Start with the on button

Tuesday Octoboer 6, 2009, Tips and Tricks

2009-10-06T13:18:00.001-05:00

Tips, Tricks, and Ideas

If you are having a problem with your computer, printer, or any other hardware device check to make sure its plugged in.

If it is plugged in check what it is plugged into. Battery backups, line conditioners and surge protectors have a shelf life, most have a reset switch. If the reset switch is off turn it on and see if your device comes on. If it is not off, trying plugging into another outlet, before you assume it's broken.

Your computer is a machine, and only operates as fast as it is capable of, don't get impatient with load times, download times, or upload times, make your self a cup of coffee while its uploading, work on another project, the computer is designed to multi-task so take advantage of this and plan ahead.

Remember sleep and log off does not turn your computer off.

Most of you are more advanced computer users than you realize. Be confident in your skills.

If you are having trouble with software, there are several ways to fix this:

1.If you are trying to remove software from you computer you go to your control panel or just control, then you go to add / remove programs or program features, this takes awhile to populate just be patient it will populate, take a break for a sec and walk away. Once the list has populated click on the software you want to remove and then click remove.
2.If you are installing new software just put the disc in your cd/dvd player and it will automatically start up, then follow the instructions it will provide you with.

If your computer is just acting strange, your getting error messages that you don't understand try using perfect utilities to clean your computer, thanks to Willis suggestion and find this I have been using it for a couple of weeks now, it is very easy to use and very efficient. Programs or software like this take a long time to run. You can download perfect utilities here: http://www.putils.com/

If you want to see what you have stored in your computer, that's where you go. Either My Computer or Computer, it will show you all your drives, you can then click on a drive to see what's in it. If its in a folder you can open that folder to see the contents of said folder.

Try to keep your files organized in a way that makes sense to you a good filing system is no good if you don't know the filing system.

Remember you double click to open something, (folder or program), you single click to cause an action in the program. You left click when you want to execute something, you right click when you want to know what options you have.

Always use file and exit when possible.

Remember you will always have a menu bar in all programs to see what tools are available.

Remember you can always email me or call me with questions.

Tuesday September 29, 2009 - Security

2009-09-29T12:12:00.004-05:00

Many people are concerned about internet security and the security of there computer today and rightly so.

First let's talk about passwords, a password is supposed to be secret, and hard to guess. If your password is the answer to any of these questions it is not safe. What year did you graduate from High School or College? What year were you married in or divorced in, or born in? What is your dogs name? What is your phone number? What is your High School sweethearts old phone number? What is the name of your kids or grand-kids?

A strong password should look something like this j8lAC0Tb, this is a random generated password, 8 digits long (though I recommend 12 - 16 digits) that using upper and lowercase letters and numbers together. DO NOT USE THIS PASSWORD, SINCE IT IS PUBLISHED IT WOULD BE EASY TO GUESS TO NOW.

You can get any easy to use random password generator here. http://www.securesafepro.com/download.php

When shopping online you need to look at the address in your address bar. If the address starts with http:// is a non-secure website, if it starts with https:// it is a secure network, that is an important tool, when deciding where to shop and spend your money.

When shopping online never use your personal bank cards or credit cards, purchase a prepaid Visa or Master Card, load it with the money you need to make your purchase or just keep a few dollars on it for midnight shopping, if the card is hacked all they can get is what's on the card, and they can't get access to your bank information at all, because you did not use your bank cards.

Also in the security realm is Firewalls, Anti-Spyware software and Anti-Virus Software.

A Firewall is: A firewall is a set of related programs, located at a network gateway server, that protects the resources of a private network from users from other networks. (The term also implies the security policy that is used with the programs.)

A firewall works in conjunction with your router to block programs from accessing your computer, or to deny your computer access to blocked internet sites.

Computer security borrows this term from firefighting, where it originated. In firefighting, a firewall is a barrier established to prevent the spread of fire.

Do you need a firewall, not really anymore, starting with Windows XP, your computer came with an installed and active firewall.

Today you really need to know about 3 things, Adware, Spyware, and Malware:

Adware: Adwares are software applications that are supported by advertisements (Advertising Software). It automatically display advertisement when the software is running. It is one of the way a programmer can offer his application at a reduce cost or even for free. Most of the time, a license can be bought to remove the advertisement permanently.

Spyware: Spywares are a progression from adwares. In order to provide the user of adwares with more targeted advertisements, various forms of statistics and information on user's activity on the system is tracked and sent to advertising companies. Sometimes these are done under the hood without user's knowledge and consent. Like spying on your habits and activities on your computer. Thus the term spying software.

Malware: Malware are malicious software that affects the normal functionality of your system. Sometimes, annoying pop up will appear out of no where to direct you to some sales sites. Sometimes emails spams will automatically be sent from your system. Adware and spyware progress to a malicious state if it start to affect the use of your system actively instead of just showing you passive advertisement.

You need to kill all of these "wares". Yes you need a good anti-spyware program to kill these and yes this is worth investing money in.

Anti-Virus Software: Antivirus (or anti-virus) software is used to prevent, detect, and remove malware, including computer viruses, worms, and trojan horses. Such programs may also prevent and remove adware, spyware, and other forms of malware.

A variety of strategies are typically employed. Signature-based detection involves searching for known malicious patterns in executable code. However, it is possible for a user to be infected with new malware in which no signature exists yet. To counter such so called zero-day threats, heuristics can be used. One type of heuristic approach, generic signatures, can identify new viruses or variants of existing viruses for looking for known malicious code (or slight variations of such code) in files. Some antivirus software can also predict what a file will do if opened/run by emulating it in a sandbox and analyzing what it does to see if it performs any malicious actions. If it does, this could mean the file is malicious.

However, no matter how useful antivirus software is, it can sometimes have drawbacks. Antivirus software can degrade computer performance if it is not designed efficiently. Inexperienced users may have trouble understanding the prompts and decisions that antivirus software presents them with. An incorrect decision may lead to a security breach. If the antivirus software employs heuristic detection (of any kind), the success of it is going to depend on whether it achieves the right balance between false positives and false negatives. False positives can be as destructive as false negatives. In one case, a faulty virus signature issued by Symantec mistakenly removed essential operating system files, leaving thousands of PCs unable to boot.[1] Finally, antivirus software generally runs at the highly trusted kernel level of the operating system, creating a potential avenue of attack.[2]

In addition to the drawbacks mentioned above, the effectiveness of antivirus software has also been researched and debated. One study found that the detection success of major antivirus software dropped over a one-year period.

Some software does both the "wares" and virus's.

This should keep us talking for hours.

♠ The Introduction Blog

♠ The Internet Blog

♠ Computer Terms Blog

♠ What to do when you take your new computer out of the box blog

Tuesday September 15, 2009

2009-09-15T13:18:00.004-05:00

First I wanted to make a couple of changes to this blog to make it easier for everyone. From now on at the bottom of each blog you will have the following links:

♠ The Introduction Blog

♠ The Internet Blog

♠ Computer Terms Blog

♠ What to do when you take your new computer out of the box blog

If there any other particular blogs you want added to this list of links please let me know in class and I will post them to this list. Thanks

Today we are going to talk about the internet again, and in class go over some basic search terms, email, and other basic computer tasks down while you are online, we are also going to talk about how you can use the internet to communicate with your family as a full time RVer in a variety of ways. I look forward to seeing everyone there today.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - Introduction / Welcome Back

2009-09-08T12:22:00.002-05:00

I would like to welcome everyone back, as we start up the class again. Today we are going to do some review's and go back to the beginning when we first started this class over a year ago now.

