Computer Tips and Technology Support

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 14:27:00 +0000

Five Blogging Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 13:57:00 +0000

Here are some of Irwin’s best tips for getting the most out of small business blogging.

Consider your words. For Irwin, creating a post around his company’s keywords is huge. “A lot of times search engines will pick up on my posts based on the keywords I use within them. I want to make sure both Google and my customers know that my writings are significant in the field,” he says. In Irwin’s case, he uses phrases relevant to his business like “video production” in blog titles or tags. “There’s an emphasis on creating content on the web right now. It really helps establish you with new customers. You want to create a happy medium between what’s interesting to the consumer and what you’re trying to sell.”
Find inspiration everywhere. When you’re writing about different topics all the time, it might become difficult to think of something new to say. Irwin suggests looking at your own life and experiences with customers for inspiration. “This week I posted an article about a guy who needed a piece of art installed in his house. He hired a crane to bring it six stories high and wanted me to film the experience for him. I called my post ‘Video One Gets Artsy’,” he says. Irwin also suggests writing about what you know and things you’ve done throughout your field. You may not think people will be interested but there’s always someone looking for the information you can provide. They could end up becoming a customer.

Pay it forward. Irwin strongly believes that if you help people, they will be more inclined to help you. And this is the case for blogging as well. “I tend to create content around things that will help my clients. Maybe they can do some things themselves and I can help them learn how to do it. A blog entry is a great opportunity to show your personality and give customers a reason to like you” he says.
Share your posts. Irwin and his team share their posts through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and his personal site. He suggests getting another person to help you if you’re not familiar with social media to reach a wider audience. Soon, Irwin will also be sending out emails once or twice a month to existing clients highlighting some featured blog posts. “We’ll definitely include a way for clients to opt out if they’d like but overall, we only receive really positive comments about the blog.”

Stay cool. It might seem overwhelming to consider creating an entire blog, especially if you’re a small business owner with a lot of time constraints, but Irwin doesn’t see this as a bad thing. “You don’t want to overload customers or yourself,” he says. He suggests determining the nature of an individual post first and allotting the right time to it. “If you need to do some research it might take up to two hours but other posts can be much shorter.” He also says it’s important to do what feels right for your business. “If there’s a week where you can’t get anything posted, it’s fine. Just pick back up when you can. Slowly building a content base is better than not having any at all.”

Email Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 10:09:00 +0000

5 Ways to Protect Your Computer from Email Viruses and Scans

1. DON'T OPEN UNEXPECTED ATTACHMENTS

Viruses are often sent via email attachments. Macalester’s email service, Google Apps, scans incoming email (sent to @easiertips) and cleans known viruses. It is nevertheless good practice to be cautious about unexpected attachments in the unlikely event that a new virus escapes the anti-virus update. Learn how to manage email attachments

2. USE SPAM FILTERS

Macalester is fortunate in that Google Apps uses one of the most advanced and continually improved spam filters in existence. This function is greatly enhance when you report a message as spam. Learn how to report spam

3. BEWARE OF EMAIL PHISHING OR SPOOFING

Phishing emails are an attempt by thieves to lure you into divulging personal information for their profit. Learn to recognize the telltale signs of phishing

4. USE CAUTION WITH SENSITIVE INFORMATION IN EMAIL

By default, @easiertips domain email messages are transferred securely via https. Nevertheless sensitive information, commonly known as Personal Information Requiring Notification (PIRN), should not be transferred via email. Learn more about PIRN
Even though all Macalester email through Google is secure in transfer (https is “on” all the time) this does not change anything that is transferred in the message. Viruses and worms can get through, and phishing and spoofing attempts can still happen.

5. AVOID CLICKING ON LINKS IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL MESSAGE

While these links may not be a phishing attempt, they may not go to the site you intend. Unless you are completely comfortable that the email is legitimate, it is best to copy and paste the link or type it in directly in your browser.

Computer hard drive buying tips

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 09:48:00 +0000

When purchasing a hard drive, it is important to understand and verify the hard drive is suitable for your uses and has or does not have the options you may or may not need. Unfortunately, with hard drive technologies frequently changing, it is can sometimes be confusing and frustrating when looking to purchase a hard drive.

Computer hard drive buying tips

This document covers all considerations you should think about when thinking about upgrading or buying a new computer hard drive.

Adding a new drive

If you are adding a new hard drive because you need more disk space, and you have a desktop computer, a new hard drive can be added without replacing the old drive.

The benefit of adding a new hard drive is that you gain additional storage without having to erase any of your existing files or reinstall any of your programs.

Replacing existing drive

If you have a laptop computer or want to replace an older hard drive (HDD) with a new solid state drive (SSD), keep in mind that anything on the drive will be lost. While it is possible to transfer all of the data from one drive to another drive, we recommend doing a fresh install to prevent any future problems and to clean all of the junk software.

Before replacing a hard drive make sure you:

Backup all important data
Make sure you have the operating system disc or recovery disc
Make sure you have all the necessary discs to reinstall your software

Interface

When looking to purchase a hard drive, the first and foremost important consideration is the interface the hard drive uses to connect and communicate with the computer. Below is a listing of each of the available interfaces with information how they may or may not apply to your computer.

SATA - The more commonly found hard drive and used with all new computers. Most computers today can accommodate at least two SATA devices, and sometimes up to four or six SATA devices. Hard drives and other devices, like CD and DVD drives, can utilize a SATA connection. Make sure your computer has a SATA connection before purchasing this type of hard drive.
IDE/ATAPI/ATA - Another common hard drive interface used with older IBM compatible computers. IDE supports a maximum of four IDE devices, which can include hard drives and CD-ROM drives. Make sure your computer has an IDE/ATAPI/ATA connection before purchasing this type of drive.
SCSI - A less common interface, SCSI devices are found on older Apple computers, older IBM computers, and some servers. The SCSI interface is a faster solution when compared to IDE/ATAPI and can support up to eight drives.
External (USB, FireWire, or Parallel) - Several external solutions are also available; these include but are not limited to USB, FireWire, eSATA, and Parallel. When considering an external hard drive, it is important to look at the speed difference for transferring data to and from the hard drive.

Speed of hard drive

In addition to the interface, it is also important to look at the transfer rates of the hard drive. Long transfer rates can reduce the overall speed of your computer. There are two types of hard drives: Solid-State Drive (SSD) and the traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

SSD - An SSD is much faster than a traditional hard drive. If your computer is capable of accommodating an SSD, and cost and total space is not as much as a consideration, we highly recommend an SSD.

HDD - With traditional hard drives the speed is measured in RPM (Revolutions Per Minute). An example of this would be a speed of 7,200 RPM. The higher the RPM, the faster the hard drive, in general. In other words, 7,200 RPM is faster than 5,400 RPM.

Hybrid - Hybrid hard disk drives are drives that combine the above two technologies into one drive.

Advantages of SSD over HDD

Other considerations

Below is a listing of some other important considerations to look at when purchasing a computer hard drive.

