The Computer Tutor podcast

8:26

I’m still seeing a LOT of these showing up, and clients still contact me to see if they are legitimate. Here’s how to identify this scam. There’s a good chance you’ve gotten one of these emails at some point over the past several months. The scammers have been sending out a LOT of them – sometimes over 200,000 in a single day. They tend to follow a predictable format. They are supposedly being sent from Norton or McAfee, and the basic message is that your credit card will be charged $199, $299, or even $399 (the dollar amount varies) to renew the service that you have supposedly subscribed to. Of course, the recipients of these emails are not going to be charged anything. That’s just to get your attention. The REAL goal of these scam emails is to get you to call the phone number. They know that people will read this and think, “Wait a minute, I don’t subscribe to those crappy antivirus programs – what’s going on?” And the person will see that big notice that says “For information about your order, please call…”. Or it might even say, “To cancel this renewal charge, call this number”. And of course the person doesn’t want to pay that charge, so they call the number. That’s the big mistake here – calling the phone number. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Never call the number. When you make that phone call, you will be talking to a professional scammer who is very good and very clever at this game. He will sound very convincing. A lot of people are tricked by this. When the scammer has you on the phone, he will tell you that he needs to remote in to your computer in order to uninstall the software and process your refund. But in the background, he’ll be installing other malicious software and more unattended remote access tools – so that he can get into your computer anytime, even when you’re not on the phone with him. If the scammer senses that you are especially gullible, he might ask you for your credit card information in order to “process the refund”. You obviously don’t want to give a scammer your credit card information. The key to success is this: if you get an email stating that you owe some money, or that your credit card will be charged, or has been charged, don’t call the number on the email . In fact, if you want to, you can forward the email to me at pctutor@gmail.com and ask if it’s legitimate. I have one client who gets a lot of these emails. Every time she would call me or email me asking if it’s legit. Finally I told her to just put a note near her computer to remind her that these are all just scams. Then I was in her home recently, and saw this on her desk. Smart! The post 386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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385 How to download all of your Google Photos images 8:13

acum 3 years8:13

8:13

Do you have all your photos automatically saved to your Google Photos account? What if you want to download all those photos and save them to your computer? Here’s how. Storing all of your photos on Google Photos is a good thing. It’s kind of like an automatic backup for the photos you take on your phone, and it’s free. But over time, you can accumulate a LOT of photos on there. And if that’s the only place where those photos are saved, it would make me a little nervous. What if your Google account gets hacked into, and you no longer have access to it? Or something else happens, and you can’t log in? I’m a lot more comfortable if all those photos – which might represent years or even decades of events – are stored in a second location. Specifically, my computer. When you have all those photos also stored on your computer, you have control of that. In addition, if you follow my recommendations, you’re backing up your computer regularly. So that means those photos would also be backed up. When you store your important things in more than one place, one of them can go haywire and you still have the others. And how do you get these photos from Google Photos to your computer? Well, you could right click and download them one at a time. If you only have a few, that might be okay. But most people have hundreds or even thousands of photos there. So we need a more efficient process. For this we’ll use a service that Google provides, called Google Takeout. It’s at takeout.google.com . When you go there and log in to your Google account (if you’re not already logged in), you’ll see LOTS of data that Google is storing for you. Your Chrome history, your calendar, your contacts, and many more things. But for this exercise we’re just concerned about the photos. So at the top of the list of data, click where it says “Deselect all”, then scroll down to the Google Photos section and check that one box out to the right: And if you did not already know this, you’ll also be downloading all of your videos that are stored there as well. Now, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Next Step. Now you can choose the option that says “Export once” (unless you want to set this up on a recurring schedule). I recommend keeping the “.zip” file format: Now click on Create Export in the lower right. And here’s where we wait. In fact, we might be waiting quite some time. Google will even tell you, it might take hours for them to complete this task. They even say it might take days. Not much you can do about it though; it’s going to take however long it takes. When it’s done, you’ll get an email (at your Gmail email address) to let you know they have created the export. Now all you have to do is click the link to download it. Once the download is on your computer, you can store the files where you want. You can leave them inside the zipped folders, or you can take them out and store them in your Pictures folder, whatever you prefer. The important thing is that they are still on Google Photos, and they are also stored on your computer. And after your next overnight backup, they will also be on your backup drive. The post 385 How to download all of your Google Photos images first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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Blocking Windows 11 from coming in 9:10

