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Getting the Mail Button back in IE7 – Revised VIDEO TIP

When you upgrade to IE7 you will notice a total change in the interface. One of the big changes is a lack of menu bar and many of the old buttons.

If you are in the habit of clicking on the little envelope in Internet Explorer to get into your email, you will quickly see that the little envelope is gone.

Here's how to get it back:

1. Right-click on the bar where the buttons should be

2. Choose Customize Command Bar

3. Click Add or Remove Commands

4. In the window that comes up, choose Mail on the left side and click the Add button

5. You will see the Mail button move to the right side. Click on it and click the Move Up botton to place it at the top of the list.

Microsoft Uninstaller Cleanup Utility

When you have a program that won't unstall, read through this page , install the program it links to and follow the directions.

This program removes all of the install information from the Windows registry. From this point you should reinstall the program and then unstall it the normal way.

So long Art Buchwald – Video obituary

My wife told me when I got home today that Art Buchwald had died.

My interest in politics began in elementary school. One of my first heroes on TV was Michael J. Fox's, Alex P. Keaton character on the show Family Ties. From as early as I can remember being aware of politics, I can remember caring about it.

Whether people agree with me or not, I have more respect for people who are willing to talk about politics than I am for those who refuse to take any position.

Ronald Reagan was a hero of mine but so was Art Buchwald. One of the first books I actually purchased on my own was Art Buchwald's, You Can Fool All of the People All of the Time. I was in the 7th grade and I bought the book after seeing an Interview with Buchwald about the book.

HP printer jam recovery

Overall, HP printers are my favorite. They are dependable, they do a great job and they are fairly economical on a price per page basis. I have seen some good things from Canon printers lately, but HPs have a much longer track record.

Every brand of printer has its problems and HPs are no exception. One of the biggest problems with HP printers is that they get caught in a loop. If you turn the printer off in the middle of printing, or the computer locks up and you have to restart part way through a print job, don't be surprised if your HP goes bananas when you turn the computer back on.

Proper care and feeding of batteries

I bought a new digital camera the day after Thanksgiving. Following Adam's First Law: Gadgets Yield More Gadgets, I have ordered a new vertical shooting grip and several batteries.

When the batteries arrived, I followed Adams 379th Law: Always Read the Instructions. I am thinking seriously about moving the 379th law up to at least 134 because I discovered some interesting information about rechargeable Lithium-Ion batteries.

1. Li-Ion batteries run down faster when they are cold. If you are shooting in the cold, you should keep spare batteries in your pocket, close to your warm body.

A word for our Dial-up readers (and our high speed Internet emailers)

Lately, I have helped many dial-up computer users get their email unclogged. It became clogged because their friends and family who have high speed Internet sent them messages that were way too big for email. Usually these messages contained either large digital photos or video jokes or messages that bring dial-up users email to screeching halt. 

DIAL-UP USERS:

  • You absolutely need to know how to check your email using your web browser (this tip explains how ).
  • When email stops coming in or you see messages repeating themselves, it is time to check your email as above and then delete any messages that are larger than 500 kilobytes (kb). This will allow your email to flow again into your email program
  • Inform the offending parties that send these overly large messages that your system can't handle the volume and to please remove you from their forward lists.

HIGH SPEED USERS:

Things we say for our health

Today I visited a client who listens to the show regularly, or so she said.

I was there because the computer was running very slow and locked up often. On her computer were three programs (or groups of programs).

1. AOL

2. AOL Security Center (AOL's antivirus, antispyware and popup blocker)

3. Norton System Works

"I know you guys say not to use these programs but my son said I need them, he works for a big computer company in California."

As I explained that her problems were caused by AOL, AOL Security Center and Norton she said, "I knew you were going to tell me that I shouldn't be using those programs but…"

55 Minute Uninstall

Wow, it would have almost been faster to backup the data, reformat the hard drive, and reinstall everything from scratch. The long install was of the grossly over programmed Norton Internet Security Suite. Here's the breakdown of my appointment:

8:26am Arrive at customer's house. He tells me that his computer is running extremely slow.
8:32am I sit down and hit the power button on the computer.
8:36am
Still staring at the Windows XP startup logo, I ask the customer to bring in the laptop since he wants me to look at it also.
8:40am
The laptop is booted up and I'm already looking it over.
8:41am
Desktop is finally up…9 minutes!! Yikes!
8:46am
Add/Remove programs is finally up and the list populated. I find Norton Internet Security and click the Remove button.
9:41am
 55 minutes later, I can finally work on the computer. The actual uninstall procedure took about 50 minutes and then another five for it to reboot after removal of Norton.
10:07am
 		I installed and updated both AVG Anti-virus and anti-spyware, tested the Internet connect, tested MS Word (which wasn't working at all an hour earlier) and started the AVG scans all in this past half hour.

The moral of the story is that Norton products slow down even the fastest computers significantly more than any other security product. The installs are long, the updates are long, the uninstalls are long, and the protection is mediocre. Please, save yourself money, time and grief and don't buy or install Norton products on yours or other people's computers.

I’m not going to tell your kids what to do but…

I had one of my longest appointments ever today as I cleaned a computer free of almost 15,000 viruses, setup a network, installed a wireless card, removed bad security software and replaced it with AVG, did troubleshooting on a fax machine problem and installed Firefox.

I even left for lunch and to another appointment for a while. The appointment took 5 hours not counting virus scans (I went to lunch and another appointment once I saw that there were more than 500 viruses.)

Of course my client was curious how so many viruses got on the computer. I had to explain that it was all caused by infected files that were downloaded through a file sharing program.