Warranty - How long is the warranty and what does it cover.

Included components - Verify that the hard drive comes with all the needed components. Most hard drives should include an extra cable and instructions. However, if you need a mounting bracket to mount a smaller drive in a larger bay, make sure you also purchase one of these with the drive.

Support - Is the technical support number a free number and is it open 24 hours, seven days a week.

S.M.A.R.T. - S.M.A.R.T. is a technology used to help warn the computer user of possible problems with the hard drive.

Price range

The price can vary depending upon the type of hard drive (SSD or HDD), the interface, capacity of the drive, and speed of the drive. In general, drives can range from $70.00 to $300.00 (U.S.).

Ready to purchase

If after reviewing the above information you believe you are ready to make a purchase of a new hard drive, verify that the source you are purchasing the hard drive is a reputable source.

To help support Computer Hope, you can purchase through Amazon.

Installing a hard drive

Hard drive removal
Hard drive installation
Installing a PC IDE/EIDE hard drive.
Computer hard drive help and support.

Improve Your Website Security For 10 Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 08:13:00 +0000

In recent years there has been a proliferation of great tools and services in the web development space. Content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal and so many other allow business owners to quickly and efficiently build their online presences. Their highly extensible architectures, rich plugin, module, extension ecosystem have made it easier than ever to get a website up and running without years of learning required.

This is undoubtedly a great thing; however, an unfortunate side effect is that now there are many webmasters who do not understand how to make sure their website is secure, or even understand the importance of securing their website. In this post I want to share with you the top 10 steps all webmasters, website owners, can, and should, take to keep their website secure.

1 – Update, Update, Update!

This is something we cannot stress enough here at Sucuri. Countless websites are compromised every day due to the outdated and insecure software used to run them. It is incredibly important to update your site as soon as a new plugin or CMS version is available. Most hacking these days is entirely automated, with bots constantly scanning every site they can looking for exploitation opportunities. It is not good enough to update once a month or even once a week because bots are very likely to find a vulnerability before you patch it. Unless you are running a website firewall like CloudProxy, you need to update as soon as updates are released. If running WordPress, I personally recommend the plugin ‘WP Updates Notifier‘ – it emails you to let you know when a plugin or WordPress core update is available. You should also follow @sucuri_security on Twitter to get notified about important updates and security warnings.

2 – Passwords

Working on client sites, I often need to log in to their site/server using their admin user details. I am frequently disturbed by how insecure their root passwords are. It is a little scary that I have to say this, but admin/admin is not a secure username and password combination. If your password appears in this list of most common passwords, it is guaranteed that your site will be hacked at some point.

Even if your password is not in that list, there are a lot of misconceptions about “strong” passwords. The lax requirements on most password strength meters are part of the problem. Our friends at WP Engine have put together some interesting research that debunks many of the myths surrounding passwords.

When it comes to choosing a password there are 3 key requirements that should always be followed (CLU – Complex, Long, Unique):

COMPLEX: Passwords should be random. Do not let someone hack your account just because they could find out your birth date or favorite sports team. Password-cracking programs can guess millions of passwords in minutes. If you have real words in your password, it isn’t random. You might think you are clever for using leetspeak (letters replaced with characters L1K3 TH15) but even these are not as secure as a completely random string of characters. Hackers have compiled some seriously impressive word lists for cracking passwords.
LONG: Passwords should be 12+ characters long. I know some in the security community would scoff at an 12 character password and insist that passwords should be longer. However, when it comes to online login systems, any system that is following simple security guide lines should limit the number of failed login attempts. If there is a limit on the number of failed login attempts, an 12 character password will easily stop anyone from guessing it in just a few attempts. Having said that, the longer the password, the better.
UNIQUE: Do not reuse passwords! Every single password you have should be unique. This simple rule dramatically limits the impact of any password being compromised. Having someone find out your FTP password should not enable them to log in to your email or internet banking account. Contrary to popular belief, we are not as unique as we believe ourselves to be; if you can randomly generate the password, even better.

Now I can already hear you ask, “how am I supposed to remember 10 random passwords which are all 12 characters long?” The good news is you don’t need to remember them all, and in fact you should not even try. The answer is to use a password manager such as “LastPass” (online) and “KeePass 2″ (offline). These brilliant tools store all your passwords in an encrypted format and can easily generate random passwords at the click of a button. Password managers make it much easier to use strong passwords than it is to memorize a couple of decent passwords.

Yes, these password managers can present challenges and a possible weak point; just this week LastPass announced a compromise. Not all compromises are the same though, more on this another time.

3 – One Site = One Container

I understand the temptation. You have an ‘unlimited’ web hosting plan and figure why not host your numerous sites on a single server. Unfortunately this is one of the worst security practices I commonly see. Hosting many sites in the same location creates a very large attack surface.

For example, a server containing one site might have a single WordPress install with a theme and 10 plugins that can be potentially targeted by an attacker. If you host 5 sites on a single server now an attacker might have three WordPress installs, two Joomla installs, five themes and 50 plugins that can be potential targets. To make matters worse, once an attacker has found an exploit on one site, the infection can spread very easily.

Not only can this result in all your sites being hacked at the same time, it also makes the cleanup process much more time consuming and difficult. The infected sites can continue to reinfect one another in an endless loop.

After the cleanup is successful, you now have a much larger task when it comes to resetting your passwords. Instead of just one site, you have a number of them. Every single password associated with every website on the server must be changed after the infection is gone: all of your Content Management System (CMS), database, and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) users for all of those websites. If you skip this step, the websites could all be reinfected again and you are back to square one.

4 – Sensible User Access

This rule only applies to sites that have multiple logins. It’s important that every user has the appropriate permission they require to do their job; if they require escalated permissions momentarily, grant it, then reduce it once the job is complete. This is a concept known as Least Privileged.

For example, if you have a friend that wants to write a guest blog post for you, make sure their account does not have full administrator privileges. Your friend’s account should only be able to create new posts and edit their own posts because there is no need for them to be able to change website settings.

Having carefully defined access will limit any mistakes that can be made, it reduces the fallout of compromised accounts, and can protect against the damage done by ‘rogue’ users. This is a frequently overlooked part of user management: accountability and monitoring. If people share a user account and an unwanted change is made by that user, how do you find out which person on your team was responsible?

Once you have separate user accounts for every user, you can keep an eye on user behavior by reviewing logs and knowing the usual behavior (when and where they normally access the website) so you can spot anomalies and confirm with the person that their account hasn’t been compromised.

5 – Change the Default CMS Settings!

Today’s CMS applications, although easy to use, are horrible from a security perspective for the end users. By far the most common attacks against websites are entirely automated, and many of these attacks rely on the default settings being used. This means that you can avoid a large number of attacks simply by changing the default settings when installing your CMS of choice.

For example some CMS applications are writeable by the user – allowing a user to install whatever extensions they want. There are settings that you may want to adjust to control comments, users, and the visibility of your user information. The file permissions, which we discuss later, are another example of a default setting that can be hardened.

