I’m still seeing a LOT of these showing up, and clients still contact me to see if they are legitimate. Here’s how to identify this scam.    There’s a good chance you’ve gotten one of these emails at some point over the past several months. The scammers have been sending out a LOT of them – sometimes over 200,000 in a single day. They tend to follow a predictable format. They are supposedly being sent from Norton or McAfee, and the basic message is that your credit card will be charged $199, $299, or even $399 (the dollar amount varies) to renew the service that you have supposedly subscribed to.    Of course, the recipients of these emails are not going to be charged anything. That’s just to get your attention. The REAL goal of these scam emails is to get you to call the phone number. They know that people will read this and think, “Wait a minute, I don’t subscribe to those crappy antivirus programs – what’s going on?” And the person will see that big notice that says “For information about your order, please call…”. Or it might even say, “To cancel this renewal charge, call this number”. And of course the person doesn’t want to pay that charge, so they call the number. That’s the big mistake here – calling the phone number. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Never call the number. When you make that phone call, you will be talking to a professional scammer who is very good and very clever at this game. He will sound very convincing. A lot of people are tricked by this. When the scammer has you on the phone, he will tell you that he needs to remote in to your computer in order to uninstall the software and process your refund. But in the background, he’ll be installing other malicious software and more unattended remote access tools – so that he can get into your computer anytime, even when you’re not on the phone with him. If the scammer senses that you are especially gullible, he might ask you for your credit card information in order to “process the refund”. You obviously don’t want to give a scammer your credit card information. The key to success is this: if you get an email stating that you owe some money, or that your credit card will be charged, or has been charged, don’t call the number on the email. In fact, if you want to, you can forward the email to me at pctutor@gmail.com and ask if it’s legitimate. I have one client who gets a lot of these emails. Every time she would call me or email me asking if it’s legit. Finally I told her to just put a note near her computer to remind her that these are all just scams. Then I was in her home recently, and saw this on her desk. Smart!    The post 386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

I’m still seeing a LOT of these showing up, and clients still contact me to see if they are legitimate. Here’s how to identify this scam. There’s a good chance you’ve gotten one of these emails at some point over the past several months. The scammers have been sending out a LOT of them – sometimes over 200,000 in a single day. They tend to follow a predictable format. They are supposedly being sent from Norton or McAfee, and the basic message is that your credit card will be charged $199, $299, or even $399 (the dollar amount varies) to renew the service that you have supposedly subscribed to. Of course, the recipients of these emails are not going to be charged anything. That’s just to get your attention. The REAL goal of these scam emails is to get you to call the phone number. They know that people will read this and think, “Wait a minute, I don’t subscribe to those crappy antivirus programs – what’s going on?” And the person will see that big notice that says “For information about your order, please call…”. Or it might even say, “To cancel this renewal charge, call this number”. And of course the person doesn’t want to pay that charge, so they call the number. That’s the big mistake here – calling the phone number. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Never call the number. When you make that phone call, you will be talking to a professional scammer who is very good and very clever at this game. He will sound very convincing. A lot of people are tricked by this. When the scammer has you on the phone, he will tell you that he needs to remote in to your computer in order to uninstall the software and process your refund. But in the background, he’ll be installing other malicious software and more unattended remote access tools – so that he can get into your computer anytime, even when you’re not on the phone with him. If the scammer senses that you are especially gullible, he might ask you for your credit card information in order to “process the refund”. You obviously don’t want to give a scammer your credit card information. The key to success is this: if you get an email stating that you owe some money, or that your credit card will be charged, or has been charged, don’t call the number on the email. In fact, if you want to, you can forward the email to me at pctutor@gmail.com and ask if it’s legitimate. I have one client who gets a lot of these emails. Every time she would call me or email me asking if it’s legit. Finally I told her to just put a note near her computer to remind her that these are all just scams. Then I was in her home recently, and saw this on her desk. Smart! <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/11/the-norton-and-mcafee-billing-scam/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam

Do you have all your photos automatically saved to your Google Photos account? What if you want to download all those photos and save them to your computer? Here’s how.    Storing all of your photos on Google Photos is a good thing. It’s kind of like an automatic backup for the photos you take on your phone, and it’s free. But over time, you can accumulate a LOT of photos on there. And if that’s the only place where those photos are saved, it would make me a little nervous. What if your Google account gets hacked into, and you no longer have access to it? Or something else happens, and you can’t log in? I’m a lot more comfortable if all those photos – which might represent years or even decades of events – are stored in a second location. Specifically, my computer. When you have all those photos also stored on your computer, you have control of that. In addition, if you follow my recommendations, you’re backing up your computer regularly. So that means those photos would also be backed up. When you store your important things in more than one place, one of them can go haywire and you still have the others. And how do you get these photos from Google Photos to your computer? Well, you could right click and download them one at a time. If you only have a few, that might be okay. But most people have hundreds or even thousands of photos there. So we need a more efficient process. For this we’ll use a service that Google provides, called Google Takeout. It’s at takeout.google.com. When you go there and log in to your Google account (if you’re not already logged in), you’ll see LOTS of data that Google is storing for you. Your Chrome history, your calendar, your contacts, and many more things. But for this exercise we’re just concerned about the photos. So at the top of the list of data, click where it says “Deselect all”, then scroll down to the Google Photos section and check that one box out to the right:  And if you did not already know this, you’ll also be downloading all of your videos that are stored there as well. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Next Step. Now you can choose the option that says “Export once” (unless you want to set this up on a recurring schedule). I recommend keeping the “.zip” file format:    Now click on Create Export in the lower right.And here’s where we wait. In fact, we might be waiting quite some time. Google will even tell you, it might take hours for them to complete this task. They even say it might take days. Not much you can do about it though; it’s going to take however long it takes.When it’s done, you’ll get an email (at your Gmail email address) to let you know they have created the export. Now all you have to do is click the link to download it.Once the download is on your computer, you can store the files where you want. You can leave them inside the zipped folders, or you can take them out and store them in your Pictures folder, whatever you prefer. The important thing is that they are still on Google Photos, and they are also stored on your computer. And after your next overnight backup, they will also be on your backup drive.The post 385 How to download all of your Google Photos images first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Do you have all your photos automatically saved to your Google Photos account? What if you want to download all those photos and save them to your computer? Here’s how. Storing all of your photos on <a href="https://photos.google.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google Photos</a> is a good thing. It’s kind of like an automatic backup for the photos you take on your phone, and it’s free. But over time, you can accumulate a LOT of photos on there. And if that’s the only place where those photos are saved, it would make me a little nervous. What if your Google account gets hacked into, and you no longer have access to it? Or something else happens, and you can’t log in? I’m a lot more comfortable if all those photos – which might represent years or even decades of events – are stored in a second location. Specifically, my computer. When you have all those photos also stored on your computer, you have control of that. In addition, if you follow my recommendations, you’re backing up your computer regularly. So that means those photos would also be backed up. When you store your important things in more than one place, one of them can go haywire and you still have the others. And how do you get these photos from Google Photos to your computer? Well, you could right click and download them one at a time. If you only have a few, that might be okay. But most people have hundreds or even thousands of photos there. So we need a more efficient process. For this we’ll use a service that Google provides, called Google Takeout. It’s at <a href="https://takeout.google.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">takeout.google.com</a>. When you go there and log in to your Google account (if you’re not already logged in), you’ll see LOTS of data that Google is storing for you. Your Chrome history, your calendar, your contacts, and many more things. But for this exercise we’re just concerned about the photos. So at the top of the list of data, click where it says “Deselect all”, then scroll down to the Google Photos section and check that one box out to the right: And if you did not already know this, you’ll also be downloading all of your videos that are stored there as well. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Next Step. Now you can choose the option that says “Export once” (unless you want to set this up on a recurring schedule). I recommend keeping the “.zip” file format: Now click on Create Export in the lower right.And here’s where we wait. In fact, we might be waiting quite some time. Google will even tell you, it might take hours for them to complete this task. They even say it might take days. Not much you can do about it though; it’s going to take however long it takes. When it’s done, you’ll get an email (at your Gmail email address) to let you know they have created the export. Now all you have to do is click the link to download it. Once the download is on your computer, you can store the files where you want. You can leave them inside the zipped folders, or you can take them out and store them in your Pictures folder, whatever you prefer. The important thing is that they are still on Google Photos, and they are also stored on your computer. And after your next overnight backup, they will also be on your backup drive. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/11/how-to-download-all-of-your-google-photos-images/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">385 How to download all of your Google Photos images</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

385 How to download all of your Google Photos images

If your computer is currently running Windows 10, like most Windows computers currently are, there’s a new major update that’s just been released – it’s Windows 11. It’s not something you want yet.  For quite some time, Microsoft said that the last version of Windows would be Windows 10. They said they would just continue to update it, as they’ve always done. But as they have done in the past, what Microsoft said they would do turned out to be different from what they actually did. Windows 11 was officially released on October 5, 2021 – just 3 weeks ago. The general rule for any software is that you don’t want to use it when it first comes out. The old saying “Pioneers get arrows, settlers take the land” sort of applies with computer software. The early versions will likely have bugs. So you definitely don’t want to put new software on any computer that you have to rely on. Right now, Microsoft is saying that Windows 11 will be rolled out gradually. Most people probably won’t see it come in automatically until after the first of the year (2022). But, once again, Microsoft’s actions are subject to change. Remember when Windows 10 came out, and they said you don’t have to get it if you don’t want to? But LOTS of people ended up seeing it on their computers even after opting very clearly to NOT get it. I can’t really say for sure if Microsoft will force it in. What I can say is that Windows 10 is working fine, and it will be supported until October 14 of 2025. That’s 4 more years to use your current computer and your current operating system. I might jump into Windows 11 before Windows 10 ends, but definitely not right now. So how do you keep Windows 11 from coming into your computer? At the moment, it’s not a very simple process. I’ve done this for several clients remotely already. These are the basic steps:  Check computer’s internal drive to make sure it’s healthy Check to confirm that the computer has been fully backed up Check how long it’s been since the last restart (and restart if needed) Create a new restore point (so we can get back to the current state if something goes wrong) Back up the registry (again, playing it safe if things go haywire) Add two (or three) specific things to the Windows Registry Restart the computer  Here is my official position on the process I just described above: I do not recommend you do this, unless you are a computer tech and understand what you are doing. The Windows Registry is like the “brain” of the Windows operating system. So going in and editing it is kind of like doing brain surgery on your computer. If you know what has to be done (in step 6 above) and you know how to do it, it’s fine. If you’re not sure, or you make one mistake in the Registry, your computer may not boot up again. I’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks for my current clients. I can do it through my Remote Support service (pricing and details here). Call or email me if you have any questions about it. Whoever you hire to do this, make sure they know what they are doing. Once Windows 11 is blocked from coming in, you have 4 years to decide what to do. By that time, you might even decide it’s time to get a new computer. And of course, the new computer will have Windows 11 already installed. The post Blocking Windows 11 from coming in first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your computer is currently running Windows 10, like most Windows computers currently are, there’s a new major update that’s just been released – it’s Windows 11. It’s not something you want yet. For quite some time, Microsoft said that the last version of Windows would be Windows 10. They said they would just continue to update it, as they’ve always done. But as they have done in the past, what Microsoft said they would do turned out to be different from what they actually did. Windows 11 was officially released on October 5, 2021 – just 3 weeks ago. The general rule for any software is that you don’t want to use it when it first comes out. The old saying “Pioneers get arrows, settlers take the land” sort of applies with computer software. The early versions will likely have bugs. So you definitely don’t want to put new software on any computer that you have to rely on. Right now, Microsoft is saying that Windows 11 will be rolled out gradually. Most people probably won’t see it come in automatically until after the first of the year (2022). But, once again, Microsoft’s actions are subject to change. Remember when Windows 10 came out, and they said you don’t have to get it if you don’t want to? But LOTS of people ended up seeing it on their computers even after opting very clearly to NOT get it. I can’t really say for sure if Microsoft will force it in. What I can say is that Windows 10 is working fine, and it will be supported until October 14 of 2025. That’s 4 more years to use your current computer and your current operating system. I might jump into Windows 11 before Windows 10 ends, but definitely not right now. So how do you keep Windows 11 from coming into your computer? At the moment, it’s not a very simple process. I’ve done this for several clients remotely already. These are the basic steps: <ol> <li>Check computer’s internal drive to make sure it’s healthy</li> <li>Check to confirm that the computer has been fully backed up</li> <li>Check how long it’s been since the last restart (and restart if needed)</li> <li>Create a new restore point (so we can get back to the current state if something goes wrong)</li> <li>Back up the registry (again, playing it safe if things go haywire)</li> <li>Add two (or three) specific things to the Windows Registry</li> <li>Restart the computer</li> </ol> Here is my official position on the process I just described above: I do not recommend you do this, unless you are a computer tech and understand what you are doing. The Windows Registry is like the “brain” of the Windows operating system. So going in and editing it is kind of like doing brain surgery on your computer. If you know what has to be done (in step 6 above) and you know how to do it, it’s fine. If you’re not sure, or you make one mistake in the Registry, your computer may not boot up again. I’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks for my current clients. I can do it through my Remote Support service (<a href="https://ComputerTutorFlorida.com/remote" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pricing and details here</a>). Call or email me if you have any questions about it. Whoever you hire to do this, make sure they know what they are doing. Once Windows 11 is blocked from coming in, you have 4 years to decide what to do. By that time, you might even decide it’s time to get a new computer. And of course, the new computer will have Windows 11 already installed. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/10/blocking-windows-11-from-coming-in/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blocking Windows 11 from coming in</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Blocking Windows 11 from coming in

If your hard drive starts to show signs of failure, you want to know that as soon as possible. Here’s how to get that alert nice and early.  When someone says to you, “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” what do you say? For me, I am a “bad news first” kind of person. Get it out of the way and on to the good stuff. And if it pertains to my computer, even more so. If my computer’s hard drive is having a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. The earlier it can be detected, the earlier it can be fixed. It also means there’s less of a chance of losing any important data (even though I do two different backups every day). So I have a system that is completely automated, and it checks the health of my computer’s internal drive daily. And here’s some good news:  This process/system is completely free It’s easy to set up  Here’s how you do it. First, you install a little program called Crystal Disk Info. I’ve written about it before. You can get it here. There are different programs listed on the website but what you want is CrystalDiskInfo Standard Edition. Just click on the Installer option, and it will download. Then you can install it. It won’t try to sneak anything else on to your computer. So now you have it installed, but it doesn’t do anything unless you double click the desktop icon to run it. When you run it, it will show you a window with a button that says Good, Caution, or Bad. That’s really the only indicator you need to look at. If it says Good, just close the window and go on with using your computer. If it says Caution or Bad, your hard drive is most likely in the process of failing so we need to deal with that. But I said this whole thing is automated, right? That means we need to set it up so that you don’t have to try to remember to run Crystal Disk Info regularly. Here’s how: Open the program, then at the top click on Function. In the drop down menu, look for the word Startup, and click it.    This means that every time your computer starts up, Crystal Disk Info will run automatically. And you’ll see the report about your hard drive’s health. For me, that means every single day. My nightly routine, when I’m done using my computer for the day, is to restart it and then plug in the overnight backup drive. So when I restart it, I see the drive health report first thing. If you don’t do this, your computer’s drive could be in the process of failing for several days or weeks and you wouldn’t even know about it. Better to find out early and take action! The post Check your hard drive health every day – automatically first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your hard drive starts to show signs of failure, you want to know that as soon as possible. Here’s how to get that alert nice and early. When someone says to you, “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” what do you say? For me, I am a “bad news first” kind of person. Get it out of the way and on to the good stuff. And if it pertains to my computer, even more so. If my computer’s hard drive is having a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. The earlier it can be detected, the earlier it can be fixed. It also means there’s less of a chance of losing any important data (even though I do two different backups every day). So I have a system that is completely automated, and it checks the health of my computer’s internal drive daily. And here’s some good news: <ol> <li>This process/system is completely free</li> <li>It’s easy to set up</li> </ol> Here’s how you do it. First, you install a little program called Crystal Disk Info. <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2017/01/how-to-check-your-computers-hard-drive-for-failure/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I’ve written about it before</a>. You can get it <a href="https://ComputerTutorFlorida.com/crystal" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. There are different programs listed on the website but what you want is CrystalDiskInfo Standard Edition. Just click on the Installer option, and it will download. Then you can install it. It won’t try to sneak anything else on to your computer. So now you have it installed, but it doesn’t do anything unless you double click the desktop icon to run it. When you run it, it will show you a window with a button that says Good, Caution, or Bad. That’s really the only indicator you need to look at. If it says Good, just close the window and go on with using your computer. If it says Caution or Bad, your hard drive is most likely in the process of failing so we need to deal with that. But I said this whole thing is automated, right? That means we need to set it up so that you don’t have to try to remember to run Crystal Disk Info regularly. Here’s how: Open the program, then at the top click on Function. In the drop down menu, look for the word Startup, and click it. This means that every time your computer starts up, Crystal Disk Info will run automatically. And you’ll see the report about your hard drive’s health. For me, that means every single day. My nightly routine, when I’m done using my computer for the day, is to restart it and then plug in the overnight backup drive. So when I restart it, I see the drive health report first thing. If you don’t do this, your computer’s drive could be in the process of failing for several days or weeks and you wouldn’t even know about it. Better to find out early and take action! The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/10/check-your-hard-drive-health-every-day-automatically/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Check your hard drive health every day – automatically</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Check your hard drive health every day – automatically

