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A sure fire way to learn your computer this year!

When I am doing private tutoring on a computer I typically write step-by-step notes while the learner sits in the driver's seat. I think that people learn more by doing than by hearing.

However, my method is really only about 60 percent as effective as it could be. The best way to learn is by learning. In other words, having someone sit next to you and walk you through the steps will stick in your memory as well as if you teach yourself.

So, if learning your computer is one of your New Year's resolutions, here are a few tips that will help you teach yourself.

1. Teaching yourself doesn't mean doing it all on your own. You may want a tutor, relative or neighbor to show you how to do it a couple times before you start experimenting.

Captcha?

Captcha1Technology has spawned many strange new words from blog to podcast to spyware. Captcha is a new term that you will be seeing more of in the coming months. In fact, chances are good that you have already dealt with captchas. A captcha is a scrambled mess of characters (like the ones pictured in this article) that we have to reproduce in a box before submitting a web form.

The purpose of captchas is to thwart bad guys from releasing programs (web bots) that can automatically fill out forms all over the web. They do this to leave spam on sites that allow comments or to send bogus orders to e-commerce sites. Captchas work well at stopping these hacker bots because they can't 'read' and verify these characters.

Reader/Listener Challenge

We work extremely hard at creating tips, reviews, and other content for our web site. However, we often feel like we are the only ones who use the information. I often think, "If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? And if we post an important article or tip, will anyone read it?"

My challenge is to the regular readers of our site and listeners to our program who do peruse the site, follow our tips, and take our advice. We need you to start a grass roots movement to get eyeballs over to this site and utilize the information that is here and leave comments to help us improve upon what is here as well. We have designed the site's content to be helpful to anyone who uses a computer, but mostly computer users who tell us they are beginners or just learning. However, we also believe that more experienced computer users can use our site to help out their family and friends who get constant questions about their computers. 

AOL is FREE! Stop paying for it!!

A few months ago AOL changed their business model completely.

AOL has never been a real Internet provider. They are an advertising company that charges subscribers to see their ads.

With the spread of broadband Internet and wiser consumers, AOL has finally realized that people don't like paying $25/mo. to see strategically placed ads and a cluttered interface.

If you are paying for AOL, I am not going to try to convince you that you need to cancel or leave the service.

I will let you know though that AOL has changed their business model and their service is now FREE for broadband users and $9.99/mo. for dial-up users.

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:

We need a new Internet Appliance

i-openerAt one of the first, now defunct, Comdex computer shows that I attended in the late 90's, I attended a round table discussion on Internet Appliances. This was a huge buzz word at the time, but unfortunately it was ahead of its time. An Internet Appliance did only two things…browse the Internet and email. The picture I'm showing in this story was known as the Netpliance from a company called I-Opener. The idea was great, but at the time Internet connections were dial-up only and the Internet had not attained a true critical mass of users.

How to buy a computer book

When teaching my basic computer classes, I often get the question, "What is a good computer book?"

This is also followed or preceded by the complaint that the individual's computer did not come with a manual.

As strange as it may seem, there is a very good reason why the average computer doesn't come will a full instruction book. The reason is that there is too much to know about a computer to fit in a single manual.

Most computers come with a small user guide that shows how to turn it on and what numbers to call for tech support. Strangely this little guide is often a file on the computer, so you must turn the computer on in order to read it.

What IS a blog?

Over the past few weeks I have been asked this question several times. For some reason people always place the emphasis on the word is in this question.

"So, what is a blog?" is a different question than "What is a blog?

By placing the emphasis on the word is, I read this question to be rephrased as, "I keep hearing about blogs and they sound interesting, but no one can really define it for me, can you explain?"

A blog is a sort of online journal. Some people describe it as a diary, but since it is public and can be used for purposes other than personal information, a journal is probably a better description.

These computer oldies are OUT!

I've kept this bottled up for at least two years, and now I'm going to let it out and would love to hear your comments. Computers have been in the home on a large scale for about twelve years now and certain aspects of computing just don't work in today's' tech world. Here is my list of what no longer works:

Anything less than 1024 X 768 resolution. Even many productivity programs require this minimum resolution today. If the print seems small to you at this resolution, there are ways to have the better resolution and bigger text.

Internet Explorer 7 Keyboard shortcuts

General shortcuts
table with 2 columns and 9 rows
Turn Full Screen Mode on or off 
F11 

Cycle through the Address Bar, Refresh button, Search Box, and
items on a web page  

TAB  

Find a word or phrase on a page 

CTRL+F 

Open the current webpage in a new window  

CTRL+N  

Print the page  

CTRL+P  

Select all items on the page  

CTRL+A  

Zoom in  

CTRL+PLUS  

Zoom out  

CTRL+MINUS