General Blogs

Mon 18th May '09 - One of the constants of personal computing, as in life, is that change happens. Whether we like the changes or not, we all have to deal with them. I remember experiencing my first personal computer back in 1982. It was a Timex Sinclair computer, a tiny 12" x 5" x 1 1/4" (approximate measurements) gray case with little rubber keys. I was...

Fri 12th Feb '10 - IBM has just come out with their updated IBM Lotus Symphony Beta 2 office suite. If you have been around long enough to remember Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS, this suite includes a spreadsheet program that is a descendant of that venerable spreadsheet software. Lotus 1-2-3 was the most widely used business spreadsheet before Microsoft Office for Windows...

Sat 6th Feb '10 - Apple QuickTime and iTunes are real resource hogs on a Windows PC. If gobbling up precious PC resources is not bad enough, malware authors also heavily target them. It is imperative to get the latest versions of these two popular programs to secure the integrity of your computer. Constantly updating vulnerable software is highly encouraged by...

Fri 29th Jan '10 - Maintaining a clean computer is a real challenge these days. In principle, it is much better to keep junk off your computer than it is to remove it after it has a foothold. While we may not be able to close all doors to malware at all times (these days you can be infected just by going to a known safe site that has recently been compromised),...

Thu 21st Jan '10 - Mozilla released their newest Firefox browser today. Firefox 3.6 claims performance improvements over version 3.5, better security, and skins called “Personas”. If Firefox is your preferred browser, then click on your Firefox ‘Help’ menu and choose ‘Check for updates,’ follow the prompts and you will be rewarded with the new version in nothing...

Sat 16th Jan '10 - Your new Windows 7 computer may or may not have come with a repair or system recovery DVD, but Windows 7 makes it easy to make one yourself. However, the key is to already have one on hand before a repair situation arises. Place a blank CD or DVD into your optical burner, then click your “Start” button, type “repair” in the search field, and...

Tue 8th Dec '09 - There has been a lot of question concerning the viability of desktop computers in tomorrow's computer universe. Desktops have long been a mainstay of PC proliferation. I remember the early and mid nineties when buying a powerful desktop was a thrill. There appeared to be no limit to what you could do on them. During that time I held a job...

Wed 23rd Dec '09 - TechRepublic.com is a great resource for learning more about computer topics. Among the many informative articles is a piece by Deb Shinder titled “10 Email Scam To Watch Out For.” Ms. Shinder takes us on a journey through ten scams that are currently popular. She identifies each scam, including how to read the clues that identify it as a scam....

Sun 10th Jan '10 - Watch out for any email coming your way informing you that your antivirus app has expired and urgently recommends that you download “Antivirus 2010” to maintain your protection. Be advised that this is a rogue application that will royally screw up your PC. The email will specifically mention “Antivirus 2010” and should not be confused with...

Mon 4th Jan '10 - Well, I did it. I returned my new Mac Mini to Best Buy and exchanged it for another computer. And no it was not exchanged for a Windows PC (already have that), and I did not return the Mac because it was an object of disappointment. Quite the contrary, I was so pleased with it that I just had to step up to the iMac. Some might question, “I thought...

Thu 17th Dec '09 - As a long time (many times frustrated as well as delighted) Windows user, there have been abundant occasions to read or listen to comments espousing the many ecstasies in the Mac universe of computing. In almost all blogs I have read concerning Windows computing, in the midst of comments made in the ‘talk backs’ or ‘replies’ concerning the subject...

Thu 30th Jul '09 - Microsoft announced on July 22 that the Windows 7 official ‘RTM’ (Release To Manufacturing) was complete and would be sent to their manufacturing partners within the next few days. There is much excitement concerning the October 22 release of Windows 7, especially now that RTM has become a reality. For the first time in several years, it appears...

Fri 13th Nov '09 - With the release of Windows Vista users were confronted with too many flavors of the OS from which to choose. Should I go with Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, or yada, yada, yada? To make things even more confusing, the Vista flavors also arrived in both 32 and 64 bit editions. Vista 64 bit was new to most users, but XP was actually...

Tue 1st Dec '09 - The Windows page file, also known to many as the “swap file”, is an area of hard drive space set aside for Windows to use as “virtual memory”. As users open programs and files, Windows will make more room in the “ram” (random access memory), by writing to the page file some of the ram contents. In this way, hard drive space, which is “storage”, is...

Sat 21st Nov '09 - Never have I involved myself with any Windows operating system during the first week of its release. I continued to use DOS and a menu setup on my computer for months after the release of Windows 3 back when dinosaurs still roamed the planet. After switching to Windows 3, I promised myself to await the first service pack of all subsequent Windows...