Free Software Review and Computer Help

Ubuntu Linux Has Become My Operating System of Choice

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:29:00 +0000

I just have to say that I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 on my Gateway 6961 and I'm loving it. I'm using it to do most of my writing using LibreOffice, I'm reading my Kindle books on it through the Chrome browser, and doing all of my social media stuff with it.

I set up an older Laptop with it also so my son could use it in his bedroom for school work, and I don't have to mess with it. I figure if he screws it up I will just download the latest disk and redo his installation, but I haven't had to, it just keep running fine.

It seems like I'm constantly having to clean out Malware out of my Windows computers running in the house. It amazes me that you can have virus protection on one of these machines, and you still end up with with a crap load of Malware. I have to clean it out with Malwarebytes, or my personal favorite Superantispyware. Well I just don't have this problem with my Linux machine.

If you have a computer that has a messed up Windows installation, and you're about to donate it to Goodwill, you really should download a copy of Ubuntu and install it first. You might find that out don't need to get rid of your computer, or that it could be a useful second computer. Most of the computer I use I received after someone else gave up on them.

There is a lot of free software for Linux, and software you can buy also. No, you won't be able to use the latest game that runs on Windows, but there are a lot of games you can play. But let's face it, most of what we use computers for today revolves around the web and Ubuntu Linux has that covered. If you aren't sure about it, then download the CD image file, burn it, and boot from the live CD to give it a try. It will only cost you a little time and it's fun to play with.

Compiz Config Setting Manager for Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:41:00 +0000

After installing Ubuntu 11.10 I found that the side bar in Unity was pretty handy but it was driving me crazy because it always kept popping in and out when I was using programs. I couldn't find a way of changing the setting so it would just stay put and have programs running to the right side of it. After doing some research I found a settings manager that you need to install to be able to change the program bar setting called Compiz Config Setting Manager.

Copy paste the following command into Terminal to install

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

After installing Compiz I then had control over how the program bar behaves as well as many many other things that my desktop does. Where I needed to change this particular setting was in the Ubuntu Unity Plugin. On the sceen you will see a setting for Hide Screen set it to Never. That's it, your all set.

A word of warning be careful when unclicking boxes at the main screen. I ended up with my bar disappearing, I had to boot in Ubuntu 2D mode, and then boot back in Ubuntu to clear things up. I would suggest only changing things that you know will give you the outcome you are looking for. Going to the Compiz website is a good place to start if you want to know more about this program.

CintaNotes a Free Quick and Easy Text Grabber

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:47:00 +0000

Many times I'm working on projects where I need to grab a lot of information from different places, URLs for an article, or I just need to jot down a quick note for future reference. Ive started using a Free application called CintaNotes.

CintaNote is a lightweight personal notes manager that lets you quickly save and tag any useful information that you come across, or just need to jot down. With the use of hot keys you can select a piece of text from anywhere, and then copy it along with it's URL into a clipboard.

Retrieving your information is easy, just open CintaNotes and start typing in the search box, only the notes which contain the text you typed in will remain in the list. You can also use more sophisticated search criteria like searching by title, or by the URL the note was taken from. You may also tag your notes to make organizing them easier, and you can use those tags for filtering.

You can also synchronize note across multiple PCs. Live note synchronization is supported with the help of free online services such as DropBox.

CintaNotes can be run from your flash drive; it's totally self-contained meaning that you can put it on a flash drive and run it directly from there. In this way, your notes will always be with you.

CintaNotes will run on any version of Windows Win2000 on up, and is available in 19 different languages.

How To Manage Your Email With Thunderbird For Free

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:34:00 +0000

Mozilla Thunderbird email Client puts all of your email accounts in one manageable spot, and doesn't cost a cent.

It makes sense to use an email provider that doesn't care about your internet provider, and moves with you. Gmail, Yahoo mail, and Hotmail are examples of free email providers that give you the freedom to keep your email address for years. You could use the email service that your internet provider gave you, but a lot of the time they just plain stink, and what do you do if you get fed up with Comcast for instance, and decide to use another internet provider? You loose your email address.

Most of us end up using more than one email address because it makes sense to have an email address for our blogs, ebay, our web page, school, etc. But you soon find yourself logging in and out off different email accounts all day, and email becomes a big nuisance. That is where a desktop email client like Thunderbird comes in handy.

You may be familiar with Outlook because you've used it at work, or you may have payed a tidy sum for it along with Microsoft Office. Thunderbird is a lot like Outlook mail but costs nothing, and is hands down the best Free email client for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Sure there are others that you may prefer, but I've tried most of them, and keep coming back to Thunderbird.

Now here's the deal, with Thunderbird, as with Outlook, you can add as many email accounts as you like. You can create, receive, and respond to all of your email in one place. You simply add a new account and the software sets it up for you. The only email provider that's a little tricky is Yahoo.

Yahoo for as long as I can remember has charged people for the privilege of being able to communicate with an email client, Pop3 is still part of their premium service. But what Yahoo has done is add IMAP for free so that devices like cell phones, and iPods can use their email service. The nice thing about that is that you can use IMAP in Thunderbird also, but you need to know the settings. The automatic setup in Thunderbird for Yahoo tries to set up Pop3 communication, and that's fine if you are paying for Yahoo's premium service, but it won't work if you use Yahoo's free service. Most of us didn't pay for Yahoo mail so here is how you set it in Thunderbird:

When you are going through the setup do this:

Change the default Pop3 to IMAP with the pulldown.

Set the Outgoing Server to: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Server Name: imap.n.mail.yahoo.com
User name: Your user name@yahoo.com
Security: STARTTLS

Your Yahoo, or other email accounts will appear on the left on the main Thunderbird screen. You simply click on the account that you want to use, select the write button at the top, and send an email message from that account. Your incoming email messages will also show up on the left in the inbox of the respective account.