Did you know that Google Chrome can run a quick Safety Check on your computer? Here’s how to do it.    Open Chrome, and click the 3 dots in the top right, and choose Settings. Then, scroll down to the Safety Check session and click on “Check now”.  Chrome will take a few seconds and check for:  Is Chrome up to date? Are there unsafe passwords stored in Chrome? (My recommendation is that you don’t store ANY passwords in Chrome or any other browser.) Is browsing protection enabled? Is Chrome running any malicious extensions? Is there harmful software running on your computer?  This is what the results on my computer looked like:  If you’re practicing safe computing, and your computer is properly protected, the Chrome Safety Check shouldn’t find any problems. If the Safety Check does alert you to something that needs to be fixed, and you’re not sure what to do, contact me. Keep in mind, this is a very basic checkup. Your computer may have problems or security issues that would not be detected by this Chrome process. Be sure to have good security on your computer, and make sure all your software is kept up to date (this can be automated). The post How to do a Safety Check using Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Did you know that Google Chrome can run a quick Safety Check on your computer? Here’s how to do it. Open Chrome, and click the 3 dots in the top right, and choose Settings. Then, scroll down to the Safety Check session and click on “Check now”. Chrome will take a few seconds and check for: <ol> <li>Is Chrome up to date?</li> <li>Are there unsafe passwords stored in Chrome? (My recommendation is that you don’t store ANY passwords in Chrome or any other browser.)</li> <li>Is browsing protection enabled?</li> <li>Is Chrome running any malicious extensions?</li> <li>Is there harmful software running on your computer?</li> </ol> This is what the results on my computer looked like: If you’re practicing safe computing, and your computer is properly protected, the Chrome Safety Check shouldn’t find any problems. If the Safety Check does alert you to something that needs to be fixed, and you’re not sure what to do, contact me. Keep in mind, this is a very basic checkup. Your computer may have problems or security issues that would not be detected by this Chrome process. Be sure to have good security on your computer, and make sure all your software is kept up to date (this can be automated). <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/09/how-to-do-a-safety-check-using-chrome/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to do a Safety Check using Chrome</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

How to do a Safety Check using Chrome

There are some people who use computers, but don’t do text messages.  That sometimes presents a problem for them, but there’s a way to get around it.    Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When you go to set up a new Microsoft account, one of the things they will want you to provide is a phone number – and they assume this will be a cell phone that receives text messages. Microsoft is not asking for your phone number so that they can text you all the time with spam messages. They want to have that in place in case you ever need to verify your identity. This usually comes into play when you forget your Microsoft password. When you click on the “Forgot password” link, they’ll offer to send you a text message to the phone number you have on file, in order for you to prove that you are the person who owns that Microsoft account. Then you can reset the password. It’s a pretty quick recovery process, but you have to have that phone number already on file with them in order to do that. But sometimes I’ll have a client who has just never bothered with text messaging. So they don’t really know how to get a text message. Or, maybe they’re using an older style phone, or a no-contract phone that doesn’t do text messaging. We come to the place where you have to get a confirmation text message in order to configure the new Microsoft account, but how do you do that when you can’t get a text message on your phone? Google, of course! If you have a Gmail email account, you already have the ability to do this. Just go to this website: voice.google.com and  sign in with your Gmail email address and password. Then, just go through their process of setting up a Google Voice phone number. You can even choose one that starts with your own area code if you’re in the US (not sure how it works outside the US). Once you have your phone number assigned to your account, you can use the Google Voice service to make outbound calls, or for people to call you at that number. And guess what – you can also send and receive text messages from that number! All the instructions and configurations are at the website, voice.google.com. So when Microsoft (or any other website) needs a phone number that receives text messages, just give them your Google Voice phone number. In fact, you might want to use that number even if you are able to get text messages on your actual phone – might help reduce the number of spam message you get on your phone.     The post An alternative way to send or receive text messages first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

There are some people who use computers, but don’t do text messages.  That sometimes presents a problem for them, but there’s a way to get around it. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When you go to set up a new Microsoft account, one of the things they will want you to provide is a phone number – and they assume this will be a cell phone that receives text messages. Microsoft is not asking for your phone number so that they can text you all the time with spam messages. They want to have that in place in case you ever need to verify your identity. This usually comes into play when you forget your Microsoft password. When you click on the “Forgot password” link, they’ll offer to send you a text message to the phone number you have on file, in order for you to prove that you are the person who owns that Microsoft account. Then you can reset the password. It’s a pretty quick recovery process, but you have to have that phone number already on file with them in order to do that. But sometimes I’ll have a client who has just never bothered with text messaging. So they don’t really know how to get a text message. Or, maybe they’re using an older style phone, or a no-contract phone that doesn’t do text messaging. We come to the place where you have to get a confirmation text message in order to configure the new Microsoft account, but how do you do that when you can’t get a text message on your phone? Google, of course! If you have a Gmail email account, you already have the ability to do this. Just go to this website: <a href="https://voice.google.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">voice.google.com</a> and  sign in with your Gmail email address and password. Then, just go through their process of setting up a Google Voice phone number. You can even choose one that starts with your own area code if you’re in the US (not sure how it works outside the US). Once you have your phone number assigned to your account, you can use the Google Voice service to make outbound calls, or for people to call you at that number. And guess what – you can also send and receive text messages from that number! All the instructions and configurations are at the website, <a href="https://voice.google.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">voice.google.com</a>. So when Microsoft (or any other website) needs a phone number that receives text messages, just give them your Google Voice phone number. In fact, you might want to use that number even if you are able to get text messages on your actual phone – might help reduce the number of spam message you get on your phone. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/09/an-alternative-way-to-send-or-receive-text-messages/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An alternative way to send or receive text messages</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

An alternative way to send or receive text messages

When you’re online, do you find yourself constantly having to manually type in your name and address when creating a new account? Here’s how to do that with one click.    You know what I’m talking about. You see something on the internet you want to purchase, and it’s for sale on some website where you haven’t bought anything in the past. So you need to create an account. That means you have to type in your full name, your street address, your city and state, your zip or postal code, your phone number, etc. These are all things you’ve typed out a hundred times before. Why can’t your computer just remember these things and enter them FOR you. Good news – it can! This is a great feature that’s available in Chrome. I’m sure it’s in the other browsers as well, but I use Chrome mostly so that’s what I’ll be referring to here. Chrome will store all of that personal identity information inside a special section in Chrome settings. Then, when you go to a website form that asks you to fill all of that out, Chrome recognizes that it’s a form and what it’s asking for, and offers you the option to have it all automatically completed. Here’s how you set this up: In Chrome, click the 3 dots up in the top right, then click on Settings    Now look for the section called “Autofill” and click on “Addresses and more”  Now, where it says “Save and fill addresses”, make sure that switch is turned on (to the right). And click the Add button to enter your address information –  In the next window that opens, you enter your information. There are places for your country, name, organization, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email –  Click Save and you’re done. Now, if you want to test this, go and create a new account somewhere online. You’ll see that when you place your cursor in the “Name” field (or any of the other fields on that form), Chrome will offer you the option to auto-fill the form with whatever information you have stored. A couple of things to also keep in mind: First, you can store more than one set of info. For example, you might have a physical address, and a different address (such as PO Box) that you use for mail purposes. These can be stored separately and you can just use the appropriate one when needed. Second, you can also store payment methods (such as your credit card information) in Chrome, but I don’t recommend doing that. I also don’t recommend storing your account passwords in Chrome. If anyone gets access to your computer (such as if it were to get lost or stolen), or someone hacks into your computer, they can get access to that information that is stored in Chrome and it could mean a huge headache for you. The post Use Chrome to fill in your name and address first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

When you’re online, do you find yourself constantly having to manually type in your name and address when creating a new account? Here’s how to do that with one click. You know what I’m talking about. You see something on the internet you want to purchase, and it’s for sale on some website where you haven’t bought anything in the past. So you need to create an account. That means you have to type in your full name, your street address, your city and state, your zip or postal code, your phone number, etc. These are all things you’ve typed out a hundred times before. Why can’t your computer just remember these things and enter them FOR you. Good news – it can! This is a great feature that’s available in Chrome. I’m sure it’s in the other browsers as well, but I use Chrome mostly so that’s what I’ll be referring to here. Chrome will store all of that personal identity information inside a special section in Chrome settings. Then, when you go to a website form that asks you to fill all of that out, Chrome recognizes that it’s a form and what it’s asking for, and offers you the option to have it all automatically completed. Here’s how you set this up: In Chrome, click the 3 dots up in the top right, then click on Settings Now look for the section called “Autofill” and click on “Addresses and more” Now, where it says “Save and fill addresses”, make sure that switch is turned on (to the right). And click the Add button to enter your address information – In the next window that opens, you enter your information. There are places for your country, name, organization, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email – Click Save and you’re done. Now, if you want to test this, go and create a new account somewhere online. You’ll see that when you place your cursor in the “Name” field (or any of the other fields on that form), Chrome will offer you the option to auto-fill the form with whatever information you have stored. A couple of things to also keep in mind: First, you can store more than one set of info. For example, you might have a physical address, and a different address (such as PO Box) that you use for mail purposes. These can be stored separately and you can just use the appropriate one when needed. Second, you can also store payment methods (such as your credit card information) in Chrome, but I don’t recommend doing that. I also don’t recommend storing your account passwords in Chrome. If anyone gets access to your computer (such as if it were to get lost or stolen), or someone hacks into your computer, they can get access to that information that is stored in Chrome and it could mean a huge headache for you. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/380" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/08/use-chrome-to-fill-in-your-name-and-address/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Use Chrome to fill in your name and address</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Use Chrome to fill in your name and address

Your Windows computer has a clipboard feature that you are probably not even aware of!    Before I tell you today’s tip, a little background or “setup” information so that everyone is on the same page. One of the most useful features of a computer is the ability to Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste. If you don’t use this, you should learn how to do it. It’s really easy and comes in very handy all the time. Here’s how it works in a basic example – let’s say you have a Word document that has five paragraphs. You want to move the second paragraph down to the end of the document. Well, you could just retype the whole paragraph at the end, and then delete it from its original spot. That would achieve your end result. But there’s a much easier way! You can highlight the entire paragraph, then tap CTRL + X (this is the “cut” part of Cut and Paste. When you do this, two things happen:  The paragraph disappears from the Word document (don’t worry, it’s not gone) The paragraph gets stored temporarily on the clipboard (keep this in mind; we’ll come back to it)  Now, you go to the end of the document and put the cursor where you want that paragraph to appear. Now you tap CTRL + V (this is the “paste” part). And there’s your paragraph, where you want it. That’s how Cut and Paste works. If instead of CTRL + X, you did CTRL + C, that means you are “copying” instead of “cutting”. So when you paste, the paragraph will be at the end of the document, but it will also still be in its original position. So what’s the clipboard? When you Cut or Copy, whatever you have highlighted gets stored on the Clipboard. You won’t see this on the screen though. Think of the Clipboard as being an “invisible” thing that temporarily stores whatever you are cutting or copying. You can’t see it, but it’s there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So that’s the background of how Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste works. Now here’s today’s cool tip: You can actually view the past items you have put on your clipboard, and paste them over and over. Here’s how: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter “v”. Windows + v. You’ll see a little window pop up on your screen, and there are the last several items you’ve cut or copied. I’m not sure how many it’s able to display, but I just checked mine and it shows the last 16 items. So if you need to paste something over and over, you don’t have to go back to the original, highlight it, and copy it again. Just click to display the Windows Clipboard, and grab it from there. And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you copied text or an image – they will all show up in the Windows Clipboard. The post How to view your clipboard history first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Your Windows computer has a clipboard feature that you are probably not even aware of! Before I tell you today’s tip, a little background or “setup” information so that everyone is on the same page. One of the most useful features of a computer is the ability to Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste. If you don’t use this, you should learn how to do it. It’s really easy and comes in very handy all the time. Here’s how it works in a basic example – let’s say you have a Word document that has five paragraphs. You want to move the second paragraph down to the end of the document. Well, you could just retype the whole paragraph at the end, and then delete it from its original spot. That would achieve your end result. But there’s a much easier way! You can highlight the entire paragraph, then tap CTRL + X (this is the “cut” part of Cut and Paste. When you do this, two things happen: <ol> <li>The paragraph disappears from the Word document (don’t worry, it’s not gone)</li> <li>The paragraph gets stored temporarily on the clipboard (keep this in mind; we’ll come back to it)</li> </ol> Now, you go to the end of the document and put the cursor where you want that paragraph to appear. Now you tap CTRL + V (this is the “paste” part). And there’s your paragraph, where you want it. That’s how Cut and Paste works. If instead of CTRL + X, you did CTRL + C, that means you are “copying” instead of “cutting”. So when you paste, the paragraph will be at the end of the document, but it will also still be in its original position. So what’s the clipboard? When you Cut or Copy, whatever you have highlighted gets stored on the Clipboard. You won’t see this on the screen though. Think of the Clipboard as being an “invisible” thing that temporarily stores whatever you are cutting or copying. You can’t see it, but it’s there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So that’s the background of how Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste works. Now here’s today’s cool tip: You can actually view the past items you have put on your clipboard, and paste them over and over. Here’s how: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter “v”. Windows + v. You’ll see a little window pop up on your screen, and there are the last several items you’ve cut or copied. I’m not sure how many it’s able to display, but I just checked mine and it shows the last 16 items. So if you need to paste something over and over, you don’t have to go back to the original, highlight it, and copy it again. Just click to display the Windows Clipboard, and grab it from there. And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you copied text or an image – they will all show up in the Windows Clipboard. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/08/how-to-turn-on-clipboard-history/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to view your clipboard history</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

How to view your clipboard history

One of the most common things I hear from people is still this: “My computer is too slow!” The problem is, they could be talking about two different things.    This leads me to ask a clarifying question, so we know exactly what we are dealing with. I ask, “When you say it’s slow, are you talking about when you go to a website, it takes a long time for the website to load? Or, do you mean for example you click on Microsoft Word and it takes a long time for Word to come up on the screen?” Do you see the difference in those questions? If it’s a website that is slow to load, that’s not necessarily a problem with the computer itself – it’s just a slow internet connection. If that’s an issue, it’s time to make a call to whoever you pay for the internet each month. They can do some diagnostic checking from their end while you’re on the phone. In some cases, the modem or router (or both) might be failing and need to be replaced. You can also speed up your internet connection by connecting the router to the computer with an ethernet cable, instead of by wifi. I know that’s not always physically possible. But if your computer sits next to the router anyway, you would be better off just connecting a cable rather than connecting to the wifi signal. A wired connection is always faster. If it’s a program that is slow to load, then that could be an issue with the computer itself. There are a variety of things to check here. The computer may need to be restarted, there might be too many programs running in the background, or it could even be an indication that the hard drive is having a problem (got a recent backup?). So keep in mind, “slow” can have more than one meaning. But either way, we have methods of speeding it up! The post Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly” first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

One of the most common things I hear from people is still this: “My computer is too slow!” The problem is, they could be talking about two different things. This leads me to ask a clarifying question, so we know exactly what we are dealing with. I ask, “When you say it’s slow, are you talking about when you go to a website, it takes a long time for the website to load? Or, do you mean for example you click on Microsoft Word and it takes a long time for Word to come up on the screen?” Do you see the difference in those questions? If it’s a website that is slow to load, that’s not necessarily a problem with the computer itself – it’s just a slow internet connection. If that’s an issue, it’s time to make a call to whoever you pay for the internet each month. They can do some diagnostic checking from their end while you’re on the phone. In some cases, the modem or router (or both) might be failing and need to be replaced. You can also speed up your internet connection by connecting the router to the computer with an ethernet cable, instead of by wifi. I know that’s not always physically possible. But if your computer sits next to the router anyway, you would be better off just connecting a cable rather than connecting to the wifi signal. A wired connection is always faster. If it’s a program that is slow to load, then that could be an issue with the computer itself. There are a variety of things to check here. The computer may need to be restarted, there might be too many programs running in the background, or it could even be an indication that the hard drive is having a problem (got a recent backup?). So keep in mind, “slow” can have more than one meaning. But either way, we have methods of speeding it up! <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/08/two-different-ways-your-computer-could-be-running-slowly/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly”</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly”

