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What do you really do with your computer?

In my travels, it seems that most home computer users primarily use email. I would love to see 100-200 comments attached to this short article so you can tell me what you use your computer for from day-to-day. You don’t have to be statistically accurate or detailed, I’m just curious and this topic is too broad and detailed for a poll.

Here’s how I use my main computer:

Internet (web browsing, pay bills, web site maintenance, etc) – 60%
Email – 15%
Instructional videos – 10%
Word Processing – 8%
Desktop publishing (creating newsletters, flyers, calendars, etc) – 2%
Skype video calls – 1%
Digital Photography (including ordering, editing, and downloading photos) – 1%
Games – .33%
Other – 2.67%

YOUR TURN! Leave a comment and share what you use your primary computer for on average. Thanks!

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 019

I answer questions about Palm handheld computers, custom XP & Ubuntu computers, the AVG update outage (relax, you are protected), resizing photos for email, freeing up disk space and more. This episode is brought to you by: Gail, Gene, Salma, Jason, Jean, Elizabeth, Greg, Rajesh, Laurie, J, and Joe.

Oh, and I also reveal who I voted for in Tuesday’s presidential election…but you have to watch!

How can I increase traffic to my site?

You can lead a horse to waterWhat a week! For some reason, my scheduling went a little awry this week and made for some long days. In addition to my scheduling problems, however, I could have saved a ton of time (thus the 3 day hiatus of new posts) and my clients could have saved a lot of money if they were more diligent about backing up their data and keeping track of passwords and software.

This web site is exactly the same age as my business…almost 13 years old. In those thirteen years, I can emphatically claim that customers who read my site daily and follow the advice and tips have far less problems and trouble with their computers than those who never visit. And when regular readers of HelpMeRick.com do need an on site consultation from me, they rarely last longer than an hour and usually involve more instruction that troubleshooting. After building this site for 13 years and adding to it almost daily, I can answer at least eighty percent of the most common computer questions with articles found right here at HelpMeRick.com.

I pose the question to you, the faithful HelpMeRick.com visitor: What can

What is Open Source?

Jazz BandOpen Source software began soon after computers became main stream in offices and then homes. In a nut shell, Open Source refers to software developed under a set standard of rules that developers agree upon to make the software freely available, no penalties for copying or sharing the programs (in fact, it is encouraged to share the software), the source code (programming) must be made available to anyone, and the software must also have no restrictions on others making variations of the software. You can read an exact definition and read the licensing information at the Open Source Initiative web site here.

Open Source software seems to be gaining more and more traction in the computer world as budgets start to tighten in an uncertain financial climate. This week, OpenOffice.org released the newest version of their Open Source office suite software. I’ve been using the beta version of the software for a couple of months and find it to be quite good. OpenOffice is considered one of the bright lights in the Open Source software world and for good reason. It offers an extremely

My first year with Gmail

MailboxI closed Outlook and started using Gmail exclusively one year ago. At first, I thought it would be a good experiment to see what Gmail was really all about, but I was also fed up with Outlook and its limitations. It took me two or three weeks to wean myself of thinking of my email in the same way that I used to with Outlook. For the experiment to work, Gmail had to satisfactorily accomplish 3 key functions of email that I handled pretty well with Outlook:

  1. Spam filtering (I used Cloudmark Desktop with Outlook for years and am convinced that for Outlook/Outlook Express or Thunderbird users there is no equal).
  2. Aggregate all of my email addresses (5) in one system.
  3. Organize my email with categories (folders) and automated filtering for shifting email to their appropriate category/folder.

If Gmail could equal or exceed what I could do with Outlook, then I would consider it a success. Gmail’s spam filtering quickly impressed me. In fact, one year later, I can say confidently that Gmail’s spam filtering is superior to that of the Cloudmark system that kept me sane for years with Outlook. Feature #1, check!

I learned to use the Accounts feature in Gmail to successfully and seamlessly pull all my email addresses (and sort them) into my Gmail account. Beautiful; Feature #2, check!

Organizing my email, without the use of folders, proved to be the

Google is on fire – New beta release of Picasa

How can you not get with Google? Here is a company that makes strategic acquisitions, encourages their employees to reach for the stars and challenge themselves and the status quo, and never rests on their considerable laurels.

Today, they have done it again. This time with the release of the beta version Picasa 3. PIcasa 3 offers some great new features that help you share your photos easier, organize them easier, fix some of their flaws easier, and create fun collages and movies from them easier. Look for a review coming soon. In the mean time, try it out for yourself by clicking here to learn more.

Quick and easy photo slide show using Picasa – Video Tip

Last week, I demonstrated how to make a fantastic photo slide show using an online application. If you missed it, shame on you, but you can see it by clicking here.

In this week’s tip, I’m going to show you a slightly hidden feature of Google’s Picasa that lets you also create a quick and dirty slide show of your digital photos. Follow these steps and then watch the video below to see the steps in action and view a sample slide show:

Start Picasa and select some photos you want to make into a slide show. The more photos you choose, the longer it will take Picasa to make the movie and the larger the movie file will be. Start out with a dozen or so pictures to get the feel for it.

  1. Click Create –> Movie from the menus
  2. Choose how many seconds you want each picture to display
  3. Choose the size of movie you want…probably the mid-size or largest size.
  4. Click OK
  5. Click OK again on the next screen
  6. Wait for Picasa to complete the creation of the movie.
  7. When Picasa finishes, it will open the folder where it saved the file. Double-click the file to view the slide show.
  8. Use Microsoft’s Movie Maker (or any other movie editor) to add music to the slide show then burn it to a CD/DVD, etc.

Watch the video below to see these steps in action and a sample movie that Picasa made from some of my pictures.

Create photo slide shows online in minutes! – Video Tip

Some may say I drank the Web 2.0 cool-aid, but I say bring me another glass! This week I bring you yet another astounding piece of online technology that gives you the power to create a professional photo slide show complete with music and transitions in minutes!

I frequently get asked to make suggestions for creating a photo slide show, but I know that most programs require too much time and expertise to be useful. Enter Roxio’s Photoshow.com. This online application creates great looking photo slide shows in literally just a

Dell goes deeper into Linux

Dell announced that they will release a line of laptop computers this fall with an instant on technology called Latitude On. Early indications are that it will closely mimic the Splashtop technology I wrote about last year and during CES 2008. And like Splashtop, the Dell technology involves using a light version of Linux to produce an extremely fast boot up (30 seconds or less) time and can access the Internet through Firefox and a wireless signal.

Great digital photography debate topics

Technology is no different than politics in that there are a variety of topics that people have opinions on. While you may not know much about these topics now, what you know about them can have a great impact on knowing who to listen to when it comes to learning more about digital photography and related topics.

PC vs. Mac:

The Mac people will tell you that Macs are better for graphics, easier to use more stable.