acum 3 years9:10

9:10

If your computer is currently running Windows 10, like most Windows computers currently are, there’s a new major update that’s just been released – it’s Windows 11 . It’s not something you want yet. For quite some time, Microsoft said that the last version of Windows would be Windows 10. They said they would just continue to update it, as they’ve always done. But as they have done in the past, what Microsoft said they would do turned out to be different from what they actually did . Windows 11 was officially released on October 5, 2021 – just 3 weeks ago. The general rule for any software is that you don’t want to use it when it first comes out. The old saying “Pioneers get arrows, settlers take the land” sort of applies with computer software. The early versions will likely have bugs. So you definitely don’t want to put new software on any computer that you have to rely on. Right now, Microsoft is saying that Windows 11 will be rolled out gradually. Most people probably won’t see it come in automatically until after the first of the year (2022). But, once again, Microsoft’s actions are subject to change. Remember when Windows 10 came out, and they said you don’t have to get it if you don’t want to? But LOTS of people ended up seeing it on their computers even after opting very clearly to NOT get it. I can’t really say for sure if Microsoft will force it in. What I can say is that Windows 10 is working fine, and it will be supported until October 14 of 2025. That’s 4 more years to use your current computer and your current operating system. I might jump into Windows 11 before Windows 10 ends, but definitely not right now. So how do you keep Windows 11 from coming into your computer? At the moment, it’s not a very simple process. I’ve done this for several clients remotely already. These are the basic steps: Check computer’s internal drive to make sure it’s healthy Check to confirm that the computer has been fully backed up Check how long it’s been since the last restart (and restart if needed) Create a new restore point (so we can get back to the current state if something goes wrong) Back up the registry (again, playing it safe if things go haywire) Add two (or three) specific things to the Windows Registry Restart the computer Here is my official position on the process I just described above: I do not recommend you do this , unless you are a computer tech and understand what you are doing. The Windows Registry is like the “brain” of the Windows operating system. So going in and editing it is kind of like doing brain surgery on your computer. If you know what has to be done (in step 6 above) and you know how to do it, it’s fine. If you’re not sure, or you make one mistake in the Registry, your computer may not boot up again. I’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks for my current clients. I can do it through my Remote Support service ( pricing and details here ). Call or email me if you have any questions about it. Whoever you hire to do this, make sure they know what they are doing. Once Windows 11 is blocked from coming in, you have 4 years to decide what to do. By that time, you might even decide it’s time to get a new computer. And of course, the new computer will have Windows 11 already installed. The post Blocking Windows 11 from coming in first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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Check your hard drive health every day – automatically 6:55

acum 4 years6:55

6:55

If your hard drive starts to show signs of failure, you want to know that as soon as possible. Here’s how to get that alert nice and early. When someone says to you, “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” what do you say? For me, I am a “bad news first” kind of person. Get it out of the way and on to the good stuff. And if it pertains to my computer, even more so. If my computer’s hard drive is having a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. The earlier it can be detected, the earlier it can be fixed. It also means there’s less of a chance of losing any important data (even though I do two different backups every day). So I have a system that is completely automated, and it checks the health of my computer’s internal drive daily. And here’s some good news: This process/system is completely free It’s easy to set up Here’s how you do it. First, you install a little program called Crystal Disk Info. I’ve written about it before . You can get it here . There are different programs listed on the website but what you want is CrystalDiskInfo Standard Edition. Just click on the Installer option, and it will download. Then you can install it. It won’t try to sneak anything else on to your computer. So now you have it installed, but it doesn’t do anything unless you double click the desktop icon to run it. When you run it, it will show you a window with a button that says Good, Caution, or Bad. That’s really the only indicator you need to look at. If it says Good, just close the window and go on with using your computer. If it says Caution or Bad, your hard drive is most likely in the process of failing so we need to deal with that. But I said this whole thing is automated, right? That means we need to set it up so that you don’t have to try to remember to run Crystal Disk Info regularly. Here’s how: Open the program, then at the top click on Function. In the drop down menu, look for the word Startup, and click it. This means that every time your computer starts up, Crystal Disk Info will run automatically. And you’ll see the report about your hard drive’s health. For me, that means every single day. My nightly routine, when I’m done using my computer for the day, is to restart it and then plug in the overnight backup drive. So when I restart it, I see the drive health report first thing. If you don’t do this, your computer’s drive could be in the process of failing for several days or weeks and you wouldn’t even know about it. Better to find out early and take action! The post Check your hard drive health every day – automatically first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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How to do a Safety Check using Chrome 6:29