You probably heard the announcement recently from Microsoft – Windows 11 is coming. Here’s what you need to do.  For quite some time, Microsoft held to their position that Windows 10 would be the last one. They would just keep doing updates to Windows 10, and there wouldn’t be any “new” named versions of Windows. So much for that idea. They announced recently that Windows 11 would be released as the next big version, starting later this year and extending the rollout into 2022. And with that announcement, they included a link that took you to a little program that checked your computer to see if it will be able to run Windows 11. That’s because the hardware and security requirements are going to be higher with this new version of Windows. So people started checking their computers, and they were finding out that their current computer would NOT be able to run Windows 11. So of course that’s when the phone calls and emails started coming in. I had several clients calling and asking what to do, should they plan on going out and getting a new computer, all kinds of questions. So, I’m here today to give you detailed instructions on how to handle the Windows 11 situation. Here’s my recommendation:  That’s right. Just wait. Right now, your computer is most likely running Windows 10. If you went out and bought a brand new computer today, guess what operating system it will have. Yep, Windows 10. That’s because Windows 11 has not even been released to the public yet. And even if Windows 11 were available starting today, do you really want to be one of the first ones to use it? New software inevitably has problems which get fixed in subsequent updates. Let the early adopters find those errors. And at this point, as I write this, we really don’t know what the system requirements are going to be for a new computer to be able to run Windows 11. Remember that little checker program that people could run to test their current computer for compatibility? Well, Microsoft took that down because they changed some of the requirements. And those guidelines continue to change. And here’s another important fact to keep in mind: Windows 10 is working just fine, and it’s going to be supported by Microsoft until October 2025. So you’re fine to keep using it for more than four more years! So there’s no rush. No need to make any changes yet. You can relax and just see what happens. Having said all that, I was able to get my hands on an early “preview” version of Windows 11. Microsoft has something they call an “Insiders Program” where techs can try out new versions of Windows to play with it and report problems. So I have a beta version running on one of my computers at the moment, and I have to say I actually kind of like it so far. The Start button and Start menu are in the middle of the task bar instead of in the lower left corner. Taskbar icons are centered (similar to the way a Mac computer displays program icons at the bottom of the screen). Of course, when it does come out officially, I’ll do a blog and podcast about what’s new (both good and bad). Until then – just keep doing what you’re doing. The post What to do about Windows 11 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You probably heard the announcement recently from Microsoft – Windows 11 is coming. Here’s what you need to do. For quite some time, Microsoft held to their position that Windows 10 would be the last one. They would just keep doing updates to Windows 10, and there wouldn’t be any “new” named versions of Windows. So much for that idea. They announced recently that Windows 11 would be released as the next big version, starting later this year and extending the rollout into 2022. And with that announcement, they included a link that took you to a little program that checked your computer to see if it will be able to run Windows 11. That’s because the hardware and security requirements are going to be higher with this new version of Windows. So people started checking their computers, and they were finding out that their current computer would NOT be able to run Windows 11. So of course that’s when the phone calls and emails started coming in. I had several clients calling and asking what to do, should they plan on going out and getting a new computer, all kinds of questions. So, I’m here today to give you detailed instructions on how to handle the Windows 11 situation. Here’s my recommendation: That’s right. Just wait. Right now, your computer is most likely running Windows 10. If you went out and bought a brand new computer today, guess what operating system it will have. Yep, Windows 10. That’s because Windows 11 has not even been released to the public yet. And even if Windows 11 were available starting today, do you really want to be one of the first ones to use it? New software inevitably has problems which get fixed in subsequent updates. Let the early adopters find those errors. And at this point, as I write this, we really don’t know what the system requirements are going to be for a new computer to be able to run Windows 11. Remember that little checker program that people could run to test their current computer for compatibility? Well, Microsoft took that down because they changed some of the requirements. And those guidelines continue to change. And here’s another important fact to keep in mind: Windows 10 is working just fine, and it’s going to be supported by Microsoft until October 2025. So you’re fine to keep using it for more than four more years! So there’s no rush. No need to make any changes yet. You can relax and just see what happens. Having said all that, I was able to get my hands on an early “preview” version of Windows 11. Microsoft has something they call an “Insiders Program” where techs can try out new versions of Windows to play with it and report problems. So I have a beta version running on one of my computers at the moment, and I have to say I actually kind of like it so far. The Start button and Start menu are in the middle of the task bar instead of in the lower left corner. Taskbar icons are centered (similar to the way a Mac computer displays program icons at the bottom of the screen). Of course, when it does come out officially, I’ll do a blog and podcast about what’s new (both good and bad). Until then – just keep doing what you’re doing. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2021/07/what-to-do-about-windows-11/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">What to do about Windows 11</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

What to do about Windows 11

Computer repair, personal computer instruction in Safety Harbor, Clearwater, Tampa, St Pete

This is probably the most valuable podcast around.

I learn so much!

Scott does a VERY good job at making the subjects meaningfull and easy.

Great show

The Computer Tutor

Everyone at some point gets really angry at their computer. Either it’s too slow, or it doesn’t do what you expect it to do, or some other thing – and you get really frustrated with it. Want to get even with your computer? Here are some ways to really mess it up!   Whenever you see a link, click on it! Lots of opportunities here. Someone might send you a link in an email, or better yet, a friend might put a link on Facebook when they update their status. If you see one that seems to lead to something interesting, just click on it immediately without even thinking about it. After all, it’s on Facebook and your friend wouldn’t have posted it unless it was something he wanted you to click on, right? That link just might take you to some website or download that will really teach your computer a lesson. Let that thing overheat! Computers have it so easy – they can go to sleep after a little while, they don’t work all the time, and most of all – they are just about always running in a comfortable, temperature-controlled environment. No more! Laptops are the worst for this, and the easiest to mess up. Just fire up your laptop, then go use it while you’re in bed. You want to just set it right on your mattress or blanket, and make sure the exhaust port (where the fan blows out the hot air) is completely covered up so that the heated air has to stay inside the machine. Now your laptop can know what it was like in the days before air conditioning! Open every email attachment! You get emails all day, so there are LOTS of chances sitting right there in front of you to cause problems for your computer. IRS sending you a bill? Fedex says they can’t find your house and to check the attached invoice? State government says you drove through a toll booth without paying so they’re attaching the bill to your email? These are all scams and the “invoice” is really just a virus – so just open every one of them and your computer will have all kinds of regrets at ever acting up. Avoid all the updates for your computer! You know those stupid updates that are always popping up – Java has an update, Adobe has an update, iTunes has an update. Why all the updates? Most of them are to patch up security holes in programs that are already installed on your computer. Well, maybe your computer could use a little INsecurity as a wake-up call. So when you see an update come up, just ignore it. Pretty soon your various programs will be so outdated and insecure, your computer won’t know what to do! Ignore those error messages! Everyone hates when an error message comes up. If your computer had its way, you would write down the error message so that you could relay it accurately to your computer tech, and that is one step toward solving whatever the problem is. Yeah, your computer would love to have it that easy, right? So just do the easiest thing – close that message and forget about it. Sure, it will probably keep coming back since the underlying problem hasn’t been solved – but how does your computer learn who’s in charge if you just give it whatever it asks for? Thunderstorm? Leave that thing plugged in! Computers are such sissies. They just don’t know how to handle a little bit of thunder and lightning. Some computer owners actually go around and unplug their computers from the wall during a thunderstorm, since that means the equipment can’t be damaged by a nearby lightning strike or voltage surge. That’s just giving in to the whims of your machine. Leave everything plugged in, even during an electrical storm. A little high-voltage could give your computer a headache it will never forget!  Okay… I hope you know that all of the above was sarcasm. If you really do want to mess up your computer, those are ways that I see happening all the time. But you should do the opposite of those things if you want your computer to run smoothly and do what it’s supposed to do. The post 6 ways to really mess up your computer first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Everyone at some point gets really angry at their computer. Either it’s too slow, or it doesn’t do what you expect it to do, or some other thing – and you get really frustrated with it. Want to get even with your computer? Here are some ways to really mess it up! <ol> <li>Whenever you see a link, click on it! Lots of opportunities here. Someone might send you a link in an email, or better yet, a friend might put a link on Facebook when they update their status. If you see one that seems to lead to something interesting, just click on it immediately without even thinking about it. After all, it’s on Facebook and your friend wouldn’t have posted it unless it was something he wanted you to click on, right? That link just might take you to some website or download that will really teach your computer a lesson.</li> <li>Let that thing overheat! Computers have it so easy – they can go to sleep after a little while, they don’t work all the time, and most of all – they are just about always running in a comfortable, temperature-controlled environment. No more! Laptops are the worst for this, and the easiest to mess up. Just fire up your laptop, then go use it while you’re in bed. You want to just set it right on your mattress or blanket, and make sure the exhaust port (where the fan blows out the hot air) is completely covered up so that the heated air has to stay inside the machine. Now your laptop can know what it was like in the days before air conditioning!</li> <li>Open every email attachment! You get emails all day, so there are LOTS of chances sitting right there in front of you to cause problems for your computer. IRS sending you a bill? Fedex says they can’t find your house and to check the attached invoice? State government says you drove through a toll booth without paying so they’re attaching the bill to your email? These are all scams and the “invoice” is really just a virus – so just open every one of them and your computer will have all kinds of regrets at ever acting up.</li> <li>Avoid all the updates for your computer! You know those stupid updates that are always popping up – Java has an update, Adobe has an update, iTunes has an update. Why all the updates? Most of them are to patch up security holes in programs that are already installed on your computer. Well, maybe your computer could use a little INsecurity as a wake-up call. So when you see an update come up, just ignore it. Pretty soon your various programs will be so outdated and insecure, your computer won’t know what to do!</li> <li>Ignore those error messages! Everyone hates when an error message comes up. If your computer had its way, you would write down the error message so that you could relay it accurately to your computer tech, and that is one step toward solving whatever the problem is. Yeah, your computer would love to have it that easy, right? So just do the easiest thing – close that message and forget about it. Sure, it will probably keep coming back since the underlying problem hasn’t been solved – but how does your computer learn who’s in charge if you just give it whatever it asks for?</li> <li>Thunderstorm? Leave that thing plugged in! Computers are such sissies. They just don’t know how to handle a little bit of thunder and lightning. Some computer owners actually go around and unplug their computers from the wall during a thunderstorm, since that means the equipment can’t be damaged by a nearby lightning strike or voltage surge. That’s just giving in to the whims of your machine. Leave everything plugged in, even during an electrical storm. A little high-voltage could give your computer a headache it will never forget!</li> </ol> Okay… I hope you know that all of the above was sarcasm. If you really do want to mess up your computer, those are ways that I see happening all the time. But you should do the opposite of those things if you want your computer to run smoothly and do what it’s supposed to do. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2015/08/6-ways-to-really-mess-up-your-computer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">6 ways to really mess up your computer</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

6 ways to really mess up your computer

It’s a question that I get asked all the time: Should I leave my computer on all the time, or should I turn it off at night?  There are valid reasons for both options, so I’ll present you with the pros and cons and you can decide what’s best for your situation.    Why you should leave it on: Maintenance and backups Your computer has stuff to do just to take care of itself.  Your antivirus needs to update itself and do a scan regularly, and Windows Updates get downloaded and installed at least once a month (the second Tuesday of each month, which is known in the geek community as Patch Tuesday).  And if you use an automated online backup process (which you should), that has to happen as well.  It’s nice if all of these things can happen in the middle of the night, when you’re not using the computer. Convenience If your computer is a bit old and slow, it might take a while to completely boot up.  There are ways of speeding up the bootup time, but it is kind of nice to just walk into the room and the computer is already on and waiting for you. Usable life This one is debatable (which is why it’s listed in both categories).  There are some people that say it’s better to leave the computer on, because when you turn it on it heats up all the components – especially the processor, which does get pretty hot.  Then you turn it off and they cool down again.  This constant heating/cooling temperature change taxes the computer’s components and thereby could be shortening the life of your computer.  If you leave it on all the time, the processor and other parts generally stay at a more level operating temperature, which means they might last longer. Heat As mentioned above, your computer generates heat when it’s running.  My office is usually the hottest room in the house because of several computers running.  If you live up north, this can be a nice thing in the wintertime!  Granted, it’s not the same level of warmth that a space heater or wood stove would provide, but a couple of computers running can take the edge off on a cold winter morning.   Why you should turn it off: Electricity usage This is probably the strongest argument for turning off the computer when it’s not in use.  It uses electricity, and will continue to do so all night even though you aren’t using it.  It still uses a little even when it’s powered down, but not very much.  So you would most likely see a savings in electricity if you turned off your computer(s) overnight. Usable life This is the flip side of the argument I mentioned above.  Some people say that your computer has a limited number of hours that it will run over its lifetime.  So theoretically, if you shut it off for 8 hours every night, you could be adding those 8 hours on to the end of its usable life. Room noise A laptop has at least one fan inside, so it does make a certain small amount of noise.  The cooling pad that it sits on will have 2 or 3 additional fans to add to the noise.  And a desktop computer can have 2 or 3 inside the tower.  If your computer is in your bedroom, you might find it difficult to tolerate that noise while you’re trying to sleep.  Not to mention the 3 am alert sound that you just got an email. Heat As I mentioned above, with several computers running in my office, it’s the hottest room in our house.  Here in Florida, that’s not necessarily a great thing, especially in the summer.  In addition to being uncomfortable, it also makes your AC system work harder, which of course adds to the bill each month. So as you can see, there are good points to be made on both sides of this debate.  You have to decide which factors are the most important for your situation. There are a few more important points to consider: First, even if you do leave the computer on all the time, you should still restart it at least every 1-2 days.  This frees up the memory and allows it to be running as efficiently as possible after the restart is finished.  And a restart should not inconvenience you at all – just do it at night, when you are all done with it for the evening.  Then it will be nice and fresh when you come back to it in the morning. Also, you can leave the computer on overnight but you don’t need to leave the monitor on.  If you use a desktop computer, just turn off the monitor when you’re done for the evening.  The computer will continue to function just like it would if the monitor were left on, but you don’t have the screen using electricity or lighting up the room all night. Finally, if you use a laptop as your primary computer, you should always have it on a cooling pad – especially if you leave it on all the time.  Laptops run hotter than desktops by nature because all of the components are crammed into that tiny space.  A cooling pad (such as this one – $12.48 at Amazon) keeps your laptop running as cool as possible   The post Should you leave your computer on all the time? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

It’s a question that I get asked all the time: Should I leave my computer on all the time, or should I turn it off at night?  There are valid reasons for both options, so I’ll present you with the pros and cons and you can decide what’s best for your situation. Why you should leave it on: Maintenance and backups Your computer has stuff to do just to take care of itself.  Your antivirus needs to update itself and do a scan regularly, and Windows Updates get downloaded and installed at least once a month (the second Tuesday of each month, which is known in the geek community as Patch Tuesday).  And if you use an automated online backup process (which you should), that has to happen as well.  It’s nice if all of these things can happen in the middle of the night, when you’re not using the computer. Convenience If your computer is a bit old and slow, it might take a while to completely boot up.  There are ways of speeding up the bootup time, but it is kind of nice to just walk into the room and the computer is already on and waiting for you. Usable life This one is debatable (which is why it’s listed in both categories).  There are some people that say it’s better to leave the computer on, because when you turn it on it heats up all the components – especially the processor, which does get pretty hot.  Then you turn it off and they cool down again.  This constant heating/cooling temperature change taxes the computer’s components and thereby could be shortening the life of your computer.  If you leave it on all the time, the processor and other parts generally stay at a more level operating temperature, which means they might last longer. Heat As mentioned above, your computer generates heat when it’s running.  My office is usually the hottest room in the house because of several computers running.  If you live up north, this can be a nice thing in the wintertime!  Granted, it’s not the same level of warmth that a space heater or wood stove would provide, but a couple of computers running can take the edge off on a cold winter morning. Why you should turn it off: Electricity usage This is probably the strongest argument for turning off the computer when it’s not in use.  It uses electricity, and will continue to do so all night even though you aren’t using it.  It still uses a little even when it’s powered down, but not very much.  So you would most likely see a savings in electricity if you turned off your computer(s) overnight. Usable life This is the flip side of the argument I mentioned above.  Some people say that your computer has a limited number of hours that it will run over its lifetime.  So theoretically, if you shut it off for 8 hours every night, you could be adding those 8 hours on to the end of its usable life. Room noise A laptop has at least one fan inside, so it does make a certain small amount of noise.  The cooling pad that it sits on will have 2 or 3 additional fans to add to the noise.  And a desktop computer can have 2 or 3 inside the tower.  If your computer is in your bedroom, you might find it difficult to tolerate that noise while you’re trying to sleep.  Not to mention the 3 am alert sound that you just got an email. Heat As I mentioned above, with several computers running in my office, it’s the hottest room in our house.  Here in Florida, that’s not necessarily a great thing, especially in the summer.  In addition to being uncomfortable, it also makes your AC system work harder, which of course adds to the bill each month. So as you can see, there are good points to be made on both sides of this debate.  You have to decide which factors are the most important for your situation. There are a few more important points to consider: First, even if you do leave the computer on all the time, you should still restart it at least every 1-2 days.  This frees up the memory and allows it to be running as efficiently as possible after the restart is finished.  And a restart should not inconvenience you at all – just do it at night, when you are all done with it for the evening.  Then it will be nice and fresh when you come back to it in the morning. Also, you can leave the computer on overnight but you don’t need to leave the monitor on.  If you use a desktop computer, just turn off the monitor when you’re done for the evening.  The computer will continue to function just like it would if the monitor were left on, but you don’t have the screen using electricity or lighting up the room all night. Finally, if you use a laptop as your primary computer, you should always have it on a cooling pad – especially if you leave it on all the time.  Laptops run hotter than desktops by nature because all of the components are crammed into that tiny space.  A cooling pad (such as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Manhattan-Notebook-Computer-Cooling-703406/dp/B001V8AC1W/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1403356010&amp;sr=8-11&amp;keywords=cooling+pad" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this one</a> – $12.48 at Amazon) keeps your laptop running as cool as possible <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2014/06/should-you-leave-your-computer-on-all-the-time/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Should you leave your computer on all the time?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Should you leave your computer on all the time?

