All Q&A Session – July 2007

I don’t do it too often, but this month I decided to hold an all Q&A (2 hours) user group meeting. It truly is amazing how many questions 30 or 40 ravenous computer users can generate. Sometimes one question leads to another, and an entire “topic” can take up a half hour. You have to be at one of the meetings to truly experience the type of knowledge and information that gets shared and explored. Some of today’s topics included:

1. Creating a “Life Poster” from digital photos with Shutterfly’s software (hint to Adam for future topic)
2. Installing and using Ubuntu (the embers are smoking)
3. Why Picasa DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY PHOTOS and where to find a photo’s true location
4. Sorting your email address book
5. Creating, modifying, and deleting Microsoft Word templates
6. Printing problems
7. Keyboard shortcuts for closing windows or programs (Alt + F4)
8. Web 2.0 questions (carry over from last month’s topic)
9. Setting download speed preferences for watching videos in Real Player, QuickTime or Windows Media Player
10. What is Active X and why you might need it or use it.
11. Transferring and viewing photos on the road without a laptop
12. Showing the “address bar” in Windows Explorer windows
13. MSCONFIG – deciphering what to uncheck and what not to check
14. Defrag – Does it cure all computer woes? (Hint:  NO) I revealed that with my last computer (which I used for more than four years), I can only remember defragmenting my computer twice…and that computer is still running strong for a neighbor who also never defrag’s on my advice.
15. Installing Windows XP on a new computer that came with Vista
16. FREE Internet phone calls – Skype, Skype phones at Radio Shack
17. Are Uninterubtable Power Systems (UPS) a good idea
18. Securing a wi-fi network
19. Using an older computer on a wi-fi network
20. Is AVG better than AdAware (hint: they fight different bad guys)
21. Drawing lines on a graph made on graph paper with horizontal, vertical and 45 degree grid lines
22. Backup questions
    
23. How to clear the address bar in the browser window
24. Downloading pictures to Picasa
25. Creating Picasa web albums
26. Emailing photos from Picasa
27. Breakdown of pricing of Ubuntu systems sold at Dell
28. Instant messaging programs – Trillian (communicates with all systems), AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk
29. Creating a CD in Picasa
    
30. Woot!
    

These are just the main questions that I could think of, but aren’t you kicking yourself now for not coming to the meeting?!