It is usually easiest to change these default details when installing your CMS, but they can be changed later.

6 – Extension Selection

One of the beautiful things about today’s CMS applications is it’s extensibility. What most don’t realize however is that, that same extensibility is it’s biggest weakness. There are a massive number of plugins, add-ons, and extensions providing virtually any functionality you can imagine. However the reality is that at times the massive number of extensions can be a double edged sword. Often there are multiple extensions offering similar functionality, so how do you know which one to install? Here are the things I always look at when deciding which extensions to use.

The first thing I look for is when the extension was last updated. If the last update was more than a year ago I get concerned that the author has stopped work on it. I much prefer to use extensions that are actively being developed because it indicates that the author would at least be willing to implement a fix if any security issues are discovered or reported. Furthermore if an extension is not supported by the author, then it makes little sense to use it for your website as it may stop working at any time.

I also like to look at the age of the extension and the number of installs. An extension developed by an established author that has numerous installs is much more trustworthy than one that has 100 installs and has been released by a first-time developer. Not only is the experienced developer much more likely to have a good idea about best security practices, but they are far less likely to damage their reputation by inserting malicious code into their extension. More importantly, the larger the user base, the more incentive attackers have to invest in trying to break it.

It is incredibly important that you download all your extensions and themes from legitimate sources. There are many sites that offer ‘free’ versions that are normally premium and require payment to download. These ‘free’ versions are pirated and frequently infected with malware. The websites offering these ‘free’ versions are setup with only one goal: to infect as many websites as possible with their malware.

7 – Backups

Like anything in the digital world, it can all be lost in a catastrophic event. We often don’t back up enough, but you will thank yourself if you take some time to consider the best website backup solutions for your website.

Making backups of your website is very important, but storing these backups on your web server is a major security risk. These backups invariably contain unpatched versions of your CMS and extensions which are publicly available, giving hackers easy access to your server.

If you’re interested in learning how to make reliable and secure backups of your website, I recommend you read my website backup strategy guide.

8 – Server Configuration Files

You should really get to know your web server configuration files. Apache web servers use the .htaccess file, Nginx servers use nginx.conf, and Microsoft IIS servers use web.config. Most often found in the root web directory, these files are very powerful. These files allows you to execute server rules, including directives that improve your website security.

If you aren’t sure which web server you use, you can run your website through Sitecheck and click the Website Details tab.

Here are a few rules that I recommend you research and add for your particular web server:

Prevent directory browsing: This prevents malicious users from viewing the contents of every directory on the website. Limiting the information available to attackers is always a useful security precaution.
Prevent image hotlinking: While this isn’t strictly a security improvement, it does prevent other websites from displaying the images hosted on your web server. If people start hotlinking images from your server, the bandwidth allowance of your hosting plan might quickly get eaten up displaying images for someone else’s site.
Protect sensitive files: You can set rules to protect certain files and folders. CMS configuration files are one of the most sensitive files stored on the web server as they contain the database login details in plain text. There may be other locations that can be locked down such as admin areas. You can also restrict PHP execution in directories that hold images or allow uploads.

There are many more rules and options that you can look into for your web server configuration file. You can search for the name of your CMS, your web server and “security” but make sure to confirm your findings are legitimate before implementing anything. Some people post bad information online with malicious intent.

9 – Install SSL

I’m actually of two minds as to whether or not to include this point because there have been so many articles incorrectly stating that installing SSL will solve all your security issues. SSL does nothing to protect your site against any malicious attacks, or stop it from distributing malware. SSL encrypts communications between Point A and Point B – the website server and browser. This encryption is important for one specific reason: it prevents anyone from being able to intercept that traffic, known as a Man in the Middle (MITM) attack.

SSL is especially important for E-Commerce website security and any website that accepts form submissions with sensitive user data or Personally Identifiable Information (PII). The SSL certificate protects your visitors information in transit, which in turn protects you from the fines that come along with being found non-compliant with PCI DSS.

10 – File Permissions

File permissions define who can do what to a file.

Each file has 3 permissions available and each permission is represented by a number:

‘Read‘ (4): View the file contents.
‘Write‘ (2): Change the file contents.
‘Execute‘ (1): Run the program file or script.

If you want to allow multiple permissions you just need to add the numbers together, e.g. to allow read (4) and write (2) you set the user permission to 6. If you want to allow a user to read (4), write (2) and execute (1) then you set the user permission to 7.

So here are some computer mouse tips:

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 08:33:00 +0000

mouse tips:

Shift + mouse

There’s a way to select entire paragraphs of text without needing to hold your mouse down and drag it across the desk like you’re wrestling with it. Simply place the cursor at the beginning of the text you wish to select, then scroll down to the end. Hold the shift key, and left click where you want the selection to end.

The third button

Unless you’re a gamer boasting a Razer Deathadder 2013 mouse with a dozen buttons, your mouse probably has two buttons and a wheel, right? Wrong. In case you didn’t know, the wheel is also a button and can be pressed down. Pressing a link in a browser with the wheel will open the link in a new tab, and pressing it anywhere else will allow you to fast scroll through the page. Holding the CTRL button while scrolling will zoom the browser in and out, and holding the Shift button will make the browser go back or forward.

Double-click and triple-click

Double-clicking a word selects it entirely, but triple-clicking the word will select the entire paragraph. Also, if you double-click a word, but keep your mouse button pressed, you can drag to select entire word by word.

CTRL Click

If you want to highlight particular parts of text that are not next to each other, that can be done simply by CTRL-left clicking whatever you wish to highlight. This might be useful when you’re trying to copy only parts of a table or a list.

There are other things you can do with your mouse, like switch the left and right button or set up additional buttons to do particular tasks. These are only some mouse tips I found particularly useful in an office environment.

Need More Space On Your Mac?

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 10:11:00 +0000

Try These Tips

“Your startup disk is almost full. You need to make more space available on your startup disk by deleting files.”
If you are a Mac user and you haven’t run into this particular error message yet, chances are you will eventually. If there is less than 20 GB free on your hard drive, your computer will start to slow down. With less than 10 GB, you will be forced to quite running applications until more space is cleared.
Sometimes there’s an easy fix for a full disk—emptying your trash, clearing your cache, moving that three-hour video of your sister’s dance recital to an external hard drive, etc.
Detecting The Source
In other cases, clearing space requires a little detective work. Start by checking out your system information, available by selecting About This Mac, clicking on More Information, and checking out the storage tab. If you can see that audio or video are eating up your hard drive, the best option is moving songs and videos to the cloud or to some kind of external storage device.

The storage data for a relatively clean disk

If apps are the problem, think about removing applications you don’t use regularly.
The Obvious, First
The obvious choices are things that you’ve downloaded independently, but it’s worth looking at the default apps that came with your computer as well, i.e., Garage Band, iMovie, and temporary trial software that came automatically loaded.
Removing applications completely on a Mac requires a little creativity. Simply dragging the file from the applications folder to the trash will leave behind a lot of the associated files.
Use An Uninstaller
To make sure files are completely and totally deleted, use an uninstaller like Amnesia or AppTrap, or follow these instructions from MacRumors for manually deleting applications.
If a giant chunk of your storage space is taken up by the enigmatic yellow “other” bar (that was the case for me), look for file types that don’t fall into the named categories. Examples include email messages, zip files, and virtualized operating systems.
Helpful Tools
It may still not be clear what is hogging space on your Mac. If you’re still stumped, try downloading a tool to help visualize the files taking up your hard drive. Disk Inventory X worked well for me, but Grand Perspective and Daisy Disk are equally good options.

Disk Inventory X hard drive visualization

I can tell you from personal experience that cleaning out a full hard drive can make a serious difference in your computer’s performance.

Anatomy of a Web Address

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 09:57:00 +0000

You’ve seen them everywhere, even on some state license plates. But what does all those http’s and .com’s mean. Here’s the website that I referenced for the following information:
http://www.googleguide.com/web_address.html
Below is a simplified explanation of what makes up a web address:

First of all, the official computer name for a web address is URLwhich stands for: Universal Resource Locator.

Here’s a sample URL:

http://www.crsd.org/buildings/nj/index.html

http:// stands for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol and that basically tells the computer that we are looking to “Transfer” “Hyper Text” (a webpage) from the internet to your computer. When typing a web address into Internet Explorer you usually don’t even have to type the “http://” because the computer assumes it.
www stands for World Wide Web which is the body of software rules and protocols that make up what we know of as the internet. Just about every webpage you’ll ever view is a part of the world wide web.

crsd in this example stands for Council Rock School District and it is technically the “second level domain name”

org is a an example of a “top level domain name” “.org” is primarily used by Non-profits, “.edu” is commonly used by schools and universities, “.gov” is used by the government, and the now famous “.com” is primarily for commercial websites. Together crsd.org could be described as the school district’s “domain name”
buildings/nj/ if you remember the old old days of DOS (before we had mice and folders on the screen) you might remember switching folder levels using the “/”. If you don’t remember its OK, but you should know that “/buildings/nj/” tells the computer to go to a folder labeled “nj” that is inside a folder labeled “buildings”.
index.html this is the actual file name of this webpage. More specifically, “index” is the name of the file and “.html” is the file extension which tells the computer what kind of file it is. “.html” stands for Hyper Text Markup Language which is the language most web pages are written in.
Now you know what the different parts of a web address are.

How to Search Like a Pro

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 09:49:00 +0000

The internet is big, really, really big. And it keeps growing bigger every day. If you want to search it effectively you’re going to need to develop a couple of tricks to help you narrow the search. Here’s a few real easy ones to integrate into your next search:

Using +, - and “ “ (quotes)
to narrow your searches:

Lets say you were looking up apples on Google.com. If you just type in “apples” you get 22 million returns. A few more sites than you can check in an afternoon so lets narrow the search down. Let's say that what you're really interested in is green apples. To see all the apple websites that also have the word “green” on them type this:

Now you will only see those apple sites that also have the word green on them. Unfortunately we are still getting almost 6 million returned websites:

To narrow the search even more lets eliminate a word. For example, some of the websites are also about Apple Computers so lets get rid of them by typing this:

That reduced about 1 million of the returns but we still have about 5 million web pages to check out. A final way to narrow the search is to use quotes to narrow the search to an exact phrase. For example if what we’re really interested in is granny smith apples we can add that to the search like this:

Now I will only see websites that have the words “granny smith” on them in that order spelled the way I spelled them. Using quotes is always a great way to narrow a search and in my example I was able to go from having 22 million web pages returned from my original search for “apples” to around 220,000 by my last example.

Lock the Computer Before you Go

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 09:19:00 +0000

If you work in a network environment you probably have to log onto your computer each morning using a password and remember to log off each evening before you go. And for network security reasons you're probably reminded to never leave your computer while it's logged on. This is especially important in a school setting where a malevolent student could potentially make a real mess of the school network if they had access to a teacher computer.

Today's tip will help you with a quick way to log on and off your computer when you have to step away from it for a few minutes. It will save you time as you won't have to log off and then back on again. Instead you can just "Lock" your computer while you're away from it temporarily. Please note that this will not work in all network environments or all operating systems. But you can still give it a try:

To lock your computer press the Windows button (bottom left of your keyboard) and the letter "L" at the same time.

If it works your screen will go blank except for a message that says:

"This computer is in use and has been locked by (Your Username). To unlock this computer press CTRL+ALT+DEL and type in your password"

This can be a great, easy to use way to lock your computer. It doesn't work on all computers though. If it doesn't work on your computer you'd have to contact your network administrator to ask them about it. Some network administrators decide to disable this feature.

PRACTICE ACTIVITY: Try locking and unlocking your computer right now to see if it works.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING: To learn more about locking your computer try searching the internet for:

Windows key and L
Lock your computer
Windows shortcut keys

USB Drives

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 06:03:00 +0000

You may have seen other people with them, you might even have one of your own. They’re the newest and most convenient way to store data and they look like these:

They also go by various names: USB Drives, Flash Memory, Flash Drives or even Thumb Drives:

Here's a link to the top 10 weirdest looking USB drives:
http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever/

What you need to know about USB Drives:

They go by several names: Thumb drives, flash drives, flash memory, SanDisk drives. The most official name would be just “USB Drive”
They have much greater storage capacity than old fashioned floppy disks and are easier to carry than CD’s.
They plug into the USB ports of any computer here at school
There are two “speeds”: USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 (2.0 is faster and all new USB drives are 2.0)
They come in these standard sizes: 128MB,256MB, 512MB, 1GB,2GB. Most recently USB drives have gotten much larger by the way.
Prices for USB drives range from $6-$129. If a 512MB USB drive costs about $12 that equals about $.02 per MB. Compare that to the price of an old fashioned 3.5” floppy diskette which holds 1.44 MB's and could cost you about $.20 per MB.

To learn more about exactly how Flash Memory works try the video below.

Featured YouTube Video,

How Flash Memory Works:

PRACTICE ACTIVITY: Look around for someone else who has a flash drive. Chances are someone around you might be using one.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING: To find more about flash drives try searching the internet for:

How Flash Drives Work
Computer memory
Thumb drives

Mega Byte This

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:55:00 +0000

When you work with computers you see KB (or KiloBytes) and MB (or MegaBytes) all the time but what does it stand for? Basically it’s a measurement of memory on a computer. To help you understand exactly what in means there is an example below.

So What’s a Byte anyway?

When you get right down to it computers only know two things off and on. That’s it just OFF and ON. And a computer expresses OFF as a “0” and ON as a “1”. Everything you see on the screen right now is just a specifically ordered combination of 1’s and 0’s to the computer that tell it exactly how to display this webpage. Now here’s the confusing part. Each individual 1 or 0 is called a BITand 8 BITS together is called a BYTE. When you type a 0 the computer actually recognizes that zero as the series of 8 BITS or “00000000”

Here are some examples of what some other numbers and letters look like to the computer:

0 = 00000000	a = 01100001	L = 01001100
1 = 00000001	v = 01110110	p = 01110000
2 = 00000010	$ = 00100100	z = 01111010

Here’s a link to even more if you’re curious: http://www.micron.com/k12/lessonplans/zerosones/asciibinary.html

So, in really super simplified terms, when I type the letter “L” the computer translates that to be the BYTE “01001100." If I typed the letter “L” 50 times that would be 50 BYTES of information. If I typed the letter “L” 1000 times that would be 1000 BYTES or 1 KiloByte or 1KB. Actually Bytes are measured in powers of 2 so 1KB isn't exactly 1000 bytes, but it is close enough. Below is a chart of common abbreviations and their actual values in bytes:

Name	Abbreviation	Actual Size in Bytes
KiloBytes	KB	1024
MegaBytes	MB	1,048,576
GigaBytes	GB	1,073,741,824

To learn more about these bytes and their abbreviations try this site:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bytes1.htm

And here's some even more specific information about how bytes and mega bytes are measured: http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/

Printer Principles

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 05:49:00 +0000

So how does a printer work anyway?

We have them all over the place, and many of us use them everyday, but how many people have any idea how they work?
Today’s technology tip will give you some basic information about how the venerable laser printer and ink jet printer works. But first some background:

The Printer's Progress:

In the beginning there was the pen, paper and a room full of monks. Eventually this was replaced by thetypewriter and carbon paper (if you’ve never heard of carbon paper before here’s a link to:  The Exciting History of Carbon Paper). When computers came out there was a great urge to create “hardcopies” or printouts of whatever the computer did. Initially they connected teletype machinesto early computers but these were eventually replaced with dot matrix printers. By the late 1980’s the old dot matrix printers, with their messy ink ribbons and uniform letter spacing, were being replaced by better technologies.
Today there are basically two kinds of printers, Laser Printers and Ink Jet Printers. The laser printers are the best choice for large scale printing while the ink jets are better for small scale printing. Chances are you have an ink jet printer at home for example.
How they Work:
Ink Jet Printers – They spray tiny drops of ink onto the paper to create the image. The dots are as small as 50 microns. A human hair is about 70 microns for reference, so don’t bother looking for them. For more information about how ink jet printers work we recommend this website: http://www.howstuffworks.com/inkjet-printer.htm
Laser Jet Printers – They use static electricity to stick plastic powder (toner) on the paper and then melt it onto the paper using a hot roller. That’s right, laser jets don’t use ink they use toner which is a very fine plastic powder. For more information about how these printers work I recommend this website: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/laser-printer.htm   There are color laser jet printers by the way. They use toner that is black, cyan, magenta and yellow to create all the colors of the rainbow.

PRACTICE ACTIVITY: Try to identify whether the printers you use are Laser Jet Printers or Ink Jet Printers.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING: You can learn more about computer printers by searching the internet for:

Computer Printer History
Ink Jet Printers
Laser Jet Printers

Security & Privacy Guides

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 10:05:00 +0000

These two guides are designed to help you understand security and privacy issues while connecting to the web and the Internet and to give you things you can do to improve both.

Security Guide. Learn how vulnerable you are to intrusion by hackers and crackers and what steps you can take to protect yourself.Are you safe from crackers and hackers on your home or office system? If you use a dial-up connection, you probably are reasonably safe. If you use a full time network connected to the Internet or use a full time connection like cable modem or Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), you may be quite vulnerable.. At any time, thousands of automated programs are running on the Internet just looking for vulnerable computer systems. As a result, your computer is probably being probed repeatedly during the day. In the day before I wrote this, I had probes blocked by my firewall software from Chile, two sites in China, a Korean elementary school (what are they teaching there, anyway?), Norway, California, and Washington state. You can test your own system's security using the Shields UP web site. If it shows you that your system is vulnerable, consider reconfiguring your system to prevent intrusions (the Shields UP site will help) or installing good firewall software.
Another site to check your system security is Symantec's Security Check.
A firewall refers to the concept of a security interface or gateway between a closed system or network and the outside Internet that blocks or manages communications in and out of the system. The security may be provided by passwords, authentication techniques, software, and hardware. In particular, I recommend the free AVG Anti-Virus for protecting a personal Windows system or the Norton Internet Security package. Many ISPs provide a free security package these days. If you have a home network and a router, your router provides another type of firewall for you. Make sure you use its security features, including wireless encryption.
Privacy on the Internet. Learn what information about yourself is available on the World Wide Web and Internet and what steps you can take to better protect yourself.
Introduction. We are in the midst of the Information Era! There has been an enormous information explosion, and the mushrooming popularity of the Internet and its World Wide Web puts huge amounts of information right at your fingertips. How much of that information is about you? Are you concerned about it?
Some of the threats to privacy have been widely publicized. NSA is accessing Internet communications all over the world. The Federal Government wants the FBI to be able to access any one's PC. Amazon has been sharing customer information with others in their "purchase circles". Several years ago, a major security hole was revealed in Microsoft's Hotmail service that allowed anyone to view any hotmail member's mailbox by using a correctly configured URL that included the username, but not the password.
If you are running a business, you probably want information to be easily accessible about your products or services. You don't want potential customers to look elsewhere because they could not locate information about your business. Possibly you want your name to be readily recognizable, too. It may enhance your career standing. But what about your personal telephone number? Or your personal home address? Do you want your e-mail address to be accessible to all? Do you want just anyone to know about your personal interests? What information would you expect to remain private and unavailable to anyone with an Internet account? Are your expectations realistic, and what can you do about it? This page will give you some answers.
What information do you give away while web surfing?
When you visit a web site, some information is automatically available:
who your provider is
where it is located
what site you came from
what software you are using.

