Quick Computer Tips

Computer Care: Quick, easy steps to make your PC run smoother By Arthur Glazer arthur@glazerthepctech.com In the Information Age, good information is good as gold. What follows, you could take to the bank. Don't deposit it. Cash it. Here are a bunch of quick tips, information you can use as soon as you finish reading it. This information is relevant, whether you have XP, Vista or Win 7. Want to make shortcuts on your desktop of your webmail address or any address? Open your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer) and go to the page you want. Left-click on the icon to the left of the URL (address) and drag it to your desktop. Have too many miscellaneous icons on your desktop? Create folders to organize them. Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop and choose "new" and then "folder." Name it what you want. I have one for pdf files and one for utilities. Drag the respective icons into their new folders. Have trouble running programs sometimes? Right-click on the program icon from the desktop and choose to "Run as Administrator." To not corrupt data on your USB flash drives, don't just unplug them when you're done. In "My Computer," right-click on the USB drive and choose "Eject." Alternatively, go to the taskbar to use the "Safely Remove" option for USB devices. These turn the device off before you unplug it. Tired of Windows updates being thrown at you? Right-click on "My Computer' (or Computer) and go to "Properties." Find the Updates tab and choose another option. You can choose to have the system tell you when updates are available, but to download and/or install them when you want to. Back up often. It's not a matter of if a hard drive or another component will fail, but when. Save your data to an external source like another drive, a CD or DVD. Having trouble suddenly with things not being responsive? Try a System Restore. Find it in (XP) Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools or on Vista/7, just type it in the search box. Alternatively, press F8 when the system reboots and choose, "Return System to Last Known Good Configuration." Want to alphabetize your programs menu in XP? (It's automatically done in later versions.) Right-click on any entry on the list and choose to "Sort by name." Are your laptop keys not fully pressing down? Grab them with a finger nail and pull them off to dust underneath them. Then just press them back on until you hear a click. With desktop keyboards, turn them upsides down and shake, vacuum or use compressed air. Feel like your system is sluggish? See the processes list to determine which might be the culprit program. Press Control + Alt + Delete at the same time and see the Processes tab. If one has a very high number click on it, then choose "End Process." (Make sure it is not a system item or you'll just reboot.) If your system is better now, you have a found a resource hog program. If you don't have a lot of RAM (memory) in your computer, turn off the enhancements. In XP go to System Properties from My Computer again and choose "Advanced "and then "Settings". Choose the "Best Performance" option. In Vista/7, type, "fade" in the search box and turn off the superfluous enhancements. You really don't need animations, fade in and outs, transparencies, etc., especially if your RAM can't afford it. Remember to reboot your system after any changes are made for them to take effect. Also reboot when you install a new device (printer) or a new program. Pause or temporarily disable your antivirus program before you install new software. There is the potential for conflicts otherwise. If you lost sound, your Internet connection or anything, check the Device Manager for notification of a missing driver. In XP look under Hardware, from Properties in My Computer. In Vista/7, just type in the search area for Device Manager. This is more of an FYI than a tip: If you know you have a gigabyte of RAM but your system is showing only 704 megabytes, nothing is wrong. Your system is sharing memory with your video card. High-end cards come with their own RAM, others do not. When you install a printer, don't plug in your USB cable until the installation program tells you to do so. It probably won't work otherwise. When you get an error message, especially one you don't understand, Google it, in quotes if necessary to find out what's wrong. If you lose your Internet connection, try resetting your modem and router if you have one. You can wait on hold with your service provider for an hour and that is the first thing they will have you do. There are so many things you can fix or enhance on your computer by yourself. But others do require a technician. Not everything is a do-it-yourself job. If you experiment in the Windows Registry for example, you can turn your computer into an expensive doorstop in a matter of seconds. Tread lightly. Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly. Arthur welcomes your computer questions and ideas for future columns

Google: not just a search engine

Google is not just a search engine anymore

By Arthur Glazer

arthur@glazerthepctech.com

Firefox used to be my browser of choice. I never liked Internet Explorer and have dabbled with both Opera and Safari, but always returned back to Firefox — until recently.

One day I downloaded and installed a Firefox update only to discover my browser crashed like the Dow on Black Monday.

Then Firefox would crash almost every time I used it. I would click on a link or type in an address and boom — gone. But they are so polite at Mozilla, the creators of Firefox. Each time it crashed, I would get a message saying they were sorry and would I like to report the incident? Each report I sent got a bit stronger than the last.

With some research, I discovered the Firefox enhancements — or plug-ins, as they are called — don't work under Windows 7. I was told I should update each of the plug-ins. That wasn't going to happen and I just got rid of them instead.

I soon found it was the new Firefox that didn't play well with the new Windows and since I wasn't about to get rid of Win 7, it was time to retire my browser.

Enter Chrome, from the folks at Google. I like their search engine; I use Gmail, their e-mail client; the highly customizable home page iGoogle they offer is superb, so I thought I'd give Chrome a try.

It was touted as a lean, clean, super-fast browsing machine. They weren't lying. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about Chrome. It is wonderful. It's easy to use, stable and extremely fast.

Other browsers needed outside applications to tweak their settings. Chrome doesn't require any tweaking. This is not Googles's first barbeque. They apparently know what they are doing — and do it well.

Chrome can be downloaded here. It will take less than three minutes to download and install it.

You'll find it is also highly customizable with hundreds of themes to use. They will put pictures at the top of your page, from sunsets to SpongeBob. Their plug-ins are called extensions and there are many to choose from to enhance your browsing experience.

