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Leave your comments!! Please!

We love getting your feedback on our articles and tips. Unfortunately, too few of you participate. Our most commented articles are our Cameroon Pet Scams and desktop wallpaper articles. I did get a few comments on my annual plea for tax reform, but I’m always surprised at how few comments we get compared to the number of visitors to our site.

We do have the ReCaptcha system to thwart automated robot spammers on our site, but the words are generally easy to decipher (plus they help the Library of Congress digitize their library). If you have a tough time reading the cipher, you can hit the refresh button to get two new words (see picture). You can hit the refresh button as many times as you want. Also, keep in mind that the cipher’s are not case sensitive. I would recommend clicking the little speaker which gives you an auditory cipher to decode, but they generally are much harder than figuring out the two words.

There you have it…I’m on my knees groveling for comments. We love reading the comments and encourage you to leave them often…and invite all your tech friends and family to visit the site and do the same! Thanks.

STOP PAYING FOR AOL!

I know I have written about this not a few times but this week I have helped four people convert their AOL accounts to FREE or $9.95.

Two years ago, AOL changed their business model. If you are using dial-up you should only be paying $9.95 per month.

If you are on broadband you should be paying NOTHING. AOL lets broadband users use all of their services and software for FREE.

To change plans you don’t even have to argue with anyone on the phone. Just log onto AOL and type in the keyword CANCEL. Follow the links for canceling your AOL billing you can also change your payment plan in this area too. It takes less than five minutes in most cases.

Living online with your applications and data

Here I go again talking about online applications and data storage. I keep bringing it up because the idea makes more sense to me everyday.

In just my first two days of work this week, I found multiple examples of how computing online instead of on your desktop makes sense for so many people. It will be a long time before serious photographers, movie makers, engineers, and graphic designers can make do with online applications because their programs require a great deal of computer speed, power, and storage. However, for the bulk of computer users at home and many in small businesses, migrating data online and utilizing online applications can save a great deal of time and money.

Worst excuse for keeping Norton: I have already paid for it

If you search for the word “Norton” using the search engine in the upper right corner of our website, you will discover that our advice to dump Norton branded software is echoed by dozens of other visitors to the site.

This week I saw a computer that took 27 minutes to completely boot up. It was an older system with 256MB of RAM and a 1.6ghz processor. Even at that, 27 minutes was a long time.

I noticed that they had the latest version of Norton 360 installed. I told them that the system would at least double in speed if they uninstalled Norton. “I know you don’t like it, but we already paid for it.”

Agreed but took the system home intending to reformat it and add RAM over the weekend.

Gmail convertee

Three weeks ago, I switched from using Microsoft Outlook (which I had used since 1998) to Gmail.

What is Gmail?

Gmail is the fast, free web based email from search giant Google. Gmail offers free POP3 access (if you want to download your email into Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc), 6.5 GB of storage (and the number continually grows), and the best web based spam filter I’ve seen so far.

Why good computer guys get grumpy sometimes

Arrogant computer guys really bother me. I try very hard not to be a computer guy who thinks he knows everything.

The problem with this is that I am sometimes competing with computer guys who convince people that they do know everything. When I try to straighten out the situation, I get the line, “but the guy at Best Buy said that Norton is the best.” or “But my son who has worked at HP for 20 years says that Vista is much faster.”

When I try to explain using experience and logic, they don’t want to listen. Logically, wouldn’t it make more sense to listen to someone who isn’t trying to sell something. Even better, someone who deals with problems in real-life homes and businesses every day?

Where to buy a book manual for your computer

“Why didn’t my computer come with a manual?”

One of the most common complaints we hear is about how new computers don’t come with manuals. I am here to explain why this is the case.

The sad answer is that if the computer company came with a manual, it would weigh more than the computer.

“But my old computers used to come with manuals…,” Is the next comment.

Back in the old days of computers there weren’t many uses. You would use computers for word processing, finances, Internet and email. In each case there were only a handful of options.

Home is where the Wii is

Tonight we had our weekly family night and as the activity part of the evening we made the kids guess what we were doing.

We gave clues like “We (wii) think you will have a lot of fun tonight,” or “We (wii) bet you can’t guess what we are doing,” and “We have already given you the answer in the clues.” They went crazy trying to guess until my daughter said sarcastically, “Oh, I bet we are playing wii.”

They were shocked when we took out the wii.

It was fun to see even our youngest going nuts playing the game. I will join Vinny in posting a review of the wii in the coming days. So far it is a huge success with the kids.

You may wonder why I don’t capitalize wii. Simple, it’s one of those words that just doesn’t look right capitalized.

Password Tips

Creating a Better Password:

Mix it up – use number and letters in both upper and lower case

Spell words that you are familiar with such as p455w0rD (see how it kind of spells “password”)

Never use the word “password” as your password.

Creating that Secret Question:

Many services ask you to create a secret question incase you forget your password. This allows them to ask you for the answer to verify that you are who you say you are.

Choose a secret question that is true now and will be true five years from now – not, “what is your favorite movie?” or “what is your pet’s name?”

Choose a question that is very specific – not “Where did you meet your spouse?”

Zoho Writer – Video Tip

We have written quite a bit about Web 2.0 here at HelpMeRick.com and this week I decided to start a mini-series featuring my favorite Web 2.0 web site, Zoho. Zoho offers an online set of productivity tools unequaled anywhere else on the web. Many of the tools are offered at no cost and cover everything from word processing to project management.

In this first installment, I take you on a short tour of the Zoho word processor known as Writer. Writer offers all the tools that almost anyone needs in a word processor with the convenience of being available on any computer using any operating system or browser and at no cost to the user. Some of Writer’s features include:

  • Secure access to your documents from anywhere
  • Ability to export documents as PDF, Word, RTF and other formats
  • Collaboration tools for allowing others to work on your documents from any location
  • One of the best Thesaraus applications I’ve seen
  • Footnotes, headers, footers
  • Tables
  • Text styling
  • Open multiple documents at the same time
  • And any number of features you are used to using in a word processor

Watch this short tour of Zoho Writer to learn more and see it in action.