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Tips & TweaksDo you have a large screen? How to use Quicklaunch area.If you have one of the new larger LCD monitor, you can take advantage of the extra real estate by expanding the task bar on the bottom of the screen and putting your frequently used programs in the "Quicklaunch" area of the taskbar. This will allow you to launch a program with a single click without having to minimize running programs to go to a desktop shortcut or the >start>programs>etc. route. First, you must make sure the taskbar is not locked. Do this by right clicking any area of the task bar. Then make sure there is no checkmark next to "lock the taskbar". Now make sure the Quicklaunch bar is visible by again right clicking on the taskbar, then click "toolbars", then make sure "Quicklaunch" is selected. You'll see a few icons there. You can delete anything there by right clicking to select delete. Don't worry, you won't delete the program, just the shortcut. You can add icons by just right clicking and dragging any program to the area and then selecting "create a shortcut" when the window pops up. If you have a big monitor you can add more lines by simply moving your cursor to the top edge of the taskbar and dragging it up. I use three lines to get all my programs down there. Here's a picture which shows how mine is set up. Click on the image to make it larger.
When was the last time you dusted your computer?Dust is one of the major reasons for computer hardware failure. It collects inside your computer and prevents the fans from taking away the heat. Your computer generates a lot of heat and if not dissipated it will fry your power supply or your CPU. The dust could also cause a short circuit that can ruin your motherboard. All of these failure are expensive to repair. It's easy to clean up your computer. Simply open the side panel and blow out the dust. You can either use a spray can or just use your vacuum sweeper in the "blower mode". It's important that you hold onto the fans so they don't spin while doing this. You can over rev the fans and damage the bearings. Just hold them with a pencil while you blow. Do this once a year. Don't let Antispyware 2009 bite you.There's been a huge number of users who have been tricked into installing a spyware program which goes by several names. I've mostly seen it go by the name of Antispyware 2009. Here's how it works: You're surfing on the net and suddenly an official looking popup comes up to inform you that you are infected. The popup looks very official and also very scary. It asked you to click on a button to remove the infections. When you you click on the button you are actually downloading the virus. At that point you're infected. What was intitially just a common popup is now a virus that will take over your computer. It will download additional infections without your permission and may very well collect private information from the computer. As I write this, there are several AntiVirus programs that will warn you of the impending infections but there's quite a few that will not. If you see this popup warning you of impending doom if you don't "click here", just x out of the window and you'll be fine. Turn Off Your AntiVirus Program Before Installing ProgramsBefore installing new programs it's always a good idea to turn off your virus and spyware protection. Sometimes they will interfere with the installation. Most AntiVirus programs have an option to either quit the program or disable the background scanning as you access files. In AVG, click on the AVG icon and then double click on "Resident Shield", from there unselect "Resident Shield Active" box. If you simply exit the program you don't really turn off the anti-virus. With some programs you can disable for a preset amount of time. With others you will have to reactivate the program after the new program is installed. Check out AOL's new Desktop VersionIf you are still using AOL 9.0 or earlier software, check out the new version 10.0. It's called AOL desktop. It provides a much cleaner interface with all the typical links you use conveniently shown in a toolbar. I like it much better than the clunky version 9.0. Check it out here. Are you still paying for AOL?I've run into quite a few folks who are needlessly wasting money by paying $15 a month for an AOL subscription even though they are using a different Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you use AOL up here in the Thumb you already know that AOL's dial-up service is not available in this area. You can still access your AOL through another ISP by choosing the connect through broadband option. Once you're online simply launch your AOL program to gain access to the familiar welcome screen and you're good to go. The good news is that well over a year ago, AOL offered their service free. Of course, they didn't bother to tell their subscribers this little detail. If you're paying for AOL, call them up immediately and tell them you want to cancel. Nothing will change except your wallet. Check out these Firewall reviewsYour brand name firewall might be doing a terrible job of protecting you! This review highlights some of the best known firewalls and tests them using a rigorous approach. The results will surprise you. Almost all the well known brands did poorly. Read about it here. Don't let social-networking viruses bite you. 2/7/2008There are several virus' making the rounds on the social networks sites. The latest example is an exploit that afflicts the social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook, in addition to the Yahoo Music Jukebox — but there's an easy way to protect yourself. The SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) published a report on Feb. 4 that six ActiveX controls used by several sites can be manipulated by hackers to silently infect PCs. These controls, including the Aurigma ImageUploader, are used by IE to upload photos to social-networking sites and perform other tasks. But the flawed controls can be turned against you if you happen to visit one of several hacked sites that are already taking advantage of the weakness, according to a Symantec alert. There's nice little program that can easily protect you from these infections. The program can be downloaded here. You might lose some capability to easily upload photos etc. until these ActiveX controls are patched but it's a small price to pay to prevent your machine from getting infected. BTW, these type of sites, as well as instant messaging programs are increasingly becoming common ways to get infections. It's a good idea to give your kids limited user rights to prevent them from installing programs and ActiveX controls. They should be assigned to the "computer user" group instead of "administrator" group. Just bought a new computer? Want to make it more responsive?