acum 4 years6:29

6:29

Did you know that Google Chrome can run a quick Safety Check on your computer? Here’s how to do it. Open Chrome, and click the 3 dots in the top right, and choose Settings. Then, scroll down to the Safety Check session and click on “Check now”. Chrome will take a few seconds and check for: Is Chrome up to date? Are there unsafe passwords stored in Chrome? (My recommendation is that you don’t store ANY passwords in Chrome or any other browser.) Is browsing protection enabled? Is Chrome running any malicious extensions? Is there harmful software running on your computer? This is what the results on my computer looked like: If you’re practicing safe computing, and your computer is properly protected, the Chrome Safety Check shouldn’t find any problems. If the Safety Check does alert you to something that needs to be fixed, and you’re not sure what to do, contact me. Keep in mind, this is a very basic checkup. Your computer may have problems or security issues that would not be detected by this Chrome process. Be sure to have good security on your computer, and make sure all your software is kept up to date (this can be automated). The post How to do a Safety Check using Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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An alternative way to send or receive text messages 7:11

acum 4 years7:11

7:11

There are some people who use computers, but don’t do text messages. That sometimes presents a problem for them, but there’s a way to get around it. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. When you go to set up a new Microsoft account, one of the things they will want you to provide is a phone number – and they assume this will be a cell phone that receives text messages. Microsoft is not asking for your phone number so that they can text you all the time with spam messages. They want to have that in place in case you ever need to verify your identity. This usually comes into play when you forget your Microsoft password. When you click on the “Forgot password” link, they’ll offer to send you a text message to the phone number you have on file, in order for you to prove that you are the person who owns that Microsoft account. Then you can reset the password. It’s a pretty quick recovery process, but you have to have that phone number already on file with them in order to do that. But sometimes I’ll have a client who has just never bothered with text messaging. So they don’t really know how to get a text message. Or, maybe they’re using an older style phone, or a no-contract phone that doesn’t do text messaging. We come to the place where you have to get a confirmation text message in order to configure the new Microsoft account, but how do you do that when you can’t get a text message on your phone? Google, of course! If you have a Gmail email account, you already have the ability to do this. Just go to this website: voice.google.com and sign in with your Gmail email address and password. Then, just go through their process of setting up a Google Voice phone number. You can even choose one that starts with your own area code if you’re in the US (not sure how it works outside the US). Once you have your phone number assigned to your account, you can use the Google Voice service to make outbound calls, or for people to call you at that number. And guess what – you can also send and receive text messages from that number! All the instructions and configurations are at the website, voice.google.com . So when Microsoft (or any other website) needs a phone number that receives text messages, just give them your Google Voice phone number. In fact, you might want to use that number even if you are able to get text messages on your actual phone – might help reduce the number of spam message you get on your phone. The post An alternative way to send or receive text messages first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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Use Chrome to fill in your name and address 7:13