If you've had your email account for a long time, and haven't emptied your inbox for years then be patient the first time you use an account, Thunderbird needs to load all of that email onto your computer for the first time. It can take a while, but after that it's a piece of cake.

Here's one more trick for managing you email. Gmail gives you the flexibility of being able to forward your email with it's free service. The advantage of forwarding is that you could forward all of your Gmail accounts to one, and get all of your email in one place. This works well with email addresses that get very little mail, but you still need to monitor them. My Thunderbird email client is only showing one Gmail, and One Yahoo account by doing this.

I hope this helps you get your arms around your email, once you do it makes your life just a little bit less complicated.

Creating a WiFi Hotspot with your Ubuntu 11.10 Laptop

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:15:00 +0000

I have a Gateway MX6961 that I use as a WIFi hotspot, so my iPod touch can access the Internet when I only have a wired network available. It's really very simple to set up, here are the instructions:

Click on the connection icon in the upper right of your screen. It's probably your left most icon.
Click on Create New Wireless Network.
Give the Network a name.
Select a Wireless security

Note: Internal Laptop cards have different specifications and you may have to test different settings until it works. The built in card on the Gateway I have hooked up fine with my iPod using Wep 40.

Enter a security password.
Click on create.

On my iPod Touch, I then went into settings and found the new Network. I selected it, I entered the password, and I was connected.

If your new Network doesn't work at first then change the Wireless security type until it does. You can also just delete the new network and try again.

Adventures in Linux land

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:21:00 +0000

I have a Gateway MX6961 laptop with Windows XP installed, and I decided once again to play with Linux installations; this time it was Fedora 15. I had tried Fedora a few years back and found it to really not be very user friendly, but I wanted to give the latest version a try. I followed the installation instructions, and found that I didn't have space set up for it on my hard drive. So I looked for a free partitioning program and found MiniTool Partion Wizard for Windows. This program worked great for setting up partitions but in some instances requires the system to re-boot.

Now that I had a partition free, the Fedora installer easily installed alongside Windows XP. The boot loader was a bit different than I'm used to because it only gave me a couple of seconds to load Windows before Fedora took over. Fedora seemed to be running fine at first, and I was having fun playing with it until I decided to do updates. I got an error every time I tried to update software, and then it started locking up when I tried to shut down.

“Well screw this.” I thought to myself, and I decided to get it off of my hard drive. Getting rid of it is easy, I could just delete the partition, but if you don't do it correctly you risk screwing everything up! The proper way to do it would be to first restore your Windows Boot loader. The process is different depending on which version of Windows that you are running, and most of the times requires a Windows installation disk to perform the operation. Do a Google search for “restore windows boot loader” and add whichever version of Windows you have to the search. After replacing the Windows boot loader I could have then removed the partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard. But that's not what I did.

I decided to remove the partitions that were created for Fedora, and then I was going to restore the Windows boot loader. Doing it in that order really just hosed the hard drive. MiniTool Partition Wizard required a re-boot, and when I deleted the partition that Fedora was on I really hosed up my Windows XP installation, it was still there but I really couldn't use it. I booted from an XP CD and tried to do a repair but Windows declared that I didn't have a hard drive installed.

At this point I decided I would check out the latest version of Ubuntu Linux 11.04. Ubuntu had always worked well for me when I had explored earlier versions and I knew that it would easily install and un-install using Windows. I downloaded the CD image on another computer, burned it to disk, and booted it to the computer that was messed up. I was pleasantly surprised using the live CD.

I tried for a while to see if I could recover Windows XP and dual boot with not much luck, then I decided I should just install Ubuntu on my laptop and run it Linux only, and that's what I did. I'm writing this article using free LibreOffice, and enjoying the experience. Ubuntu is much easier to use than Fedora for the average user, and there is a large selection of free software at your disposal. I was even able to simply add my HP LaserJet 1000 that is connected on an XP machine on the network with no problems at all. I couldn't use the LJ1000 printer with my Win7 machine because there are no drivers.

Even though I have a 64 bit dual processor machine I still used the recommended 32 bit version of Ubuntu. The 64 bit version may be a tiny bit faster, but I wouldn't be able to detect it. The reason I used the 32 bit version was because of compatibility issues with the 64 bit version. Some programs may even run faster in the 32 bit version because most programs have been optimized for 32 bit. The 64 bit system will allow you to run more memory, I have 4GB of memory installed and the 32bit version is only seeing 3GB. I'm only using about 512MB of memory with several programs running so it's really no big deal for me, but if you are using a lot of memory then you may want to opt for the 64bit version.

If you really want to run Linux on a machine that you have sitting around, then I would recommend the latest version of Ubuntu. Unity shell interface for the GNOME desktop environment developed by Canonical Ltd is the default desktop, and is very slick. But you can also get installations with just about any desktop environment that you like. Other distributions include XFCE, and KDE desktop environments, as well as others. You may want to download different CDs and play with them before you do an install.

Dan

SpeedFan 4.44 Complete Temperature Monitoring for Free

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:57:00 +0000

Modern computers have a wide array of monitoring points built into their systems for monitoring the temperature of hard drives, processor cores, and even Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). But most of the time you don't really have an easy way of monitoring those temperature readings.

SpeedFan is a great Free program for doing just that, plus a whole lot more. The default setting gives you readings in Celsius but you can easily set it to display Fahrenheit temperature readings. OK so this is all good and fine but what does this mean?