When you get a new computer, you can’t just turn it on and start using it. Those days are long gone. Now, you have to navigate past Microsoft’s tricks and traps. And it’s important to do it right from the beginning – otherwise you could end up with a lot of frustration and wasted time trying to fix it.    Today I’ll tell you 3 of the important steps in the process I use for setting up a new computer. I go through the same process when I’m prepping a laptop for resale also.  Install Chrome and set it as the default browser  When you get a new Windows 10 computer, the browser that’s set to be the default is Edge. Edge is awful. How awful is it? It’s so bad, only about 5% of Windows users use it – even though it’s the one that comes as the default browser. This means the vast majority of people install a different browser when they get a new computer. The one I use is Chrome. It’s easy to use, and it’s also easy to use my ad blocking extension (uBlock Origin). Just go to Google.com/chrome and click the Download button, and follow the steps. At some point it will ask you to make Chrome the default browser, so go ahead and do that. Microsoft Edge will still be on your computer; you just won’t use it. In fact, Internet Explorer is even still in there (even though you don’t see it) but of course you won’t want to use it either. Chrome is all you need. If you prefer Firefox, it’s good too.  Turn on System Restore and create a restore point  It makes no sense whatsoever, but when you install Windows 10, System Restore is turned OFF by default. If your computer has a problem, or if you install software that causes a glitch, it’s so nice to have the option of taking the computer back to an earlier date and time. When you take it back to a time that was before the problem started, the problem is gone. BUT – you don’t have that option when System Restore is not enabled and configured. So you need to do that on any new computer. In the search bar in the bottom left, type the word “create” and then in the search results, click on “Create a restore point”. That takes you to the System Restore dialog box, where you will choose the “C” drive and click Configure. In that new window you can enable System Restore, configure it to use about 2% of your drive space, and then go ahead and create a restore point just in case you might need it.  Turn off ads in the Start menu  This is another example of Microsoft’s sliminess. Click the Start button, then the Settings icon (it looks like a gear). Then click the Personalization category, and click the Start tab in the left column. In that windows, you’ll see an option that says “Show suggestions occasionally in Start” and it’s turned ON by default. Well, by “suggestions”, Microsoft really means “advertisements”. You want your Start menu clogged with their ads? Of course not. No one does. Slide that switch to the left to turn it off. And here’s a bonus tip (which just might be more important than any of the other three we already talked about) – don’t connect your new computer to the internet until you get to the desktop screen. When you first turn it on, Microsoft will really – REALLY – want you to connect it to the internet before doing anything else. In fact, if you don’t want to do that, the phrase you have to click on isn’t “Don’t connect” or something simple. What you have to click on is “I don’t have internet”. Which of course will confuse some people, which means they might actually go back and choose to connect to the internet, which is exactly what Microsoft wants them to do. When you set up a new computer that’s online, that means you have to sign in to your Microsoft account in order to get into your computer. Oh, you don’t have a Microsoft account? Well then, you’ll need to create one. And create a password for that account. And create security questions for recovering that password. And if you install Office later, that means your documents and other files will by default be stored in OneDrive, rather than in your computer’s Documents folder. Once Microsoft has its hooks in you like that, it’s a cumbersome process to undo it. That’s by design. I prefer to not engage in any of that nonsense. Just don’t connect it to the internet, and don’t bother with a password. You can add one later if you need one, and it doesn’t have to be your Microsoft account – it can just be a local user account on your computer. KEEP IN MIND – the things I talked about today are just a few of the MANY configurations I make when setting up a computer. If you buy a laptop from me, that stuff is already all done for you. And I do New PC Setup for many of my clients when they get a new computer (this can all be done remotely). If you need help just let me know.   The post 3 things I do when setting up a new computer first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

When you get a new computer, you can’t just turn it on and start using it. Those days are long gone. Now, you have to navigate past Microsoft’s tricks and traps. And it’s important to do it right from the beginning – otherwise you could end up with a lot of frustration and wasted time trying to fix it. Today I’ll tell you 3 of the important steps in the process I use for setting up a new computer. I go through the same process when I’m prepping a laptop for resale also. <ul> <li>Install Chrome and set it as the default browser</li> </ul> When you get a new Windows 10 computer, the browser that’s set to be the default is Edge. Edge is awful. How awful is it? It’s so bad, only about 5% of Windows users use it – even though it’s the one that comes as the default browser. This means the vast majority of people install a different browser when they get a new computer. The one I use is Chrome. It’s easy to use, and it’s also easy to use my ad blocking extension (uBlock Origin). Just go to <a href="http://Google.com/chrome" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Google.com/chrome</a> and click the Download button, and follow the steps. At some point it will ask you to make Chrome the default browser, so go ahead and do that. Microsoft Edge will still be on your computer; you just won’t use it. In fact, Internet Explorer is even still in there (even though you don’t see it) but of course you won’t want to use it either. Chrome is all you need. If you prefer Firefox, it’s good too. <ul> <li>Turn on System Restore and create a restore point</li> </ul> It makes no sense whatsoever, but when you install Windows 10, System Restore is turned OFF by default. If your computer has a problem, or if you install software that causes a glitch, it’s so nice to have the option of taking the computer back to an earlier date and time. When you take it back to a time that was before the problem started, the problem is gone. BUT – you don’t have that option when System Restore is not enabled and configured. So you need to do that on any new computer. In the search bar in the bottom left, type the word “create” and then in the search results, click on “Create a restore point”. That takes you to the System Restore dialog box, where you will choose the “C” drive and click Configure. In that new window you can enable System Restore, configure it to use about 2% of your drive space, and then go ahead and create a restore point just in case you might need it. <ul> <li>Turn off ads in the Start menu</li> </ul> This is another example of Microsoft’s sliminess. Click the Start button, then the Settings icon (it looks like a gear). Then click the Personalization category, and click the Start tab in the left column. In that windows, you’ll see an option that says “Show suggestions occasionally in Start” and it’s turned ON by default. Well, by “suggestions”, Microsoft really means “advertisements”. You want your Start menu clogged with their ads? Of course not. No one does. Slide that switch to the left to turn it off. And here’s a bonus tip (which just might be more important than any of the other three we already talked about) – don’t connect your new computer to the internet until you get to the desktop screen. When you first turn it on, Microsoft will really – REALLY – want you to connect it to the internet before doing anything else. In fact, if you don’t want to do that, the phrase you have to click on isn’t “Don’t connect” or something simple. What you have to click on is “I don’t have internet”. Which of course will confuse some people, which means they might actually go back and choose to connect to the internet, which is exactly what Microsoft wants them to do. When you set up a new computer that’s online, that means you have to sign in to your Microsoft account in order to get into your computer. Oh, you don’t have a Microsoft account? Well then, you’ll need to create one. And create a password for that account. And create security questions for recovering that password. And if you install Office later, that means your documents and other files will by default be stored in OneDrive, rather than in your computer’s Documents folder. Once Microsoft has its hooks in you like that, it’s a cumbersome process to undo it. That’s by design. I prefer to not engage in any of that nonsense. Just don’t connect it to the internet, and don’t bother with a password. You can add one later if you need one, and it doesn’t have to be your Microsoft account – it can just be a local user account on your computer. KEEP IN MIND – the things I talked about today are just a few of the MANY configurations I make when setting up a computer. If you buy a laptop from me, that stuff is already all done for you. And I do New PC Setup for many of my clients when they get a new computer (this can all be done remotely). If you need help just let me know. <a href="https://ComputerTutorFlorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2019/10/3-things-i-do-when-setting-up-a-new-computer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3 things I do when setting up a new computer</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

3 things I do when setting up a new computer

My favorite kind of computer tips are those that address a particularly common and annoying problem, and solve that problem with a quick solution that’s easy to implement.  And preferably free.  Today is a great example of this kind of computer tip.    It’s a common complaint among laptop users.  The cursor seems to jump around to random places on the page while you’re typing.  If you happen to not be looking at the screen for a few seconds, you look up and you might see that you have typed a few words or even a whole sentence – in the wrong place. If you don’t know what’s causing it, this problem can be very frustrating because you also won’t know how to fix it. Quick fix: Want to watch my screen as I implement this solution? Full “over my shoulder” video instruction is just $2 (two bucks!) Click here for immediate access   Having seen this happen many times, I am very familiar with it.  In fact, when a client has a question to ask, and it starts out, “My laptop does the weirdest thing.  I’m just typing along, and all of a sudden…” that’s usually all they have to say because I already know what they are going to tell me.  The cursor moves around the screen to a different spot, seemingly with a mind of its own. The cause of this issue is the laptop’s touchpad.  That’s the little square under the keyboard with the left and right button.  It’s sort of the “mouse” of a laptop since you can move your finger on it to determine where the cursor is on the screen. What happens is that while you’re typing, your left hand or your right hand (or both) brushes the touchpad, ever so slightly.  It doesn’t take much at all.  That tells the laptop that you want to move the cursor, so it just does what it’s told to do.  And you end up typing a bunch of text in the wrong place. There are a few solutions to this:  Type more carefully.  Hold your hands up higher so you don’t accidentally touch the touchpad.  This is not really a practical solution. Disable the touchpad and use a regular mouse instead.  This solves the problem, but it’s not really ideal.  If you use a laptop because its portability, you might not always be in a situation where a mouse can be easily used. Connect a separate keyboard and type on that instead of the laptop’s keyboard.  This also solves it, but again can be kind of cumbersome in some situations.  Recently I came across what I think is the best solution.  It’s a little program called TouchFreeze.  You can download it free here. When I installed it to try it out, I was happy to see that the download and installation was very simple.  There was no attempt to load any junkware – you just download the file, then run it to install the program. When you run it, you won’t even see anything change on the screen.  It just runs in the background.  What it does is one thing:  it disables the touchpad – temporarily – while you are typing.  Stop typing, and you can move the cursor around with the touchpad all you want.  There isn’t even a “Settings” menu to bother with.  The only setting is whether or not you want it to start automatically each time Windows starts up.  Since it does just one job and does it well, you will probably want to run all the time. After installing it, I played around with it by typing with one hand and deliberately tapping the touchpad with the other – and the cursor didn’t move from where it was supposed to be, not even once.  This program is elegantly simple and just does its job.  Highly recommended for anyone using the keyboard and touchpad on a Windows laptop.     The post Cursor jumping around on your Windows laptop?  Here’s the fix. first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

My favorite kind of computer tips are those that address a particularly common and annoying problem, and solve that problem with a quick solution that’s easy to implement.  And preferably free.  Today is a great example of this kind of computer tip. It’s a common complaint among laptop users.  The cursor seems to jump around to random places on the page while you’re typing.  If you happen to not be looking at the screen for a few seconds, you look up and you might see that you have typed a few words or even a whole sentence – in the wrong place. If you don’t know what’s causing it, this problem can be very frustrating because you also won’t know how to fix it. <h5>Quick fix: Want to watch my screen as I implement this solution? Full “over my shoulder” video instruction is just $2 (two bucks!) <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/cursor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click here for immediate access</a></h5> Having seen this happen many times, I am very familiar with it.  In fact, when a client has a question to ask, and it starts out, “My laptop does the weirdest thing.  I’m just typing along, and all of a sudden…” that’s usually all they have to say because I already know what they are going to tell me.  The cursor moves around the screen to a different spot, seemingly with a mind of its own. The cause of this issue is the laptop’s touchpad.  That’s the little square under the keyboard with the left and right button.  It’s sort of the “mouse” of a laptop since you can move your finger on it to determine where the cursor is on the screen. What happens is that while you’re typing, your left hand or your right hand (or both) brushes the touchpad, ever so slightly.  It doesn’t take much at all.  That tells the laptop that you want to move the cursor, so it just does what it’s told to do.  And you end up typing a bunch of text in the wrong place. There are a few solutions to this: <ul> <li>Type more carefully.  Hold your hands up higher so you don’t accidentally touch the touchpad.  This is not really a practical solution.</li> <li>Disable the touchpad and use a regular mouse instead.  This solves the problem, but it’s not really ideal.  If you use a laptop because its portability, you might not always be in a situation where a mouse can be easily used.</li> <li>Connect a separate keyboard and type on that instead of the laptop’s keyboard.  This also solves it, but again can be kind of cumbersome in some situations.</li> </ul> Recently I came across what I think is the best solution.  It’s a little program called TouchFreeze.  You can <a href="https://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/downloads/list" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">download it free here</a>. When I installed it to try it out, I was happy to see that the download and installation was very simple.  There was no attempt to load any junkware – you just download the file, then run it to install the program. When you run it, you won’t even see anything change on the screen.  It just runs in the background.  What it does is one thing:  it disables the touchpad – temporarily – while you are typing.  Stop typing, and you can move the cursor around with the touchpad all you want. There isn’t even a “Settings” menu to bother with.  The only setting is whether or not you want it to start automatically each time Windows starts up.  Since it does just one job and does it well, you will probably want to run all the time. After installing it, I played around with it by typing with one hand and deliberately tapping the touchpad with the other – and the cursor didn’t move from where it was supposed to be, not even once.  This program is elegantly simple and just does its job.  Highly recommended for anyone using the keyboard and touchpad on a Windows laptop. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2014/07/cursor-jumping-around-on-your-windows-laptop-heres-the-fix/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cursor jumping around on your Windows laptop? Here’s the fix.</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Cursor jumping around on your Windows laptop?  Here’s the fix.

I love little pieces of software that focus on a single problem and solve it efficiently. A while back I found something that does this, and now I use it every day. In fact, if it’s turned off for some reason, I notice the difference almost immediately. And it’s free.    Here’s the problem: Windows has this thing called “focus”. This basically just means that one window is always “in front of” any other open windows. Whatever window you’re currently working on, that’s the window that is in front of the others – it has the focus. Even if two windows are side by side, only one of them can have the focus at a time. If you’re working in one window and then move your mouse over to a website and try to scroll down the website page, nothing will happen because that window doesn’t have focus. In order to do anything in the web browser window, you have to first click somewhere in that window to tell the computer “Hey, give this window the focus now” – and then you can scroll down the page. It’s just one of those weird things that has been in effect in Windows computers for many years. Most people have gotten so used to it that it might not even seem like an inconvenience. But wait til you get used to NOT having that inconvenience! Wizmouse is a free program (get it here) and it’s very small so it uses almost no resources. When it’s running, it eliminates the “focus” feature in Windows. You don’t have to keep clicking on whatever window you want to work with in order to do anything – all you have to do is move the cursor to that window and start working. Wherever your mouse is, that window has the focus! When you download and install Wizmouse, you’ll have a window that has some options available to you. For me, I just check the boxes to make sure Wizmouse is enabled, and I have it start with Windows so that it’s running all the time. And I have it run as Administrator.    Sometimes when I’m recording my podcast, before I hit “Record” I’ll go through and shut down whatever programs are running in order to give the audio recording the full use of the processor and memory. Later on, when I start using the computer for other things, it’s a very short time before I realize Wizmouse is disabled and I need to start it up again because I am so used to the way it makes windows work. I’ll bet you get spoiled by it pretty quickly too. Also – Wizmouse is free, but you’ll notice on the website and on the settings screen in the program, there’s a button to click if you want to donate to the programmer who created it. Always a nice thing to do. The post A little program that I now can’t live without first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

I love little pieces of software that focus on a single problem and solve it efficiently. A while back I found something that does this, and now I use it every day. In fact, if it’s turned off for some reason, I notice the difference almost immediately. And it’s free. Here’s the problem: Windows has this thing called “focus”. This basically just means that one window is always “in front of” any other open windows. Whatever window you’re currently working on, that’s the window that is in front of the others – it has the focus. Even if two windows are side by side, only one of them can have the focus at a time. If you’re working in one window and then move your mouse over to a website and try to scroll down the website page, nothing will happen because that window doesn’t have focus. In order to do anything in the web browser window, you have to first click somewhere in that window to tell the computer “Hey, give this window the focus now” – and then you can scroll down the page. It’s just one of those weird things that has been in effect in Windows computers for many years. Most people have gotten so used to it that it might not even seem like an inconvenience. But wait til you get used to NOT having that inconvenience! Wizmouse is a free program (<a href="http://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizmouse-makes-your-mouse-wheel-work-on-the-window-under-the-mouse/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">get it here</a>) and it’s very small so it uses almost no resources. When it’s running, it eliminates the “focus” feature in Windows. You don’t have to keep clicking on whatever window you want to work with in order to do anything – all you have to do is move the cursor to that window and start working. Wherever your mouse is, that window has the focus! When you download and install Wizmouse, you’ll have a window that has some options available to you. For me, I just check the boxes to make sure Wizmouse is enabled, and I have it start with Windows so that it’s running all the time. And I have it run as Administrator. Sometimes when I’m recording my podcast, before I hit “Record” I’ll go through and shut down whatever programs are running in order to give the audio recording the full use of the processor and memory. Later on, when I start using the computer for other things, it’s a very short time before I realize Wizmouse is disabled and I need to start it up again because I am so used to the way it makes windows work. I’ll bet you get spoiled by it pretty quickly too. Also – Wizmouse is free, but you’ll notice on the website and on the settings screen in the program, there’s a button to click if you want to donate to the programmer who created it. Always a nice thing to do. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="attachment wp-att-4898 nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2016/02/a-little-program-that-i-now-cant-live-without/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A little program that I now can’t live without</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

A little program that I now can’t live without

What if I told you I would give you an email account, and it’s all yours to use.  You can use it for personal or business email or whatever you want.  There’s only one catch: you can only have it temporarily.  At some undetermined point in the future, your access to that email account would be cut off and you would not be able to use it at all after that.    Would you use that email as your primary email address?  Would you give that address to all of your friends and family?  Would you put it on your business cards and give it to all of your clients as the best point of contact?  Probably not.  It wouldn’t really make sense to be tied into an email address that you will lose at some point in the future. Guess what.  YOUR email address might be a temporary one. Does your email address end with:  tampabay.rr.com verizon.net or verizon.com roadrunner.net or roadrunner.com fairpoint.net or fairpoint.com gwi.net knology.net or knology.com comcast.net or comcast.com att.net or att.com cox.net or cox.com  Can you see what all of those have in common?  Each one is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).  When you sign up with a company to provide you access to the internet, they also give you an email address (or several) that you can use. If you’re using the email address that was provided to you by your ISP, it’s only yours temporarily.  When you change internet providers, you LOSE your email account. I’ve been encouraging people for many years to NOT use the email that comes with their internet service.  And it’s kind of ironic that one of the common objections to changing their email address is: “I really can’t change my email address, because I’ve had this one for years and this is how all of my friends, family and customers know how to contact me.” They’re kind of surprised when I tell them that at some point they are going to have to change it anyway, whenever they decide to change internet providers. At that point they kind of throw up a defense that they know is weak – “Well, I like my internet provider so I will just stay with them.” Come on. You seriously expect to be using the same internet service the rest of your life?  Technically it could possibly happen, but the odds are highly against it.  It’s much more likely that you will move to a different area that your current ISP does not cover, or a different ISP in town will offer a better deal or a faster connection (or both). Or, your current provider might get bought by a larger company, meaning the domain name changes (so everyone’s email address changes).  Sound familiar, Fairpoint customers? Why put yourself through all that hassle, when you can have an email address that is yours to use for the rest of your life?  And it’s completely FREE? I’ve been using Gmail since it was introduced by Google in 2004.  And even though I have changed internet providers a few times in the past ten years, my email address has always been the same one. Of course, you don’t have to use Gmail.  There are lots of web-based email providers, and many of them are free also.  I like Gmail for a variety of reasons (lots of storage space, great spam filter, Outlook compatibility, etc.). Your other option is to just get your own domain name.  This costs about $10 per year.  Then you can have whatever email address you want.  For example, if I bought the domain name “scottjohnson.com”, I could have the email address scott@scottjohnson.com, info@scottjohnson.com, pctutor@scottjohnson.com or whatever one I wanted – because I would own that domain name. Whatever you decide, my recommendation is that you take care of it now.  When you change your email address, it’s good to do it when you have time to proceed strategically and make sure everything goes smoothly.  I can help with that.  If you wait until you are forced to change emails (because of one of the above mentioned situations), you might miss something important.  Let’s avoid that. The post Is your email address just a TEMPORARY one? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

