Spring Cleaning your PC and other gadgets

Here is a series of articles that give some helpful tips to do some spring cleaning on your PC and other tech gadgets.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343264,00.asp

How To Buy a Cheap Desktop PC

Here is an article from pcmag.com that discusses how to buy a new PC for $500 or less. They also review some promising candiates.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2343538,00.asp

Youngstown Computer Show Notes for Mar 14, 2009

Youngstown Computer Show
March 14, 2009


Segment 1

Story on NYC 24-hour crackdown on driving while on cell phone, 9000 tickets
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03132009/news/regionalnews/nypd_cell_phone_crackdown_yields_thousan_159415.htm

Last week's poll: http://jdany.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/027

This week's poll: http://jdany.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/028 Are you interested in giving Linux a try?

Are white pages still needed?
http://www.slate.com/id/2187035/

Super-charging batteries
http://techblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/03/fast-charging-battery-2-3-year.html

Taking calls about Linux with Ian today.


Segment 2

Special guest today: Ian talks about Linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux


Segment 3

Question from Adam: What is your favorite Distro?
Ian: runs 3 distros, rccommends Umbuntu

Do we need printed phonebooks anymore?

New updates for the iPhone: tethering available (rumored), MMS, copy/paste

Caller 1
Q: there is a program called newcatch that will open up quicken files
A: yes, there are lots of replacements for PC programs

Google is revitalizing their Grand Central product it bought. https://www.google.com/voice/about


Segment 4

Question from Adam: I'm running out of room on my windows partition, how can I get more room?
You will need to resize some partitions and move things around

Caller 2
Q: how much to fix a power jack on a laptop?
A: we will have to complely break down the laptop, usually costs about $200

Caller 3
Q: my computer does not seem to be able to handle video editing of home videos to get them from a hi-8 camera to DVD, what can I do to make this easier?
A: try saving smaller clips from the camer, that will make it easier to work with. You got a dazzle external capture device, try to get a PCI card or firewire device, try pinnacle products

Looking at a new space in Niles, looking at having a home theater seminar, operation Java is still coming.

Next Meeting March 17 2009

The next meeting will be on March 17, at 7:00 pm at the Canfield Prebyterian chrurch.

Some things we will talk about:

• Vice President Dick Wilson will show off his new Flip Video camera.
• I'm going to talk about using Google more effectively. More than any time before, the Google search page is usually the first place to look for stuff on the Internet. I think it is worth it to go back and look at how you are using Google, and how you can use it better. We'll look at simple things you can do to search better, then we will look at the more advanced things you can do with Google search.

Check our web site at http://mahccc.blogspot.com for additional items that are posted between meetings.

As always, we will also try and answer any other computer questions you may have. I hope to see you there!

Youngstown Computer Show Notes for Mar 7, 2009

Youngstown Computer Show
March 7, 2009

Segment 1

Last Week's poll: http://jdany.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/026

This Week's poll: http://jdany.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/027
You pet peeves for tech support calls.

Poker tournament tonight.

Tech support tips:
1. pick your times -- pick the time you think that it is less busy
2. do all the logical things on your side first
3. gather up the info for the computer
4. make sure your important stuff is already backed up!
5. get your computer connected to the internet before you call
6. pay attention to where you are in the phone menu trees
7. verify that you are indeed talking to the right department
8. share all the troubleshooting steps you have done already
9. as they are doing stuff, if you object with what they are doing, LET THEM KNOW!
10. if you have to ship stuff back, make sure you back up data, and don't send stuff like cables or external devices unless they specifically ask for them.


Segment 2

Caller 1
Q: got two computers, but how do I get the wireless internet on both?
A: you do have to set up the wireless routers before they work, you will have to get the settings correct first.

Caller 2
Q: how to password a folder so that someone would have to enter in a password?
A: you could use the different windows accounts to create separate users and they have their own set of folders

Caller 3
Q: what should I look for in a laptop? for just small business use
A: you don't need a quad tier, just go for a dual core, get enough memory, for vista get at least 2 GB of ram. a core 2 duo, 4GB of RAM, 500 GB of hard disk is great

Windows update restarting your computer without your permission? We will cover this next.


Segment 3

Tech support call this morning was to just send in a laptop to replace the touchpad.
Article in CNET about testing Norton 360. They were offered to have a symantec professional install the software correctly for and additional charge of $80. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2342634,00.asp {Actually the article was from PC Magazine. They were trying to install Norton 360 on an already infected machine. --JoeM}

Caller 4
Q: when playing an online game, it says to clear out the browser cache. is that safe?
A: yes, that is a normal thing to do. you shouldn't have to re-install the browser except in very bad situations

Caller 5
Q: skype is starting up automatically on mac os
A: check the on-line knowledge base, or maybe uninstall it {Let me Google that for you: http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/2008/07/disable-skype-auto-start-on-mac.html -- JoeM}
Q: open office was re-installed and now it is slow starting up
A: there might be a bigger problem, like a hard drive or memory problems, download a test program

Kumo is a new search service by Microsoft that is in testing right now. Only available inside of microsoft. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10186108-56.html


Segment 4

Hulu.com to see Nick Burns the computer guy. http://www.hulu.com/watch/19050/saturday-night-live-nick-burns

Windows Update settings: you have four options, I reccommend the setting to automatically download but let you choose when to install them so that they don't interrupt your work.

Outlook Express and Windows Mail cannot handle mail files bigger than 2GB, so make sure you clean those out.