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tweak

I have my own website

I have felt like a kid with a new toy all day.

Last night Rick and I stayed up late (until a little after midnight) experimenting with my website.

Since we don’t like to experiment with the show site, we often use my site to play around with ideas.

All day I have been wanting to come home and play with the new features we setup on my site. I must say that I am giddy.

While we can’t say how soom HelpMeRick.com will have these features implemented, I think you will see some of the cool features that may be in store for the show site. When you look around my site, please take note that I have only had it up and running with the new changes for about 16 hours so there is still a lot of tweaking to do. However, I am very excited about the possibilities this new system gives us. 

Alternative Operating Systems

Not really alternative, but I wanted to get your attention. Today, three of my customers were not using Windows XP. Two were Windows 98 and one was an older Macintosh. It’s always fun for me to keep my hands on some of these older machines to keep my mind agile.

I am always amazed at how functional and quick Windows 98 can be. One of the customers called because their 98 machine was running extremely slow. Within 90 seconds of sitting down at their machine, I knew what was wrong. She had upgraded to the newest and biggest version of McAfee Security possible. We don’t recommend the large security suites from McAfee or Norton for any computer, but for older machines they can mean pure death. It took her computer a full five and one half minutes to boot up with the McAfee installed. When we took out the McAfee and added AVG instead, the computer booted up in less than two minutes. She was amazed and satisfied.

I always have my tools with me

Most computer problems have nothing to do with the mechanics of the computer. It is rare that I see a motherboard die, RAM go bad, a video card burn out or a power supply fail.

Almost all computer problems are software related. Among the hundreds of millions of lines of programming code, a few 1s and 0s crash together and things go screwy.

Whether it is a programming glitch or the problem is caused by an intentionally designed virus, the majority of computer problems must be solved by tweaking the software.

Twice today I had people comment on my lack of tools. I walk into a home or office with nothing under my arm. Everything I need is on my person.

Dude, where’s my shotgun?

Rick pointed out to me tonight that I haven’t put up any shotgun articles for a few days. It was at that exact moment that I realized that I hadn’t written any shotgun articles for a few days.

I have some catching up to do so consider this article one of the most important articles I have written for several days.

When I fix a computer I try to always approach the computer and the situation as if it were my own. I work hard at using techniques that allow me to get the best job done in the least amount of time. I ask myself three questions to determine the approach that I want to take.

Moving from AOL isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it

I am currently helping two clients make the move off of AOL after many long years of being AOL customers. While each client is having a few problems making the adjustment, each has stated that they small issues are worth it to get away from AOL.

There are a few things that you need to get ready for when making the switch from AOL. 

1. There is no easy way to backup your address book and move it over. You can print it out and then manually add each address to your new email program. The best way I have found to do it, though, is to send emails to everyone in your AOL address book with your new email address. Ask for each person to send a reply to your new address. Then, as people reply you can click "add sender to address book."

Everyone is an expert….

I put gas in my truck every week, but I’m not a car expert. We raised some goats from ‘kids’ to their adulthood, but I’m not a farm or goat expert. It always strikes me as funny when some folks who merely ‘use’ computers think they are computer experts.

Today, a client of mine illustrated this point perfectly. He has a widescreen Compaq laptop (not the typical almost square monitor). The icons and text on his monitor looked a little squashed and blocky. He wanted me to look at it because a friend of his told him that that was indication that the hard drive was going to crash soon and he should be careful. 

Quick Tweaks to Make Windows Snap

When I make a house or office call during the week to work on a computer, I almost always run through a few quick tweaks to make Windows perform just a little bit better. No matter how new a computer may be, it can’t be too fast. Try these tweaks on your computer to see if you can eek out a little more performance.
Disable Visual Effects

Starting with Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft added visual effects to menus and windows that do nothing but make us wait a little longer to perform our computing tasks. To cut down on these visual effects, do the following:

1. RIGHT Click on a blank part of the desktop

Power Toys for Windows (Windows 98)

Many computer users enjoy tweaking and customizing their computers. However, at times, this can cause problems with the performance and even the operation of the computer. 

Power Toys is an unofficial add-on (meaning Microsoft does not officially support it even though they include it on the Windows 98 CD)  to Windows. Power Toys allows you to adjust items like:

Mouse
General
Explorer
Internet Explorer
Desktop
My Computer 		Control Panel
Network
New menu
Add/Remove menu
Boot
Repair
Paranoia