At first glance, you may notice there is only an address bar, no search bar like Firefox has. Well, it is an all-in-one deal. In that one space you can type the URL (address) you want to go to or type in your search query, then just hit Enter.

Not only is it a tabbed browser, but it allows you to arrange the tabs simply by dragging them to wherever you want.

It will save your passwords for you, has malware and phishing protection and will import your settings and favorites from another browser.

You have the option of opening it to a home page of your choice or to a page with large thumbnails of either your most recent pages visited or your most often pages visited.

I have mine set to a custom iGoogle page. Once you have any account with Google, you just sign in and make your page. I use my Gmail account to do that. My iGoogle page has local weather, headlines, an editable to-do list, my recent Gmail inbox (with the ability to compose an e-mail from that page), as well as a calendar and a search box. It has all of that content plus a nice tropical palm tree/ocean motif at the top of the page.

There is a shortcut bar you can toggle on and off by typing Control + B. It will keep your most often used website shortcuts there for you. If you are on gainesvilletimes.com and go there every day, just drag the star before URL to the bar below, and voila: You just created a shortcut. You can delete it by right-clicking on it and choosing delete.

Other shortcuts that will make your browsing easier are Control +Shift + N that opens an incognito window that doesn't save your history or cookies.

Alt + Home opens your home page. Control + J takes you to recent downloads. Control + T opens a new tab, while Control + Shift +T opens the last tab you closed. There are lots more.

I like the fact that it saves downloads to bar beneath the main window. This saves you the trouble of searching the system for the file you just downloaded. From that bar, you also have the option of seeing your entire download folder, should you need to.

Google has proved to be a cutting edge company with lots of products I find useful. Recently, I began using their Google Voice, which transposes my cell phone voicemail to a text message and an e-mail. It also lets me play the message on my computer. Now how cool is that?

Google is not just a search engine anymore.

And Firefox is not my browser.

Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly. Arthur welcomes your computer questions and ideas for future columns.

Google: not just a search engine

Google is not just a search engine anymore

By Arthur Glazer

arthur@glazerthepctech.com

Firefox used to be my browser of choice. I never liked Internet Explorer and have dabbled with both Opera and Safari, but always returned back to Firefox — until recently.

One day I downloaded and installed a Firefox update only to discover my browser crashed like the Dow on Black Monday.

Then Firefox would crash almost every time I used it. I would click on a link or type in an address and boom — gone. But they are so polite at Mozilla, the creators of Firefox. Each time it crashed, I would get a message saying they were sorry and would I like to report the incident? Each report I sent got a bit stronger than the last.

With some research, I discovered the Firefox enhancements — or plug-ins, as they are called — don't work under Windows 7. I was told I should update each of the plug-ins. That wasn't going to happen and I just got rid of them instead.

I soon found it was the new Firefox that didn't play well with the new Windows and since I wasn't about to get rid of Win 7, it was time to retire my browser.

Enter Chrome, from the folks at Google. I like their search engine; I use Gmail, their e-mail client; the highly customizable home page iGoogle they offer is superb, so I thought I'd give Chrome a try.

It was touted as a lean, clean, super-fast browsing machine. They weren't lying. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about Chrome. It is wonderful. It's easy to use, stable and extremely fast.

Other browsers needed outside applications to tweak their settings. Chrome doesn't require any tweaking. This is not Googles's first barbeque. They apparently know what they are doing — and do it well.

Chrome can be downloaded here. It will take less than three minutes to download and install it.

You'll find it is also highly customizable with hundreds of themes to use. They will put pictures at the top of your page, from sunsets to SpongeBob. Their plug-ins are called extensions and there are many to choose from to enhance your browsing experience.

At first glance, you may notice there is only an address bar, no search bar like Firefox has. Well, it is an all-in-one deal. In that one space you can type the URL (address) you want to go to or type in your search query, then just hit Enter.

Not only is it a tabbed browser, but it allows you to arrange the tabs simply by dragging them to wherever you want.

It will save your passwords for you, has malware and phishing protection and will import your settings and favorites from another browser.

You have the option of opening it to a home page of your choice or to a page with large thumbnails of either your most recent pages visited or your most often pages visited.

I have mine set to a custom iGoogle page. Once you have any account with Google, you just sign in and make your page. I use my Gmail account to do that. My iGoogle page has local weather, headlines, an editable to-do list, my recent Gmail inbox (with the ability to compose an e-mail from that page), as well as a calendar and a search box. It has all of that content plus a nice tropical palm tree/ocean motif at the top of the page.

There is a shortcut bar you can toggle on and off by typing Control + B. It will keep your most often used website shortcuts there for you. If you are on gainesvilletimes.com and go there every day, just drag the star before URL to the bar below, and voila: You just created a shortcut. You can delete it by right-clicking on it and choosing delete.

Other shortcuts that will make your browsing easier are Control +Shift + N that opens an incognito window that doesn't save your history or cookies.

Alt + Home opens your home page. Control + J takes you to recent downloads. Control + T opens a new tab, while Control + Shift +T opens the last tab you closed. There are lots more.

I like the fact that it saves downloads to bar beneath the main window. This saves you the trouble of searching the system for the file you just downloaded. From that bar, you also have the option of seeing your entire download folder, should you need to.

Google has proved to be a cutting edge company with lots of products I find useful. Recently, I began using their Google Voice, which transposes my cell phone voicemail to a text message and an e-mail. It also lets me play the message on my computer. Now how cool is that?

Google is not just a search engine anymore.

And Firefox is not my browser.

Arthur Glazer is a freelance writer and computer technician in Gainesville. His column appears biweekly. Arthur welcomes your computer questions and ideas for future columns.