I would like to ask everyone to remember this particular date, and blog title, when I get more definitions and more shortcuts, this is where I will post them, to add them to the current list.

Introduction

The first thing I would like to share with you is why I call this class Start With The On Button. The first thing I learned in my computer courses in college were to always check and make sure everything is plugged in first. Then check to see if it is turned on, before you start tearing the computer apart. I have found over the years that this is true, you may or may not be surprised to learn how many times I have gone to help someone and fix their computer, and all I had to do is turn it on, or plug something in.

Now I would like to break the computer down into some basic parts to help you understand what it really is.

The computer is a machine, nothing more, it is not alive, gremlins do not live inside it. The computer operates off a series of switches much like your typical home light switch, either its on or its off.

Let's look at what a computer is: It really is nothing more than your typical home office, stuck in a little tiny box. First you have your desk (computer case), next you have your desktop (computer desktop), built into your desk you have a file cabinet (computer hard drive), next to your desk you have a trash can (computer recycle bin), on your desk top you may have various tools according to your trade / use, for example an engineer might have some graph paper, pencils, pens, rulers, etc (computer CAD software), all the tools you use to make your desk more personal, easy to use, easy to find, tools you need to do what ever you do with your desk is your computer software. You may have a radio on your desk (computer sound card), you may have a TV on your desk (computer graphics card). Now one more thing on your desk that we often overlook, you, sitting in the chair using the computer (computer RAM and computer CPU).

What is the most important part of your computer, you (computer RAM). We will talk about this and the why in another lesson, but you will probably hear me repeat this several times.

So now lets turn our computers on and see what happens.

The first thing that should pop up is desk top, your computer desktop is covered in tiny pictures representing programs (software) that you use on your computer, these tiny pictures are called icons. Every body will have some icons alike and everyone will icons that other people don't use, its OK, you don't need what everyone else has, you only need the programs that you use.

All computers whether it is a PC or a MAC operate with a core operating system. This is commonly referred to as the OS (which stands for Operating System), Windows Vista, XP, and soon Windows 7 are the most popular OS's being used today. There is 90% chance that everyone in this room is using either Windows XP or Windows Vista. I use windows Vista, it's what came with my new computer, and yes at first I was disappointed, but now that I have gotten to understand it, I really like it.

Now lets look at the very bottom of your computer screen, there is a bar across it with all kinds of stuff on it. This bar is called your taskbar. If I mention during the course of the class to click something in your taskbar that is what I am referring to. On the far left of taskbar in Windows XP you will see a button that has start written on it, in Windows Vista it is small round picture that looks like this:

Clicking on this button or the start button will take you to all the programs loaded onto your computer. This is also the button to click if you are looking for either “My Computer” & “Control Panel” in Windows XP or “Computer” & “Control Panel” in Windows Vista. Two programs that I hope to make you comfortable visiting.

To turn a Windows XP system off is fairly simple, you just click the start button, then click turn computer off. To turn a computer off with Window Vista, not so easy (NEVER power off your computer with a hard boot).

OK to turn off your computer using Windows Vista here is how you do it. First click the above icon in the lower left hand corner of your computer. This is what will pop up.

No little button or text that says turn computer off. See that little tiny arrow in the lower right hand corner of the above picture, click on it. This is what will pop up next.

Now you have some text that you can read and understand. You can switch users, (that's if you are sharing your computer with someone, but not sharing your half of the computer), you can log off of your computer (this does not turn your computer off), you can lock your computer (I really don't recommend that you do), you can restart your computer (a standing joke in the computer repair world, if you are a computer repairman, this will be your most used option), you can choose sleep (this does not turn your computer off), and you can choose shut down (this is the only option that actually turns your computer off).

OK back on track here, and back to the taskbar, we have looked at the far left side of the taskbar, now lets look at the far right side of the taskbar. You have 2 separate elements in that part of the taskbar, working from the far right to the left the first thing we have is the clock, its a clock. Then we have the startup menu, those icons represent all the programs that designated to start up when you turn your computer off, depending your computer this could be a source of slowed operations.

Now lets talk about the empty space on your taskbar between your Start Menu and your Start Up Menu. This is a very important part of your computer, and often overlooked, I know I forget to check it myself. If you notice your computer slowing down on you while you are working check this area of your taskbar, this is a list of all the programs you have open, and you may have several open of the same program, really confusing your computer. Compare it to learning to check your side mirrors as well as your review mirror when your driving, it's that important.

People who have attended this class in the past have heard this before but I want to get it down in writing for everyone.

What the heck is the difference between left click and right click?

You left click when you want to perform an action, you right click when you want to see what your options are.

When the heck do you double click or single click. You double click any time you are first opening a program, for example your word processor, you would double click the icon on your desktop to open the program, once inside the program you only single click. So, you double click to initiate a program or file and single click inside a program (you still need to double click inside a file to open another file or the contents of a file).

Whenever you are on-line you only need to single click.

THIS IS A TEST? What a Test, yes, I need to make sure we are all on the same page and still together.

Go to:

Start, then Programs
Start, then Control Panel
Start, then My Computer or Computer

Did we all get those open?

My computer will be your friend once you get comfortable with it, control panel is like your mechanical closet in your home, where everything is wired into.

Glossary of Terms

Address bar: The portion of the browser or screen that contains the current Web address and drop-down list of recently visited sites. An address bar can also be found in the folder window and gives you the file path.

Browser: Allows you to read files on the World Wide Web. In brief, it interprets hypertext links and lets you view sites and navigate from one Internet node to another. The two we will talk about most in class are Internet Explorer and Firefox.

C drive: The hard drive that stores all your data. It houses the hard disk, where all your files and folders are physically located. A typical hard drive is only slightly larger than your hand, yet can hold over 100 GB of data. The data is stored on a stack of disks that are mounted inside a solid encasement. These disks spin extremely fast (typically at either 5400 or 7200 RPM) so that data can be accessed immediately from anywhere on the drive. The data is stored on the hard drive magnetically, so it stays on the drive even after the power supply is turned off.

The term "hard drive" is actually short for "hard disk drive." The term "hard disk" refers to the actual disks inside the drive. However, all three of these terms are usually seen as referring to the same thing -- the place where your data is stored. Since we use the term "hard drive" or “C drive” most often, that is the correct one to use.

Cache: The browser cache plays an important role in providing a smooth and speedy surfing experience. Cache, pronounced "cash", is a temporary holding area for images, sounds, videos, and other items that may appear on a web page that you visit. The way the browser cache works is by eliminating the need to re-download an image or web page if the content has not changed since your last visit. Size of the disk cache varies depending on the size of your hard-drive, and if you have manually altered the size in your browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape…etc). Typical cache size is 10% of your hard-drive space.

