current Pages" button in the Startup section
  8. Click the OK button at the bottom of the screen

Internet Explorer 7 (IE7)

  1. Open the first page you would like to see every time you start IE7
  2. Click File –> New –> Tab (or Ctrl + T) to open a new tab, or click the new tab button next to the current tab
  3. Open the next page you want to see every time you start IE7
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many pages as

Reading: How to make your iPad your ONLY computer – Wired Magazine

It didn’t take me long to understand and appreciate the simplicity and utility of an iPad. There are many tablets on the market, but only the iPad, in my opinion, offer the range of features and simplicity to warrant a purchase. Today, I came across this article that outlines the idea of making an iPad your only computing device. Over… Read More »Reading: How to make your iPad your ONLY computer – Wired Magazine

How to take advantage of your smartphone’s address book – Video Tip

If you use a smartphone (iPhone, Android, etc) or tablet, then you have the world’s best and most convenient address book! Using your mobile devices address book to its maximum starts with making sure that you are adding all the information about a person that you might need. Consider including all or some of the following in your digital contact… Read More »How to take advantage of your smartphone’s address book – Video Tip

Your one stop troubleshooting spot

In the almost 14 years that I have devoted to helping computer users, I have discovered a few computing standards:

          • Many computer problems can be solved by simply restarting the computer.
          • In the event of a mouse, keyboard, monitor, sound, printer or Internet problem, always triple check your cables to make sure everything is plugged in securely.
          • Much to the dismay of computer users, almost all problems were caused in some way by something we did or didn’t do…usually unknowingly or inadvertently.
          • Your neighbor/co-worker/family member/ cannot fix your computer.
          • Very few computer users backup their important data.

With these five basic rules established, use my basic troubleshooting tips for printers, sound, Internet (click here) and other problems BEFORE panicking and before calling tech support. You will be pleasantly surprised how either performing rule #1 above or using these guides can dig you out of a problem rather quickly.

Great article from HowToGeek.com about downloading & Security

I came across the following article from HowToGeek.com last week and wanted to share it with you. It drives the point I make constantly here at HelpMeRick.com…be careful what you download, where you download, and how you install downloads. The HowToGeek site has a paid staff that puts together these articles, and they are always thorough, well illustrated and easy… Read More »Great article from HowToGeek.com about downloading & Security

Fake Security Alerts & other Internet Bad Guys CAN be prevented

Over the past few years, the majority of my professional time has been digging computer users (Windows users only) out of jams where they were infiltrated by fake security software or spyware. Two things you need to know about this type of infection:

  1. No matter what type of security software you use and how much you paid for it, IT CANNOT PROTECT YOU IF YOU INVITE THE BAD GUY INTO YOUR COMPUTER.
  2. It is preventable.

Over the years, security and keeping computers running clean has been a common soap box for me. Listed below are just a handful of the articles youRead More »Fake Security Alerts & other Internet Bad Guys CAN be prevented

Good bye Windows XP

Today, I am writing this blog post from a favorite coffee shop of mine in-between customer visits…using my iPad and no peripherals. Thirteen years ago when XP just came out, the computer world was elated with the new system and its capabilities. However, there was very little wifi at the time, high speed internet was still not mainstream, and laptops… Read More »Good bye Windows XP