What if I told you I would give you an email account, and it’s all yours to use.  You can use it for personal or business email or whatever you want.  There’s only one catch: you can only have it temporarily.  At some undetermined point in the future, your access to that email account would be cut off and you would not be able to use it at all after that. Would you use that email as your primary email address?  Would you give that address to all of your friends and family?  Would you put it on your business cards and give it to all of your clients as the best point of contact?  Probably not.  It wouldn’t really make sense to be tied into an email address that you will lose at some point in the future. Guess what.  YOUR email address might be a temporary one. Does your email address end with: <ul> <li><a href="http://tampabay.rr.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">tampabay.rr.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://verizon.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">verizon.net</a> or <a href="http://verizon.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">verizon.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://roadrunner.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">roadrunner.net</a> or <a href="http://roadrunner.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">roadrunner.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://fairpoint.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fairpoint.net</a> or <a href="http://fairpoint.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fairpoint.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://gwi.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gwi.net</a></li> <li><a href="http://knology.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">knology.net</a> or <a href="http://knology.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">knology.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://comcast.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">comcast.net</a> or <a href="http://comcast.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">comcast.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://att.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">att.net</a> or <a href="http://att.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">att.com</a></li> <li><a href="http://cox.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cox.net</a> or <a href="http://cox.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cox.com</a></li> </ul> Can you see what all of those have in common?  Each one is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).  When you sign up with a company to provide you access to the internet, they also give you an email address (or several) that you can use. If you’re using the email address that was provided to you by your ISP, it’s only yours temporarily.  When you change internet providers, you LOSE your email account. I’ve been encouraging people for many years to NOT use the email that comes with their internet service.  And it’s kind of ironic that one of the common objections to changing their email address is: <blockquote>“I really can’t change my email address, because I’ve had this one for years and this is how all of my friends, family and customers know how to contact me.”</blockquote> They’re kind of surprised when I tell them that at some point they are going to have to change it anyway, whenever they decide to change internet providers. At that point they kind of throw up a defense that they know is weak – <blockquote>“Well, I like my internet provider so I will just stay with them.”</blockquote> Come on. You seriously expect to be using the same internet service the rest of your life?  Technically it could possibly happen, but the odds are highly against it.  It’s much more likely that you will move to a different area that your current ISP does not cover, or a different ISP in town will offer a better deal or a faster connection (or both). Or, your current provider might get bought by a larger company, meaning the domain name changes (so everyone’s email address changes).  Sound familiar, Fairpoint customers? Why put yourself through all that hassle, when you can have an email address that is yours to use for the rest of your life?  And it’s completely FREE? I’ve been using Gmail since it was introduced by Google in 2004.  And even though I have changed internet providers a few times in the past ten years, my email address has always been the same one. Of course, you don’t have to use Gmail.  There are lots of web-based email providers, and many of them are free also.  I like Gmail for a variety of reasons (lots of storage space, great spam filter, Outlook compatibility, etc.). Your other option is to just get your own domain name.  This costs about $10 per year.  Then you can have whatever email address you want.  For example, if I bought the domain name “<a href="http://scottjohnson.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">scottjohnson.com</a>”, I could have the email address scott@scottjohnson.com, info@scottjohnson.com, pctutor@scottjohnson.com or whatever one I wanted – because I would own that domain name. Whatever you decide, my recommendation is that you take care of it now.  When you change your email address, it’s good to do it when you have time to proceed strategically and make sure everything goes smoothly.  I can help with that.  If you wait until you are forced to change emails (because of one of the above mentioned situations), you might miss something important.  Let’s avoid that. The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2014/06/is-your-email-address-just-a-temporary-one/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Is your email address just a TEMPORARY one?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Is your email address just a TEMPORARY one?

A lot of people want to be reasonably knowledgeable about one or more aspects of their computer. Not like a computer programmer or someone that works on computers all day, but familiar enough to use popular software and be able to handle things that come up from time to time. But how do you learn? There are several ways to learn, and today I’ll compare the pros and cons of 5 methods of learning.    Learning Method #1: Books If you walk into any Barnes &amp; Noble, you’ll see a big section of books on just about every computer-related topic you can think of. For every popular computer program, there are several books available to teach you how to use it. Usually these books range from $20 to $50. Some might even include a DVD with some additional content.    Pros: Books are readily available. You can find one or several online and have it in your hand very quickly. Often, there is a book available specifically for what you want to learn. And once you own it, you always have it for easy reference. Cons: Not all books are very well written so the instruction given might be confusing. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of the “For Dummies” series of books. The ones I’ve read seem to be trying too hard to be humorous. Not to mention the whole “you need this book because you’re a dummy” idea is kind of condescending. Also, a book is “one size fits all” – the instruction is not personalized for you.   Learning Method #2: Website tutorials For most subjects, there are several websites that have some basic instruction. In fact, this is the kind of thing I post on my website most Mondays – step by step instructions on how to perform a particular task on your computer.    Pros: There are lots of websites available that can offer instruction on a particular topic, and the vast majority of them are free. Cons: Since anyone with a computer and an internet connection can create a blog or a website, there’s really no telling how accurate the information is. The person that created the site might be the foremost authority on the subject, or it could be written by a teenager living in a basement in Cleveland. In some cases you can research the author’s credentials, which is a good idea. Also, a website can be taking down at any time so this might not be a permanent or even long-term source of information.   Learning Method #3: Instructional videos Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine (after Google of course)? You can go to YouTube and do a search there on just about anything, even very specific things, and it’s likely you find that someone has made a video about it. Want to replace the power supply on your Dell desktop computer? Watch someone else doing it, and just do what they do.    Pros: Probably the biggest advantage with online videos is the fact that they are visual. You can actually watch “over the shoulder” so to speak while someone does what you want to learn to do. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in many cases a video is even better. Cons: If anything is incorrect or unclear about the video, you might be kind of stuck. On YouTube, there’s no button for “Contact the video creator” and many people don’t include their contact information with the video. So if you have a question there’s no one to ask. Also, like a website, a video can be removed from YouTube at any time so you might go back to watch it a second time and find that it’s gone.   Learning Method #4: Classroom Obviously, the classroom setting has been a popular method of teaching for a long time. This is often considered the “standard” teaching model – a classroom of students who are there to learn about a particular subject, and a teacher who is an authority on that subject.    Pros: The biggest advantage of this process is the more personal approach. You are actually being taught by a human. In most cases, you can also ask the instructor questions and get personalized answers. Cons: Class size can be an issue. If you are one of 200 students, the teacher may not have enough time available to give personalized help to you or any of the other students. Also, the teacher may or may not be an expert on the subject (though you can research this before enrolling usually). Finally (and this is a big one), not everyone in the class will be at the same level. So even though you grasp the material and want to move on, there may be several others that are constantly asking very fundamental questions and keeping the rest of the class from moving forward. Or the reverse – you could be struggling but the instructor is moving ahead with new material and you could feel left behind.   Learning Method #5: One on one tutoring With this method, there are only two people involved: you and the instructor. You have a specific thing you want to learn, and you hire an instructor who knows about that area, and you are taught personally.    Pros: The biggest advantage is that you learn exactly what you want to learn, and at your own pace. If something confuses you, you can stop the instructor right there and ask a question. And with only one student, the teacher will have a better idea of how well you are grasping the material. This is the kind of instruction I do. If there’s a particular task someone wants to learn, for example, how to format a cell in an Excel spreadsheet – we do it three times. First, I do it and the student just watches. Second, I do it again but slowly and step-by-step, so that the student can write down each step. Third, we switch seats and the student performs the task following those notes that were just written down. That way we know that task can be done after I leave. Cons: Personal computer instruction is generally more expensive than taking a class or buying a book and learning on your own – that’s part of the price for learning the material more quickly and more efficiently. With remote access technology, personal computer tutoring can be done without you or the instructor leaving home. The post Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

A lot of people want to be reasonably knowledgeable about one or more aspects of their computer. Not like a computer programmer or someone that works on computers all day, but familiar enough to use popular software and be able to handle things that come up from time to time. But how do you learn? There are several ways to learn, and today I’ll compare the pros and cons of 5 methods of learning. Learning Method #1: Books If you walk into any Barnes &amp; Noble, you’ll see a big section of books on just about every computer-related topic you can think of. For every popular computer program, there are several books available to teach you how to use it. Usually these books range from $20 to $50. Some might even include a DVD with some additional content. Pros: Books are readily available. You can find one or several online and have it in your hand very quickly. Often, there is a book available specifically for what you want to learn. And once you own it, you always have it for easy reference. Cons: Not all books are very well written so the instruction given might be confusing. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of the “For Dummies” series of books. The ones I’ve read seem to be trying too hard to be humorous. Not to mention the whole “you need this book because you’re a dummy” idea is kind of condescending. Also, a book is “one size fits all” – the instruction is not personalized for you. Learning Method #2: Website tutorials For most subjects, there are several websites that have some basic instruction. In fact, this is the kind of thing I post on my website most Mondays – step by step instructions on how to perform a particular task on your computer. Pros: There are lots of websites available that can offer instruction on a particular topic, and the vast majority of them are free. Cons: Since anyone with a computer and an internet connection can create a blog or a website, there’s really no telling how accurate the information is. The person that created the site might be the foremost authority on the subject, or it could be written by a teenager living in a basement in Cleveland. In some cases you can research the author’s credentials, which is a good idea. Also, a website can be taking down at any time so this might not be a permanent or even long-term source of information. Learning Method #3: Instructional videos Did you know that <a href="http://youtube.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">YouTube</a> is the 2nd most popular search engine (after Google of course)? You can go to YouTube and do a search there on just about anything, even very specific things, and it’s likely you find that someone has made a video about it. Want to replace the power supply on your Dell desktop computer? Watch someone else doing it, and just do what they do. Pros: Probably the biggest advantage with online videos is the fact that they are visual. You can actually watch “over the shoulder” so to speak while someone does what you want to learn to do. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in many cases a video is even better. Cons: If anything is incorrect or unclear about the video, you might be kind of stuck. On YouTube, there’s no button for “Contact the video creator” and many people don’t include their contact information with the video. So if you have a question there’s no one to ask. Also, like a website, a video can be removed from YouTube at any time so you might go back to watch it a second time and find that it’s gone. Learning Method #4: Classroom Obviously, the classroom setting has been a popular method of teaching for a long time. This is often considered the “standard” teaching model – a classroom of students who are there to learn about a particular subject, and a teacher who is an authority on that subject. Pros: The biggest advantage of this process is the more personal approach. You are actually being taught by a human. In most cases, you can also ask the instructor questions and get personalized answers. Cons: Class size can be an issue. If you are one of 200 students, the teacher may not have enough time available to give personalized help to you or any of the other students. Also, the teacher may or may not be an expert on the subject (though you can research this before enrolling usually). Finally (and this is a big one), not everyone in the class will be at the same level. So even though you grasp the material and want to move on, there may be several others that are constantly asking very fundamental questions and keeping the rest of the class from moving forward. Or the reverse – you could be struggling but the instructor is moving ahead with new material and you could feel left behind. Learning Method #5: One on one tutoring With this method, there are only two people involved: you and the instructor. You have a specific thing you want to learn, and you hire an instructor who knows about that area, and you are taught personally. Pros: The biggest advantage is that you learn exactly what you want to learn, and at your own pace. If something confuses you, you can stop the instructor right there and ask a question. And with only one student, the teacher will have a better idea of how well you are grasping the material. This is the kind of instruction I do. If there’s a particular task someone wants to learn, for example, how to format a cell in an Excel spreadsheet – we do it three times. First, I do it and the student just watches. Second, I do it again but slowly and step-by-step, so that the student can write down each step. Third, we switch seats and the student performs the task following those notes that were just written down. That way we know that task can be done after I leave. Cons: Personal computer instruction is generally more expensive than taking a class or buying a book and learning on your own – that’s part of the price for learning the material more quickly and more efficiently. With remote access technology, personal computer tutoring can be done without you or the instructor leaving home. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="attachment wp-att-4898 nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2016/02/comparison-of-5-ways-to-learn-computer-stuff/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff

You read this blog. You also probably listen to my podcast. You most likely know that I do computer repair here in Safety Harbor, Florida (and remotely all around the country). So you know that I’ve been telling people, “Don’t upgrade to Windows 10 yet”. It’s too early, and there are bugs (as we knew there would be). I’ve had a few clients just this past week who went ahead and upgraded to Windows 10 anyway, and now their printer isn’t recognized. Or they can’t go online because the wifi doesn’t work. I even had one newly-upgraded Windows 10 desktop computer that didn’t recognize ANY keyboard or mouse – wireless, USB or even the old-fashioned PS2 style.    NOTE: for those of you that have upgraded to Windows 10 and your computer is working fine, that’s great. I know a lot of people already have done this and so far seemingly have had no problems. This particular blog post is for the other group – for whom Windows 10 is not working as it is supposed to. If you planned ahead properly, going back to Windows 7 or 8 is easy. You just restore from a system image backup. The catch is that you have to already have a Windows 7 system image backup created – BEFORE you do the Windows 10 upgrade. So if you haven’t yet upgraded to Windows 10, but you’re about to go ahead and do it (not recommended), you need to create that system image backup first. To do that, I use a free program called Macrium Reflect. I’ve set up this backup process on lots of client computers, and I use it on my own computer every day. (It’s actually one of the FOUR separate backups I do daily on my main computer. Yes, perhaps I’m overdoing it on the side of caution – you don’t really need to do 4 types of backups each day.) I’m not going to go into the full details of how to set up a system image backup with Macrium Reflect. If you want, I can help you get that in place, and I can do it remotely. You will need to have an external/portable drive just for that backup – you can get a 1 TB portable drive now for about $60. When this is created, Macrium Reflect takes a “picture” of your entire hard drive and puts it on that external drive. That’s why you want to do this BEFORE you upgrade to Windows 10, so the external drive will have that snapshot of your entire computer while it’s still running Windows 7 or 8. Then, if you upgrade to Windows 10 and something doesn’t work, or several things don’t work, or you just don’t like it, you can just restore that Windows 7 or 8 system image and you’re back to the previous version of Windows just like nothing happened. Important note: any work that you do while you’re in Windows 10 mode will not be carried back to the Windows 7 or 8 restore. So if you create anything important, or edit any critical documents, or make any other important changes, be sure to save them somewhere else BEFORE you run that system restore. What if you upgraded to Windows 10 and you don’t have a system image backup? Unfortunately, that’s the situation in which some people are finding themselves. If that’s you, you’re not completely out of luck. If you did the Windows 10 upgrade within the last 30 days, you should be able to use the “Go back to Windows 7” function that’s built in to Windows 10. To do that, use the search function in Windows 10 and do this search (exactly): Go back to Windows 7 or if that search does not work, try doing a search on just this one word: recovery In either case, what you are looking for in the search results is the option to go back to your previous installation of Windows 7. If you see that option listed, click on the “Get Started” link right under that phrase and follow the directions on the screen. It’s important that you have anything critical backed up before you start this process, and you also must know your Windows 7 login password (if you had one) – otherwise you won’t be able to log in to Windows after this is completed. It will take a few restarts and a good chunk of time, but if it is successful, you’ll be back to your previous Windows installation. What if you don’t have a system image backup, and the “Go back” function is not an option? If these first two processes aren’t available or don’t work, then you’re really looking at just a regular reinstallation of Windows 7 or 8. As you might suspect, this process could mean that any data that’s currently on the computer will be lost. In fact, you should assume that everything on the computer will be wiped out so you should copy anything important to an external drive or some type of backup. The important thing to know is this – you can avoid all of this hassle just by choosing NOT to upgrade to Windows 10 yet. As I have been saying for a while, there is no advantage to upgrading right away. If you’re running Windows 7 or 8, the upgrade to Windows 10 is going to be free for a whole year. So just be patient and wait for all the impatient early upgraders (AKA guinea pigs) to find the bugs so that Microsoft can fix the bugs (the big ones anyway). You can always upgrade later. Or, you might skip Windows 10 completely, since Windows 7 will be supported up to January 2020. The post The easiest way to go from Windows 10 back to Windows 7 or 8 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

