No matter what web browser you use, you can create quick access to your favorite web sites by creating a desktop icon. Here's how:
That's it! Now you can double-click on the icon you just made to reach your the web sites you visit the most faster.
I installed the Windows Vista Beta edition I downloaded yesterday and so far have no evidence to overturn my initial observations. The install took about 55 minutes and was entirely hands off…an improvement from previous Windows installations. The boot up process is slower than Windows XP and shutdown is really slow. And this is all without adding any software to the computer yet.
Microsoft tells us that Vista will be the safest Windows ever. I hope that is true because computer users will be moving to Apple in droves. The interface seems anything but intuitive, and that's coming from me who some say knows a little about computers. Instead of making the interface easier, much of the functions are hidden under layers of hard to navigate clicks. And so far, once I do get into a program, they all seem like the old programs with just a new layer of gloss and difficulty.
Over the last couple of years, we have mentioned the benefit of chatting with customer support personnel. Chatting used to be reserved for AOL customers and teens. Recently, however, many companies of all types have found that they can reduce costs and give better service with the power of Internet chat.
Chat is a simple technology that allows two (or more) computer users to write messages back and forth to each other. It differs from email in that each computer user sees the other's messages show up immediately on a screen that lets you follow the entire conversation.
For you, it means not having to call an 800 number and navigate through an endless set of menus of push this number and than number, then be put on hold, and eventually talk to a person who has a very thick accent. Instead, logging into a support web site for the product you need help with and starting a chat session requires far less time (often you are connected immediately). The other advantages of getting support through a chat session include being able to "talk" to the support person at your own pace and also be able to receive instructions that you can read, study and print to help you thoroughly understand what you need to do.
We love the Mozilla Firefox web browser because of its safety, speed, and customizability. One of my favorite customizations is the ability to add sites to the built in search engine that let me quickly search web sites I visit most often…weather, recipes, downloads, movies, etc. Occasionally, it is nice to be able to remove one that I'm not using any further or maybe isn't working at all. Here's how to do that:
We get this comment more often than we would like. I'm going to split the responsibility between our web site design and web surfing experience of the folks who tell us they have trouble navigating our site.
Our site has gone immense changes in the past year…for the better. If you might be in the camp who thinks that our current site is tough to navigate, you may have never returned to our old site after an initial visit. Our old site didn't have consistent menu navigation and had a horrible search engine. Our new site has the same menus on every single page that let you navigate to the main parts of our web site. You will find these menus at top right of every single page on our site.
Emailing Your Digital Photos
A few things to remember:
Always save a copy of the ORIGINAL photo
You can always go down on resolution, but you can never go up.
72 dpi for email and web – 300 dpi for printing
Many times on the show we guide people to the computer BIOS for troubleshooting some problems. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. The BIOS, speaking very simply, controls and monitors the hardware on our computers. Keyboards, mice, hard drives, CDROM drives, the date and time (from the CMOS chip), and more all get inventoried and controlled via the BIOS. Think of the BIOS as the parts manager of your computer. The software written to monitor our hardware is stored on a flash memory chip inside the computer. Occasionally, hardware malfunctions or conflicts can be resolved by changing settings in the BIOS. Some hardware upgrades (new memory chips, video cards) may require an upgrade to the BIOS through a process known as flashing the BIOS.
Two of the most common functions why you might access your system's BIOS are changing the boot order to allow a CD or other device to boot before a hard drive or supplying a security password to lock your computer.
Unfortunately, the BIOS and the way we access the BIOS is far from standardized. Any of the following keyboard keys can invoke the BIOS (sometimes referred to as system setup): F1, F2, F10, F12, Del, Esc, or Ins. Once in the BIOS, you must use the keyboard to navigate the menus and change the settings. Again, this isn't standardized either and there are at least a dozen implementations of the BIOS interface. I have included two of the most common BIOS screens in this tip.
Because there are so many different configurations and ways of accessing BIOS, I've included some of the better tutorials regarding the subject on the web. Also, make sure you read your computer's documentation or visit the manufacturers web site for even more specific information.
WARNING: This tip involves editing the Registry, so only perform these steps IF you feel comfortable making changes to a part of the computer where one wrong move can bring your whole system down.
Performing these steps will disable the "compress files" part of the Windows Clean Up utility:
Every day I go out and make my rounds, I’m surprised at how many people have never visited our web site. We believe that we are building the best computer help web site on the planet. We cover all the basic and most frequently asked questions that computer users have and in the last two months have added many new features and made the site easier to navigate and search.
Adam and I had lunch with a colleague today who told us that "everyone knows about you guys". We do our best to promote the show and our businesses, but in the long run, the more people we can refer to our web site, the more people we can help and the greater the content of the site can grow. So, we challenged our colleague to ask the people who say the know us if they have ever visited our web site.