TCT Newsletter September 5, 2010

Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter

This week’s email newsletter articles are: A Major Redesign at my Terry’s Computer Tips Web Site In last week’s email newsletter, I mentioned that I was hard at work on a major redesign of my Terry’s Computer Tips web site. After uncounted hours — somewhere in the 80-100 range — I’ve finally finished the conversion [...]

Online Newsletter Archives

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  My old Terry’s Computer Tips online newsletters (the August 29, 2010 issue and earlier issues) are still available — here. At this time, I plan to convert them from individual web pages to WordPress pages when I get a chance — of course, that’s 5+ years of weekly issues, some split into multiple pages. [...]

Computer Troubleshooting – Step Number 1

The First Rule of Windows Troubleshooting You’ve seen the problem. The program you use every day, or maybe one you use occasionally, isn’t doing what it should. Perhaps the program can’t load one of its data files, so it doesn’t actually start. Perhaps it won’t do the task you told it to do – even [...]

Wikipedia – the Free Online Encyclopedia Edited by You

What is Wikipedia? It’s the free encyclopedia. More interestingly, it’s a free online encyclopedia that is edited by its readers. You may have already heard the name "wiki", which is the name for a type of web site that is created by its visitors. Many wikis allow anonymous editing, at least to some extent. More [...]

Windows 7 Program Files Directory is Protected From Programs

In Windows 7, one of the reasons that older programs may have problems is that Windows 7 protects the C:\Program Files directory from being modified by running programs. When you run a program in Windows 7, even if you’re logged in using a userID that has an Administrator profile, the program does not run as [...]

Tweaking Windows XP Settings

Microsoft offers a simple, yet powerful, little program for users to tweak the Windows XP user interface — the way Windows XP responds to our clicks, mouse movemnets and and lots of customizations to standard windows functions. Strangely, this little program has a simple name that actually describes its function — TweakUI — and it [...]

The World’s Shortest Excel Book

I ran across a small ebook with a grand title The World’s Shortest Excel Book. At only 29 pages, the book is designed to cram the things you need to know into an easy-to-read electronic book (Adobe Reader .pdf file). Richard Kraneis, the author, matches the book with a series of videos to guide you [...]

Why I’m Writing About Windows 7

Subscriber Bev Lammert commented via my Terry’s Computer Tips blog: Hi Terry,       I again thank you for your really great newsletters. I can’t help but wonder why you and a couple other computer helps newsletters I receive are giving all these great tips and info about Windows 7 when so many of [...]

Windows Scheduled Task Wizard Hangs

This week, subscriber Carol wrote to tell me she was having problems with the Windows Task Scheduler. Hi Terry, I am unable to use the Scheduled Task Wizard. I open it, but it hangs on the first screen with the hour glass running and doesn’t proceed. Any ideas? Thanks. I wrote back to Carol to [...]

Zooming in Microsoft Word, followup

After my article about zooming in Microsoft Word documents, Carol Bratt of Carol’s Corner Office commented in my Terry’s Computer Tips blog: There are a couple of rules of thumb to remember regarding zoom settings. If you are opening an existing document that you previously viewed in Page Layout view, Word will use the zoom [...]

Windows Wakes Up Locked

Several people wrote about their Windows XP computers waking up in a “locked” state — that is, showing the Welcome screen where you click on your user icon and type your password. One reader (Bob [last name removed]) wrote to say: When I turn the power on to my computer, the desktop comes up ready [...]

Windows 7 — Choosing and Changing the Desktop Icons

In earlier versions of Windows, we had little choice on which of the standard Windows icons would be shown on the Windows Desktop. That started to change with Windows XP, but you had to know where to find the options. Windows 7 makes it easy — you start at the Control Panel ( Start Button [...]

Web Design Book Recommendations

These are a few of the HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL and JavaScript books that I have purchased and recommend to you as good resources for web design and site building. Web Usability   If you’re using FrontPage, get FrontPage 2003 The Missing Manual. FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual offers help from the basics to meaty [...]

Web Design Resources | Recommendations | Books

I am often asked which resources (books, etc.) that I recommend for people who want to create web sites. Many web hosts, such as Powweb (that I used to use) and HostGator (that I use now), provide basic templates for easy creation of a web site. These can be your base for your very first [...]

What’s New in Internet Explorer 8?

Internet Explorer 8 has a bunch of new features. Some are slight tweaks to its previous functions, others are playing catch-up with Opera and Firefox functions, and some are raising the bar for the other web browsers. First, IE8 has a new Compatibility function, accessed via the Compatibility icon on the toolbar — to display [...]