You read this blog. You also probably listen to my podcast. You most likely know that I do computer repair here in Safety Harbor, Florida (and remotely all around the country). So you know that I’ve been telling people, “Don’t upgrade to Windows 10 yet”. It’s too early, and there are bugs (as we knew there would be). I’ve had a few clients just this past week who went ahead and upgraded to Windows 10 anyway, and now their printer isn’t recognized. Or they can’t go online because the wifi doesn’t work. I even had one newly-upgraded Windows 10 desktop computer that didn’t recognize ANY keyboard or mouse – wireless, USB or even the old-fashioned PS2 style. <blockquote>NOTE: for those of you that have upgraded to Windows 10 and your computer is working fine, that’s great. I know a lot of people already have done this and so far seemingly have had no problems. This particular blog post is for the other group – for whom Windows 10 is not working as it is supposed to.</blockquote> If you planned ahead properly, going back to Windows 7 or 8 is easy. You just restore from a system image backup. The catch is that you have to already have a Windows 7 system image backup created – BEFORE you do the Windows 10 upgrade. So if you haven’t yet upgraded to Windows 10, but you’re about to go ahead and do it (not recommended), you need to create that system image backup first. To do that, I use a free program called Macrium Reflect. I’ve set up this backup process on lots of client computers, and I use it on my own computer every day. (It’s actually one of the FOUR separate backups I do daily on my main computer. Yes, perhaps I’m overdoing it on the side of caution – you don’t really need to do 4 types of backups each day.) I’m not going to go into the full details of how to set up a system image backup with Macrium Reflect. If you want, I can help you get that in place, and I can do it remotely. You will need to have an external/portable drive just for that backup – you can get a 1 TB portable drive now for about $60. When this is created, Macrium Reflect takes a “picture” of your entire hard drive and puts it on that external drive. That’s why you want to do this BEFORE you upgrade to Windows 10, so the external drive will have that snapshot of your entire computer while it’s still running Windows 7 or 8. Then, if you upgrade to Windows 10 and something doesn’t work, or several things don’t work, or you just don’t like it, you can just restore that Windows 7 or 8 system image and you’re back to the previous version of Windows just like nothing happened. Important note: any work that you do while you’re in Windows 10 mode will not be carried back to the Windows 7 or 8 restore. So if you create anything important, or edit any critical documents, or make any other important changes, be sure to save them somewhere else BEFORE you run that system restore. What if you upgraded to Windows 10 and you don’t have a system image backup? Unfortunately, that’s the situation in which some people are finding themselves. If that’s you, you’re not completely out of luck. If you did the Windows 10 upgrade within the last 30 days, you should be able to use the “Go back to Windows 7” function that’s built in to Windows 10. To do that, use the search function in Windows 10 and do this search (exactly): Go back to Windows 7 or if that search does not work, try doing a search on just this one word: recovery In either case, what you are looking for in the search results is the option to go back to your previous installation of Windows 7. If you see that option listed, click on the “Get Started” link right under that phrase and follow the directions on the screen. It’s important that you have anything critical backed up before you start this process, and you also must know your Windows 7 login password (if you had one) – otherwise you won’t be able to log in to Windows after this is completed. It will take a few restarts and a good chunk of time, but if it is successful, you’ll be back to your previous Windows installation. What if you don’t have a system image backup, and the “Go back” function is not an option? If these first two processes aren’t available or don’t work, then you’re really looking at just a regular reinstallation of Windows 7 or 8. As you might suspect, this process could mean that any data that’s currently on the computer will be lost. In fact, you should assume that everything on the computer will be wiped out so you should copy anything important to an external drive or some type of backup. The important thing to know is this – you can avoid all of this hassle just by choosing NOT to upgrade to Windows 10 yet. As I have been saying for a while, there is no advantage to upgrading right away. If you’re running Windows 7 or 8, the upgrade to Windows 10 is going to be free for a whole year. So just be patient and wait for all the impatient early upgraders (AKA guinea pigs) to find the bugs so that Microsoft can fix the bugs (the big ones anyway). You can always upgrade later. Or, you might skip Windows 10 completely, since Windows 7 will be supported up to January 2020. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2015/08/the-easiest-way-to-go-from-windows-10-back-to-windows-7-or-8/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The easiest way to go from Windows 10 back to Windows 7 or 8</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

The easiest way to go from Windows 10 back to Windows 7 or 8

“Spearphishing” is one of those terms used by computer security people to describe a particular kind of computer attack. I think it’s a pretty interesting strategy to learn about.    But to understand spearphishing, we have to back up a bit and explain a few things about the fishing/phishing analogy and how one translates to the other. Most people know what traditional fishing is. You put some bait on the end of your line, throw it in the water and hope you get a bite. You’re kind of putting it out there to all the fish in the lake at the same time, hoping that just one of them falls for it. It’s kind of a “mass” effort in the hopes of succeeding with one target. Spearfishing (we’re still talking about actual fish in actual water) is a targeted approach. Instead of throwing your bait out for ALL the fish, you wait patiently with a spear, and watch to target a specific fish. Maybe you’re looking and waiting for a really big one to come along. When you see the one you want, all of your effort is put into getting that one big fish. Now we move into the world of computer security. A phishing email is one that usually gets sent out to hundreds or thousands of people at a time. It’s usually pretty generic. The email might say that it’s being sent from your bank, and that your account may have been compromised. They want you to log in and confirm your account in order to maintain the account’s security. But when you click on the link, even though you are taken to a website that LOOKS like the login page for your bank, it’s really just a fake website put up by the scammer. When you enter your user name and password, you’re giving the scammer your login credentials. So a phishing email is a pretty low-effort, wide-spread type of attack. Lots of potential targets since it gets sent out to a lot of people all at the same time. A spearphishing email is different. It focuses on a particular high-value target. Here’s an example of how a spearphishing attack might work. Let’s say there’s a dishonest home remodeling contractor in Dallas, Texas. He wants to get the client list for one of his competitors, so he hires a hacker to do this. So now the hacker has to figure out how to get into the computer of the owner of that competing business. How would he do that? First, he might go over to the business location at night, when there is no one there. He doesn’t break in, but he looks in the dumpster where the office trash is thrown out. He finds the typical office garbage, but among that garbage is some business paperwork. He finds some invoices from vendors. These are not documents that a company would think need to be shredded, because there is no confidential information included. But the hacker can use that information. He takes one of the invoices and sees that it’s from a cabinet manufacturer, All American Cabinets. Now he looks up all the information he can find about that company. He sees that they have a public email address for new business inquiries. So, pretending to be a remodeler himself, he sends an email asking about prices and inventory. The next day he gets an email back from the owner, Jack, and the email address is allamericancabinets@gmail.com. Now he knows Jack’s email address. Next, the hacker creates a new Gmail account: a11americancabinets@gmail.com. See the difference? It’s similar enough that no one would really notice that the first part is “a11” instead of “all”. Now, he uses that email to send an email to his target company (the competitor). The email might even reference the job that was listed on the invoice. But the point of the email is to make the recipient assume that it’s coming from Jack at the cabinet company. As “Jack”, he might say that they are beefing up security and requiring all their customers to read and agree with the new online security policy, which is attached as a Word document. So the recipient of that email, seeing that it’s coming from a company they deal with all the time, and it’s being sent by Jack, who they have worked with for years, doesn’t even question that this might be a hacking attempt. They click to open the attachment, but nothing happens. At least that’s how it appears on the screen. So they figure it’s just a computer glitch and forget about it. But what really happens is when they click that attachment, it activates a program behind the scenes that goes and collects everything in the Documents folder and sends it back to the hacker. And guess what’s in that folder – the client list with all the contact information and work history. That’s the essence of spearphishing. Rather than send out a hundred emails to the employees of a company, the scammer just sends out one targeted one, to a specific person, with very particular and personal information on it, to avoid any suspicion in the hopes that that one person doesn’t suspect anything. It’s a lot of work for just that one email, but the payoff is potentially much larger because of the high-value target. But you can prevent either of these types of attacks from being successful, by following these two rules:  Don’t open email attachments Don’t click on a link unless you KNOW for sure where it will take you  There are a few exceptions to rule #1, but in general I just don’t open attachments. The exception would be when I know ahead of time to expect that email with that attachment, and I know exactly what the attached file is, and I trust the person who sent it to me. The post What is spearphishing? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

“Spearphishing” is one of those terms used by computer security people to describe a particular kind of computer attack. I think it’s a pretty interesting strategy to learn about. But to understand spearphishing, we have to back up a bit and explain a few things about the fishing/phishing analogy and how one translates to the other. Most people know what traditional fishing is. You put some bait on the end of your line, throw it in the water and hope you get a bite. You’re kind of putting it out there to all the fish in the lake at the same time, hoping that just one of them falls for it. It’s kind of a “mass” effort in the hopes of succeeding with one target. Spearfishing (we’re still talking about actual fish in actual water) is a targeted approach. Instead of throwing your bait out for ALL the fish, you wait patiently with a spear, and watch to target a specific fish. Maybe you’re looking and waiting for a really big one to come along. When you see the one you want, all of your effort is put into getting that one big fish. Now we move into the world of computer security. A phishing email is one that usually gets sent out to hundreds or thousands of people at a time. It’s usually pretty generic. The email might say that it’s being sent from your bank, and that your account may have been compromised. They want you to log in and confirm your account in order to maintain the account’s security. But when you click on the link, even though you are taken to a website that LOOKS like the login page for your bank, it’s really just a fake website put up by the scammer. When you enter your user name and password, you’re giving the scammer your login credentials. So a phishing email is a pretty low-effort, wide-spread type of attack. Lots of potential targets since it gets sent out to a lot of people all at the same time. A spearphishing email is different. It focuses on a particular high-value target. Here’s an example of how a spearphishing attack might work. Let’s say there’s a dishonest home remodeling contractor in Dallas, Texas. He wants to get the client list for one of his competitors, so he hires a hacker to do this. So now the hacker has to figure out how to get into the computer of the owner of that competing business. How would he do that? First, he might go over to the business location at night, when there is no one there. He doesn’t break in, but he looks in the dumpster where the office trash is thrown out. He finds the typical office garbage, but among that garbage is some business paperwork. He finds some invoices from vendors. These are not documents that a company would think need to be shredded, because there is no confidential information included. But the hacker can use that information. He takes one of the invoices and sees that it’s from a cabinet manufacturer, All American Cabinets. Now he looks up all the information he can find about that company. He sees that they have a public email address for new business inquiries. So, pretending to be a remodeler himself, he sends an email asking about prices and inventory. The next day he gets an email back from the owner, Jack, and the email address is allamericancabinets@gmail.com. Now he knows Jack’s email address. Next, the hacker creates a new Gmail account: a11americancabinets@gmail.com. See the difference? It’s similar enough that no one would really notice that the first part is “a11” instead of “all”. Now, he uses that email to send an email to his target company (the competitor). The email might even reference the job that was listed on the invoice. But the point of the email is to make the recipient assume that it’s coming from Jack at the cabinet company. As “Jack”, he might say that they are beefing up security and requiring all their customers to read and agree with the new online security policy, which is attached as a Word document. So the recipient of that email, seeing that it’s coming from a company they deal with all the time, and it’s being sent by Jack, who they have worked with for years, doesn’t even question that this might be a hacking attempt. They click to open the attachment, but nothing happens. At least that’s how it appears on the screen. So they figure it’s just a computer glitch and forget about it. But what really happens is when they click that attachment, it activates a program behind the scenes that goes and collects everything in the Documents folder and sends it back to the hacker. And guess what’s in that folder – the client list with all the contact information and work history. That’s the essence of spearphishing. Rather than send out a hundred emails to the employees of a company, the scammer just sends out one targeted one, to a specific person, with very particular and personal information on it, to avoid any suspicion in the hopes that that one person doesn’t suspect anything. It’s a lot of work for just that one email, but the payoff is potentially much larger because of the high-value target. But you can prevent either of these types of attacks from being successful, by following these two rules: <ol> <li>Don’t open email attachments</li> <li>Don’t click on a link unless you KNOW for sure where it will take you</li> </ol> There are a few exceptions to rule #1, but in general I just don’t open attachments. The exception would be when I know ahead of time to expect that email with that attachment, and I know exactly what the attached file is, and I trust the person who sent it to me. <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2019/11/what-is-spearphishing/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">What is spearphishing?</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

What is spearphishing?

If you have any kind of vision challenge, or if your eyesight is just gradually getting worse over time, you aren’t the only one. One nice feature of Windows 10 – you can make everything bigger and easier to read.    I grew up wearing glasses since I was 8 years old. I could see things fine up close, but everything was blurry far away. About 12 years ago I had LASIK surgery to correct my vision.  LASIK stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis” and it’s amazing. The whole procedure lasted about 15  minutes and the next day I just couldn’t believe it. I could go outside here in sunny Florida and see faraway things, perfectly clearly, without glasses. But there was a downside. After I had the surgery, I did not have the same close-up vision I had before. So I could see things far away with no problem, but I needed to wear reading glasses to read a book or to see something up close. And to be fair, the doctor told me this would most likely happen. In fact, he said that if I wanted to, I could have one eye corrected to see far away, and the other eye corrected just to see things up close. That was an option I pretty quickly declined. I knew I would probably eventually get used to it, but I just didn’t like the idea of having drastically different vision in each eye. And I really don’t mind too much having to wear reading glasses. Quality of vision definitely comes into play when you’re using a computer. I’m on my computer most of the day so it’s a big factor. I actually have a particular pair of readers for when I’m using the computer, and I use a different strength for when I’m reading a book. This is because the computer screen is farther away from my eyes than a book I’m holding. One thing Microsoft has done well with Windows 10 is allowing adjustments to be made for people with different eyesight abilities. There are several settings available to make it easy to see what’s on the screen. And here’s how you get to those settings: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter U. This brings up the Display options, and there are a few controls on here you might want to experiment with. First, you’ll see a slide bar where you can make the text on the screen bigger. When it’s the size you like, click Apply.  Then below that is the option to make everything bigger – this includes the apps AND the text that you see on the screen.  You’ll also notice an option to make the cursor bigger, in case you have trouble seeing it on the screen:  And finally, you’ll see a link where you can control the brightness of the screen. For me, everything is easier to see when it’s brighter.    If you’re on a computer for much of the day like I am, it makes a big difference when everything is easier to see and read. And it’s better for the health of your eyesight in the long run too.   The post How to make everything on your screen bigger first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If you have any kind of vision challenge, or if your eyesight is just gradually getting worse over time, you aren’t the only one. One nice feature of Windows 10 – you can make everything bigger and easier to read. I grew up wearing glasses since I was 8 years old. I could see things fine up close, but everything was blurry far away. About 12 years ago I had <a href="https://www.allaboutvision.com/visionsurgery/lasik.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LASIK surgery</a> to correct my vision.  LASIK stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis” and it’s amazing. The whole procedure lasted about 15  minutes and the next day I just couldn’t believe it. I could go outside here in sunny Florida and see faraway things, perfectly clearly, without glasses. But there was a downside. After I had the surgery, I did not have the same close-up vision I had before. So I could see things far away with no problem, but I needed to wear reading glasses to read a book or to see something up close. And to be fair, the doctor told me this would most likely happen. In fact, he said that if I wanted to, I could have one eye corrected to see far away, and the other eye corrected just to see things up close. That was an option I pretty quickly declined. I knew I would probably eventually get used to it, but I just didn’t like the idea of having drastically different vision in each eye. And I really don’t mind too much having to wear reading glasses. Quality of vision definitely comes into play when you’re using a computer. I’m on my computer most of the day so it’s a big factor. I actually have a particular pair of readers for when I’m using the computer, and I use a different strength for when I’m reading a book. This is because the computer screen is farther away from my eyes than a book I’m holding. One thing Microsoft has done well with Windows 10 is allowing adjustments to be made for people with different eyesight abilities. There are several settings available to make it easy to see what’s on the screen. And here’s how you get to those settings: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter U. This brings up the Display options, and there are a few controls on here you might want to experiment with. First, you’ll see a slide bar where you can make the text on the screen bigger. When it’s the size you like, click Apply. Then below that is the option to make everything bigger – this includes the apps AND the text that you see on the screen. You’ll also notice an option to make the cursor bigger, in case you have trouble seeing it on the screen: And finally, you’ll see a link where you can control the brightness of the screen. For me, everything is easier to see when it’s brighter. If you’re on a computer for much of the day like I am, it makes a big difference when everything is easier to see and read. And it’s better for the health of your eyesight in the long run too. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2020/03/how-to-make-everything-on-your-screen-bigger/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to make everything on your screen bigger</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