acum 4 years7:13

7:13

When you’re online, do you find yourself constantly having to manually type in your name and address when creating a new account? Here’s how to do that with one click. You know what I’m talking about. You see something on the internet you want to purchase, and it’s for sale on some website where you haven’t bought anything in the past. So you need to create an account. That means you have to type in your full name, your street address, your city and state, your zip or postal code, your phone number, etc. These are all things you’ve typed out a hundred times before. Why can’t your computer just remember these things and enter them FOR you. Good news – it can! This is a great feature that’s available in Chrome. I’m sure it’s in the other browsers as well, but I use Chrome mostly so that’s what I’ll be referring to here. Chrome will store all of that personal identity information inside a special section in Chrome settings. Then, when you go to a website form that asks you to fill all of that out, Chrome recognizes that it’s a form and what it’s asking for, and offers you the option to have it all automatically completed. Here’s how you set this up: In Chrome, click the 3 dots up in the top right, then click on Settings Now look for the section called “Autofill” and click on “Addresses and more” Now, where it says “Save and fill addresses”, make sure that switch is turned on (to the right). And click the Add button to enter your address information – In the next window that opens, you enter your information. There are places for your country, name, organization, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email – Click Save and you’re done. Now, if you want to test this, go and create a new account somewhere online. You’ll see that when you place your cursor in the “Name” field (or any of the other fields on that form), Chrome will offer you the option to auto-fill the form with whatever information you have stored. A couple of things to also keep in mind: First, you can store more than one set of info. For example, you might have a physical address, and a different address (such as PO Box) that you use for mail purposes. These can be stored separately and you can just use the appropriate one when needed. Second, you can also store payment methods (such as your credit card information) in Chrome, but I don’t recommend doing that. I also don’t recommend storing your account passwords in Chrome. If anyone gets access to your computer (such as if it were to get lost or stolen), or someone hacks into your computer, they can get access to that information that is stored in Chrome and it could mean a huge headache for you. The post Use Chrome to fill in your name and address first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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How to view your clipboard history 7:56

acum 4 years7:56

7:56

Your Windows computer has a clipboard feature that you are probably not even aware of! Before I tell you today’s tip, a little background or “setup” information so that everyone is on the same page. One of the most useful features of a computer is the ability to Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste. If you don’t use this, you should learn how to do it. It’s really easy and comes in very handy all the time. Here’s how it works in a basic example – let’s say you have a Word document that has five paragraphs. You want to move the second paragraph down to the end of the document. Well, you could just retype the whole paragraph at the end, and then delete it from its original spot. That would achieve your end result. But there’s a much easier way! You can highlight the entire paragraph, then tap CTRL + X (this is the “cut” part of Cut and Paste. When you do this, two things happen: The paragraph disappears from the Word document (don’t worry, it’s not gone) The paragraph gets stored temporarily on the clipboard (keep this in mind; we’ll come back to it) Now, you go to the end of the document and put the cursor where you want that paragraph to appear. Now you tap CTRL + V (this is the “paste” part). And there’s your paragraph, where you want it. That’s how Cut and Paste works. If instead of CTRL + X, you did CTRL + C, that means you are “copying” instead of “cutting”. So when you paste, the paragraph will be at the end of the document, but it will also still be in its original position. So what’s the clipboard? When you Cut or Copy, whatever you have highlighted gets stored on the Clipboard. You won’t see this on the screen though. Think of the Clipboard as being an “invisible” thing that temporarily stores whatever you are cutting or copying. You can’t see it, but it’s there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So that’s the background of how Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste works. Now here’s today’s cool tip: You can actually view the past items you have put on your clipboard, and paste them over and over. Here’s how: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter “v”. Windows + v . You’ll see a little window pop up on your screen, and there are the last several items you’ve cut or copied. I’m not sure how many it’s able to display, but I just checked mine and it shows the last 16 items. So if you need to paste something over and over, you don’t have to go back to the original, highlight it, and copy it again. Just click to display the Windows Clipboard, and grab it from there. And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you copied text or an image – they will all show up in the Windows Clipboard. The post How to view your clipboard history first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly” 8:06

