• by Bill Jimenez

    Subscribe to My Monthly Newsletter

  • Schedule Remote Computer Support

    Schedule

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Pages

Now, what was that password again?

Posted on October 1, 2008 by wjimenez275

Have you ever brought up a website, be it your bank, insurance company, credit card, etc., only to not remember what you used for the username and password? Or worse, do you use the same username and password for every site you need to log on to? There is a solution, and I’m not talking about the web browser’s “remember this password” prompt.

I use a program call RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/). RoboForm installs as an add-in to your browser. When you open a website that requires a username and password, RoboForm offers to save what you enter in it’s database. The next time you go to that site, you just click on the site link on the menu bar and it fills in the username and password for you. You can even have RoboForm generate a password for you so you don’t end up using the same password for every site. You can also set it up with your personal information so that when you come to a site where you need to fill in name, address, etc., you click the item on the menu bar and it fills in the blanks for you.

There is a free version that is limited to 10 passwords and 2 identities. The paid version allows unlimited passwords and identities, so you and your family members can each record their own passwords. You can password protect your password list so it is protected from others. Compare the two versions here – http://www.roboform.com/why-pro.html

There is also a version that installs on a USB Flash Drive so you can use it in multiple computers and once you remove the flash drive, no trace of your passwords remains. This is a great version for people who have multiple computers or tend to use public computers since with RoboForm, you don’t need to type in personal data or passwords; it’s all done by clicking on the menu bar item. This defeats any keylogging software that might be on a computer.

So, with RoboForm, you’ll never forget a password again. I recommend it.

Filed under: Internet Items, Quick Wins, Stay Safe | 3 Comments »

What do I do if the file I need is on my home computer and I’m not home?

Posted on September 28, 2008 by wjimenez275

In this day of multiple computers, there usually comes a time when you need a file or to look at an e-mail when you are away from home only to realize that it’s on your home computer.  Or, you may be visiting a friend when you remember an e-mail you had meant to send and you need to access your e-mail program. When that happens to me, I turn to my remote desktop software LogMeIn, which allows me to access my home computer to find those files or send that e-mail just as if I were at home.

Remote desktop software, such as LogMeIn or GoToMyPC, installs on the computer you want to connect to and then allows you to connect from any internet connection. They are very secure so the connection is locked up with security (you’ll need to be careful when using an internet connection on a public computer since you don’t know what kind of malware is on it). I have been using LogMeIn myself for several years and have been very happy with it.

LogMeIn offers a free version for remote access which is a fine version if you want to run programs or check e-mail on your home computer. If you need to do more, like transfer files, print or share your share files with someone else, you can upgrade to the Pro version for $69.95/year compared to GoToMyPC which goes for $179.40/year. What does one do that the other doesn’t? Nothing really. Some say GoToMyPC is faster but I haven’t really noticed a difference, at least none that would entice me to pay the extra cost.  And, for most people, the free version of LogMeIn will work just fine.

So, when I need that file and it’s at home and I’m not, I just connect to my computer and get it, by using LogMeIn.

Filed under: Quick Wins | 1 Comment »

How valuable is your data?

Posted on September 24, 2008 by wjimenez275

I know, deep question…Some of it is critical, those digital pictures you’ve always intended to print but never got around to. Those emails from family and friends that you’ve saved forever (a topic for another day). Those documents you created and saved. Let’s think worst case. What would happen if disaster struck? Your hard drive dies, or your computer gets stolen, or a natural disaster strikes. How would you feel if all of that data were to go away and never come back? If that strikes a little fear to the heart, you need to consider a backup solution.

There are several ways of going about backing up your data. One way is to get an external hard drive and use the backup software that came with your drive or operating system. That’s a step in the right direction, but isn’t always the best solution. What if there was a fire or flooding. That hard drive would go down with the computer.

What else is there? There’s on-line backup and storage. The benefits of this is that the backup is off-site and secure. It’s accessible from any internet connection so you can restore your data from anyplace, and some programs allow you to share files with others. There is a difference between on-line backups and on-line storage. On-line backup programs like Mozy and Carbonite do a great job of backing up in realtime, meaning they wait for the computer to go idle and then they look for any files that have been added or changed and back them up for you, automatically.  The downside is that they’ll only keep a deleted file for 30 days, so if you accidentally delete a file and don’t notice it, after 30 days, it’ll no longer be available to you offsite.  These programs run about $50-$60 a year. A storage site, such as Dropbox allows you to upload files to online folders and pretty much keep them online forever. Some of these programs will have you install some desktop software to your computer so you can drag and drop files or folders in a nice Explorer type environment and schedule automatic and regular backups.