You've recently purchased a new computer. It's running pretty good
but you wonder where all that junk came from. It seems like it
takes forever to start up and there are lots of icons in the lower right
corner of the screen (system tray). There are also windows popping
up everywhere and programs and icons on the desktop that you really
don't want. Can you safely get rid of all the crap that came with
your new computers? After you make these changes you will notice a much quicker boot time and a quicker operating system. You won't be bothered by programs running in the background consuming valuable system resources and you'll have more desktop real estate to customize they way you work (or play). If all of this seems a little over your head. There's a simple solutions. Just give me a call and I'll be happy to tune your system for maximum performance. It's very inexpensive and can improve the quality of your computing life significantly. New Anti-Virus Reviews 8/30/2007It's been a while since we last visited this topic. There are many good Anti-Virus products out there. I have installed or recommended the free version of AVG many times. I have it installed on several of my own computers. However, for my most important systems I have switched to Nod32 by Eset. I have been using it on my main computer in the office for a little over a year and I am pleased with it. The interface is a little geeky but it's unobtrusive and updates several times a day. The reports that are linked below have rated it very highly. If you need serious protection then you should be willing to pay the small price to get the best. However, AVG continues to do fairly well in scan test and if you're a casual user who doesn't make his/her livelihood with the computer it should be adequate. If you've got kids who are constantly downloading you should also consider one of the higher rated paid programs.
Here's a link to a
PC World
review. Zone Alarm FirewallIf you use Speednet or AVCI wireless broadband connections you really need a firewall to protect you from attacks. Your modem does not include a firewall like many other broadband providers. If you have Window XP it is imperative that you turn on the Windows firewall. If you have Windows 98, ME or 2000 you need to install a software firewall such as the free version of Zone Alarm. Another alternative is to purchase an inexpensive router which will give you a very effective hardware firewall. These can be purchased at most stores that supply computer parts. Popular brands are Linksys and D-Link. Download the free Zone Alarm firewall Here SpySweeper Anti-Spyware Tops ReviewsIn addition to an Anti-Virus program, you absolutely need at least one Anti-Spyware program. There are many to choose from but there are significant differences. Many are free but the best involve a fairly small cost. Here's a recent comprehensive review you should look at before you install.
Download Windows Defender
Here Spybot Search and Destroy InstructionsMany of you have Spybot on your computer. It is imperative that you regularly scan your computer using Spybot and that you have the latest updates. This should be done weekly. First of all if you do not have version 1.4 you must download and install this new version. Older versions are no longer supported. Click here for detailed instructions for running Spybot Search and Destroy 1.3. Start Internet Explorer fasterEver wish you could avoid the wait while your browser loads your homepage. Do you wish you could go right to another site before Yahoo!, Excite or MSN loads. It's easy to create a link which will open Internet Explorer on a blank page. You can then quickly navigate to the page of your choice. You will still have your homepage available just by clicking on the icon up in the toolbar. Here's how it done:
That's it! Now when you open IE using the shortcut you just modified it will open immediately with a blank screen and you can then navigate to the page of your choice. Your homepage is still available using the standard links. Get Rid of Windows Messenger PopupsIf you have Windows XP or Windows 2000 you have probably seen your fair share of popups that are Windows Messenger related. There are several ways to prevent these popups. First is to install a good firewall that will prevent hackers from entering your system. There are many software based firewalls available. The most popular free firewall is Zone Alarm. Norton Internet Security and other similar packages have good firewalls that will do the trick. Windows XP comes with a basic firewall but it is not enabled by default. Here's how to enable the Windows XP firewall.
Another way to prevent these messages is to disable Messenger service completely. This will prevent legitimate uses for the messenger service but unless you're on a corporate network you probably won't need Messenger service. Here are steps for disabling the Messenger service on Windows 2000 and XP systems: Windows 2000:
Windows XP:
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