acum 4 years8:06

8:06

One of the most common things I hear from people is still this: “My computer is too slow!” The problem is, they could be talking about two different things. This leads me to ask a clarifying question, so we know exactly what we are dealing with. I ask, “When you say it’s slow, are you talking about when you go to a website, it takes a long time for the website to load? Or, do you mean for example you click on Microsoft Word and it takes a long time for Word to come up on the screen?” Do you see the difference in those questions? If it’s a website that is slow to load, that’s not necessarily a problem with the computer itself – it’s just a slow internet connection. If that’s an issue, it’s time to make a call to whoever you pay for the internet each month. They can do some diagnostic checking from their end while you’re on the phone. In some cases, the modem or router (or both) might be failing and need to be replaced. You can also speed up your internet connection by connecting the router to the computer with an ethernet cable, instead of by wifi. I know that’s not always physically possible. But if your computer sits next to the router anyway, you would be better off just connecting a cable rather than connecting to the wifi signal. A wired connection is always faster. If it’s a program that is slow to load, then that could be an issue with the computer itself. There are a variety of things to check here. The computer may need to be restarted, there might be too many programs running in the background, or it could even be an indication that the hard drive is having a problem (got a recent backup?). So keep in mind, “slow” can have more than one meaning. But either way, we have methods of speeding it up! The post Two different ways your computer could be running “slowly” first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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What to do about Windows 11 8:43

acum 4 years8:43

8:43

You probably heard the announcement recently from Microsoft – Windows 11 is coming . Here’s what you need to do. For quite some time, Microsoft held to their position that Windows 10 would be the last one. They would just keep doing updates to Windows 10, and there wouldn’t be any “new” named versions of Windows. So much for that idea. They announced recently that Windows 11 would be released as the next big version, starting later this year and extending the rollout into 2022. And with that announcement, they included a link that took you to a little program that checked your computer to see if it will be able to run Windows 11. That’s because the hardware and security requirements are going to be higher with this new version of Windows. So people started checking their computers, and they were finding out that their current computer would NOT be able to run Windows 11. So of course that’s when the phone calls and emails started coming in. I had several clients calling and asking what to do, should they plan on going out and getting a new computer, all kinds of questions. So, I’m here today to give you detailed instructions on how to handle the Windows 11 situation. Here’s my recommendation: That’s right. Just wait . Right now, your computer is most likely running Windows 10. If you went out and bought a brand new computer today, guess what operating system it will have. Yep, Windows 10. That’s because Windows 11 has not even been released to the public yet. And even if Windows 11 were available starting today, do you really want to be one of the first ones to use it? New software inevitably has problems which get fixed in subsequent updates. Let the early adopters find those errors. And at this point, as I write this, we really don’t know what the system requirements are going to be for a new computer to be able to run Windows 11. Remember that little checker program that people could run to test their current computer for compatibility? Well, Microsoft took that down because they changed some of the requirements. And those guidelines continue to change. And here’s another important fact to keep in mind: Windows 10 is working just fine, and it’s going to be supported by Microsoft until October 2025. So you’re fine to keep using it for more than four more years! So there’s no rush. No need to make any changes yet. You can relax and just see what happens. Having said all that, I was able to get my hands on an early “preview” version of Windows 11. Microsoft has something they call an “Insiders Program” where techs can try out new versions of Windows to play with it and report problems. So I have a beta version running on one of my computers at the moment, and I have to say I actually kind of like it so far. The Start button and Start menu are in the middle of the task bar instead of in the lower left corner. Taskbar icons are centered (similar to the way a Mac computer displays program icons at the bottom of the screen). Of course, when it does come out officially, I’ll do a blog and podcast about what’s new (both good and bad). Until then – just keep doing what you’re doing. The post What to do about Windows 11 first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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The Western Digital backup disaster 11:55