Once the cache is full, the internet browser begins clearing items to make room for new stuff. If the cache is too small (like only 1 megabyte) then a 2 megabyte cartoon can cause a problem. Choose preferences or settings on the browser menu and look for something called 'Cache' or 'disk cache size', and increase it to 15 megs, or even higher if you have enough hard disk space. For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, the path is tools > Internet options > temporary Internet files > settings > amount of disk space to use. In Firefox the path is tools > options > Advanced > Network > amount of disk space. The best way: close all web pages, adjust the cache size, hit the clear cache button, quit (X) and restart your browser.

click on (or double click) Double clicking involves clicking your left mouse button quickly two times. To perform a double click, and not just two clicks, the mouse button must be pressed twice within a very short time, typically about half a second. Most operating systems allow you to lengthen or shorten the maximum time allowed for a double click, using the Mouse Control Panel or System Preference.

A double click is recognized by your computer as a specific command, just like pressing a key on your keyboard. Double clicking is used to perform a variety of actions, such as opening a program, opening a folder, or selecting a single word of text in a document. In order to double click an object, just move the cursor over the item and press the left mouse button quickly two times.

Cookies: The most common meaning of "Cookie" on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to your Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. (For example, whenever you visit your online banking web site.) Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browsers' settings, the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long time. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online "shopping cart" information, user preferences, etc.

When a Server receives a request from an internet browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie. For example, the Server might customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular users' requests. Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their "expire time" has not been reached.

Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible without them.

cursor: The cursor on your screen can indicate two things: 1) where your mouse pointer is, or 2) where the next character typed will be entered in a line of text.

The mouse cursor is most often an arrow that you can use to point to different objects on your screen. When the cursor is over an object, you can click or double-click the mouse button to perform an action on that object (such as opening a program). The mouse cursor can change into other images, such as a small hand (when you roll over a link in a Web page), or an hourglass (when Windows is "thinking" so hard, it won't let you click on anything).

The text cursor is typically a straight vertical line or I-shaped object that flashes in a line of text. Typically, when you are typing a paper, the cursor will be at the end of the line, because you are adding new text to the uncharted white area of the page. However, if you want to insert a word or phrase somewhere else in a line of text, you can use the mouse cursor to click the position where you would like to insert the text. In most word processing programs, once you start typing, the text cursor continues to flash, but the mouse pointer disappears until you move the mouse again. This is to avoid "cursor confusion," since most people can't type and click on things at the same time.

desktop: Have you seen anybody's desktop which is not a horizontal plane but a vertical plane? The only similarity between a real desktop and a computer desktop is both holds the tools you need to work with. Amazingly, your work tools do not fall off the computer desktop! Basically, the desktop is the first screen you see when you start the computer. It has a bunch of icons (little pictures of things) labeled My Computer, My Documents, My Briefcase, Recycle Bin, Internet Explorer, Netscape etc. Any program you start (like your word processor, or Internet Explorer) usually covers up the desktop completely and you cannot see it anymore. But it is always there underneath everything. If you reduce the size of your application window, you will be able to see the part of the desktop under it. If you minimize the application it will become a button on the taskbar (on the extreme left of which resides next to the START button) revealing the desktop completely. The desktop is supposed to keep everything you need handy and within your vision. So don't let the desktop disappear. And have comfort in the thought that even if you cannot see it, it is always there underneath the clutter of everything.

double click: See “click on”

Download: Files you receive from a remote computer to your computer. These files could be text files, pictures, music files, applications, drivers etc.

Drivers: The drivers are software needed to run a hardware such as the printer, the monitor, or the scanner properly. The drivers also usually come pre-installed in your new computer. When you run your computer the first time, you may have to configure the correct driver for your brand and model of hardware, such as the printer. But if you buy say, a new printer later, you may have to get a new driver for your new printer from the printer manufacturer. The manufacturer may send you the new driver in the form of floppy disk(s), or you may have to download the driver from the manufacturer's web site. Sometimes the new driver comes packed with the new device in the form of a floppy disk. You just have to install it. Sometimes even for your old device, a better driver may be available from that device's manufacturer. Check the device manufacturer's web site for the latest information.

file: Any bit of information you save in your computer is saved as a file. Files can be huge, like you can write a 1200 page novel and save it as a file. Or they can be tiny. You can type one letter or a number or a punctuation mark and save it as a file. Like text, a photo can be saved as a file, or a piece of music or video can be saved as a file.

File Extension: A file name is usually followed by a dot and then three letters called extension. The extension helps the computer to understand what kind of file is that and when necessary which program (application) will open it.
Here are some examples:
1. letter_to_mary.doc dearjohn.txt It is a text document created by and to be opened by Microsoft Word or Notepad (which is the name of the word processor).
2. myphoto.jpg mypicture.gif myimage.bmp It is an image file created by and to be opened by an image editing software.
3. fulfel.exe It is an executable file or program that will open by itself when clicked on.
4. goodlovin.mid hounddog.mp3 It is a music file.
5. vacation_photos.zip It is a zip (compressed) file. Normally it needs a special software (like WinZip or PKZip) to open it. Large files are usually compressed before sending over via wire for quick transfer. Zipped files also take up less space on the disk for storage.

Folder: Just like the filing cabinet in your office or home contains file folders and each folder contains different documents or files, the computer folders hold computer files. It is a very convenient and useful method of keeping your computer files organized so that when necessary you can quickly find a particular file. You can put folders inside folders if you want. For example, you can have a folder named "My Documents". Inside that folder, you can put two folders named "My Letters" and "My Photos" for holding your letters and photos respectively. The old fashioned names for folders were Directories and for folders within folders were Sub-Directories.

Hardware: Hardware means those parts of the computer which you can touch and are usually hard, such as the computer itself, the monitor, the keyboard, the printer, the mouse, the scanner, the speakers etc.

icons: little pictures of things labeled My Computer, My Documents, My Briefcase, Recycle Bin, Internet Explorer, Netscape etc. They can be found both on the desktop and inside of folders.

left click: see “click on”.

Menu Bar: A menu bar is a horizontal strip that contains lists of available menus for a certain program. In Windows programs, the menu bar resides at the top of each open window, while on the Mac, the menu bar is always fixed on the top of the screen. Despite this major difference, the menu bar serves the same purpose on each platform.

Nearly all programs have a menu bar as part of their user interface. It includes menu items and options specific to the particular program. Most menu bars have the the standard File, Edit, and View menus listed first. The File menu includes options such as Save and Open File..., the Edit menu has items such as Undo, Copy, Paste, and Select All, while in the View menu you'll find viewing options such as changing the layout of open windows. Word processing programs, such as Microsoft Word, also include menu options such as Insert, Format, and Font which you will most likely not find in a Web browser's menu bar. But a Web browser may contain menu options such as History and Bookmarks, which you will not find in a word processing program.

The menu bar is fundamental so it is worth your time to get familiar with it. You may even discover features you did not know about before.

My Computer: In Windows, prior to Vista, My Computer is the source of all resources in the computer including drives, control panels and data. In Vista, My Computer was changed to "Computer."

My Documents: In Windows, prior to Vista, My Documents is the default personal folder for storing data. My Music, My Pictures and other subfolders are located under My Documents.

In Vista, the names of the folders were changed to "Documents," "Music" and "Pictures," but Music and Pictures are not subfolders; they reside on the same level as the Documents folder.