Most online backup/storage sites will give you free storage space and/or allow you to try their services for a limited time for free. Realize also that the first full backup to any of these programs will take some time, even days to complete. Future backup will be much quicker as it will only be backing up new or changed files.

If you are the type of person who would like to setup automatic, background backups, or if you would like some storage to save files to and that allows you to share certain files with others, there is a solution for you. Regardless, the need for backup is critical, so check one of these out, sign up and use it.

Filed under: Internet Items, Quick Wins | 1 Comment »

Desktop Searching

Posted on September 21, 2008 by wjimenez275

Have you ever needed to find something in an email or in a file on your computer and could only remember a word or two it contained? You couldn’t remember the file name or where it came from. What would you do? I’ll tell you what I do. I use a program that has indexed all of my documents, music and emails and with one click will search through all of them very quickly to find the items that match what I’m looking for.

There are two free desktop search programs that I would recommend. The first is by Copernic and can be downloaded at http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/home/download.html. I’ve been using this program for searching for several years and really enjoy its speed and accuracy. It indexes in the background whenever the computer is idle so it’s very up-to-date with it’s index.

The other program is from Google and can be downloaded at http://desktop.google.com/. The latest version has been streamlined quite a bit, which is good because the prior versions have been pretty bloated with extra things that really aren’t necessary. Of course, the Google program is much better at searching the internet than Copernic.

Either one will find documents, files, music, emails based on searching even a single word contained within the item. They are both extremely fast, due to having everything already indexed. My preference is the Copernic program but I haven’t really worked much with the new Google version, which just recently was released. I’m using that one on my laptop so if my preference changes, I’ll let you know.

For a time-saver, when you just can’t remember the whens and wheres, a desktop search works wonders and I’d really recommend you have one.

Filed under: Quick Wins | Leave a comment »

Sitting here looking at my desk…

Posted on September 14, 2008 by wjimenez275

I have 2 cell phones, a land phone, a bluetooth headset, an iPod Nano, a Creative Labs MP3 player and a Palm Organizer all plugged in and charging. I’m listening to internet radio, commercial free where I can build my own stations of songs I like and remove the songs I don’t like from the songs that play so that at the end of the day, I’ve got a station that plays nothing but songs I like. When I want to watch something on TV, I pick up the remote that came with my computer and play TV on the second monitor I have attached to my pc. When I want to call a friend overseas, I open a program and dial that friend over the internet and we connect, for free. Oh, and I click on the video button and we can both see each other, for free.  The audio and video are quite good considering.

The point of all of this? Not so many years ago, none of this was possible. It’s amazing how far we’ve come with technology. Granted, I work in technology so it would make sense that I’d have so many “things” but still, wow. The children of today take these things for granted. They’ve never lived in a world that didn’t have these things.  It’s not uncommon to see a teen with a cell phone against one ear and an iPod plugged into the other. To punish a teenager today, you take their cell phone away. They go through withdrawals. Blackberry PDA’s are called Crackberries because so many are addicted to them. But not me. I can give them up…Well, sometimes.

I’d like to hear what “toys” you have that you especially like. Please comment.

Filed under: Quick Wins | 2 Comments »

More Chrome, or should I say Less Chrome?

Posted on September 12, 2008 by wjimenez275

Just wanted to send an update on Google Chrome. It’s okay, it’s lightweight, it’s quick, but it’s not ready to replace the established browsers. Since it’s still in beta, I can understand some of the limitations, but it’s not compatible with several websites and doesn’t have the add-ins that will make it so. For now, I’ll stick with Firefox and keep checking Chrome as it matures. The more I use the new Firefox, the more I really like it. Check it out.

Filed under: Internet Items | Leave a comment »

Firefox Bookmark Links

Posted on September 8, 2008 by wjimenez275

Someone asked me how to create links to frequently used websites in Firefox. Firefox has the search engine links to the right of the address bar, and though you can add additional links, you are somewhat limited to what they offer. However, you can create icons to frequently used sites on the menu bar and this video will show you how.

Filed under: Instructional, Internet Items | Leave a comment »

Software Support Plans – Are they worth it?