For one thing this little program can help you set up cooling for your computer, and give you instant feedback as to what is working. It could also give you an indication that there is a problem with a fan. If your fans are controllable it will let you change their speeds.

Now here is something that is extremely valuable, this program can allow you to set an event trigger, and then send you an email message, or execute an external program.

For example:

If Core temperature is > 100c for 3 times every 30 seconds then send mail “The server is too hot, come and service it at once.”

This feature is huge. You could have the computer execute a program that switches everything to the backup server, and shuts down the server with a problem.

You can also set up a log file to capture readings for a period of time, so you can understand what's happening when you aren't around.

I spent time as a Systems Integrations Manager and this little program would have been in my toolbox for sure. There are many more features included in this little gem, I suggest you visit their website, download the program, and send a nice donation to Alfredo Milani Comparetti if this program saves your bacon.

Touch Pad Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:52:00 +0000

With the announcement today that Lenovo is going to be selling a $199 7 inch touchpad called the IdeaPad A1, the $279 Galaxy Pad, and the soon to be released under $300 Amazon Android based touchpad, I think we will soon start to see all of this touchpad madness start to settle down.

I was a bit annoyed at HP for it's $99 fire sale after only trying a month, and then proclaiming it's getting out of the Laptop business. I have a room full of HP products, and sort of feel they pulled the rug out from under me; not to mention that they didn't create Vista or Win 7 drivers for my very dependable LaserJet 1000. But I think the fire sale was a helpful event that helped many of the touchpad manufacturers see the real sweet spot for selling their products.

I'm still happy with my fourth generation iPod Touch, and don't intend on getting another touch device anytime soon, but I think after the dust settles I might have to think about a larger screen. I think the non-cell connected touchscreens are really what people want especially with cell phone companies dialing back on their unlimited internet use contracts. With so much WiFi available everywhere, most of us are happy with that sort of connectivity.

Quick and Dirty Lotus Symphony 3.0 Review

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:38:00 +0000

I've made a hobby out of trying out different free word processors in hopes of finding my final replacement for Microsoft Word. Don't get me wrong Word is a good program, but the cost is ridiculous, and there are so many features cluttering the real useful ones that it's sometimes hard to do simple formatting. If you go over to your local office supply store you can get a cheap word processing program other than Word, but that's what you get, cheap.

I think the best replacement options revolve around the Open Office based Word processors, or LibreOffice from The Document Foundation. I need a word processor that is easy to use and with features that are readily available but not intrusive.

After a bit of reading I downloaded and installed IBM Lotus Symphony that is based on Open Office code, and was pleasantly surprised. Lotus Symphony takes advantage of modern wide screen monitors that we have today and puts a well thought out area next to the document with controls. I wanted to add spacing between my paragraphs, and I simply looked to the right and increased the spacing. I have yet to find the spacing controls in Word, that feature is buried someplace in the program, but I'm still looking for it.

At first I was a little worried that I might not be able to load a .docx Word document into Symphony, but I had no problems at all loading a .docx file. I can save the file in the older .doc format if I need to send the document to someone who uses Microsoft Word, or I can simply export the document as a PDF if the recipient doesn't need to modify it. Of course your document can be saved in .odt, .txt, or .rtf formats that are readable by anything.

The real value of using Lotus Symphony is the interface, it's comfortable and doesn't get in the way of my creativity. It has a wide variety of controls for formatting a document readily available, and clip art to jazz it up. It really isn't set up for creating a Web Page like Word is. But I don't care about that anyway, if I want to work on an HTML document I will use a program better suited for it than a word processor anyway, like KompoZer for web authorizing.

IBM Lotus Symphony is an office suit with a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program and costs nothing; it's free. All of the programs that I have mentioned here are free, except for Microsoft Word which can be purchased for the ridiculous price of $120 on Amazon. I used Symphony to write this article, and I think I'll keep using it.

Update: I wanted to add an update, I have really been enjoying using Lotus Symphony, but one thing was missing that I like, and that is a grammar checker. I like that feature in Microsoft Word but it isn't incorporated into Lotus Symphony as of yet. It is on IBMs list of things they want to add, but it's not available at the time of this post. But I did find a workaround, I did a bit of research and found that Abiword has a grammar checking option, and Abiword is also a free word processor. I downloaded version 2.86 and had to check a box on the install to have the grammar function installed, then I had to go into preferences under the spell checker, and turn it on. But the grammar checker works pretty good.

I'm not so thrilled about Abiword's interface but what I can do it create my document in Lotus Symphony then run the completed document in Abiword to make sure I put all of the commas, and semicolons in the right place. The grammar checker doesn't suggest a corrective action like Microsoft Word does, but I really just need the mistake caught, I can figure it out after that.

Dan

Re-map Your Keyboard the Free and Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:24:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to easily remap one of the keys on your keyboard? I did, I was always hitting the "Windows Key" while playing Subspace Continuum and Bang! Dropped to the desktop just as I was getting blasted by by some space punk, well no more.

I downloaded a free little program that allows you to change your registry, and turn any of your keys into something else called Sharpkeys. Sharpkeys works with XP, Vista, and WIn7. You simply select the key that you want to change, then select what you want it to do and click "OK".

I changed my left "Window Key" to function like the "ctrl" key next to it. Now when I play my game the left "Windows Key" now acts like a shooting key instead of a "Get your butt blasted while you're trying to get back in the game" key.

First Look Google +

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:10:00 +0000

I finally got an invite to use Google Plus, the much anticipated Google version of social media. I have been looking forward to trying it out because it solves some of the problems that I have with Facebook. I reluctantly started using social media a few years ago, with so many things in my life that require my time I initially viewed Facebook as just a big time suck. But I started checking it out, my relatives started using Facebook, my wife started using it, and my friends did too. It didn’t take long before I saw the usefulness of Facebook as a virtual meeting place. I also started detesting it.

My problems with Facebook first started when I clicked on a like button for Veterans for Peace. I’m a veteran of the U.S. Air Force with almost 11 years of active duty and 4 years of active reserves and this organization seemed to share a lot of my values. The next thing I knew I get a reply to my clicking the “like” button from a second cousin that responded with “Really?” My second cousin is a self proclaimed Tea Party activist and her husband who is in the National Guard was getting ready to be deployed in Afghanistan. Needless to say I just ignored the comment because I just didn’t want to go there.

Then there was the person who I didn’t want to be associated with who was checking out all of my pictures because his wife was friends with my uncle. I had to change my picture settings to try and shut that down. Recently I started getting friend requests from relatives that live 3000 miles away that I’ve never met. I have a last name that is so unique that anyone who has it is a relative, and these strangers now want to be my friends. This is all good and fine if I could easily restrict the kind of information that they see and respond to. You can sort of do this with Facebook but it’s a royal pain in the ass.

So here comes Google Plus with circles, an easy way to control your relationships with people as its major focus. This feature directly addresses the main reason I detest Facebook, everyone isn’t your friend. I want to be able to easily have private conversations with groups of people without having to filter what I’m saying. I want to easily see conversations in the way I want to see them, and show people information in a way I want them to see it.

The first thing I notice when I’m using Google Plus is that the screen is clean and uncluttered. The buttons are intuitive, so the learning curve was shorter for me, than I experienced with Facebook. When you initially add people to Google Plus you add them to circles, so when you post to a particular circle you know who your post is being sent to. To post a message you simply click on the circle on the left of the screen and then post. The message, picture, video, etc. is only shown to members of that circle.

I’m going to keep playing with Google Plus, and add circles for all sorts of groups. I would even add those far off relatives to Google Plus because I can easily control what they see. I think for me Google Plus could easily take the place of Facebook, and Linkedin, but I will keep you posted as I fully explore this new social media site and new developments unfold.

How to Check if a Link is Safe to Click On.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:29:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered if a web site is safe to visit? Here is a simple process for checking out the link before you click on it:
First click on this safe link to Norton Safe Web, then bookmark that page. Norton provides a free online tool for checking web addresses to see if they are safe for you to visit. It's very easy to use and its FREE.

Here are the steps:

Open Norton Safe Web in its own tab.
Right click with your mouse on the link you are concerned with.
Select Copy Link location.
On the Norton Safe Web page next to "Is this site safe?" right click your mouse in the box, then select paste.
Then suspect web address should have been pasted into the box. Now hit "enter" on your keyboard.
Norton then will open up a page with a complete report on the site.

Its easy to use, its FREE, and takes the worry out of clicking on a link.

PureSync an Easy To Use Free Synce and Backup Program

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:42:00 +0000

Syncing files between computers has always been a pain for me, I use a couple different computers to work on various writing projects, and keep photos stored with my projects to go along with the writing. My wife and I also share the photos we take on a shared drive so we can both use them to post on Facebook to share with our groups of friends.

I’ve used some of the syncing features of Windows in the past but I wasn’t really happy with how it worked. Plus syncing seems to work differently depending on which version of Windows you are using. With a bit of searching I found a free program called PureSync by Jumping Bytes software. PureSync has an easy to use interface that allows you to not only Sync your files, but to also backup and mirror your drives.

PureSync can run automatically when your computer boots, or manually with a one click sync of the folders and files you want managed.

PureSync has a personal version that is donationware, and a professional version for business use that has a few extra features like the ability to use FTP, and compress and encrypt backups all for about 15 Euros.

i2PDF Converting Scanned Documents to PDF the Quick and Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:00:00 +0000

One of the things that I had to do recently is to send signed documents to someone via email. They sent me the forms that I needed to sign, then I needed to send back signed documents in PDF form. This is how I did it with Free software:

The best way to do this is to scan your documents with your scanner, or (if you don't have a scanner) take a digital picture. Make sure to save the files in JPG format on your computer. Then put those picture files together into a PDF file, and send the completed PDF to it's destination as an attachment in an email message.

But how do you do this without buying some expensive piece of software to convert those pictures into a PDF? With a very simple and easy to use program that is completely free called i2PDF. This program is so easy to use grandma could use it.

Open the program, then drag the picture files into the window, you can drag the file names around so they are in the order that you want them in the PDF file.

Then hit the "Build PDF" button and click "OK" at the next screen. There are options on this page if you feel you need to change something, but usually you won't have to do anything here.

Then select where you want the PDF to be saved, and Whala you have your PDF document ready to send off to your recipient.

The Everblade Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 16:36:00 +0000

OK, OK, it's not my usual post. But, it is hardware and it was FREE. Tony over at Blog Catalog sent me an EverBlade to review, I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to receive when the package showed up in the mail and I'll have to admit I was a little surprised.

The EverBlade claims to "Make Your Razor Blade Last 4 Times Longer" by protecting against Rust & Corrosion that dull your blades. That's kind of a tall claim for this As Seen on TV product but what the heck I'll see what it can do.

I made a trip over to the dollar store and picked up a couple of items for the test, a twin pack of Old Spice Titanium Twin razors, and a can of Barbasol shaving cream. I normally use an electric razor so I needed to get these fresh new items for the test.

My test will be simple. Shave half of my face with a blade that is placed in the EverBlade, and the other half with the blade I do nothing to. I will make notes as to whether or not I can tell the difference. If after 30 days I can't tell a difference I may continue the test until I feel some sort of change.

I will be posting the results in August and will fill everyone in at that time.

9/15/11 - I tossed the non-EverBlade razor today, it was getting painful to use. The razor that sits in the EverBlade is still comfortable to use. I will update when I finally toss that one. So far I would have to say that the EverBlade works.

10/1/11- I replaced the crappy test razor I was using in the Everblade today. Not because the razor was getting bad to use, I wanted to us the Everbalde with a nicer razor.
My final word on the Everblade is that it does work, it probably won't save you a million dollars, but it's nice to have a sharp razor when I want to use one. I think that's the real value of the Everblade. I like it and give it a thumbs up!

Microsoft Free Antivirus is the #1 used.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:05:00 +0000

According to OPSWAT an industry leader in software management SDKs, of the Free antivirus solutions Microsoft Security Essentials has pulled ahead in the free antivirus software game.

Microsoft Security Essentials has a 10.22% market share followed by Avast at 9.34% and AVG at 9.24%

I’ve started protecting all of my own computers with Microsoft’s offering mainly because it seamlessly works with Windows, updates easily, and doesn’t bug me with nag screen. It also helps that it works just as well as the others.

Yes, it does smack of the not so good ole days when Microsoft started making Internet Explorer part of their operating system, but I must admit that I like their antivirus software. Microsoft has been putting out some fairly nice Free software lately that they don’t really advertise.

I think Microsoft is trying to re-invent themselves on the consumer side of things, which is changing fast and not in a way that Microsoft is accustom to. They simply have to innovate quickly or end up only being significant in the business world. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in the next couple of years.

Dan

Why Do Computers Keep Getting Faster?

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:03:00 +0000

Computers have been steadily getting faster, but why is that? Most people shrug and tell themselves that technology is improving so personal computers are simply getting better. This is true, but have you ever wondered why? This is my feeble attempt to try and explain why personal computers keep getting faster in a way that most people will understand. In my examples I will be representing data as a freight train. Everyone knows what a freight train is and that a freight train carries and delivers cargo from one place to another. The freight train will represent the 1s and 0s that travel around in the everyday computer sitting on your desk.

Speed

Imagine if you will a freight train traveling from NY to LA at 50 MPH. This freight train will take 60 hours to make the journey. But what if the freight train was hopped up and could now travel 100 MPH by improving the tracks, installing a new engine, and improving the aerodynamics of the train? Then the train would only take 30 hours to make the trip. The load of cargo will get to LA in half the time, or 2 loads of cargo could be delivered in the same amount of time as it originally took.

Increasing the speed of a computer gets data to its destination faster. Modern computers measure speed in gigahertz or GHZ. In practical terms a 3 GHZ computer is running 3 times faster than a 1 GHZ computer. The 3 GHZ computer is moving the same amount of data 3 times as fast as a 1 GHZ computer.

Number of bits 8 /16 / 32 / 64

Now imagine a freight train traveling from NY to LA loaded with 100 Toyota Camrys. This train may take 3 days to travel that distance. 100 Camrys are delivered in 3 days.

Now imagine 8 parallel train tracks, each with a freight train loaded with 100 Camrys traveling together from NY to LA. You would now be delivering 800 Camrys in 3 days.

Personal computers started out as 8 bit machines, think of eight freight trains running side by side. Today’s 64 bit personal computers have 64 tracks. The extra speed is achieved by the computer by allowing more data to be transferred around because the modern computer has more tracks.

Multi-core Processors

Maintenance work needs to be done at the train station. The station needs painting, the plumbing needs to be repaired, the grass needs to be mowed, and the station needs a new roof. If Frank does all of this work it will take him 100 hours to do the work. But if Frank had help from Joe then they could split up the work and all of the jobs could be completed in 50 hours.

This is how multi-core processors work. One core can be running your word processor, and the other can be running Twitter. With the jobs split up the overall speed is increased.

Processor Size

Imagine a map of the United States and on that map NY is 3000 miles from LA. Now imagine if you made the map smaller, NY and LA became closer to each other, now instead of being 3000 miles away from each other they are only 1500 miles from each other. Freight gets to its destination in half the time as it did before.

”Crazy talk!” You may be saying to yourself, but if you looked at the circuitry of a processor under a microscope it would look like a road map with roads and tracks from one place to another. By shrinking the map –thus shrinking the circuitry- speed is increased by shortening the distance between places. This is because data is actually traveling on the microscopic map.

3D Transistors

If you stacked freight cars on top of each other the 10 freight cars on the train now become 20. They take up as much room on the track but more freight is being transferred at one time.

A new technology called 3D chip technology allows for more transistors in the same space. It’s like having a 3D map that has more stuff crammed in the same amount of space. So it’s like being able to stack freight cars on top of each other.

So there you go, my feeble attempt at simplifying a complex thing. I hope you didn’t fall off of the train and join a hobo camp in the process.

The Brain of a Middle Aged Computer Nerd

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 19:26:00 +0000

Yes, I am a middle aged computer nerd, which is not to be confused with other kinds of nerds. It’s true that most nerds use computers but that doesn’t mean that they specialize in computer nerdiness. There are science nerds who figure out string theory, there are nerds who are fascinated by the mating rituals of the Tanzanian pigmy worm, and there are nerds that can tell you what Gopher Girl said to her arch nemesis in volume 12 of the comic book Laser Beam Man. There are many types of nerds and even National Geographic hasn’t discovered all of the species.

I’m a hardware and software nerd, which is sort of like being bilingual in the computer world. Starting out working with electronics early on I was there at the dawn of the personal computer age. I remember the invention of the pocket calculator when I was in High School. I had to do formulas in chemistry with a slide rule, and then the next year –just in time for Physics- came the 4 function calculator for $100 Wow, what a bargain! You paid extra to have a square root button. You could do fancy stuff like type in numbers that read “Shell oil” when you turned the calculator upside down.

In the early 80s I remember seeing an ad for a Sinclair ZX-80. Wow the first personal computer that you could purchase for only $200! It had 1k of RAM, which I had to order. With no internet to place the order online I was forced to fill out an order form and send a money order via snail mail.

Nerdy statement alert!

Today’s computers typically have 4GB of RAM, so that’s 4,000,000,000 bytes versus 1000 bytes. A byte = 8 bits, and a bit being a 1 or a 0.

The ZX-80 had no moving graphics, and programs were loaded via cassette tape. I spent hours typing in a hang man program that I saved on tape. The membrane keyboard of the Sinclair ZX-80 was waterproof so if you spilled your beer on it no explosion followed.

Computer equipment used to be very expensive. If I wanted to upgrade my hardware I had to fork over hundreds of dollars. Now people throw away computers because they get annoyed with them. Yes they sometime get rid of them when the break, but sometimes they are simply filled with malware, viruses, spyware and other smelly garbage that some dweeb without the ability to feel empathy turned loose on the world for bragging rights. That would be the malicious computer nerd, not to be confused with the criminal master mind nerd that will try and steal your bank account information.

I like to feel that I’m on the right side of the force (most nerds use Star Wars references), using my light saber with the blue beam to write my Free Software and Computer Help blog. I do battle with the forces of the “Dark Side” that are always looking for innocent victims. I sometimes feel the evil presence of the “Dark Side” breathing heavily while reading my blog and plotting maliciousness to thwart my efforts.

I love giving life back to old machines; giving life back to a once dead machine is like giving life to the Frankenstein monster. Yes, raising the dead is a strange compulsion but no brains need to be collected from the morgue. A better analogy would be like building C3PO out of scraps, and now having a friend who can speak Wookie. Yes there is a point where it just isn’t worth it anymore, but the parts can be recycled to be turned into new computers, or Vespas, it depends on where the materials end up.

Helping someone solve their problem is very satisfying; it’s like giving away the old 1973 camper that fits into the back of a pickup to a family with kids, It makes my heart sing to take away a road block. I stand vigilant always searching for new ways to solve an expensive problem with free software, if I am trying to figure out how to do something with a meager budget then I know someone else is too.

Those Padawan learners that you rely on to solve your tech problems have nothing on me, but they are the future. By teaching them in the ways of the light side of the nerd force, balance will be achieved for the future. New technology will emerge and they will need to master it for good, because there will always be the dark side of the nerd force plotting to take over the world.

Dan

How to clean your computer of dust and dirt.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sun, 29 May 2011 03:14:00 +0000

That's right they do need to be cleaned, and I'm not talking about Windex on the monitor and digging out poppy seeds that dropped from your chin while eating a muffin, well maybe if you ate enough muffins over your keyboard it would get real gross.

Believe it or not your computer is mostly made up of electronic circuits, not magic like you may have been led to believe. Those circuits need to be kept cool and clean in order to work properly. Here are a few preventative maintenance tips to keep your machine operating in tip top shape for many years to come.

Vacuum out any vents on your laptop especially if it has fans. Turn your laptop over and you will see what I mean. That fan is sucking in air from the outside to cool the processor running your computer; if it wasn't doing this your computer would overheat and fail. Simply take your vacuum cleaner and suck out all of the accumulated dust.
While you're at it go over to your Wii and vacuum out its vent too. Game machines are computers with fans that accumulate dust. Cleaning out that vent will keep it from overheating and Mario Kart will thank you.
Your desktop computer needs a little more work. Many of them have fans sucking in air to the case and to the power supply. Use your vacuum to suck out accumulated dust at any fan, open your computer's case to expose its electronics. You will find that a ton of dust and dirt has been sucked in. Dust can become a conductor and short out your circuits, it also reduces the capability of your computer to cool itself, vacuum out all dust and dirt you can see.
If you own a wired or wireless keyboard your best bet for cleaning it is to power it down and again vacuum that sucker out, they make small vacuums for keyboards that you can try but you floor vacuum works too. If the keys are dirty then clean them with a small amount of alcohol and a cloth or some cotton swabs.
Is your wired keyboard a filthy mess? Are ants crawling in and out? If you answered yes then here's how to get it really clean. Run it through the dishwasher, that's right the dishwasher. But DO NOT USE DETERGENT, detergent will leave residue inside that could short out circuits. Let your keyboard fully dry before plugging it back in, at least a couple of days. Shake it once in a while to see if any drops of water come out. You may be without the keyboard for a couple of days so plug in a spare if you have one.
- NOTE: If you have a wireless keyboard that uses a battery and has an LCD you may not want to run it through the dishwasher. Batteries + Water = Bad News.
- *HAZARD* you never want to get any piece of electrical equipment wet that has a battery installed or is plugged into an outlet. I could ruin your equipment, or ruin your life if it's plugged into the wall. You don't need that kind of bad hair day!

If you own a desktop computer you will suck in less dirt if it's not left on the floor while running, so move it on up to the desk, or place it in the nook that's made for it. Make sure the vents to your computer are not obstructed so air can flow. If you have a laptop get a small device that increases air flow by propping it up, and if it has a fan make sure to vacuum it out on a regular basis.

If you are unsure about how to open the case of your desktop computer then refer to its operating manual or simply use Google to find instructions on the web. Search for the model number and how to open the case, you will be surprised at how much information is out there on your machine.

Regular cleaning won't stop you from getting spyware but it will keep your hardware running for years.

Glary Utilities is in the Top Drawer of my Toolbox

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:43:00 +0000

Like Indiana Jones picking the correct Holy Grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade I downloaded Glary Utilities from their website. With all of the scam programs out there for supposedly optimizing your computer it was refreshing to find this jewel amongst the turds. I had never heard of Glary utilities until I saw it listed in an Article on Yahoo of things you could do to speed up your computer and since it had already been given a thumbs up by Yahoo, I decided I should give it a try and see what it could do, and I'm glad I did.

Glary Utilities is a professional FREE Windows program that reminds me a lot of Norton Utilities without $49 price tag. Not only does it provide a 1 click Maintenance to spruce up your computer, it also includes a whole suite of functions to help you optimize your system.

The 1 click Maintenance provides:

Registry Cleaner

Shortcuts Fixer

Startup Manager (cleans dangerous entries)

Temporary Files Cleaner

Spyware Remover

Tracks Eraser

Each of these features can turned on or off by checking a box next to the feature, you then click Scan for Issues and the software goes to town. After it's done scanning it gives you options for fixing problems so you have control over what is performed.

1 Click Maintenance is only one of the features of this fantastic program. Under the modules tab is a plethora of options allowing you full control, here is what you get:

Under the Modules Tab you find:

Clean up and Repair
- Disk Cleaner, Registry Cleaner, Shortcuts Fixer, Uninstall Manager

Optimize and Improve

Startup Manager, Memory Optimizer, Content Menu Manager, Registry Defrag

Privacy and Security

Tracks Eraser, File Shredder, File Undelete, File Encrypter and Decrypter

Files and Folders

Disk Analysis, Duplications File Finder, Empty Folders Finders, File Splitter and Joiner

System Tools

Process Manager, Internet Explorer Assistant, System Information, Windows Standard Tools

Under the Menus Tab you find:

Restore Center

Help

FAQs

Settings

Skins (To change the look)

Quite frankly I've never seen such a complete easy to use, all in one, and FREE utility. If you would like to automate some of these functions you can purchase the Pro version for $27.97 (at the time of this review.) This is a great example of using FREE to get a large user base and offering a version with scheduling for a fee. Glary Utilities is one of my favorite tools in my tool box you should check it out. You can get your free copy by clicking here to visit their website.

Dan LaFollette

The Internet Bottleneck

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:14:00 +0000

Modern personal computers have been fast enough to handle almost any task an everyday user could ask them to do, and they have been doing this for years. Wireless connection speeds have climbed to the point that 802.11N is over 100Mps, that’s the same speed as an Ethernet cable plugged directly into your computer. Within your network at home or at the office you should be able to transfer files seamlessly between the computers in your network. However, there is a real problem, more and more services are going into the cloud. With your application not on your speedy personal computer and placed on a remote server somewhere on the internet, you are at the mercy of the speed of your internet connection; It’s like a step backwards in speed because of your internet connection hasn’t caught up to the speed of your network connection.

The internet in all of its wonder is not the same for everyone everywhere. The vast majority of people connected to the internet do not have a 100 Mps connection, so your connection is not going to keep up with the hardware that you have. In my home I have a DSL connection of 3 Mps download speed that usually is running at 1.5 Mps. Some cable internet providers offer 15 Mps of download speed but that still doesn’t come close to the 100 Mps speed that your computer can handle. Even if you have a 15 Mps connection you are still only going to go as fast as the slowest connection. For instance If computer A has a 15Mps connection and computer B has a 3Mps connection the fastest a file could transfer between the 2 computers is going to be 3Mps.

I keep hearing the grumblings of faster internet speeds because of fiber optic lines, but I haven’t seen anything real yet. In our community we still have people a short distance out of town that don’t have a high speed internet connection, or they have to rely on internet through cell phone lines. These connections are always limited and they throttled your speed if you use them too much.

The bottom line is that until some substantial changes happen to speed up the internet then it really doesn’t matter how fast your new computer or router runs. With more services going to the internet cloud, we are all going to be putting along at the speed of our connections.

Dan LaFollette

Free Technical Support! You would be nuts not to check out this site.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:25:00 +0000

I just wanted to let everyone know of this great site for Free Technical Support that is staffed by volunteers and paid for entirely by sponsors and donations. The web site is called Tech Support Guy Click on the link, watch the video, follow the instructions and begin to get your computer questions answered. If you have a question about any Operating System, Microsoft Word, Malware, Multimedia, Games, Digital Photogrophy or anything else you can think of, The Support Guy can help.
It's free to register and free to use, period.
Enjoy!
Dan

Document Collaboration, the Easy and Cheap Way.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:15:00 +0000

When we think of creating a document many of us think of firing up Microsoft Word and typing away. This is all good and fine but you could also forget the jumbo price tag of Word and type your document using Libra Office (my personal recommendation) or us another office suite like Lotus Symphony both are completely free and feature rich. There are also a lot of other word processors out there that are free, just pick one that you are comfortable with and go to town. Critics would say that nothing is 100% compatible with Microsoft Word and that when you start to do special formatting sometimes things don’t exactly translate back and forth. But So what, Big Deal! If you need to send a document to someone and guarantee that the document is going to look exactly the way you created it when the reader opens the file, then save it as a PDF. Then it doesn’t matter what you used to write your document with. PDF readers are free and everyone has some sort of program to read a PDF document with. Being completely compatible with Microsoft Word is not all that important anymore. Did I just say that?

I worked for a software company a few years back and we were making auto service schedules for car dealerships. Each car dealership wanted to package their services a little differently, but still ensure that all of the scheduled maintenance was being performed for a particular model of automobile. We used Google Docs to create the service schedules; Google Docs was used because we needed to work on the documents collaboratively. Each participant could work on the schedules wherever they were, and we didn’t have to think about the mechanics of collaboration. The documents were saved on Google’s cloud server so we didn’t have to create our own server or email around documents. It didn’t matter what kind of IT situation our company had and it didn’t matter what the other company was using. We could take documents that were created with our favorite word processor and then paste them directly into Google Docs or create the document directly in Google Docs itself. The document could then be easily saved as a PDF or uploaded as a file to your computer in any of the most common formats. Oh did I mention that Google Docs is free, you already knew that anyway almost every application Google makes is free.

Sharing a document, and inviting others to your document is as easy as sending an email. The originator can completely control what others can do, you may want to work with a document with 3 other people and have the rest of the company only be able to read the document. Or you could let the whole world be able to read it. You can do all of that with Google Docs, permissions are easy to set.

Just for the record I am writing this with Word only because it’s a new version and it came with the computer. But I would rather use a Word alternative if my only choice is an old copy of Microsoft Word or a New/Updated version of something else. I’m downloading Lotus Symphony right now and I can’t wait to play with it!

Happy Collaborating!

Dan LaFollette

The end of XP support ........... in 3 years.

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:52:00 +0000

8^th of April 2014

This is the date that Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP. Microsoft even made a gadget that you can stick on your desktop that counts down to the date that they throw XP under the bus. A little tacky in my humble opinion, but whatever floats their boat. They have done this to the rest of their old operating systems and XP has lasted much longer than I think even Microsoft had planned. The funny thing is that computers have really reached a point over the past 10 years that any kind of improvements that they make in them really can’t be seen by the average user. Does your word processor really work faster than it did 10 years ago? I will have to admit that my 10 year old laptop doesn’t really do that great with HD video however my 10 year old desktop with a 3 GHZ Pentium 4, 2 GB of RAM, XP, and a nice video card does, and it plays games great too.

So what does it really mean when they say they are not going to support XP? Well, they should stop updating Windows, security holes won’t be fixed, so it might not be good to hook an XP computer to the internet, if you don’t hook it to the internet then it doesn’t matter. I have one laptop with a dual processor and 4 GB of RAM that is running XP, I could upgrade it to Windows 7 if I wanted to. Or I could run Linux on any machine that hooks up to the internet and have a secure connection and a fast running machine. I guess my point is that your computers will still be good enough to use, you will just have to make some decisions on whether to do some sort of operating system change so you can keep on trucking with the machine that you have. Or go down to Best Buy and pick up something new at a cost of $300 to $2000 and turn your old machine into a server, give it to charity, or sell it on ebay.

While I have your attention if you have a desktop computer and you haven’t vacuumed it out lately (or ever), then take this time now to shut it down, open the case, and vacuum all of the accumulated dirt out of it. Do a good job so it will last until 2014. Electronic circuits don’t like dirt, it tends to cause shorts and make your system get hot. You don’t want to be forced to go to Best Buy do you?

So basically don’t sweat it, let’s see what happens in 3 years.

Dan

Turn that old Laptop into a Server

noreply@blogger.com (Daniel LaFollette) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:04:00 +0000

I recently was able to replace my old Toshiba Satellite Pro. It is a 1.6 GHZ P4 with 1 GB of RAM, and running XP. Not exactly state of the art but with plenty of power to do server duty for my family.

To get it ready for server duty make sure your server is hooked up to your router. The best way for your server to be hooked up is with an Ethernet cable. The next thing to do is to go into the Control Panel and select power settings. I made sure that the laptop didn’t go to sleep when hooked up to power and that the LCD turned off when the lid is closed. This way it stays on and doesn’t get hot having the screen on when closed. I also have it sitting on a cooling pad so it doesn’t overheat.

The first task that I gave my new server was printer server duty. I hooked up the old HP LaserJet 1000 to it. I then shared the printer so anyone could print to it. This is how it’s done:

Open Control Panel.
Select Printers.
Right click on the printer you want to share.
Then select sharing.
Select share.

Now other computers on your network can find the printer and print to it.
This is how the other computers find the printer. On the other computers:

Open the Control Panel
Select add a new printer
The add a Network Printer and follow the prompts.

It may be a little different depending on which operating system you are using but the process is about the same. You should now be able to print to the shared printer from whatever computer you are using.

The next task I gave this computer was to turn it into a phone. We recently got rid of our landline because it was an extra cost we just didn’t need. We have cell phones and how many phones do you really need to have. I instead loaded Skype on our server, Skype allows you to make free calls to anyone else who has Skype for free, but for a small monthly fee it can be also used to call landlines. We pay $2.99 per month so my 11 year old son can call out on it when he’s home alone. You can get a Skype phone off of Skype’s Web site or on ebay. This way you can call anywhere in the country, or mom and dad just like having a landline without the cost.
One note: I did have to plug in the phone into a USB 2 port for it to work well. I had already added a USB2 card in the PCMCIA port at an earlier time because this computer came standard with USB1. There are various Skype phones and high end ones can be connected wirelessly to your access point.

The next thing I did was turn the old laptop into a file server, as we needed a place to store all of those pictures we have so anyone could access them. Even though my old computer only had a 30 GB hard drive it wasn’t a problem. Hard drive space is cheap these days and I easily added an external 1TB hard drive for plenty of storage for under a hundred bucks. To share this drive you go into My computer right click the drive and select share. The system may give you a hard time about sharing a whole drive, but tell it to “just do it will ya!”
To access the shard drive from your other computers, open My Computer or Computer and select Map Network drive. Now this drive will show up as if it is located on the computer you are using.

So there you have it, a new use for you old laptop, and a way to make your home network more useful.
Dan