My Pictures: See My Documents

open it: see “click on”

Operating System: The operating system is software which makes a computer do something and also helps the other software to work properly. Think of it as the Master Software of your computer. If it malfunctions, your computer will not work properly. Windows is an operating system. Its different versions are known as 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, NT, ME, and XP and Vista. When you buy a new computer, the operating system usually comes installed in it. So you don't have to do a thing about the operating system unless you want to upgrade it to a later (and usually better) version.

Programs Folder: Just like real world folders, folders on your hard drive store files. These files can be documents, programs, scripts, libraries, and any other kind of computer file you can think of. Folders can also store other folders, which may store more files or other folders, and so on.

Folders allow people to organize their files in a way that makes sense to them. For example, a college student might store all her photos in a folder named "Pictures," all her papers in a folder named "School Work," and all her financial information (including the tens of thousands of dollars in student loans) in a folder named "Finances." All these folders might reside within a folder called "My Documents."

The computer's operating system also uses folders to store data such as system files, library files, and user preferences. Often, the folders that the system uses are locked, meaning users cannot alter their contents so you can’t hurt your computer.

Folders are really just pointers to files and other folders, telling the computer where they are located. The compilation of folders on your hard drive make up the "directory structure," or overall organization of your hard drive. For this reason, folders are also referred to as "directories." Thank goodness for folders, because without them our hard drives would be pretty cluttered!

Recycle Bin: Contains files you have deleted from your computer. These files are not permanently removed until you empty the Recycle Bin.
right click: Most computer mice have at least two mouse buttons. When you press the left one, it is called a left click. When you press the one on the right, it is called a right click. By default, the left button is the main mouse button, and is used for common tasks such as selecting objects and double-clicking.

The right mouse button is often used to open contextual menus, which are pop-up menus that change depending where you click. For example, if you right click on the desktop, you may see a menu pop up that includes "Change View Options" and "Change Desktop Background." If you right click on a folder, the menu might include options such as "Open" and "Properties."

Software: Software are the programs or applications with the help of which you do something with your computer, such as write a letter, browse the Internet, send and receive e-mail, make a spreadsheet, create a drawing, edit a photo, etc. Software usually come in a floppy disk or CD which you can touch but you cannot touch the program or application itself. In other words you can touch the containers of software but not the software itself. A good example is a software that you may have downloaded from the Internet. Can you touch it? Your word processor is a software, your Internet Explorer or Firefox is a software, your Eudora is a software, your AOL browser is a software.

Start Button: See taskbar.

Start Menu: In Windows, starting with Windows 95, the Start menu is a launching pad for applications. It is also used to turn the machine off. The default location of the Start menu button is the left side of the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

The Start menu contains pointers (shortcuts) to the programs stored on the hard disk, because installation programs place an icon in the Start menu's Programs section. You can also drag icons of applications from the desktop or from any Explorer window onto the Start menu, and you can rearrange their position by dragging them up and down the menu.

task bar: The task bar was introduced with Windows 95 and has been part of every version of Windows since then. It is the bar that spans the bottom of the screen and contains the Start button on the left side and the systray on the right. The task bar also includes the current time on the far right side and can hold shortcuts to programs directly to the right of the Start button.

Most of the task bar, however, contains shortcuts to open windows. Whenever you open a program or window, it shows up in the task bar. So if you have Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word open, there will be at least two items in the middle area of the task bar. Since each window gets its own location in the task bar, if there are two Microsoft Word documents open and three Internet Explorer windows open, there will be a total of five items in the task bar. When you click on a window title in the task bar, that window will become active and show up in front of other open windows. You can also cycle through the task bar items by holding the Alt key and pressing Tab a few times.

tool bar: A toolbar is a set of icons or buttons that are part of a software program's interface or an open window. When it is part of a program's interface, the toolbar typically sits directly under the menu bar. For example, Adobe Photoshop includes a toolbar that allows you to adjust settings for each selected tool. If the paintbrush is selected, the toolbar will provide options to change the brush size, opacity, and flow. Microsoft Word has a toolbar with icons that allow you to open, save, and print documents, as well as change the font, text size, and style of the text. Like many programs, the Word toolbar can be customized by adding or deleting options. It can even be moved to different parts of the screen.

The toolbar can also reside within an open window. For example, Web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, include a toolbar in each open window. These toolbars have items such as Back and Forward buttons, a Home button, and an address bar.

Upload: Files you transfer from your computer to a remote computer. Example: You have created an web site in your computer. Your web site is being hosted by Geocities. So you have to transfer (upload) the files from your computer to Geocities' large computer so that the whole world can see your web site.

window: A window is an area on the screen that displays information for a specific program. A typical window includes a title bar along the top that describes the contents of the window, followed by a toolbar that contains user interface buttons. Most of the window's remaining area is used to display the content.

Examples:
1.Web Browser windows:
The top of a typical Web browser window contains a title bar that displays the title of the current page. Below the title is a toolbar with back and forward buttons, an address field, bookmarks, and other navigation buttons. Below the toolbar is the content of the current Web page. The bottom of the window may contain a status bar that displays the page loading status
2.Word Processing windows:
A window used by a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, typically includes buttons for page and text formatting, followed by a ruler that defines the document area. Below the ruler is the main page area used for entering text.
3.Operating System windows:
Windows used by the operating system typically include navigation buttons along the top and shortcuts to folders and other locations on the left side of the window. The rest of the window is used to display icons or lists of files and folders.
Most windows can be opened, closed, resized, minimized, and moved around the screen. The close, minimize, and zoom buttons are located on the title bar (on the right side on Windows and the left side on Macs). Minimizing a window will close the contents of the window, but store a reference to it in the Taskbar (Windows) or the Dock (Mac). Closing a window will make it disappear completely (so you may be asked to save your changes first). To move a window, click on the title bar and drag the window where you want it. To resize a window, either click the Zoom button in the title bar or click the lower right-hand corner and expand or contract the window to the size you want.

X: The exit button on an application window. In most cases, clicking X closes the entire application and all open windows that pertain to it. In some applications, such as the Firefox browser, clicking X closes only that window, not additional windows opened from the original instance.

Short Cuts

CTRL & V = PASTE
SHIFT & INSERT = PASTE
CTRL & C = COPY
CTRL & DELETE = DELETE WHOLE WORDS

Tuesday May 26th, 2009

2009-05-26T12:41:00.003-05:00

Computer Languages, what are they and are any of them really important to me?

Computer Languages can be broken down in 2 categories, for simplicity sake. Scripting Languages and Coding Languages. (This statement will probably get me in trouble with “geeks” and programmers but for us this will work)

Java Script ~ is a computer language used mostly by web page designers, it allows interactive features to be added to web pages. It is important to people who surf and use the INTERNET. You will hardly ever come to any modern web page today that does not use some JavaScript in it. So yes you need to down load JAVA and install it and allow scripts to operate on your browser

Here is the next trick question, how much do you really want to know? How confused do you really want to be?

OK that's 2 trick questions. I am going to say the answer to 1 is as little as possible, and the answer to 2 is you would like no confusion whatsoever.

In the world of computers everything you see or read, every game you play, every web page you view, even the very operations your computer takes to turn on and off are all some form of computer coding or languages. The real nice thing about computer languages where you are concerned is they come with there own translators.

Not everyone can speak every known language on the planet, and the same holds true with computers. There are probably as many computer languages as there are languages on this planet.