Posted on September 7, 2008 by wjimenez275

I had someone ask me the other day if they should bother purchasing the annual software support plan if they never call the vendor for support. It’s a good questions since the support plan isn’t cheap. Unlike insurance for your car or house, where it’ll be replaced or repaired if something happens, software support plans cover tech support and software upgrades. If you don’t ever call for support, and are happy with your software the way it is, then what’s the problem with letting the plan lapse? For the most part, there isn’t a problem with it. Many people keep their laptops and software running for several years and are fine. However, then MIcrosoft introduces a new operating system, and your laptop breaks so you are forced to purchase a new laptop, with the new operating system on it, and your old software won’t run on the new setup. What then? When you call the vendor and request a version of the software that will run with the new setup, they’ll let you know that you need to pay for the years you let the contract go before you can get the new upgrade. In this, I’m referring to the CAT vendors, not necessarily other software vendors, though for the most part, with other software vendors you don’t have to purchase support plans, you can pay for the calls as you need them and even pay for the upgrades at a greatly reduced cost of the regular program. CAT vendors are different though. Their market is much smaller than the general public, since they are in a niche market, so once they sell their software, they don’t have a lot of people going in daily to purchase more software. What the contract price allows the vendor to do is to pay it’s programmers to make the software work better and more efficiently. Without the money from the users, it’s much harder for the vendor to make improvements, which ultimately makes your job easier. I know it’s hard to justify the cost of the plan when you’re writing that check, but in the long run, by improving the software and making upgrades available to you, it will help you in the end. Besides, you’re going to have to pay the cost the next time you need to upgrade your hardware/software.

Filed under: Quick Wins | Leave a comment »

What’s so great about Firefox?

Posted on September 4, 2008 by wjimenez275

The prior post introduced you to Google’s new browser, Chrome. However, Mozilla just came out with an update for their popular browser Firefox (you can download it here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/).

What are some of the benefits to Firefox 3? There are several but the biggest are with the security features. Firefox 3 protects you from viruses, worms, trojan horses and spyware. If you accidentally access an attack site, you’ll receive a full-sized browser message as a warning. A continuously updated list of attack-sites keeps this very current. Next, there is their Anti-Phishing protection. This allows you to shop and do business safely on the Internet. Firefox gets a fresh update of web forgery sites 48 times in a day, so if you try to visit a fraudulent site that’s pretending to be a site you trust (like your bank), a browser message—big as life—will stop you. You can also very easily clear your private data automatically—with just one click or a keyboard shortcut. Your info is gone for good—on your own computer or the one at your local library. It’s that easy.

As for searching, you can access your favorite search engines from the integrated search bar. It’s just to the right of the address bar. You can use a new search engine for each search, or stay with your favorite. Choose from a preset dropdown list of engines or select “manage search engines” from the same list to browse search engine options offered as add-ons.

They’ve also made it less memory intensive so if you have several programs open, there’s more memory to go around.

And, they have added a zoom feature from the view menu so those pages where the words are hard to read, you can now zoom the screen to make them larger. Firefox saves the settings for that page so the next time you go back to it, it’s already set on zoom.

One thing that I really like is that in the event of a crash, the next time you go back into Firefox, it will ask if you want to reopen the pages you were on before the crash. How great is that?

Firefox has been able to update and securitize their browser much faster than Microsoft can do with Internet Explorer. It has some great features and many people are using it as their primary browser. There are still some older web based programs that will not run under Firefox, but for regular browsing, it is well worth the look.

Filed under: Internet Items | Leave a comment »

Google’s New Browser

Posted on September 2, 2008 by wjimenez275

Well, from one of the most popular, well okay, the most popular search engines, we now have a browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox. What’s different about Google Chrome (that’s what it’s named)? First, there are “Links to websites you visit the most – Chances are you visit some websites on a regular basis. The New Tab page provides image thumbnails and links for those websites automatically.

Right-click a website to access options to open it in another new tab, in a new window, or in incognito mode. Click the Show full history link at the bottom of the page to see your entire browsing history in Google Chrome.” (Google site)

Second, there is a list of search engines that you use often – “Google Chrome saves a list of search engines that you’ve encountered while browsing the Internet. Search boxes for the ones you frequently use automatically appear on the page for easy access. You can search their websites directly from this page.” (Google Site)

You also have a link to Recently closed tabs – “Links to tabs that you’ve just closed are stored in case you accidentally close something. Up to three links are displayed.” (Google Site)

The address bar acts as both the address bar for websites and the search bar for google. You’ll see recommended sites as you type in the bar.

It’s still in Beta mode, which means that there will be some minor issues with it but I’ve been playing with it a bit since earlier this evening, and it’s plain, simple, and seems pretty friendly. I’ll let you know more about it as I use it more.

Filed under: Internet Items | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »