HelpfulAdvisor.com - Use everyday technology to make your life easier

My Thoughts on How Best Buy Can Rise From The Ashes

2012-04-10T18:31:00.000-05:00

This is a post I've been meaning to write for some time now. Actually, I had the idea for this article two weeks ago, prior to hearing just today that Best Buy's CEO has stepped down. I've seen articles that have trashed the retailer, and I've seen very few articles that defend the retailer.

My thought is that even with Amazon.com being the "Big Box" killer of brick and mortar stores, we still need a Best Buy. Heck, we still needed a Circuit City, even with Best Buy still around. Why? Because competition spells better prices for consumers. If there is a dwindling competition, there's no other retailers around to keep prices in check.

It's easy to be an armchair quarterback in times like these, however, I've given much thought to how Best Buy can actually achieve relevance again, and actually compete with online retailers like Amazon and WalMart.com. Care to read more?

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A Great Customer Service Experience

2012-02-04T12:02:00.001-06:00

Just ran into a Home Depot to grab a set of allen wrenches to take apart our bed frame to make way for a new bedroom set.

The nicest guy helped me find what I needed quickly and with an enthusiasm that is quite rare.

He also shared a story about his younger years in construction and a grumpy old boss he had and how he used a special method to keep his tools from getting lost or stolen.

It was a great experience, and as someone who isn't very handy around the house, I was really glad he helped me and made me feel like a million bucks.

Isn't that how it should always be? Did you have a similar experience today? Please share in the comments below.

Have an awesome Saturday!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2011-12-25T11:26:00.001-06:00

My family and I wish you all the best and for a happy and joyous Holiday season. I'm thankful for you, and please continue to feel right at home at HelpfulAdvisor as I continue to bring you articles you will want to read and tell others about.

Happy Holidays!

-Jay
Your HelpfulAdvisor

A Note of Encouragement

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000-06:00

For just a moment, I'd like to talk to any new or inexperienced computer users out there. Even though this blog is for varying levels of expertise, I'd like to have a heart to heart chat with just the novices, or those that don't think they know very much about computers. And if you are an experienced computer user, maybe by reading this, you can pass along some of what I'm about to share over to your friends who may not know as much as you.

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Setting Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily: Final Recap

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000-06:00

As I've reviewed each of the tools that you can use to set up quick and easy collaboration with your family, project team, or small business; let's recap how everything fits and works together to give you a complete solution for absolutely no money out of your pocket.

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Automatic Blog Posting Issue Is Resolved

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000-06:00

I'm going to interrupt my normally scheduled posting of articles to keep you up to date on an issue that happened earlier this week where automatic posting of this blog's articles to my Google Group stopped working suddenly.

This was preventing the group's members from automatically receiving new blog posts in their inbox. Read further as I explain how I found the issue, and what I did to resolve it, and how you can benefit from the answer.

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Setting Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily: Google Groups

2011-12-15T07:00:00.000-06:00

In this article, I highlight the final tool in my series on how to set up instant collaboration quickly and easily, I'm going to save the best for last: Google Groups. This one is a hidden gem that many of you probably don't know about but should. Let's find out why this is probably one of the most powerful, yet easiest to use tools in your collaboration arsenal.

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Setting up instant collaboration quickly and easily: Google+

2011-12-13T07:00:00.000-06:00

In my continuing series on setting up collaboration quickly and easily, we're going to cover Google+ as a powerful social media-driven method of collaborating. What many don't know is that social media networks can be used to create private networks within them. That way you can leverage all the benefits of communication and media sharing features for your own private and public networks. The difference here is that Google actually created Google+ to enable you collaborate with both private and public networks in a very easy and intuitive way. Let's find out how to use this powerful tool for your home and work collaboration needs.

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Setting Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily: Google Talk

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000-06:00

Continuing on with my article series on setting up instant collaboration quickly and easily, we're going to cover how to use Google Talk as a very powerful tool for collaboration.

And before you dismiss the article and think you don't need this info, I think you might want to read further and see what you may not have known about Google Talk.

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Setting Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily: Google Docs

2011-12-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

The next article in my series on how to quickly and easily set up collaboration focuses on Google Docs, a suite of applications that is more functional than you may think. As Google Docs is always being updated, more and more features are being added all the time to make it a truly worthy companion to Microsoft Office, or in some cases, the only apps suite you might need.

Let's learn more about Google Docs and how it can help you and your team, or family, collaborate more efficiently.

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Setting Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily: Google Calendar

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-06:00

In this second article in the series of Setting Up Collaboration Quickly and Easily, I'm going to look at Google Calendar as a powerful way to enhance your organizational capabilities, while also being a great tool to further enable quick and easy collaboration.

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How to Set Up Instant Collaboration Quickly and Easily

2011-12-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

Some things just don't need to be any harder than they need to be. And while there are many complicated, and in some cases, expensive ways to set up collaboration, you just don't need to put a whole lot of effort into setting up collaboration using Google's free products.

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Our New Comment System Is Now Live

2011-12-01T15:42:00.000-06:00

This is just a quick post to let you all know that I was able to quickly and easily implement a new commenting system on the HelfulAdvisor blog. I'm super excited about it because it has so much more capability over the Blogger standard commenting system. Let's take a look how this new commenting system by Disqus is going to rock your world.

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There's More Than One Way To Join This Party

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-06:00

There's no shortage of blogs or websites in the World Wide Web, that's for sure. Some sites give you information, some sites try to sell you information, and some sites can really try to beat you over the head with their sales pitch.

Fortunately, this blog is one that truly tries to be different. Why? Because there's too many sites out there that simply fall short of what most people want: Good information with no strings attached. Find out all the ways you can benefit from not just reading this blog, but by joining a community (hence, the party!) that can help you make the best use of everyday technology to make your life easier. Who wouldn't want that, right?

Coolest Hard Drive Ever Gets An Upgrade

2011-11-30T07:00:00.001-06:00

One of the most innovative hard drives to hit the market is getting an upgrade in time for the holidays. Seagate's Momentus XT hard drive is a hybrid solid state drive. What that means is that you get all the speed benefits of a solid state drive (SSD), with the storage capacity of a standard spindle-style hard drive.

Find out what's being upgraded and why you might want to be excited about it.

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10 Reasons I Love Gmail, and Why You Can, Too

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you're probably sick to death of all the fanboys out there that tout all these wonderful features of Gmail, Google's email offering. I promise you, my list is different. It's different because I use email differently than most people. I use email as a practical communications method, and so although many of Gmail's features don't even get used by me, there are still many things to love about Gmail. I promise you, you're going to want to read this list.

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Adventures in Podcasting

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest benefits of having a dead-simple blog is now having time to create some quality content for my readers. Therefore, one of the things I thought I would do is see what it would take to start up a podcast for HelpfulAdvisor to compliment the written articles on the site. Yet, I'm finding that it may not be as easy as I'd hoped.

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The Annual 50 Free Apps List!

2011-11-27T07:15:00.000-06:00

While others have been in a turkey-induced coma, overdosing on holiday weekend football, or venturing into Black Friday territory (scary!), I've been reading up on my favorite technology blogs to see what's worth sharing. Guess what I found?

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The New HelpfulAdvisor is Now Open!

2011-11-26T14:19:00.001-06:00

Welcome to the new HelpfulAdvisor.com!

I have to admit, it didn't take long to convert my Wordpress blog over to Blogger, which is the way I like it. There are some reasons why I made the switch, I wrote about some of the reasons in my About Page, but that didn't really explain everything. For the remaining reasons, I'd like to share those with you now.

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Is Email Making Us Dumber?

2010-06-08T19:01:00.030-05:00

Sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it? Can email really be making us dumber? Well, in the age of gadgets and technology that we think are going to give us an edge, we could really be doing the opposite to ourselves.

Find out why I think email is making us dumber, and what you can do to stop the madness.
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Does Your Network Performance Need a Turbo Boost?

2010-04-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

Slow network performance can come in many forms and can be caused by several reasons. However, one of those reasons could be a certain setting within your network that can be easily remedied. Yet, many network administrators can overlook this simple setting, causing your network performance to be slower than it really needs to be.

Find out what this setting is and how you can fix it in less than 5 minutes.

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Free Removal Tool Helps Speed Up Your PC

2010-04-04T19:01:00.000-05:00

As part of my ongoing series of articles to help you fix a slow PC, I wanted to share with you a free removal tool that will actually help speed up your PC. The tool is called Revo Uninstaller, and it can do way more than your built-in Add/Remove Programs function in your Windows control panel.

Using this powerful removal tool can actually help you speed up your PC, and I show you how.

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Is it Really Time for a Computer Memory Upgrade?

2010-04-01T19:01:00.000-05:00

All too many times, the standard answer for a slow PC is to perform a memory upgrade. However, there may be times when a computer memory upgrade may not actually be needed. In this article, I'll share with you how to find out if it's really time to upgrade that RAM, or if perhaps your PC just needs some tender loving care.

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Ninite.com Saves Time Installing Free Apps

2010-03-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

A free website called Ninite.com makes software installation a breeze by offering free and open-source applications from one location.

Discover how you can save time and energy, and how it all works to make your life SO much easier.

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How to Fix a Slow PC

2010-03-21T19:01:00.000-05:00

Even though I specialize in designing and managing entire computer networks, I still get many users and even friends and relatives who come to me with a very common problem. A very slow Windows PC. Since this is something I address quite often, I figured I'd share my answer for your benefit here.

Fixing a slow PC takes just a few minutes and can be much simpler than you'd expect. It just takes knowing how to do it. I'll share with you exactly how to do it in this article.

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