They all start with one language and its not really a language, or a code, but a form of math, and we have talked about that before, binary math, which is simple and very complicated at the same time, your basic binary math functions are:
0 + 0 = 0
0 + 1 = 1
1 + 0 = 1
1 + 1 = 10

The numbers 0 and 1 represent switches and 0 = Off and 1 = On. (that's another sentence that will get me in trouble with “geeks”)

The complications that you see and don't see, and the complications I am talking about are very difficult to explain.

I know people who can read and write HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) in their sleep but have no idea how it turns into pretty pictures on you computer screen.

Your browser, is a translator and that makes your browser selection so important. Somebody in another computer language wrote a program that translates html into something you can see and understand. In the early days of computers all entries were made in text and most web pages were in text only as well.

One interesting question that came up today while talking about today's class, was how did we get from text entries to cute little pictures, which as you learned last week are called GUI's (graphic user interface). Well in the beginning there was a computer user who was handicapped, and one of the main uses for early computers was the health industry and helping blind, deaf, and other handicapped individuals, and text entry was not really possible for them, so in came GUI's, as other people got to teaching computers they liked the GUI's and bought those for themselves, then showed there friends and here we go the birth of GUI's by popular demand.

So think of the programs you use on your computer as a translator, take the game minefield for example, if you like to play that game, you tell your computer to open it, in English, the computer translates that to computer language, opens it in English for you and you begin to play, as you play another language translates your moves, and makes those moves in computer language for you then translates that all back in English for you and then you get to repeat the process all over again, for each and every move you make. And this is why your hardware selection, such your CPU (Core Processing Unit), your RAM (Random Access Memory) and your FSB (Front Side Bus) so important, much more important than how big your hard drive is.

May 19, 2009

2009-05-19T13:00:00.003-05:00

I thought since this is supposed to be introduction to computers or computers 101 we should go back to some real basic stuff today. We have talk about many things that are not really basic information, much closer to intermediate use and low end advance user stuff. So today we go back to the basics.

A computer is nothing more than a machine, electrically operated and performs two basic functions, the input and output of a series of instructions given to it by the user, or you. So in a nut shell the computer receives data from you, processes that data, stores that data and then returns that data back to you.

Input Devices -- "How to tell it what to do" - A keyboard and mouse are the standard way to interact with the computer. Other devices include joysticks and game pads used primarily for games. Output Devices -- "How it shows you what it is doing" - The monitor (the screen) is how the computer sends information back to you, whether it be surfing the web or writing a memo. A printer is also an output device. Storage Devices -- "How it saves data and programs" - Hard disk drives are an internal, higher capacity drive which also stores the operating system which runs when you power on the computer. Basic Computer Terms you need to know: Hardware - the physical parts of the computer. Software - the programs (instructions) that tell the computer what to do Data - individual facts like first name, price, quantity ordered. Information - data which has been massaged into a useful form, like a complete mailing address Default - the original settings; what will happen if you don't change anything.

There really are only two types of basic computers and they both perform the above functions. A PC or what used to be called IBM Compatible Computer, and Macintosh or Mac. The only difference between the two at the basic level is the manufacturer.

Computers to come in many shapes and sizes, desktop models, laptops, pda's (personal data access), tablet PCs, tough books (or mil spec), cell phones, and the list goes on and on.
An application is another word for a program running on the computer. Whether or not it is a good application depends on how well it performs the tasks it is designed to do and how easy it is for the user to use. That involves the user interface- the way the user tells the software what to do and how the computer displays information and options to the user.

There are many different kinds of applications, all with lots of spiffy features. Word processing is the application that is used most often and most widely. We will start with it to learn about the terms and features that are common to most applications, as well as some that are specific to word processing. Then we will look at other major applications and what they do. Examples of word processing programs: Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Lotus WordPro, and Open Office Writer. Word Processing Word processing is the most used computer application! It has replaced the typewriter as the main way words are put on paper. Documents can be revised and corrected before they are ever printed. An existing document can be used as a template, or pattern, for a new one. So the user doesn't have to recreate standard documents from scratch each time. This is a major time-saver and helps keep things consistent.

The purpose is to produce documents and the advantage is you are creating a document you can edit or change easily.

Steps to produce a document Create Edit Format Print Save (often!!) Let's look at the terms involved in these steps more closely.

Most of these terms also apply to the other standard applications, so we will not redefine them for all.

You create a document when you open a blank document and enter text.
Features/Terms:
Word wrap - automatically wrapping the text to the next line so it all fits within the screen's width Cursor - symbol for where text will appear like: Enter text- type new text Scrolling - moving document around within window Select - Highlight text, usually by dragging. Commands and keystroke combinations will apply to the selected material. Edit - make changes Cut - remove selection from document and store temporarily on the Clipboard, which is a section of computer memory. The Windows Clipboard can hold only one thing at a time. The Office Clipboard from Office XP and later versions can hold many items. Copy - duplicate selection onto Clipboard Paste - place contents of the Clipboard at cursor location Undo - reverses whatever change you just made
Some programs will only "undo" the last change.
Others keep a list and can undo more, depending on how many changes the program tracks Insert - add text at location without overwriting existing text Delete - remove text (not saved anywhere) Search - look for specific word(s) or character(s) Replace - can replace specific word(s) or character(s) with stated text Template - a document that serves as a pattern for a new document Thesaurus - looks for synonyms for selected word Spelling check - looks for spelling errors Grammar check - looks for grammar/style errors (of limited help)

A database is a collection of data that you want to manage, rearrange, and add to later. It is a good program to use to manage lists that are not entirely numbers, such as addresses and phone numbers, inventories, and membership rosters. With a database you could sort the data by name or city or postal code or by any individual item of information recorded. You can create forms to enter or update or just display the data. You can create reports that show just the data you are interested in, like members who owe dues. Both spreadsheets and databases can be used to handle much the same information, but each is optimized to handle a different type most efficiently. The larger the number of records, the more important the differences are. Examples of databases: MS Access, dBase, FoxPro, Paradox, Approach, Oracle, Open Office Base. Graphics programs deal with pictures, either static or moving, flat or 3D. There are an amazing number of different formats for images in the world and no one program can handle them all. Adobe Photoshop is the most widely used graphics program for professionals. PaintShopPro is popular because it offers most of Photoshop's features at a lower cost and with a friendlier interface. There are many other programs. Some specialize in handling photographs or animations or creating logos. A presentation program, also known as presentation graphics, links together a sequence of slides containing text and graphics. A slide show might be used for a sales presentation or for training or to enhance any kind of speech. A presentation program includes a number of tools for creating graphics that are quite useful. High-end programs can add sound and video to the slides. Examples of presentation software: Microsoft PowerPoint, Corel Presentations, Lotus Freelance Graphics, Harvard Graphics, Open Office Impress

An FTP program manages the moving of files between computers. When you download a file over the Internet, you are using an FTP program. Programs like word processors and HTML editors that can upload files to web sites include this ability without having to use another program. The image below is for the program WS_FTP, which is a fairly typical FTP program. It shows the folder tree for both the source and destination. You can copy in either direction. Chat In a chat program you join a chat room. You write messages that appear in a window that shows all the messages being sent in this chat room. Everyone who is logged in to this room can read your messages.

Instant Messaging An instant messaging program notifies you when your friends are online. Then you can send them messages, which they see immediately. Only the one you send the message to can see it and only you can see the messages that are sent to you, unless you choose to change to a multiple-user mode. Recent versions of instant messaging include the ability to use video conferencing, to play games together with your friends, and even to make phone calls over the Internet. Examples of instant messaging programs are Skype, MSN, Yahoo, AOL and ICQ.

An Internet browser is a program that lets you navigate the World Wide Web or view HTML pages on a CD or on your hard disk. [It's what you are using to view this page!] A browser displays web pages, keeps track of where you've been, and remembers the places you want to return to. Email, or electronic mail, is becoming more and more popular as people learn to communicate again with written words. For many purposes it is superior to a phone call because you don't have to catch the person in and you can get straight to the point. No time is wasted on casual conversation. It also leaves a written record to refer back to for a response or if you forget who said what. Email is superior to the traditional office memo because it uses no paper (Save the trees!!) and it can be sent to a whole list of people instantly. An email client is the program that has to be on your computer to download and manage emails. Commonly used email client programs include Microsoft Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Eudora. Another way to handle email is with a web-based email account. Your email is managed entirely through web pages. Your computer needs only a browser to access email, compose new messages, and to reply to messages. HotMail from MSN, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail from Google are popular web-based email sites. Purpose:Transmitting messages between computer users Major Advantage:Speed Major Disadvantage: You don't know if the receiver actually reads it, though you can find out if they received it. Of course in a phone conversation you don't really know if the person is actually listening either! With no body language or vocal intonations it is difficult to convey the emotional tone you want. Irony and sarcasm are particularly dangerous since your reader may take you seriously.

A software suite is a set of applications which can each stand alone. They are packaged together for a lower price than if all were bought separately. There are usually enhancements that help the applications communicate with each other, also. Some popular suites of office software include MS Office, Lotus Smart Suite, WordPerfect Office, OpenOffice, and iWork (for Mac computers).

Tuesday April 28th,, 2009

2009-04-28T13:09:00.002-05:00

Since its raining, and I am not bringing my computer to class today we are going to talk about my favorite subject.

Gadgets, believe it or not there are more things you can do with your computer than email, solitaire, and surfing the web.

So geek out hint no one, aluminum foil for your wifi like your old fashioned rabbit ears, make a para-foil out of aluminum foil and tape your wifi antenna to it for cheap fast improved reception.

Then let's go to one of my favorite websites, and see what we can find. ThinkGeek

So here is my wishlist from ThinkGeek,
wifi detector
Stainless Steel 8GB Video Watch
USB Squid
USB Flex Light
USB Doomsday Device Hub
ImageLab Instant Slide Scanner
Levitron - Anti-Gravity Top
Nerf Vulcan Automatic Heavy Blaster
USB Rocket Launcher

Ok, I am being a little silly today but its raining outside, and I want you guys to know that your computer can be your friend, maybe your only friend if the need calls for it, one day you will be sitting around writting a cook book on all the things you can do with cheese slices like I am, and you will have wished you invested in a Nerf Vulcan Automatic Heavy Blasters and Stainless Steel Video watch. At least with the watch you can go outside, and take your movie with you.

Ok, on a more serious note I found some office supplies you might need:
Paper E-mail
Top Secret Password Notepad
Takeout Menu Organizer

And for any grand babies out there, or gift ideas for your grand babies.
Pet's Eye View Digital Camera

And on clearance today just for us.
Handmade Deluxe Magic Wand
Grow Your Own 1up Mushroom

Tuesday April 21st, 2009

2009-04-28T10:45:00.004-05:00

Lets Burn a music CD using Windows Media Player

Another good thing for us travelers, gypsy's and weekend warriors is taking our music along with us, no matter your taste in music, music always sets the tone of the day, at least for me it does.

So, let's burn a music CD using windows media player, then we will talk about other ways to bring your music on the road.

So the first thing I do is create a play list, go to your start menu and open computer or my computer, then go the file or drive that you have stored your music on. In my case, one of my external hard drives, or my J Drive. Then open the file where you have stored your mp3's. In my case the File is named MP3s.

So we are going to burn a new CD with some Johnny Cash Music, by boyhood hero. So I will open his file, which is filed under Country Music and select the songs I want to record and put on my play list.

I will select the songs by holding my control key, and clicking one time on the songs, once I have them all selected I will right click one time and click add to windows media player.

Ok, now that I have done that, look at your windows media player over on the far right you will see the list of songs you just added, you change the name of the play list (which is currently called "now playing") to any name you want, in this case I named it Johnny Cash, then look all the way at the bottom of the page on the far right, there is a save button, click on it and you have now saved your new play list.

Ok so now that we have some music playing lets burn that CD. So get a new CD out put it your CDRW Drive (CD player). Now just wait for the window to pop up a little box and ask you what do you want to do with that disk, select burn a music CD, then wait a little more and your windows media player will open back up, since we already have music playing and a play list up, the next steps are easy, look to the right again it will say drag items to be burned or burn Johnny Cash (the name of the play list we are playing) select burn Johnny Cash.

There will be an announcement in the upper right corner of how much space these selections will take up on your CD and how long it will take to burn them. In this case 17 minutes to burn and 79 :57 minutes of music.

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 - The Internet

2009-04-07T08:25:00.019-05:00

Today we are going to talk about the Internet, what it really is and the differences between the terms Internet, world wide web, web page, web browser, email and search engines. Last but not least the ultimate question, what the heck is an ISP?

So first lets define the terms by their actual definition.

Internet - The Internet was created in 1969, during the Cold War, by the United States military. It was meant to be a "nuke-proof" communications network. Today, the Internet spreads across the globe and consists of countless networks and computers, allowing millions of people to share information. Data that travels long distances on the Internet is transferred on huge lines known collectively as the Internet backbone. The Internet is now maintained by the major Internet service providers such as MCI Worldcom, Sprint, GTE, ANS, and UUNET. Because these providers make huge amounts of revenue off the Internet, they are motivated to maintain consistent and fast connections which benefits everyday Internet users like you and me.

Many people think the Internet and the World Wide Web are the same thing. They're not! The World Wide Web is what you are browsing right now. It is one of the many features of the Internet. E-mail, FTP, and Instant Messaging are also features of the Internet.

So, think of the Internet as a Library full of books.

World Wide Web (www) - the World Wide Web (www, or the web) is a very large set of interlinked documents much like volumes of encyclopedias sitting on your bookshelves at home. If the Internet is represented as the Library, then the www is your very large collection of books.

Using concepts from earlier hypertext systems, the World Wide Web was started in 1989 by the English physicist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, and later by Robert Cailiau, a Belgian computer scientist, while both where working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1990, they proposed building a "web of nodes" storing "hypertext pages" viewed by "browsers" on a network, and released that web in 1992. Connected by the existing Internet, other websites were created, around the world, adding international standards for domain names and the HTML language. Since then, Berners-Lee has played an active role in guiding the development of Web standards.

Web Browser - Staying with the Library example now lets look at what a web browser is. Think of your web browser as the "old fashioned", card catalog.

You are probably using a browser to read this right now. A Web browser, often just called a "browser," is the program people use to access the World Wide Web. It interprets HTML code including text, images, hypertext links, Javascript, and Java applets. After rendering the HTML code, the browser displays a nicely formatted page.

Common Browsers used today.

IE or Internet Explorer, a Microsoft product and notorious for being buggy, insecure and slow. The new / latest versions of IE, IE 8 is trying to address those issues, but I still find it to be very buggy. By buggy I mean hard to make it do what it claims it will do, for example the new IE8 is supposed to allow you to use add on's, I could not make that feature work at all. If you would like to try IE 8, you can download it here from MSN (Internet Explorer 8 from MSN).

Google Chrome is a new web browser that is available, it is a very simple browser with no toolbar, just an address bar, and google as a home page, when I have found myself in need of running two different browsers at the same time, Google Chrome is my second choice, you can download Google Chrome here from Google (Google Chrome Web Browser).

Opera is another web browser used by many people, I think Opera is a good alternative as well, I do think its a little slow, but you may enjoy it's ease of use and simple toolbar, you can download Opera here from Opera (Opera Web Browser).

Maxathon another web browser, I installed it and it required me to register it to use it so I un-installed it.

Firefox is the web browser I use and will continue to use, why, because I have already taught myself how to use it and I am comfortable with it, because it is faster, because it has great features and add ons, and works very smoothly. You can download Firefox here from Mozilla here (Firefox Web Browser).

Search Engines - OK, now we have located the card catalog in the Library, we need to find that special book we are looking for, that's you, you get to search all those index cards for that special book you want to read.

Google, Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, Infoseek, and Yahoo are all search engines. They index millions of sites on the Web, so that Web surfers like you and me can easily find Web sites with the information we want. By creating indexes, or large databases of Web sites (based on titles, keywords, and the text in the pages), search engines can locate relevant Web sites when users enter search terms or phrases. When you are looking for something using a search engine, it is a good idea to use words like AND, OR, and NOT to specify your search.

There are many search engines available, believe it or not, google and yahoo are not the only search engines. The following list of sites are all search engines.

Google - Yahoo - Dogpile - Goodsearch - Lycos - Excite - AltaVista - Ask - WebCrawler - alltheweb - exaled - infoseek (GO)

That just a few of them and enough to keep you busy for awhile, lol (Laughing Out Loud).

Lets move on to Email.

Email - Email is another tool, in your Library, consider having the convenience of your own postal service and that's what you have with email. A postal service of your very own and right inside your Library. How convenient.

It's hard to remember what our lives were like without e-mail. Ranking up there with the Web as one of the most useful features of the Internet, e-mail has become one of today's standard means of communication. Billions of messages are sent each year. If you're like most people these days, you probably have more than one e-mail address. After all, the more addresses you have, the more sophisticated you look...

E-mail is part of the standard TCP/IP set of protocols. Sending messages is typically done by SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and receiving messages is handled by POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3), or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). IMAP is the newer protocol, allowing you to view and sort messages on the mail server, without downloading them to your hard drive.

Though e-mail was originally developed for sending simple text messages, it has become more robust in the last few years. Now, HTML-based e-mail can use the same code as Web pages to incorporate formatted text, colors, and images into the message. Also, documents can be attached to e-mail messages, allowing files to be transferred via the e-mail protocol. However, since e-mail was not originally designed to handle large file transfers, transferring large documents (over 3 MB, for example) is not allowed by most mail servers. So remember to keep your attachments small!

There are lots of free email service providers out there that are free, (OK I just made that term up, esp or email service provider). The following list are esp's.

Google - Yahoo - GMX - Mail - Fastmail - Inbox - AOL - Want more here is a list of 1400 free esp's Free Email Providers Guide or FEPG

Should you ever consider paying for an email address? Only if you want the following: a very specific address, like your name @ professional sound / or fun sounding place. For example, skp000000@myskpmail.com and yes there is a @myskpmail.com.

I have left one subject off this list but since we are talking about the internet I need to discuss this as well. What the heck is an ISP?

Internet Service Provider ISP - In order to connect to the Internet (or walk into your Libary), you need an ISP (or a library pass). It is the company that you pay a monthly fee to in order to use the Internet. If you use a dial-up modem to connect to your ISP, a point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection is established with another modem on the ISP's end. That modem connects to one of the ISP's routers, which routes you to the Internet "backbone." From there, you can access information from anywhere around the world. DSL and cable modems work the same way, except after you connect the first time, you are always connected.

Do you need to have a paid ISP today? Sometimes yes and sometimes no, if you are a sticks and bricks then yes, a good solid DSL or Cable Modem in your home is a good thing. If you are a full time RVer, maybe not, depends on your patients, you can simply rely on finding free wireless access where ever you travel, or a temporary wireless ISP's like Tengo Net in Rainbows end.

Some full time RVer's use Hughs Net and Wildblue which are satillite ISP providers like Direct TV and Dish Network. Some full timers use air cards from Verizon, AT & T etc., I have mixed emotions about any of those, and I don't use them, they are expensive, air cards are limited to the amount of "Internet" access you get per month, and wireless access points (WAP's) are becoming more and more common.

Tuedsay March 31, 2009

2009-03-31T09:54:00.004-05:00

A review of Reader's Digest tips published in the April 2009 issue.

How to hide anything.

From all those people in your past you never want to see again.

Readers Digest suggests you go to the following websites and opt out.

http://anywho.com/help/privacy.html this is not an active link, so I searched around the site and found this: http://anywho.com/help/privacy_list.html this is a help guide that tells you how to opt out, and they prefer you use option one, so I am trying that. It was very easy, I checked all variations of my name and removed all variations of me.

Now to the next one http://www.acxiom.com/general-consumer-opt-out, not so easy to use, you have to follow another link that leads you to a form to fill out and then they will mail you a form to fill out then you can remove your name from the list.

Next they recommend you go to http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html which works fine if you know who you are.

Next http://www.whitepages.com/cust_serv/removal_form, this is the site I found me in several times, and lost of my personal history. It is not easy to use, first you need to go to there main page: http://www.whitepages.com/ and do a search for you, once you find you and all your varitions, open a new tab or window and go to http://www.whitepages.com/cust_serv/removal_form and start filling in the form and and start removing you.

Hide your identity from thieves when you are traveling.

They talk about the radio frequency that most new credit cards and debit cards put out these days, and recommend you buy a wallet that is designed to do prevent the signal from being broadcasted. I recommend you use the old fashion way, traverels checks and a more modern way prepaid visa cards.

Your eMail Address

This one I have done and is a very good one, you can go to http://www.guerrillamail.com/ and get a temporary eMail address that will recieve eMails for 15 minutes for you and send them for 60 minutes for you, then poof they are gone, and so is all your information about who that eMail address you used belonged to.

Your Tracks Online

They recommend you go to http://www.torproject.org/ and download there free software that helps block your ISP (Internet Service Provider) from tracking what you do online. Good idea if you ask me. So I did it. TOR is easy to install self installs to Firefox, and easy to use. I like it.

Internet TV for Full Timers

2009-03-17T10:08:00.002-05:00

So, everyone keeps telling me, you can watch TV on the Internet, so while I have the chance I wanted to conduct this experiment for you guys and see if that's really true.

First thing you should know, if you are using a wireless air card with limited broadband usage, your already in trouble if you want to watch TV on the Internet, I used 6 GB last night conducting this experiment, most like Verizon, Sprint, AT & T limit you to 5 GB, secondly you really need a 3G connection to make this work, you need speed, (if you are on dial up, forget it), and last but not least be careful, I have seen Verizon bills from 400 to 2400 dollars when people start exceeding there bandwidth limit and most companies do not have an accurate way to measure you usage.

Step one in this experiment, google, I googled "watch free TV on the Internet", here is what I got, and what I learned. The goal of this experiment is to able to watch full length TV show and one full length movie.

First on the google list was www.fancast.com a multichannel site, with several very good possibilities, so I clicked on a CSI Miami Episode to see what happens. I got sorry that video is no longer available, OK, lets try another one on fancast, lets try another CSI episode, so navigating through their web site was easy and I picked another to discover, that one was no longer available as well, patients is a virtue my mother says, so pick another, I am happy to report the third one played, well sort of, it did feature a way to pop it out of the screen and into full screen mode, so the picture was very good. The buffering was terrible, so lets pause it and see how long it takes for the buffering to get ahead of your downloading so you can actually watch it without the breakup of buffering, waiting, waiting, waited 10 minutes (fancast is not commercial free by the way, but free TV, well they have to make money somehow). Still the buffering did not allow me to see a TV show non stop, so on to the next one.

www.wwitv.com who advertise over 3000 + shows to watch, ok lets see if we can watch one, first you have to pick what country you want to watch TV from, then all they are is a linking site to other TV stations that have online webcasts, and they are covered in Advertisements, so next.

www.hulu.com, ok let's see what they are about? It's still loading (10 minutes now), is a good choice for random episodes of various current TV programs, they do not carry all the episodes but the clearity is good, the buffering is good, and the commercials are limited and entertaining. But no movies so on to the next one.

Next www.freetvonline.com, nope, you have to install special software to watch and it's loaded with spyware.

Next www.joost.com,

Computer Terms 101

2009-02-26T09:04:00.008-06:00

It's like learning a foreign language, what are all those new words your computer savy friends are saying: "hey, I just upgraded my RAM, got a big HD, with 350 GB's of space, and new wifi card , oh and I just noticed that the FSB on my MB, is great, I am going to check my Bios and Registry later today".

Ok, the Basics:

Right Click / Left Click when do you do one or the other, and when do you single click or double click, oh boy.

Left Click = an action, you left click when you want to perform a function or take action, its a verb, a way to take your computer to war.

Right Click = a proposition, you are asking the computer to show you what your options are, can I save, copy, paste, delete, kill, etc.

You double click when you are Left clicking on a program and you want it to open, you single Left Click inside the program when you want to open something inside a program, so you pull the file out of the cabinet by unlocking and opening it (double click), then you pull the contents out of the file you want to read (single click).

Right click is always a single click on your mouse.

Ok, now that we have muddled our way through that, what about all those Abbreviations?

GB = GigaByte and is 2 to the 30th power, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.

It can be estimated as 10 to the 9th power, or one billion (1,000,000,000) bytes. A gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes (MB) and precedes the terabyte (TB) unit of measurement. Hard drive sizes are typically measured in gigabytes, such as a 160GB or 250GB drive. The term gigabyte is often often abbreviated as simply a "gig" in speech. For example, if you have a 250GB hard drive, you could say, "I have 250 gigs of disk space." The prefix "giga" comes from the Greek word "gigas," meaning giant.

So that did not help? OK, in order you have a Byte, then a MegaByte, then GigaByte, and last the TeraByte. A terabyte is huge.

RAM = Random Access Memory. RAM is made up of small memory chips that form a memory module. These modules are installed in the RAM slots on the motherboard of your computer.

Every time you open a program, it gets loaded from the hard drive into the RAM. This is because reading data from the RAM is much faster than reading data from the hard drive. Running programs from the RAM of the computer allows them to function without any lag time. The more RAM your computer has, the more data can be loaded from the hard drive into the RAM, which can effectively speed up your computer. In fact, adding RAM can be more beneficial to your computer's performance than upgrading the CPU.

To check how much RAM a Windows computer has, open the "System" Control Panel. This can be done by right-clicking "My Computer" and selecting "Properties..." To view how much RAM is installed in a Macintosh computer, select "About This Mac" from the Apple Menu.

Virus ~ A computer virus is not much different than a biological virus like the flu, a computer virus is something you don't want to get, and something you want to inoculate for. Computer viruses are small programs or scripts that can negatively affect the health of your computer. These malicious little programs can create files, move files, erase files, consume your computer's memory, and cause your computer not to function correctly. Some viruses can duplicate themselves, attach themselves to programs, and travel across networks. In fact opening an infected e-mail attachment is the most common way to get a virus.

So how do we inoculate our computer we use an anti-virus program or software.

Anti - Virus ~ is a software program used to identify and remove those nasty virus's we just talked about, most of the more newer programs come complete with an anti-spyware program as well. An anti-virus software program is one program that I firmly believe in spending the money on, and one of 3 programs you really must have on your computer if you plan to spend any time online or using the internet.

What to do when you take your new computer out of the box for the first time.

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Before you even start plugging your new computer in and connecting stuff to it RECORD THE SERIAL NUMBER AND THE SERIAL NUMBER TO THE OS (that is on a sticker on your computer) then record the name of each of the software discs it came with, and the serial numbers that go with the individual software.

You should also know that there really are no little gremlins living in your new computer just waiting for you to release them. They live in your hard drive, the monster in your new computer lives in your CPU.

Now that you have that done lets connect the keyboard, monitor, mouse, and that's it, leave all your accessories off for the moment. Before you plug your new computer into the wall though make sure you are using a good surge protector. Just FYI, all the components in your new computer are color coded, the blue plug is your monitor, and your mouse and keyboard are mostly likely USB and they will plug into any USB port on your computer, the green plug is for your speakers or headphones, and the almost light orange one is for your microphone.

Let's make sure the computer is what you ordered, did it come with the OS (operating system) that you expected. For example if you ordered a PC (personal computer) do you have Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, or Ultima.

Now let's take a look at the software it came with. How much of that software is really junk and advertising? Let's uninstall all the excess software you don't need.

Now lets make sure you have a Firewall, an Anti-Virus program, and Anti-Spyware program. If not that is the first programs you will install before any other programs.

Now for giggles let's run our anti-spyware and see what Dell has installed on my brand new computer. LOL (Laughing Out Loud), 15 pieces of spyware all Dell Tracking Codes, threat level = harmless, but I don't really care, spyware is evasive and has to go, quarantine them all. Thanks Dell.

Now we will have to connect to the internet, today all of your registrations will be done online they don't do mail in cards anymore, and make sure you register your purchase, this validates your warranty.

Next we install the programs you want, Family Tree Maker, a Game, Quickbooks, whatever you use.

Next we install the external toys you have for your new computer. MP3 Player, Web Cam, Camcorder, Camera, External Hard Drives, External Floppy Drives, External Card Readers and so much more.

There are going to be separate instructions for every step we took today in class, just be patient and give me the time to write them.

Now we are ready to work, play, fuss at or celebrate our new computer.

Next weeks class will be on computer terms and what they really mean to you.