How to make everything on your screen bigger

Recently a client called me in a panic, because he was in the middle of using his laptop and suddenly it shut off and now it wouldn’t boot up again. By all appearances, his laptop was just dead. Here’s how we handled it.    I have to tell you, I really love using this trick. To someone that watches it happen, it’s like magic. One minute their computer is completely dead – no lights, no fan, nothing on the screen, and pushing the power button has no effect at all. Many times when people contact me with this situation, they are already thinking “Great, now I have to buy a new laptop”. That just makes the effect that much more impressive when their laptop is suddenly working fine again. What happens is that sometimes the computer can slip into a Hibernate mode and not be able to come out of it on its own. Kind of like a person with a traumatic injury that goes into a coma. Except with a person, usually you have to just wait and hope they come out of it. With your laptop, we can snap it back into reality with this little trick. Here’s the process: 1. Unplug the power cord 2. Remove the battery (you’ll need to flip the laptop over to get to the battery) 3. Turn the laptop back over as if you’re going to use it, then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds (yes, you won’t see anything happen since the battery and power cord are disconnected) 4. Plug in the power cord (with the battery still removed) 5. Tap the power button as you normally would to turn on the computer, and watch it boot up like normal (magic!) 6. After it is fully booted up, go through the shut down procedure to turn it off 7. Reinsert the battery 8. Boot it up again, and you’re back in business This works on both PC and Mac laptops, although the problem that sometimes arises is that some are poorly designed and you aren’t able to easily remove the battery without disassembling the laptop. You can blame the manufacturer for that inconvenience. The post The secret repair trick that techs don’t want you to know first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Recently a client called me in a panic, because he was in the middle of using his laptop and suddenly it shut off and now it wouldn’t boot up again. By all appearances, his laptop was just dead. Here’s how we handled it. I have to tell you, I really love using this trick. To someone that watches it happen, it’s like magic. One minute their computer is completely dead – no lights, no fan, nothing on the screen, and pushing the power button has no effect at all. Many times when people contact me with this situation, they are already thinking “Great, now I have to buy a new laptop”. That just makes the effect that much more impressive when their laptop is suddenly working fine again. What happens is that sometimes the computer can slip into a Hibernate mode and not be able to come out of it on its own. Kind of like a person with a traumatic injury that goes into a coma. Except with a person, usually you have to just wait and hope they come out of it. With your laptop, we can snap it back into reality with this little trick. Here’s the process: 1. Unplug the power cord 2. Remove the battery (you’ll need to flip the laptop over to get to the battery) 3. Turn the laptop back over as if you’re going to use it, then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds (yes, you won’t see anything happen since the battery and power cord are disconnected) 4. Plug in the power cord (with the battery still removed) 5. Tap the power button as you normally would to turn on the computer, and watch it boot up like normal (magic!) 6. After it is fully booted up, go through the shut down procedure to turn it off 7. Reinsert the battery 8. Boot it up again, and you’re back in business This works on both PC and Mac laptops, although the problem that sometimes arises is that some are poorly designed and you aren’t able to easily remove the battery without disassembling the laptop. You can blame the manufacturer for that inconvenience. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2017/08/the-secret-repair-trick-that-techs-dont-want-you-to-know/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The secret repair trick that techs don’t want you to know</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

The secret repair trick that techs don’t want you to know

This week I’m going to show you some interesting things you can do with YouTube. You might not use all of them, but hopefully you will find one or two of them helpful, or at least fun to try out. I love “discovering” these kinds of little-known things and bringing them to you here on my blog, and on my podcast.    Trick 1: Download any YouTube video to your computer, without installing other software Sometimes you might watch a video you really like, so you bookmark it for easy access. But then you go back to YouTube a week later or a month later, and it’s gone. That happens all that time, for a variety of reasons. You can avoid that problem though. Instead of bookmarking it to go back and watch it on YouTube, just download the video to your own computer.  Then you can watch it anytime – even if you aren’t connected to the internet. Example: You like this video of this guy ranting about waiting in line at the post office (it actually is a pretty funny video if you want to watch it). When the video is on your screen, look up at the address bar. You’ll see the web address of the video displayed there (it’s also called the URL).  It looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs All you have to do is click in the address bar, and change the web address to this: pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs and then hit the Enter key on your keyboard. This will take you to a page where you will see a little preview of the video, and links where you can click to download the video.  Those links take you to a variety of other sites. Check them out and see which one you like best.  Yes, I know you could just go directly to any of those sites and copy/paste the URL of the video itself. The idea with these little YouTube tricks is that you don’t have to remember or bookmark all those other websites in order to download the video. Just add “pwn” to the YouTube address.   Trick 2: Download just the AUDIO from any YouTube video Maybe you subscribe to a YouTube channel that puts out a new video each day or each week, but you don’t really need to see the video portion. For some videos, the only thing to see is the person talking to the camera. Or, maybe you want to listen to the content while you’re driving, and it’s obviously not safe to watch the video then, so all you need is the audio. When you have the audio file saved, you can listen to it on your computer, or you could put it on your MP3 player or your phone for listening at your convenience. Example: There’s a video of Eric Clapton performing unplugged in 1992.  It’s a little over an hour long, so if you’re a Clapton fan, it would make a great sound file for while you’re out on a run, but obviously you don’t want to stream the video from YouTube and watch it while you’re running. You just need to do a little tweaking to the URL, similar to what we did in the first trick. The web address of the video will look like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA You will want to move your cursor up there and change it to this: listentoyoutube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA That takes you to a new page.  Look for this image and click the Go button. NOTE: This site has a lot of display ads and you might be tempted to click on things other than what I describe below. Don’t do that.  That will take you to a different page, where you’ll see a link to click for your Download button:  Finally, you’ll see a button to actually download the audio file in MP3 format:  When you click that, the file will be saved to your computer (usually it goes in the Downloads folder, but it might go somewhere else if you have set your preferences differently from the default).   Trick 3: Play a video from a certain starting point You find a video on YouTube, and it shows people walking on a sidewalk where there’s a patch of ice. We all love to watch people fall down, right? The problem is, this video goes quite a way in before you actually see someone fall down. You know if you post this on Facebook, people will get bored pretty quickly if they don’t see some slipping and falling pretty quickly. So what you need to do is “tweak” the URL so that the video doesn’t start playing at the very beginning – it starts playing at the point you want it to. Here’s the video we’ll use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24 You check the video and find out that there are a bunch of people that “almost” fall, but the first person that actually hits the ground happens at the [1:32] point in the video.  So that’s where you want the video to start playing. First, you have to convert that initial stretch of time to seconds.  One minute and 32 seconds translates to 92 seconds total, so “92” is the important number here. All you have to do is add #t=92 to the end of the video address.  So the adjusted URL would look like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24#t=92 Of course, you can substitute any number at the end, depending on exactly where you want to video to start playing when someone goes to that address. What YouTube tricks do YOU know? Put them in the comments below! The post 3 Cool YouTube Tricks first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

This week I’m going to show you some interesting things you can do with YouTube. You might not use all of them, but hopefully you will find one or two of them helpful, or at least fun to try out. I love “discovering” these kinds of little-known things and bringing them to you here on my blog, and on my podcast. <h2>Trick 1: Download any YouTube video to your computer, without installing other software</h2> Sometimes you might watch a video you really like, so you bookmark it for easy access. But then you go back to YouTube a week later or a month later, and it’s gone. That happens all that time, for a variety of reasons. You can avoid that problem though. Instead of bookmarking it to go back and watch it on YouTube, just download the video to your own computer.  Then you can watch it anytime – even if you aren’t connected to the internet. Example: You like <a href="http://youtu.be/vDvaJJyUpTs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this video</a> of this guy ranting about waiting in line at the post office (it actually is a pretty funny video if you want to watch it). When the video is on your screen, look up at the address bar. You’ll see the web address of the video displayed there (it’s also called the URL).  It looks like this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs</a> All you have to do is click in the address bar, and change the web address to this: <a href="http://pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=vDvaJJyUpTs</a> and then hit the Enter key on your keyboard. This will take you to a page where you will see a little preview of the video, and links where you can click to download the video.  Those links take you to a variety of other sites. Check them out and see which one you like best. Yes, I know you could just go directly to any of those sites and copy/paste the URL of the video itself. The idea with these little YouTube tricks is that you don’t have to remember or bookmark all those other websites in order to download the video. Just add “pwn” to the YouTube address. <h2>Trick 2: Download just the AUDIO from any YouTube video</h2> Maybe you subscribe to a YouTube channel that puts out a new video each day or each week, but you don’t really need to see the video portion. For some videos, the only thing to see is the person talking to the camera. Or, maybe you want to listen to the content while you’re driving, and it’s obviously not safe to watch the video then, so all you need is the audio. When you have the audio file saved, you can listen to it on your computer, or you could put it on your MP3 player or your phone for listening at your convenience. Example: There’s a <a href="http://youtu.be/w24A2eesrUA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">video of Eric Clapton</a> performing unplugged in 1992.  It’s a little over an hour long, so if you’re a Clapton fan, it would make a great sound file for while you’re out on a run, but obviously you don’t want to stream the video from YouTube and watch it while you’re running. You just need to do a little tweaking to the URL, similar to what we did in the first trick. The web address of the video will look like this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA</a> You will want to move your cursor up there and change it to this: <a href="http://listentoyoutube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">listentoyoutube.com/watch?v=w24A2eesrUA</a> That takes you to a new page.  Look for this image and click the Go button. NOTE: This site has a lot of display ads and you might be tempted to click on things other than what I describe below. Don’t do that. That will take you to a different page, where you’ll see a link to click for your Download button: Finally, you’ll see a button to actually download the audio file in MP3 format: When you click that, the file will be saved to your computer (usually it goes in the Downloads folder, but it might go somewhere else if you have set your preferences differently from the default). <h2>Trick 3: Play a video from a certain starting point</h2> You find a video on YouTube, and it shows people walking on a sidewalk where there’s a patch of ice. We all love to watch people fall down, right? The problem is, this video goes quite a way in before you actually see someone fall down. You know if you post this on Facebook, people will get bored pretty quickly if they don’t see some slipping and falling pretty quickly. So what you need to do is “tweak” the URL so that the video doesn’t start playing at the very beginning – it starts playing at the point you want it to. Here’s the video we’ll use: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24</a> You check the video and find out that there are a bunch of people that “almost” fall, but the first person that actually hits the ground happens at the [1:32] point in the video.  So that’s where you want the video to start playing. First, you have to convert that initial stretch of time to seconds.  One minute and 32 seconds translates to 92 seconds total, so “92” is the important number here. All you have to do is add #t=92 to the end of the video address.  So the adjusted URL would look like this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24#t=92" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDCwMfUhv24#t=92</a> Of course, you can substitute any number at the end, depending on exactly where you want to video to start playing when someone goes to that address. What YouTube tricks do YOU know? Put them in the comments below! <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2014/09/3-cool-youtube-tricks/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3 Cool YouTube Tricks</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

3 Cool YouTube Tricks

Every so often I do a post where I feature several websites that are interesting, informative, funny or just somehow intriguing in some way.    Documentary Addict http://documentaryaddict.com/ Whenever I go on Netflix, and I don’t have anything specific in mind to watch, I tend to browse through the documentaries. And Netflix does have a lot of documentaries in their library of things to view. I don’t know the exact number they have, but I would bet that Documentary Addict has a lot more. The current total they show is 5,257 but that is changing pretty regularly as they add new ones. There are documentary films here on just about any subject you can imagine. If you’re not looking for anything in particular, it can be a little overwhelming. But if that’s the case, you can also check out their subsections such as “Just Added”, or “The Week’s MOST RIVETING” or the “Top 100” and you’re sure to find some really good content. Or, you can just pick one of 26 categories to narrow it down to a particular field of interest. And one other advantage of Documentary Addict – it’s completely free.   FaxZero http://faxzero.com/ The technology of faxing was pretty amazing when the first standard office fax machines were introduced back in the late 1980s. But let’s face it – faxing is now an outdated form of transmitting/receiving documents. Fax machines that originally cost hundreds or thousands of dollars can hardly be given away now, because there are just other ways to accomplish this more efficiently and with higher resolution. BUT – there are still some businesses and some individuals that use faxes. If you are dealing with one of them, it’s rather unhandy if you don’t have a way to send a fax from your location. FaxZero allows you to have this ability, and it’s free for most situations. You can create a document in Word, then go to the FaxZero website and upload that document with the fax number you want to send it to. It’s free to send up to 3 pages + the cover page, and you are allowed to send up to 5 free faxes per DAY. This is probably perfect for that one time in 5 years that you need to do this (it certainly wouldn’t make sense to own a fax machine for those rare occasions, not to mention you would need a regular telephone line and many people don’t even have those at home anymore). If you need to send a longer fax, it’s just $1.99 per fax for up to 25 pages – still a bargain.   SuperCook Recipes http://www.supercook.com/#/recipes If you like to cook and you like trying new things, and you don’t always feel very creative, this website could be a great tool for you. All you have to do is tell the website what ingredients you have on hand, and it will come up with a bunch of recipes for dishes that only use those ingredients. For example, I went on the site and told it that I only have American cheese, eggs, a potato, and some sausage – and it came up with 70 different ideas for a meal. These included:  Swedish sausage potato cakes Sausage and potato frittata Salt-baked potatoes  And a bunch more. Of course, the more ingredients you have, the more options it will come back with. But for nights when it’s suppertime and your brain is too tired to come up with something on its own, this website could help.   Amazon Filler Items http://www.filleritem.com/ If you shop at Amazon, and of course you do because everyone does, you know that if your purchase is over $35 you probably qualify for free shipping (Amazon Prime members ignore this because you usually get free shipping anyway). So what if you want to buy something that’s $33.99? Just a little bit more in your shopping cart and you’d get free shipping, but how do you find an item that costs just $1.01? That’s where the Amazon Filler Items website comes in. You go to the site, and enter the dollar amount that you need in order to get your total purchase up to $35. The site comes back with a list of dozens or even hundreds of “filler” items that fit the bill. It’s almost a certainty that one of them will be one that you would have to buy at some point in the future, so you’re not really just wasting money.   Flight Radar http://www.flightradar24.com This website can be handy if you want to track a particular flight to know where it is or when it’s taking off or landing. What you’re looking at on the screen is a basic map of your location. Flying all over that screen are little images of airplanes. But these aren’t just random plane icons – each one represents an actual flight that is happening right now. When you see one near your location, click on it and it will tell you what flight it is and where it’s headed, along with some other details. Pretty handy.   Stuff in Space http://stuffin.space/ I’m pretty sure you have no idea how much junk is floating around in space around Planet Earth. I certainly didn’t. This website tracks that space junk in real time. When you go to the site, you’ll see a black screen with Earth in the middle. You can click and drag to rotate the earth left and right, or up and down. What you’ll also see are little dots – many thousands of them. Each one of those dots is a piece of junk floating around. You can click on it and get the details. There are leftover rocket bodies, payloads, or some things just labeled “debris”. Space exploration sure leaves a trail of garbage behind.   Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ Taking classes can help you learn a lot of things. But it can be expensive. If you want to learn about all the various subjects you would take in high school or college, you can do it for free – online – at Khan Academy. The site offers multiple classes in categories such as Math, Science, Economics and Finance, Arts and Humanities, Computing and more. Then if you just take one category, such as Math, you can zero in on specifics such as what grade level or what areas of math you want to learn, or just take the fundamentals:    And that’s just the one category of Math. Each category has multiple sub-areas like that. And it’s all free.   Don’t throw my package http://dontthrowmypackage.com/ We are about to roll into the holiday season, which means many people will be ordering packages and having them delivered via Fedex, UPS, the US Mail, and other couriers. Nothing is more frustrating than having a valuable item show up and then find that it’s been damaged in the delivery process. How does this happen? Well, one way is through the carelessness of the delivery drivers. The “Don’t Throw My Package” website is a collection of videos in which delivery people have been caught mishandling the packages they’re supposed to be taking care of. With home security cameras becoming more common, you’d think they would be aware that they could be “on stage” at any time during their daily deliveries. This is what I think of whenever I’m shipping a laptop to a client. Fortunately, in the hundreds of laptops I’ve shipped over the years, I’ve only had two instances where packages were damaged in delivery. I always send them insured, and in both cases UPS paid the full claim amount. For an example of the videos you’ll see on this website, check this one out.   For the websites featured here on my blog today, some of them are ones that I found and some were suggested to me by readers and listeners to my podcast. If you know of a website that is interesting, funny, educational or unusual in some way, let me know about it so I can tell everyone else!     The post More cool websites you might like first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Every so often I do a post where I feature several websites that are interesting, informative, funny or just somehow intriguing in some way. Documentary Addict <a href="http://documentaryaddict.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://documentaryaddict.com/</a> Whenever I go on Netflix, and I don’t have anything specific in mind to watch, I tend to browse through the documentaries. And Netflix does have a lot of documentaries in their library of things to view. I don’t know the exact number they have, but I would bet that Documentary Addict has a lot more. The current total they show is 5,257 but that is changing pretty regularly as they add new ones. There are documentary films here on just about any subject you can imagine. If you’re not looking for anything in particular, it can be a little overwhelming. But if that’s the case, you can also check out their subsections such as “Just Added”, or “The Week’s MOST RIVETING” or the “Top 100” and you’re sure to find some really good content. Or, you can just pick one of 26 categories to narrow it down to a particular field of interest. And one other advantage of Documentary Addict – it’s completely free. FaxZero <a href="http://faxzero.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://faxzero.com/</a> The technology of faxing was pretty amazing when the first standard office fax machines were introduced back in the late 1980s. But let’s face it – faxing is now an outdated form of transmitting/receiving documents. Fax machines that originally cost hundreds or thousands of dollars can hardly be given away now, because there are just other ways to accomplish this more efficiently and with higher resolution. BUT – there are still some businesses and some individuals that use faxes. If you are dealing with one of them, it’s rather unhandy if you don’t have a way to send a fax from your location. FaxZero allows you to have this ability, and it’s free for most situations. You can create a document in Word, then go to the FaxZero website and upload that document with the fax number you want to send it to. It’s free to send up to 3 pages + the cover page, and you are allowed to send up to 5 free faxes per DAY. This is probably perfect for that one time in 5 years that you need to do this (it certainly wouldn’t make sense to own a fax machine for those rare occasions, not to mention you would need a regular telephone line and many people don’t even have those at home anymore). If you need to send a longer fax, it’s just $1.99 per fax for up to 25 pages – still a bargain. SuperCook Recipes <a href="http://www.supercook.com/#/recipes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.supercook.com/#/recipes I</a>f you like to cook and you like trying new things, and you don’t always feel very creative, this website could be a great tool for you. All you have to do is tell the website what ingredients you have on hand, and it will come up with a bunch of recipes for dishes that only use those ingredients. For example, I went on the site and told it that I only have American cheese, eggs, a potato, and some sausage – and it came up with 70 different ideas for a meal. These included: <ul> <li>Swedish sausage potato cakes</li> <li>Sausage and potato frittata</li> <li>Salt-baked potatoes</li> </ul> And a bunch more. Of course, the more ingredients you have, the more options it will come back with. But for nights when it’s suppertime and your brain is too tired to come up with something on its own, this website could help. Amazon Filler Items <a href="http://www.filleritem.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.filleritem.com/</a> If you shop at Amazon, and of course you do because everyone does, you know that if your purchase is over $35 you probably qualify for free shipping (Amazon Prime members ignore this because you usually get free shipping anyway). So what if you want to buy something that’s $33.99? Just a little bit more in your shopping cart and you’d get free shipping, but how do you find an item that costs just $1.01? That’s where the Amazon Filler Items website comes in. You go to the site, and enter the dollar amount that you need in order to get your total purchase up to $35. The site comes back with a list of dozens or even hundreds of “filler” items that fit the bill. It’s almost a certainty that one of them will be one that you would have to buy at some point in the future, so you’re not really just wasting money. Flight Radar <a href="http://www.flightradar24.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.flightradar24.com</a> This website can be handy if you want to track a particular flight to know where it is or when it’s taking off or landing. What you’re looking at on the screen is a basic map of your location. Flying all over that screen are little images of airplanes. But these aren’t just random plane icons – each one represents an actual flight that is happening right now. When you see one near your location, click on it and it will tell you what flight it is and where it’s headed, along with some other details. Pretty handy. Stuff in Space <a href="http://stuffin.space/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://stuffin.space/</a> I’m pretty sure you have no idea how much junk is floating around in space around Planet Earth. I certainly didn’t. This website tracks that space junk in real time. When you go to the site, you’ll see a black screen with Earth in the middle. You can click and drag to rotate the earth left and right, or up and down. What you’ll also see are little dots – many thousands of them. Each one of those dots is a piece of junk floating around. You can click on it and get the details. There are leftover rocket bodies, payloads, or some things just labeled “debris”. Space exploration sure leaves a trail of garbage behind. Khan Academy <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.khanacademy.org/</a> Taking classes can help you learn a lot of things. But it can be expensive. If you want to learn about all the various subjects you would take in high school or college, you can do it for free – online – at Khan Academy. The site offers multiple classes in categories such as Math, Science, Economics and Finance, Arts and Humanities, Computing and more. Then if you just take one category, such as Math, you can zero in on specifics such as what grade level or what areas of math you want to learn, or just take the fundamentals: And that’s just the one category of Math. Each category has multiple sub-areas like that. And it’s all free. Don’t throw my package <a href="http://dontthrowmypackage.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://dontthrowmypackage.com/</a> We are about to roll into the holiday season, which means many people will be ordering packages and having them delivered via Fedex, UPS, the US Mail, and other couriers. Nothing is more frustrating than having a valuable item show up and then find that it’s been damaged in the delivery process. How does this happen? Well, one way is through the carelessness of the delivery drivers. The “Don’t Throw My Package” website is a collection of videos in which delivery people have been caught mishandling the packages they’re supposed to be taking care of. With home security cameras becoming more common, you’d think they would be aware that they could be “on stage” at any time during their daily deliveries. This is what I think of whenever I’m shipping a laptop to a client. Fortunately, in the hundreds of laptops I’ve shipped over the years, I’ve only had two instances where packages were damaged in delivery. I always send them insured, and in both cases UPS paid the full claim amount. For an example of the videos you’ll see on this website, <a href="http://dontthrowmypackage.com/2014/11/03/fedex-throws-a-25lb-box-over-fence-into-customers-yard/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">check this one out</a>. For the websites featured here on my blog today, some of them are ones that I found and some were suggested to me by readers and listeners to my podcast. If you know of a website that is interesting, funny, educational or unusual in some way, let me know about it so I can tell everyone else! <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>  The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2015/10/more-cool-websites-you-might-like/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">More cool websites you might like</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