It can also record information about what you do while you are there, and perhaps collect further information from you, such as the controversial Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). Many sites want you to register in order to use their services. You may be asked your real name and e-mail address, your home or business address, your telephone number, your income level, your interests, and so on. This can be valuable information for running a business. The information is voluntary, of course, and they have no way to tell if you are faking the information. Think twice before giving out such information freely. Think about who you are giving it to and what uses they could put the information to. How does your name get on spam mailings? This is one way! The NY Times wants you to register for the privilege of reading their online newspaper. Will they misuse the information they get and sell it to spam mailers? Perhaps not! Will Joe's Awesome Cool Sites page resell the information? You decide.
If you want to prevent web sites from collecting information automatically about you and your computer, software, provider, and previous sites, you can use anonymizer sites to protect this information from being passed along. See Wikipedia's Anonymizer page for more help with this.
What are cookies, and should you disable them?
If you clicked on the NY Times link above, and it was your first visit there, you were asked to register and provide some information. If it was not your first visit and you had already registered, you were probably not asked to register again. How could they tell that you were a repeat visitor? The answer is that they planted a cookie on your system with information about you. When you connected, your cookie files were checked to see if you were a registered user, and if you had elected to store your username and password in the cookie. This is an example of a persistent cookie, which remains on your system for a long time. Only the service that installed the cookie has access to it (besides yourself). It is either in a cookies.txt file on your browser's disk drive or in a separate file of its own. Cookies may or may not be encrypted.
Many ISPs use another type of cookie to keep track of logins. They can use a non-persistent cookie that remains in RAM, not on disk, while you are connected. If you are a registered member of an ISP, you must log in with your username and password the first time you access parts of the service that are for members-only (this page isn't one of those). Unless you have told your browser not to accept cookies, which is an option you have, you can continue to visit members-only parts of the service until you close your browser and the cookie goes away.On the other hand, if you tell Delphi to remember your password, it is stored in a persistent cookie, and you don't have to retype it each time. If you refuse cookies, every new page you visit for members only will ask you to log in again with your username and password. The cookie makes it easier for you to get around, and no one but you and the service can access the cookie.
Cookies are very common and are used to simplify navigation for you and identify you to the site you are visiting. A cookie can store quite a bit of information about you, and release it again each time you visit the site that generated it. A NOTE OF CAUTION: The site that generates the cookie isn't necessarily the site you are visiting. In some cases, cookies may be generated by another site, such as an advertising agency, that is providing services for a number of web sites. In this situation, the cookie-generating site may collect information on you any time you visit any of its sites. It won't know your identity (unless they can cajole you to fill out a form), but it will know your habits.
For a much more thorough explanation of cookies, see the Cookie FAQ at cookiecentral.com.
Should you disable cookies on your system? It is a personal judgment to make, just as it is your judgment how much information to give out about yourself as you visit web sites. Personally, I allow cookies to do their thing, but I am very careful about the information I give out and where I give it. i won't fill out a form full of personal information to get a one in a million chance of winning a prize, for example.
What information is already on the web about you?
Are your name, address, and phone number already on the web? Most people's are!
The information in printed white pages telephone books is in the public domain, and services like Switchboard have compiled the information into their databases. They will generally remove them, if you ask to be removed. There are a number of similar services.
That was the easy part. Is there other information about you on the web? Try searching for your name in Google. Put double-quote marks around your first and last names (for example, "Walt Howe")
Did you find anything interesting?
That is a quick look at the public sources with information about you. Whether you found anything or not, there still may be a lot more information about you that isn't as readily available. There are commercial databases available through the nets that are available for a fee to "qualified" businesses or individuals. Your social security number and credit rating are just two of the items that can be found on commercial databases.
Is e-mail secure?
The security breach at Microsoft's hotmail that we mentioned in our introduction was a worst case situation. For a few hours, anyone who learned the URL trick or accessed the hacker web site that automated it could access any hotmail account and see the contents. The security hole was plugged, but there may be others out there, and e-mail isn't very secure anyway.
Whenever you send e-mail, it is relayed through successive sites, and is theoretically accessible to a couple of dozen or so postmasters and system administrators, who have access to everything that passes through their machines. As a practical matter, so many thousands of messages pass through their machines that the chances of anyone looking at any particular message is pretty small (unless NSA or the FBI have targeted you).
If you are using an e-mail account on your employer's system, the courts have said that employers have a right to monitor e-mail on their systems. You probably run a somewhat higher risk of e-mail being read than you would with a large commercial provider.
On the other hand, suppose you have attracted the attention of an employer or law enforcement authorities for some reason. It is relatively easy to set up "sniffer" software to monitor every word of every message looking for your name or for certain keywords or combinations of words and to forward all such messages for special attention. If the organization's security isn't good and tight (many places aren't), it is also possible for hackers outside the system to set up "sniffer" software in an e-mail system, too.
What this all adds up to is that unless you have reason to be a particular target, you chances of having mail intercepted and read is very small, but still exists. As a rule, don't say anything in e-mail that you wouldn't want to see stuck up on a public bulletin board. If you can't accept that, consider encryption. It takes some extra effort to set up, but good, secure encryption is available in the United States and Canada.
Are credit cards safe to use on the net?
From the preceding discussion of e-mail vulnerability, you might not want to send credit cards numbers through e-mail. What about using credit cards with web sites? There was a news story last year about a hacker who retrieved a credit card number list from a web site's computer and sent the card numbers to the owners of the cards to show them how insecure the net is.
But you take similar risks every time you give your credit card to a stranger in a store or restaurant or over the phone? You take a risk every time you throw your credit card slips out in the trash? You risk giving away your credit card number every time you use it. The risks of using credit cards on the nets are probably less than every day usage, and the banks generally cover any losses anyway.
The public has been slow to trust credit card use online, and that is one major thing that is holding up large scale electronic commerce.
Many sites provide servers that operate in a secure mode with your browser to let you send information in safe encrypted form through the web now. The major credit card companies have agreed on standards for secure transmission of credit cards.
Will increased security enable the long predicted boom in electronic commerce? Not by itself. One more thing is needed, and that is a micropayment system. Many things are being offered free on the nets today with the expectation that eventually very small amounts can be charged for them--that people will pay a few cents or even fractions of cents to access information online that is free now, but costs more than a few cents offline. If micropayments were tried with today's systems, it would probably cost much more to process them than the payments themselves. These problems can be solved with good system design, the experts say, When micropayments systems succeed, perhaps then, the economic predictions can be realized.
What information do you give away with Facebook, Twitter, newsgroups and e-mail discussion lists?
Everything you post to Facebook and other social media is potentially readable throughout the world. Furthermore, your posts are archived by search engines like Google and can be searched for anytime. The places you elect to post to are an expression of your interest areas and tell a lot about you. Facebook suggests you use their privacy functions to limit who can read your posts, but they keep changing the rules and the methods, and many people never catch up. It is very important to stay up to date on their privacy controls and use them.
Is there spyware or adware planted on your computer?.
Spyware is software planted on your computer to harvest and forward information about you to others outside your system. The information collected can range from a survey of your surfing habits passed along to advertisers and marketers to the passwords and credit card numbers you type passed along to crackers who will exploit it. The software can be planted through Trojan horses received in e-mail or even included in software you obtain and install for other purposes, such as Gator, Gozilla, products from Brilliant Digital, and freeware versions of CuteFTP. Many free game demos now include spyware embedded in them.
Spyware used to support advertising is often called adware. Another common name for these hidden programs with a hidden purpose is scumware.
To defend yourself against spyware, adware, and scumware, always maintain current anti-virus software on your system, and be very careful about installing software from unknown sources. Check out independent reviews before installing. Note that anti-virus software will not necessarily detect spyware.
Another disturbing trend in scumware is planting software that not only serves you ads, but uses your computers own unused processing power -- and that of many other unsuspecting people -- to support its own intensive processing tasks. This kind of capability has been used openly on a voluntary basis for such things as the worthwhile SETI project, but harnessing your computer deceptively for commercial purposes is about as low as you can get.
Spyware planted by advertisers is quite common. If you seem to be seeing an unusal amout of pop-up ads unrelated to the sites you visit, your system may be inviting them through spyware. Consider getting the free Ad-Aware software to check your system. I thought I protected my system well, but when I ran this software the first time, I found a dozen plants on my system from such sources as Adware, Doubleclick, and Flyswat.
Webroot Spysweeper is another good program that I have used.
HijackThis is another powerful program for removing scumware, but use it with extreme caution. It can indiscriminately remove good software, too.