acum 4 years11:55

11:55

Recently, Western Digital had a problem with a couple of their external drives. This caused a huge disaster for some users, who ended up losing all of their data. Here’s what happened, and why those who follow my backup process had no problems. First, let’s clear up some terminology. A portable drive usually is slightly smaller than a smartphone. It will only have one cable – a USB cable that you connect to the computer when you want to have the computer do a backup. An external hard drive is usually larger, like the size of a paperback book. The image pictured above is an external hard drive. These drives usually have a USB cable and also a regular power cord to plug into the wall for electricity. Either of these types of drives can be used for a backup, but the one I use and recommend is the portable drive. For most people, it’s all they need. It can sit on top of your computer tower, or on your desk next to your laptop. Western Digital is one of the well-known companies that manufactures hard drives. They make external hard drives, and portable drives. They have a couple of particular external drive models known as My Book Live, and My Book Live Duo. These drives have been around for a while, and they are used by literally millions of people all over the world for file storage. What makes these drives a bit unusual is that they are connected directly to the internet. This means that the files that are stored on the drive can be shared, or you can access the drive from any computer. This is a convenience feature. Western Digital My Book Live Duo Last week, many people who use these two drives discovered a huge problem. All of their data on the drive had been wiped out. Completely erased. When this happened, I saw some people posting things like “This is my nightmare” and “I’m totally screwed” because they were counting on those drives to store their most important things, like documents and irreplaceable pictures and videos. The question now is, what happened, and how could it have been avoided? As far as what happened, at this point it appears to have been a malicious attack. Some malware was able to run on the Western Digital servers, and that malicious software gave the command to reset those internet-connected external drives. So not only were the drives reset back to factory state (meaning none of the customer’s data was kept), the password that was used to get into the drive was also reset. How could this have been avoided? I would explain this in two concepts: The first concept is what is called an air gap . This means that your backup drive should be, as much as possible, not connected to your computer or the internet or anything else – other than when it’s necessary. There should be AIR between your backup drive and your computer or the internet. For the people who lost all their files, that would not have happened if their external drive was disconnected at the time. Malicious software can’t travel through an air gap. The second concept is this saying: “ 3 is 2, 2 is 1, and 1 is none. ” This is referring to how many places you have your files stored. You have to always assume that one of those places is going to fail. So if you have your important stuff saved in 3 places, 1 will fail, and you really only have it in 2 places. If you have it stored in just 2 places to start with, then 1 of them will fail, and you really only have it in 1 place. And if you only have your files stored in 1 place, you don’t have a backup . Because if that one place fails, you’ve lost your files. So many of the people who used these drives made a fatal mistake. And it’s one that I see my clients make sometimes if they don’t check with me first. They say, “My computer’s hard drive is pretty full – so I’m going to free up some space, and move those files to an external drive.” But think about that – if you move them off of your computer, to your external drive, how many places are they stored? ONE. This means you do NOT have a backup. When that external drive fails, you lose. The process I recommend for backup means that your files are stored in 3 places: The first place is on your computer. Your hard drive should be big enough to store all of your important stuff. If it’s not big enough, I can upgrade it to a larger solid state drive so that it is big enough. The second place is your portable drive. Most of the time, this drive is not connected to the computer (that’s the air gap ). The portable drive is only plugged in overnight, when you’re not using the computer. The software that I install and configure backs up ALL of your stuff (including the programs) overnight, and it’s done by the time you wake up. When you get on the computer, you double check that the backup happened, and you disconnect the portable drive so that your newly backed-up data stays safe. The third place is a cloud backup service. The one I use is Carbonite. Once it’s set up, the process is completely automated. You create or edit a file in your Documents folder, and within minutes it is safely backed up on Carbonite’s servers. This means your computer and your portable drive could be completely destroyed in a fire or a hurricane, and your important files (Documents, Pictures, and others) would still be safely stored and can be retrieved later. One thing I want to stress: I still have faith in the physical integrity of Western Digital drives. I use both Western Digital and Seagate drives, and I think they are both equally reliable. What happened recently was not a hardware failure – it was a breach of the Western Digital cloud servers. The process that I use and described above does not include having any files stored on Western Digital computers. Yes, one of the backups we use is in the cloud (Carbonite), but again – that’s just one place. If that one fails, you still have the other two. Don’t take any chances with your important files. If you need help setting up a backup process, contact me. No backup system is 100% foolproof, but we can at least make it as reliable as possible. The post The Western Digital backup disaster first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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How to get rid of “News and Interests” 7:33

