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Should I backup?

Five Days' Backup
photo credit: daryl_mitchell

Should you carry health insurance? Should you carry car insurance? Should you save for retirement? Should you eat every day? Does a bear….  Well, hopefully you get the picture. The answer is a resounding YES!!

You should backup, and depending on your computer needs and usage your backups should occur frequently (sometimes daily). Many computer users equate backing up their computers with their mother’s giving them castor oil. It’s no fun, but a necessary evil. What is castor oil any way?

Things you should backup on your computer includeRead More »Should I backup?

Print Preview

Sometimes the most helpful computer utilities elude us and stay hidden for years. One such utility that I find very helpful (and have taken for granted) is the Print Preview function found in almost any program that allows printing.

Because Windows and Macintosh made the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment available to the masses, what we see on our screens is pretty close to what we see on our print outs. However, if you need to tweak margins, find the extra line that is creating an extra page, or determine whether a document (like a spreadsheet) will look better in Landscape or Portrait mode, there is no substitute for theRead More »Print Preview

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.

Yelp – Real world reviews

On my most recent travels, I discovered yet another great travel web site that I will be using every time I travel. The site’s name is Yelp. Yelp bills themselves as a site of Real People. Real Reviews. Yelp reviewers review everything from restaurants to schools to religious organizations. As their slogan describes, anyone can write a review about any service. I think the service works so well because it works like the feedback on eBay. Everyone has an opinion about everything, but after reading a dozen or so reviews for whatever topic (I used it for finding good restaurants) you can easily titrate the advice into something usable for you.

I have Wii Fit in hand

I made an early trip to Sam’s Club today and picked up three Wii Fits to resell on eBay. It has been month’s since there has been an item worth scalping on eBay. It will be interesting to see whether or not I can actually make a profit or just break even.

eBay raised their rates by about two percent earlier this year. At the moment the $90 Wii Fit device is selling for around $150 on eBay even though they are fairly easy to find on store shelves. Shelves are supposed to be dry of them by next week.

Nintendo has already said that supply will be limited for a while. So far the reviews are mixed as far as using the device as a full exercise program, but everyone seems to agree that the Fit is well made and works as intended.

Use YouTube.com to review the games your kids are playing

Grand Theft Auto IV was released this week and, as always happens when a version of GTA comes out, there has been a lot of discussion about video game violence and sexual content.

Without going into detail GTA is a game that features guns, civilians, cops, cars, prostitutes and an environment that allows you to act in any way you please. As you can imagine, most teen game players choose to use the game as a simulation for testing their skills at abiding the law.

Save pictures from email – Video Tip

It’s been almost one year since I first posted this tip. We have many new visitors this year, and not enough of you are heading my advice yet on this subject, so I’m posting it again. Please believe me when I tell you that this tip alone can save you countless dollars, time, and tears!

Through my travels, I have noticed that many computer users save emails with pictures because they are unsure of how to save those pictures. Saving lots of pictures in your email program can drastically slow down the performance of the email program over time. Email programs typically can handle thousands of messages, but if something happens to the email database, and you haven't backed up those databases, the pictures will be gone for good. Your best insurance for saving pictures is to save them to a folder on your computer (like My Pictures or a subfolder of My Pictures) then back them up on a regular basis.

To save pictures from your email to a folder on your hard drive, do the following:

Outlook Express

1. Click the paper clip icon in the preview pane*
2. Click Save Attachments
3. In the "Save To" box at the bottom of the dialog box that pops up, click Browse and choose where YOU want to save the pictures and click OK
4. Click Save

* If you read your Outlook Express email in its own window, then RIGHT Click on the

Yet another feature yanked from the NEW Microsoft Office 2007

While working with a small business client today, they asked how to insert a picture into a Word document from their scanner. “Oh, that’s an easy one”, I said to myself. Then I realized they were using the new Office 2007.

In all previous versions of Microsoft Word and other word processor worth their weight, you follow these steps to insert a picture from

AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice

The past few days calls and emails started filtering in about the new AVG 8.0 version folks have seen appear on their free versions of AVG Antivirus. The common query is, “Should I upgrade?” No, home users of AVG Antvirus do not need to upgrade at all. The current free version of AVG will continue to be updated and as… Read More »AVG Antivirus 8.0 Upgrade Advice

Cloudmark, Zonbu, Hostgator OH MY!!

You may have noticed that HelpMeRick.com has something new. We have added ads, but not just any ads.

The ads you see on HelpMeRick.com are only for companies that we recommend strongly.

So far, we have ads for Hostgator – our favorite web hosting service.

Zonbu, an excellent laptop for those who want a laptop in a standard size package but alternative operating system. If you can’t afford Mac and the Eee PC is too big, take a serious look at the Zonbu.