What is Internet Relay Chat?

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:52:00 +0000

Internet Relay Chat is an Internet protocol that enables people to meet in conference groups (called channels) from all over the world. At any time, there are thousands of channels running simultaneously, and you can join an existing one or start one of your own. When IRC first started, you could list all the channels in session and look them over to see what you want to join. You still can, but it takes so long to list them all that it is hardly worth it. It is best to decide in advance what channel to join or to prearrange to meet in a particular channel.
IRC is wild and unregulated, and you will meet all kinds of people. Never give out passwords or credit card numbers or personal information on IRC! Because it is so huge and chaotic, many people look for quieter places to hold chats. Undernets have been created separate from IRC, and there are public chat rooms attached to many web sites and Internet providers that are open to the public. Most of the latter types do not use the IRC protocol, but use their own software. Try Delphi's Chat Rooms.
Like other protocols, you can use command mode with shell accounts or providers with text modes like Delphi. Alternatively, if you run your own TCP/IP software with a SLIP, PPP, or network account, you can run your own IRC software. Running software like as you like a lot easier to learn than to learn all the commands and variations of IRC in command mode. You can review the commands at any time by typing the command /HELP. There are extensive help files available at the http://easiertips.blogspot.com site, too.

Internet Mail Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:38:00 +0000

Mail questions:

How do I set up my e-mail software to send and receive mail?
How do I address mail?
How can I mail text files?
How can I mail binary files?
How can I auto-forward mail to another address?
How can I find someone's e-mail address?
How can I create a distribution list to send a message to a lot of people?
For Delphi members: How do I change my e-mail address?
For Delphi members: How do I send e-mail to a member when I don't know the person's e-mail address?

How do I setup my e-mail software to send and receive mail?
If you want to receive and send mail from Delphi (or other ISPs) using mail software like Outlook, Eudora, or Pegasus or the mail capability of Netscape or MSIE, you need to enter the correct addresses, your username, and your password. In general, the address to receive mail from is pop.yourdomain.com. Some software will have you add your username to that address, so that you list username@pop.yourdomain.com. To send mail, generally use the form smtp.yourdomain.com. There are many variations to these addresses, so check with your e-mail provider for exact addressing. The pop and smtp prefixes are common, and to collect and send mail from other addresses, you often use the same form. If in doubt, check with your provider.
Recent versions of Outlook Express, Eudora Pro and Pegasus allow you to set up more than one receive address, so you can collect mail from different accounts. Most providers will let you collect mail from a remote address, but not all do.
How do I address mail?
To send mail, you must know the correct address and fill it in at the To: prompt. Simple Internet mail addresses consist of a Username, an @ symbol, and the address, which will consist of at least two words, separated by periods. For example, this is a correctly formatted address:
```
To:  jsmith@delphiforums.com
```
There is never more than one @ symbol in an address. Rarely, you will encounter an alternate form of address that uses exclamation points (called bang addresses) instead of an @ symbol or one in which there are several levels of addresses in which one or more % symbols act as secondary @ functions.
All addresses (other than those with exclamation points) must end with a correct domain. The domains may be any of these:
- com
- edu
- gov
- int
- mil
- net
- org
- a two-letter country code.
A recent international meeting approved the use of new top-level domain names. Implementation dates remain to be worked out.
How can I mail text files?
Unless you are sure that your addressee can receive separate files, it is best to include a text file as the text of the message itself. In Eudora, you can do this by clicking on the Attach file icon (the one to the right of the left and right arrows) and inserting the filename of the file to be attached, as prompted. Before mailing the attachment, select Special/Settings/ Attachments and click on the box labelled "Put text attachments in body of message."
How can I mail binary files?
Not all addresses can receive binaryfiles by e-mail. It requires a compatible mailer. If you are not sure, ask your addressee if their mailer supports MIME. If so, using Eudora, you can attach the binary file by clicking on the Attach file icon (the one to the right of the left and right arrows) and inserting the filename of the file to be attached, as prompted. Before mailing the attachment, select Special/Settings/ Attachments and make sure the MIME button is checked. If your addressee cannot accept MIME, you can still check uuencode or binhex, and the file will be encoded into either of these two text forms. Your addressee may need to decode them separately, but decoders for uuencode and binhex are very common for all systems. Binhex is primarily used by Macintosh computers.
If your mail software will not handle the automatic encoding, you can use appropriate software such as uuencode or WinCode for PCs, or binhex or stuffit for Macs to do the job offline, and then send the file as a text attachment.
How can I forward mail to another address?
Most mail providers give you a way to forward e-mail automatically to another address. Check your provider's documentation for the exact methods. Unix shell systems usually allow you to create a file named .forward (dot forward) in your workspace, which is a text file consisting of the forwarding address, such as easiertips@gmail.com
Whichever system you use, it is a good idea to test it with a test message after you set the forwarding.
How do I find someone's e-mail address? Most online services will not give out personal information like e-mail addreses. On the other hand, some people register them and make them widely available. Other e-mail addresses are collected from usage.

Internet Address Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:29:00 +0000

Internet Address questions:

How are Internet addresses formed?

What is a domain address?

What is an IP address?

What is a URL?

How do I find people's or business' addresses?

Internet Addresses
There are two types of Internet addresses--domain addresses made up of words separated by dots (for example, world.std.com), and IP addresses made up of four numbers separated by dots (for example, 199.0.65.101).

Both types represent computer addresses on the Internet, and for many purposes, either type can be used. Numbered IP addresses represent specific computers on the Internet. Domain addresses may represent a specific computer or may be less specific.
Domain Addresses
Domain name addresses all end with a correct top-level domain. The top-level domains may be any of these:

com

edu

gov

int

mil

net

org

a two-letter country code, such as us, uk, or mx. See the country code table.

A complete domain address adds one or more terms to the left of the top-level domain, separated by dots. The top-level domain at the right is the most general; each term to the left is more specific.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced a new series of top level domains to become available for registration in 2001. They are:

biz

pro

museum

aero

name

coop

info

IP Addresses
IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses consist of four numbers from 0 to 255, separated by dots. The first number is the most general, and each following number is more specific.
A network might be assigned the hypothetical numbers 185.33.27.0 through 185.33.27.255. This would give them 256 numbers to use. A very large network might be given all numbers beginning with, for example, 125.211. This would give that network approximately 65 thousand addresses to use from 125.211.0.0 through 125.211.255.255. More commonly, a network will be assigned a portion of the range appropriate to its size.

