Youngstown Computer Show Notes for June 27

Segment 1

YoCo did a movie night on Wednesday in Struthers. And Joe D bought a popcorn machine. You can hire us for backyard parties. Send in your stories to win a free party.

Be sure to subscribe now to the YoCo newsletter. See http://youngstowncomputer.com for details.

Caller 1
Q: When you click on a email link, Outlook express opens up, but I don't use it.
A: You can tell IE of Firefox you can tell us which program to use for email. However, if you use webmail, you might have to look at the address in the link, or Ian suggests to set up your local email program to use the outbound mail server.

Caller 2
Q: when the screensaver goes on in vista I have to log in, is this normal?
A: Yes, just go into the screensaver properties to turn this off
Q: firefox 3 crashing, is that normal?
A: it is probably an add-on

Joe D and Nick will be "put in jail" for charity. See http://youngstowncomputer.com for details.

Some upcoming classes: July 7 + 9 - starter computer classes
July 14 + 16 - Internet and email
July 23 + 25 - using computers for marketing and selling


Segment 2

Caller during the break: tell us about Netbooks. They are low-cost laptops, small, light, not as powerful as most laptops, just to get you on the internet. Netbooks normally don't have optical drives, that means no CD-ROM or DVD player. They also have small screens, usuall 10" or less. Even the keyboards are not full size. But you can get on the internet and check mail fine. Joe D says they are getting more popular. How can you justfy a $200 OS like Win 7 or Vista on a computer that only costs $300? Ian brings up that you get the OS with the netbooks. Joe D says if it comes with XP, will you go and buy Win 7? Ian says no. (or course, if you order now you can get Win 7 for $49). The costs of repairing are also the same as the whole unit.

Joe D got a blue screen this morning. Probably due to an update to a sprint wireless card.

Caller 3
Q: windows gets all the way to the desktop then it goes to a blue screen
A: you will have to go into safe mode and try installing recent programs. this requires some troubleshooting, perhaps bring the computer in

Ian adds about blue screens, some of the fake AV programs can put up a fake blue screen. Joe D says that some computers will restart automatically on a blue screen. You might want to turn this off in system properties so you can see the error to troublshoot it. Adam asks should you reboot before the memory gets dumped? No, let it finish.


Segment 3

Joe D talks about Bing.com. Ian hates the name. Google seems afraid of Bing. Ian was impressed by the live.com searches. Adam likes the commercials.

Caller 4
Q: is it possible to have two AV programs fight each other?
A: yes, try to only use AV from one vendor instead load up multiple ones. Norton 2009 seems to be good. AV software only helps so much, you must control what you do on the Internet, be careful what you click on

Adam asks about new iMac keyboards that have no numeric keypad.

Caller 5
Q: when I start up IE it comes with a small window.
A: it depends on the program, but you should just have to resize the window, and close out the window so it can remember the window size. Joe D says there have been cases where the user profile is messed up so bad so that the window size might not be able to be saved (could also be caused by some over-protective AV software that is locking out your settings, like having IE save its settings and size)


Segment 4

Grand opening party on July 11.

Caller 6
Q: got put on hold due to audio problems, something about mail attachments not working

Caller 7
Q: problems with a mac G4 with OS 10.3. Internet access is timing out. Programs get shut down after downloading after about 2MB of data
A: we will have to troubleshoot this offline, try to create a new user account and try the same thing

Caller 8
Q: when I first connect to wireless, it get good speed, then the speed drops off
A: there might be some interference with wireless phones and wireless speakers, try another channel, otherwise you might need a rage expander

Adam got a new larger hard drive.