To Use a Web Proxy Anonymizer or Not…

A reader wrote me to ask if I would use a web proxy anonymizer service. I wrote back to tell him that my answer was a simple "No." It boils down to two things: (1) if you’re afraid of a web site operator knowing who you are, you shouldn’t be going to the web site, [...]

To Use a Password or Not

In article Windows XP Local Users and Groups, Beth Peacock asked a number of quick questions. Unfortunately, the answers weren’t so easy. One of the questions was: My password is saved on my pc, so I don’t have to key it in every time. How can I make access by anyone else impossible? In this [...]

Why Back Up Your Computer?

As a long-time personal computer user, I learned the importance of backing up my data long, long ago. There are just too many things that can go wrong when you’re working on your computer. Whether it is a hard drive that goes bad (or a floppy, in the old days), or a mental lapse on [...]

Thoughts on Buying a New Computer Now

Subscriber Mickey wrote this week to ask: Terry, I am considering buying my wife a new laptop, probably a Dell since friend works there, and I don’t want to change the OS and programs she is using. Is there a way I can buy the new laptop and re-format the drive and then load the [...]

What Happened To That Web Site?

I know it’s happened to me, and it’s probably happened to you. No, I’m not talking about forgetting a website’s address or forgetting where your bookmark/favorite is. I’m talking about the site that had good information — but the site is not there any more. Sometimes, the site might be an online games site or [...]

When a Question Is Unasked…

I got a shock recently when a subscriber (let’s call her "Alice") unsubscribed, and left me a brief message explaining why… I am older, and none of what you talk about are things that pertain to what I do on my computer. Alice As I do sometimes when I get a comment like this, I [...]

What’s a PDF and Why Do I Need One?

As I wrote in my weekly email newsletter (sign up here), one of my subscribers wanted to know about a free program to let him fill in PDF forms. The Portable Document Format (PDF) was created by Adobe to be a cross-platform document display tool. Whether the user is using Windows, Mac, Linux or some [...]

The Windows Right-Click Send-To Menu

One of the neat features of Windows is the drag-and-drop system, where you can use the mouse to drag an icon (or a file name in Windows Explorer), over a target icon — and drop the dragged icon on target icon. When you do that, many Windows programs will start and do whatever they do [...]

Smart Shutdown for Windows

After I wrote in a recent Special Edition newsletter about creating Windows XP icons to quickly shutdown, reboot or log off your system, reader Chet Zaorski wrote to tell me: Terry,  Here’s an easier way to shut down Windows.  I have been using this for a long period of time, no spyware included, and is [...]

SD Memory Card Not Recognized When Inserted into Computer

I had a question this week about a flash drive problem. Well, it wasn’t really a flash drive — it was an SD card from a camera… but the symptoms and the procedures are the same. In this case, a family member had taken some pictures with her camera and then removed the SD memory [...]

Affordable Web Site Hosting at iPowerWeb – Space, Thruput, SMTP, POP3, Webmail, PHP, Perl, FrontPage Extensions, CMS, Forums and more

Affordable web hosting from iPowerWeb, free content and e-commerce shopping carts (at no extra charge!), with plenty of space, plenty of throughput, and many more capabilities than the free one at your ISP! Install Wizard for Software Packages iPowerWeb offers quick and easy installation of many free, open-source software packages, including Mambo content management software, [...]

High Speed Internet Options Without Cable or DSL

Some of my email and online issues resulted in a lot of similar stories of problems and solutions, as well as some additional questions. One interesting question was from Bob, who wrote to say: Terry… My brother is too far away from any substations to go DSL, Cable, or fiber optics, he is still on [...]

Google Pack Problems with Earlier Versions of Windows

Reader Peter wrote to say he was having problems with Star Office, which is now available free as part of Google Pack: Hello Terry, You cover Google Pack’s inclusion of Star Office in your latest newsletter. There is one major problem with this Google Pack. When I click to download it (on my Windows 2000 [...]

What Can I Do With My Old Computer?

What do you do with an old computer? More accurately, what do you do with your old computer when you buy a new one? You can keep it as an additional computer for yourself. You can pass it to your spouse. You can use it for your children. You can sell it. You can give [...]

What are winmail.dat email attachments?

I’ve seen several questions recently about winmail.dat attachment files that come with some emails. If you use an email program that stores attachments in a different folder than it stores the actual emails (Eudora, which I use, is one), you can find that you collect a lot of Windmail.dat attachments. When we try to open [...]