More cool websites you might like

Think about when your internet connection isn’t working properly. Maybe you’re getting a “Page cannot be found” error, or your computer can’t find the wifi signal, or perhaps websites are just loading reeeaaallly slowly. If you call your internet provider, what’s the first thing they’ll tell you to do? Restart your modem and router. But even better than that – have your modem and router restarted automatically for you, every single day.  Sometimes my clients will call me when their internet is not doing what it’s supposed to do. Here in Safety Harbor, we have a few good options for high-speed internet, so we can get kind of spoiled with that super fast connection so when it slows down or something goes wrong, I get a phone call. My advice for this is the same thing the actual internet service would say – restart the modem and/or router. In many cases, that solves the problem and the connection is nice and fast again. So it makes sense to restart your modem and router every day – proactively – to just avoid having to do it when the speed or the connection drops. But who wants to do that manually? Modems and routers aren’t always located in the most convenient places. In some cases, you have to get on the floor or behind a desk just to access it. Then you’ll have to unplug it, wait a while, and plug it back in. Pain in the butt! And even if you do have easy access, you won’t do it every day. And that’s the whole point – the daily reset is the key to getting the benefit from this. No worries! Now you can have it happen automatically for you. You don’t have to unplug and re-plug. You don’t even have to remember it! All of this is done through a little device that just plugs into your wall outlet. It’s called a NetReset and you can get it at Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn It’s pretty simple. This is what the front looks like:    And this is the back:    This is the NetReset plugged into the wall, and of course Lilly (one of my two Yorkies) has to inspect it:    Using this thing is really simple. You plug it into the wall, and then you plug your modem in one side, and your router in the other side. I use this here in my office in Safety Harbor every day. In my case, my modem and router are all in one unit, so I only need to use one of the outlets. Then there’s the little display at the top with the small white buttons. You use the “Clock” button and then Hours/Minutes to set the current time. You use the “Prog” button and then Hours/Minutes to set the time of day you want your modem/router to be shut down and then restarted. I set mine for 4 am since no one in our house would be using the internet at that time. Since the internet will be cut off briefly while the reset is happening, you want to make sure it happens at a time that’s convenient. For most people, that’s sometime in the middle of the night. A daily 4 am reset does cut the internet off but only for a few minutes, so it should have no effect at all on any antivirus updates or Windows Updates. The GOOD effect is that your modem and router will start each day fresh, and ready to deliver all the goodness of the internet to you all day! When you order yours from Amazon here (http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn) Amazon pays me a small commission, which helps support this blog and my podcast. Of course, I only recommend things I use and approve of personally. If you get one, I’d love to hear what you think of it. The post New device to speed up your internet consistently first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Think about when your internet connection isn’t working properly. Maybe you’re getting a “Page cannot be found” error, or your computer can’t find the wifi signal, or perhaps websites are just loading reeeaaallly slowly. If you call your internet provider, what’s the first thing they’ll tell you to do? Restart your modem and router. But even better than that – have your modem and router restarted automatically for you, every single day. Sometimes my clients will call me when their internet is not doing what it’s supposed to do. Here in Safety Harbor, we have a few good options for high-speed internet, so we can get kind of spoiled with that super fast connection so when it slows down or something goes wrong, I get a phone call. My advice for this is the same thing the actual internet service would say – restart the modem and/or router. In many cases, that solves the problem and the connection is nice and fast again. So it makes sense to restart your modem and router every day – proactively – to just avoid having to do it when the speed or the connection drops. But who wants to do that manually? Modems and routers aren’t always located in the most convenient places. In some cases, you have to get on the floor or behind a desk just to access it. Then you’ll have to unplug it, wait a while, and plug it back in. Pain in the butt! And even if you do have easy access, you won’t do it every day. And that’s the whole point – the daily reset is the key to getting the benefit from this. No worries! Now you can have it happen automatically for you. You don’t have to unplug and re-plug. You don’t even have to remember it! All of this is done through a little device that just plugs into your wall outlet. It’s called a NetReset and you can get it at Amazon here: <a href="http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn</a> It’s pretty simple. This is what the front looks like: And this is the back: This is the NetReset plugged into the wall, and of course Lilly (one of my two Yorkies) has to inspect it: Using this thing is really simple. You plug it into the wall, and then you plug your modem in one side, and your router in the other side. I use this here in my office in Safety Harbor every day. In my case, my modem and router are all in one unit, so I only need to use one of the outlets. Then there’s the little display at the top with the small white buttons. You use the “Clock” button and then Hours/Minutes to set the current time. You use the “Prog” button and then Hours/Minutes to set the time of day you want your modem/router to be shut down and then restarted. I set mine for 4 am since no one in our house would be using the internet at that time. Since the internet will be cut off briefly while the reset is happening, you want to make sure it happens at a time that’s convenient. For most people, that’s sometime in the middle of the night. A daily 4 am reset does cut the internet off but only for a few minutes, so it should have no effect at all on any antivirus updates or Windows Updates. The GOOD effect is that your modem and router will start each day fresh, and ready to deliver all the goodness of the internet to you all day! When you order yours from Amazon here (<a href="http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://amzn.to/2rWqAjn</a>) Amazon pays me a small commission, which helps support this blog and my podcast. Of course, I only recommend things I use and approve of personally. If you get one, I’d love to hear what you think of it. <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2017/06/new-device-to-speed-up-your-internet-consistently/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New device to speed up your internet consistently</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

New device to speed up your internet consistently

Ever try to print a web page?  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  The reason for this is that website content is designed to be displayed on your computer screen, not sent to the printer to be put on paper.  So even though it looks perfect on your monitor, the printed page is often completely messed up.  I’ve even had people call me and complain that their printer isn’t working properly, because the words and images are all out of order and misaligned.  The problem wasn’t the printer, though.  That web page they were trying to print just wasn’t printer friendly.    Some websites are helpful and offer a “printer friendly” version of the content.  This usually works, but most non-commercial websites don’t have that feature.  And actually even a lot of business websites don’t offer it. But now there’s a solution – and it’s free.  It’s an online service called Print Friendly.  You can see it at PrintFriendly.com.    Using this service could not be any easier.  When you’re viewing a website you want to print, click one time up in the address bar to highlight the address, then do a right-click and choose “Copy”. Then go to the Print Friendly website and paste it in the URL field and click “print preview”:    If the preview looks okay, print it! Here’s an example.  I went to an MSN news story.  A screenshot of the website article is below.  As you can see the screen is cluttered with all kinds of junk – navigation links, social media buttons, ads, links to other stories, and several images.  There’s so much stuff that in order to read past the first few lines of the article, you have to scroll down.  I don’t need all that extra stuff  – all I want to print is just the words in the article.    So I copied and pasted the address, and here is what the print preview showed.  Just the title and the text – ready to print!    To print, just hit the link at the top left on the preview.  Next to that is the option to make the content into a PDF file, or you could click the “Email” button to send the article by email.  There are some other options to control the text size and the appearance of images – you can play with those as you like. I encourage you to experiment with it.  It probably won’t be perfect each time, as there are a million different variations in the way a website can be arranged.  But it should work okay in most cases. http://www.printfriendly.com The post How to make ANY website printer-friendly first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Ever try to print a web page?  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  The reason for this is that website content is designed to be displayed on your computer screen, not sent to the printer to be put on paper.  So even though it looks perfect on your monitor, the printed page is often completely messed up.  I’ve even had people call me and complain that their printer isn’t working properly, because the words and images are all out of order and misaligned.  The problem wasn’t the printer, though.  That web page they were trying to print just wasn’t printer friendly. Some websites are helpful and offer a “printer friendly” version of the content.  This usually works, but most non-commercial websites don’t have that feature.  And actually even a lot of business websites don’t offer it. But now there’s a solution – and it’s free.  It’s an online service called Print Friendly.  You can see it at <a href="http://PrintFriendly.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PrintFriendly.com</a>. Using this service could not be any easier.  When you’re viewing a website you want to print, click one time up in the address bar to highlight the address, then do a right-click and choose “Copy”. Then go to the Print Friendly website and paste it in the URL field and click “print preview”: If the preview looks okay, print it! Here’s an example.  I went to an MSN news story.  A screenshot of the website article is below.  As you can see the screen is cluttered with all kinds of junk – navigation links, social media buttons, ads, links to other stories, and several images.  There’s so much stuff that in order to read past the first few lines of the article, you have to scroll down.  I don’t need all that extra stuff  – all I want to print is just the words in the article. So I copied and pasted the address, and here is what the print preview showed.  Just the title and the text – ready to print! To print, just hit the link at the top left on the preview.  Next to that is the option to make the content into a PDF file, or you could click the “Email” button to send the article by email.  There are some other options to control the text size and the appearance of images – you can play with those as you like. I encourage you to experiment with it.  It probably won’t be perfect each time, as there are a million different variations in the way a website can be arranged.  But it should work okay in most cases. <a href="http://www.printfriendly.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.printfriendly.com</a> <a href="http://staging3.computertutorflorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2014/08/how-to-make-any-website-printer-friendly/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to make ANY website printer-friendly</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

How to make ANY website printer-friendly

Windows 10 is just LOADED with some really great shortcuts, and a lot of people don’t know about many of them. I’m sure I don’t know about all of them. But here are ten shortcuts that I (and others) have found really handy.    Shortcut #1 If you’re using Chrome or Firefox, with a bunch of tabs open, and you accidentally close one – don’t panic! Just hit Ctrl + Shift + T and the tab that got closed will automatically re-open. Shortcut #2 In just about every program, Ctrl + Z will undo your last action. Shortcut #3 If you want to open Task Manager, you don’t have to hit Ctrl + Alt +Delete and then click it. You just have to hit Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Shortcut #4 If you’re searching Google for a word or name, and you find yourself on a website that has a mile of text, don’t scroll down the page trying to spot that word. Hit Ctrl + F and type the word, and you’ll see every place that word appears on that entire page. Shortcut #5 If you drag a file with the RIGHT mouse button instead of the left, when you let go you’ll get a little menu asking if you want to copy that file, move it, or create a shortcut to it. Shortcut #6 If you have several windows open but need to get to a file or icon on the desktop screen, hit the Windows key + D. All windows will be minimized so you can see the desktop. Shortcut #7 After you hit the Windows key + D in tip #6 to minimize all your windows, hit it again and they’re all back again. Shortcut #8 If you want to make sure your Google search results DON’T include anything from Pinterest, just put this in front of your search word(s): -site:pinterest.com Shortcut #9 If you get a pop-up window with audio telling you your computer has major problems and that you should not shut it down, shut down the computer. Just hold in the power button for 10 seconds or until the computer shuts off. Wait a minute, then turn it back on. That pop-up and audio message is just a scam. Shortcut #10 This one will blow your mind if you don’t already know about it. Hit Ctrl + Windows key + D to create a new virtual desktop. It’s like a whole separate desktop screen, but no windows are open. So now you have two separate, usable desktop screens. You can switch back and forth between them by hitting Ctrl + Windows key + left/right arrow. If you want to close the one you’re in, it’s Ctrl + Windows key + F4. OR, you can just hit Windows key + Tab to see all of your virtual desktops and manually close them or add new ones. Virtual desktops are handy if you want to have a bunch of research windows open on one desktop, and the paper you’re writing on the other desktop. Or if you want to let someone else use your computer temporarily without having all of your windows available to be seen. And a BONUS Shortcut: Hit the Windows key + “.” (just the period, without the quotes). Go ahead, it’s safe. The post TEN handy Windows 10 shortcuts first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Windows 10 is just LOADED with some really great shortcuts, and a lot of people don’t know about many of them. I’m sure I don’t know about all of them. But here are ten shortcuts that I (and others) have found really handy. Shortcut #1 If you’re using Chrome or Firefox, with a bunch of tabs open, and you accidentally close one – don’t panic! Just hit Ctrl + Shift + T and the tab that got closed will automatically re-open. Shortcut #2 In just about every program, Ctrl + Z will undo your last action. Shortcut #3 If you want to open Task Manager, you don’t have to hit Ctrl + Alt +Delete and then click it. You just have to hit Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Shortcut #4 If you’re searching Google for a word or name, and you find yourself on a website that has a mile of text, don’t scroll down the page trying to spot that word. Hit Ctrl + F and type the word, and you’ll see every place that word appears on that entire page. Shortcut #5 If you drag a file with the RIGHT mouse button instead of the left, when you let go you’ll get a little menu asking if you want to copy that file, move it, or create a shortcut to it. Shortcut #6 If you have several windows open but need to get to a file or icon on the desktop screen, hit the Windows key + D. All windows will be minimized so you can see the desktop. Shortcut #7 After you hit the Windows key + D in tip #6 to minimize all your windows, hit it again and they’re all back again. Shortcut #8 If you want to make sure your Google search results DON’T include anything from Pinterest, just put this in front of your search word(s): -site:<a href="http://pinterest.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pinterest.com</a> Shortcut #9 If you get a pop-up window with audio telling you your computer has major problems and that you should not shut it down, shut down the computer. Just hold in the power button for 10 seconds or until the computer shuts off. Wait a minute, then turn it back on. That pop-up and audio message is just a scam. Shortcut #10 This one will blow your mind if you don’t already know about it. Hit Ctrl + Windows key + D to create a new virtual desktop. It’s like a whole separate desktop screen, but no windows are open. So now you have two separate, usable desktop screens. You can switch back and forth between them by hitting Ctrl + Windows key + left/right arrow. If you want to close the one you’re in, it’s Ctrl + Windows key + F4. OR, you can just hit Windows key + Tab to see all of your virtual desktops and manually close them or add new ones. Virtual desktops are handy if you want to have a bunch of research windows open on one desktop, and the paper you’re writing on the other desktop. Or if you want to let someone else use your computer temporarily without having all of your windows available to be seen. And a BONUS Shortcut: Hit the Windows key + “.” (just the period, without the quotes). Go ahead, it’s safe. <a href="https://ComputerTutorFlorida.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>The post <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com/2019/03/ten-handy-windows-10-shortcuts/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">TEN handy Windows 10 shortcuts</a> first appeared on <a href="https://computertutorflorida.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Computer Tutor</a>.

TEN handy Windows 10 shortcuts

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