acum 4 years7:33

7:33

A recent Windows update probably added a new icon to the lower right corner of your screen. If you don’t want it there, here’s the easy way to get rid of it. Microsoft really loves to put things on your computer screen even though you didn’t request it. Last week (June 8, 2021, to be exact) was the monthly time that Microsoft sends out their regular updates to Windows. It’s always the second Tuesday of the month, and is called Patch Tuesday (because many of the updates “patch” security holes that have been discovered). This most recent update included the addition of a Windows toolbar called “News and Interests”, and it shows up in the row of all the other icons in the bottom right corner of your screen: By default, it just shows the local temperature and weather conditions (84 F and sunny, that’s Florida!). But wait til you put your cursor over it (don’t click, just move the cursor over that icon). Suddenly you have lots more stuff – So there’s a more thorough weather report, stock prices, a traffic report for an upcoming trip, and several current news stories. And the image you see above isn’t the whole thing – that window is fully scrollable. There are LOTS more news stories when you scroll through the list. You might actually find this little thing to be a handy quick source of information. But you would also probably want to customize it with the specific news and interests that pertain to YOU. For the stock prices, you can specific which stocks you want to see. Or you can just eliminate that info entirely. You can change the weather location (in my example, I would change it to Safety Harbor, which is where I live, rather than Clearwater). Or you can have it not display the weather at all. There’s also a sports option, so you can see the latest scores and info for your favorite players or teams if you want. And of course there is always the news – this is reflective of the mind-numbing 24/7 news reporting cycle we are in now. Some of this stuff might be handy. If I want to know the current temperature, I can just glance at my screen. Of course, I could already do that by glancing at my phone. I don’t follow most sports so I don’t really care about that. In my case, I might customize the news filtering so that I only see the most unusual news stories (those stories are sometimes the source for guests for my “What Was That Like” podcast ). The bad news about this little addition – when you click a link to read an article or get more info, it doesn’t care that your preferred browser is Chrome. All links will open in Microsoft Edge. Remember, this “News and Interests” thing is a Microsoft creation, so they will force you to view any details in their Microsoft browser. Even though most of the world uses Chrome. But if you find nothing of value in this new addition to your Windows Taskbar, you can just get rid of it. Just do a right click on it, then go up to “News and interests” and in the side menu, click on “Turn off”. And you can always turn it back on using the same process. The post How to get rid of “News and Interests” first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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What to consider when buying a laptop 13:06

acum 4 years13:06

13:06

Are you thinking about buying a laptop? Here are some things to consider before handing over your money. Manufacturer When someone is asking me about which brand(s) I recommend, my first response is to say that who makes the laptop is not as important as what’s inside. In other words, it’s more important to consider the specs of a computer and make sure it’s going to work for your needs, rather than just who manufactures it. That being said, the brands that I prefer are Lenovo, Dell and HP (in that order). That’s just my opinion, based on my experience in buying, selling and repairing computers for 22 years. And some people have very strong opinions about this as well. There are people who may have had a bad experience with Dell and vow to never buy a Dell computer. Then again, I have other clients who love Dell computers and ONLY buy that brand. There are wide-ranging opinions about every manufacturer. Just keep in mind that it’s not the only factor to consider. Screen size Standard screen size for a laptop is 15.6 inches (measured diagonally on the usable part of the screen, not the plastic bezel that frames the screen). If you like a really big screen, the largest laptop screens are usually 17 inches. Recently, more people are looking for smaller screens, like 13 or 14 inches. The advantage of the smaller laptops is that they are lighter and more portable, and usually the battery will last longer since it doesn’t have to power a bigger screen. Internal drive This is one of the biggest factors to consider. I always recommend getting a solid state drive since they are more reliable and MUCH faster (as opposed to a traditional, spinning hard disk drive). I also recommend getting a computer that has just ONE drive, not two drives. Some computers are sold with a small solid state drive just to run Windows, and then a separate spinning drive for storage. This gets confusing for doing a backup. Just get a computer that has a solid state drive that has the space you need. And that’s the next question – what size drive do you need? Here’s how you figure that out. Look at your current computer, and see how much drive storage space you are currently using. Let’s say for example you’re using 110 gb of space. For the new computer, you want to be able to transfer your important files and folders, and still have at least half of the drive as unused space. So if you found a laptop with a 250 gb solid state drive, and you transferred over 110 gb of files (documents, pictures, etc.) then you would still have over half of the drive free. For most people, a 250gb or 500gb drive is sufficient. But make sure you know what you need before you start shopping around. I had a client once who got a great deal on a new laptop (and bought it without consulting anyone). It had a 120gb solid state drive. She brought it to me so I could move all of her stuff from the old computer to the new one, and that’s when we discovered all of her pictures, music and other files came to over 200gb – so it wouldn’t even fit on the new computer at all. That’s the situation we want to avoid. Processor The processor is sort of the “brain” of the computer. I like Intel processors, and usually recommend that you get at least an i5. If you’re on a budget, an i3 might be okay. An i7 is better than both, and i9 is the new one. Of course, the better the processor, the more it costs. So just get the best you can afford. Memory (RAM) Memory is another factor that might be based on what your budget is. The basic amount of memory for any new computers now is 4gb. More is better, so if you can get 8gb or 16gb that would be good. More memory means faster computing. Internet connection Chances are, if you’re getting a laptop, you’ll probably be using it on a wifi connection almost all the time. But if the computer will actually be sitting in the same place on your desk most of the time, and your router is nearby, you might just want to connect to the internet using an ethernet cable instead of wifi. An ethernet cable will mean your internet speed is faster. But not all laptops have an ethernet port – so you might want to check on that as part of your purchase strategy. Keyboard Some keyboards just “feel” better than others. This is just a personal thing. I like Lenovo laptops partly because of their keyboards. If you have a local computer store (such as Best Buy), you might want to go there an get a hands-on feeling of how the various keyboards compare. Price And finally – price. This is obviously a personal matter for anyone shopping for a laptop. The only thing I would say here is this: don’t go for the cheapest laptop on the shelf. When you see Walmart on Black Friday selling brand new laptops for $200, there’s a reason why they’re cheap. They probably have Celeron processors – these are low-end and pretty slow. And they’ll have the old spinning-disk hard drives, which are also slow. When you combine those two things with a bare minimum of RAM, you have the perfect storm of slow computing. You’ll be cursing that computer long after you get over the excitement of getting a new computer so cheaply. If you need a laptop with decent specs but you don’t have the $600 – $1200 budget, you might consider getting a refurbished laptop. I have these available quite often. The ones I offer will always have a solid state drive and a good processor, and it will be already set up for you with Chrome and Firefox, ad blockers, and much of the Windows 10 privacy invasion “features” will be disabled. I go over them and make sure all is working great, and I price them at about half of what a similar-spec new one would cost. The post What to consider when buying a laptop first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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How to include a video INSIDE a Word document 7:31

acum 4 years7:31

7:31

Have you ever created a Word document and included a link to a YouTube video? Today I’ll show you how to put that video right into the document! Most people don’t even know this is possible so it’s a great trick to show your friends. First, you need to determine what video you want to use for this. Let’s say we’re writing an article about the TV show The Office. I’ve been a big fan of that show for a long time and highly recommend it. Anyway, there’s a YouTube video that has a few minutes of bloopers from the Office, so that’s the video we want to use. When you see that video on YouTube, up at the top in the address bar you’ll see the website address for that video: Highlight that website address, and Copy it (right click, Copy). Now, go to your Word document and put your cursor at the spot where you want to insert that video. Then, click on “Insert”, and in the Insert section, click on “Online video”: Now you’ll see a new window open, and it will ask you for the URL (the website address) for the video. So, in the field provided, do a right-click and choose Paste. That puts the address in that field, and you can click Insert. Now, the video will show inside the document like this: As you can see, there are control points all around the video image, so you can drag and make it as small or as large as you like. You can even rotate it using the rotate arrow at the top. You can also format it the same way you would format a regular picture – so the text in the document can flow around it, or beside it, or right over the top of it if you want. So, what happens when you click to play that video? Well, a small window opens right in front of the Word document, and there’s a Play button which you can click to watch the video. And it plays, right there in the document. If you click anywhere outside the video window, that window disappears and you’re back to the regular document. It’s pretty smooth. You might be thinking, “Why would I do this?” Well, if you want reference a video in your article, you could just include the website address for that video. The reader could then click the link, and open a separate window such as Chrome, where they could also watch that video. By including the video inside the Word document, it makes it more convenient for the reader because they don’t have to open a separate program in order to go to the YouTube website and view the video. They can do everything from right within your document. Bonus: people will probably ask, “How did you do that?!” The post How to include a video INSIDE a Word document first appeared on The Computer Tutor .…

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How to export your passwords from Chrome 10:44

acum 4 years10:44