Expert Searching

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:23:00 +0000

A Guide to Developing Your Search Skills

This is a set of guides and tips to searching on the Internet. Taken together, they provide enough information to become a skilled searcher. If you are new to searching, use the Search Engine Guide as your starting point, and come back to the other features listed here as you develop your skills. If you are an experienced searcher, look through all of these features for tips you can use.

Search Engine Guide. Links and how-to-do-it instructions for the major search engines and directories. This file is updated regularly.
Find-It! A Guide to Specialized Searches. There are many search engines devoted to particular types of data, and this is a guide to finding those.
Searching the Invisible Web. How to find information that the search engines cannot reach.
Search Tip: Find Expert Help. If you can't find the information, locate an expert source to help you.
Search Tip: Boolean Searching. Learn to use the full power of Boolean searching to narrow your searches.
What to do with 50 Million Hits! How to refine those searches that produce too many results.
Finding Broken Links. Broken links are everywhere, even in search engine results. Learn how to track down updated addresses on the nets.

What is the World Wide Web?

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:12:00 +0000

The World Wide Web is one of the protocols that lets you link to many sites on the Internet. The basic unit is the page, such as the page you are now reading. A page can be one or many screens as it displays on your monitor.

Within the page are links to related pages and other web sites. This system of embedding links in the text on a page is called hypertext. The links are distinctive, and vary depending on your browser. With most graphical browsers, links are underlined and appear in a contrasting color.

Text browsers may number the links or show them in bold text to contrast them or in reverse colors when selected. You can select a link in a text browser either by typing the number of the link or by moving the up and down arrow keys to select the link. Once selected, either press Enter or the right arrow to connect to the link.

This page includes several links in contrasting colors or type. These are hypertext links to other pages, and you can switch to the linked page by clicking on or selecting the link. Try it.

You will also see buttons and pictures used for links. With a graphical browser, there will often be a blue or magenta border around the graphic to show you it is a link. If you are using a text-only browser, you won't see the picture, but you will usually see an [image] tag or an alternate name.

The Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland. It was originally for text links only, but as it was further developed, multimedia links were added, too. Now, you can see pictures, listen to audio links, and see video links, if your computer and software are set up for them. With the addition of sound and graphics and fast modems to carry the large sound and graphics files, the Web soon became the most popular way of linking to resources on the Internet, replacing gopher, which was invented at the University of Minnesota.

For more background about the web, see Walt's Internet History.

Go to Top

Go to Learning Tree

The Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 09:01:00 +0000

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a vast network that connects many independent networks spanning over 170 countries in the World. It links computers of many different types, sizes, and operating systems, and, of course, the many people of those countries that use the Internet to communicate.
The one thing all these different computers have in common is the use of the Internet Protocol, abbreviated as IP, which allows computers of different types to communicate with each other. You will often see reference to the longer abbreviation, TCP/IP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. Your own computer uses TCP/IP software to enable it to link to this service.

What can I do on the Internet?

The Internet Protocol makes it possible for you to communicate in various ways, find things that interest you, and exchange information and files. The most common things you can do are:

Get information on almost any subject by searching the web. It takes some skill to search efficiently, and since anyone can publish just about anything, there is lots of misinformation on the web, too. You need to develop some skill in evaluating the accuracy and reliability of the information you find.
Send and receive email or chat or exchange messages with people all over the world. Almost as fast as the telephone, there is never a busy signal, and you never play phone tag.
Join discussion groups about a common subject with message boards, Newsgroups and email discussion lists.
Get or exchange software and files with the File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Explore the World Wide Web, which can use all of the above, and adds easy links to other resources and adds multimedia--graphics, sound, and video capabilities.
Publish your own material on the web in blogs, message boards, or your own web pages.

So here are some computer mouse tips:

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:52:00 +0000

Shift + mouse
There’s a way to select entire paragraphs of text without needing to hold your mouse down and drag it across the desk like you’re wrestling with it. Simply place the cursor at the beginning of the text you wish to select, then scroll down to the end. Hold the shift key, and left click where you want the selection to end.
The third button
Unless you’re a gamer boasting a Razer Deathadder 2013 mouse with a dozen buttons, your mouse probably has two buttons and a wheel, right? Wrong. In case you didn’t know, the wheel is also a button and can be pressed down. Pressing a link in a browser with the wheel will open the link in a new tab, and pressing it anywhere else will allow you to fast scroll through the page. Holding the CTRL button while scrolling will zoom the browser in and out, and holding the Shift button will make the browser go back or forward.
Double-click and triple-click
Double-clicking a word selects it entirely, but triple-clicking the word will select the entire paragraph. Also, if you double-click a word, but keep your mouse button pressed, you can drag to select entire word by word.
CTRL Click
If you want to highlight particular parts of text that are not next to each other, that can be done simply by CTRL-left clicking whatever you wish to highlight. This might be useful when you’re trying to copy only parts of a table or a list.
There are other things you can do with your mouse, like switch the left and right button or set up additional buttons to do particular tasks. These are only some mouse tips I found particularly useful in an office environment.

A laptop that doesn't want to start

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 08:18:00 +0000

When Paul Wright switches on his laptop, it can wait for up to an hour before it starts. Is it the motherboard? If not, can we find the fault?

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I have a two-year-old HP laptop. When I switch it on, it does nothing for up to an hour then it suddenly springs into action and fires up. The local "computer chaps" say it is the motherboard. I'm not convinced, and it is still working after six months of the same. Loose connections? I have shaken it. Dust and muck? I have used a hairdryer, to no avail. Do you have any thoughts – or is it just the motherboard!
Paul Wright
Intermittent faults are very hard to diagnose, and it would be worth your while searching for [laptop "intermittent start" OR "intermittent boot"] and the model number of your laptop. If you happen to have an HP dv6000, some versions seem to have been a bit of a nightmare, judging by the long discussion in HP's own forum at HP dv6000 laptop start-up problems.
PCs are supposed to beep to indicate any problems following a POST or "power-on self test", where one short beep means everything is OK.
The beeps and things like flashing cursors usually tell you where to start looking for the fault. Most operating systems also keep logs that can indicate problems. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP, read support document Q308427: How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP. Vista and Windows 7 have much-improved versions. With no hardware or software indicators to go on, we're reduced to experiment and guesswork.
In this case, it could be the motherboard, a loose connection, the hard drive failing, the power supply, or something attached to the computer, such as an external hard drive. (Unplug everything you've plugged in.) I think it's more likely to be a hardware than a software problem, but it could be a bad video driver. It might even be malware such as a boot-sector virus, and it's never a bad idea to check for those.
The hard drive would be my biggest worry. If it is failing to start for anything from a few minutes to an hour, then one day it could fail to start at all. Make sure all your data files are backed up. Also, keep a USB thumbdrive plugged in while you're working, so you can quickly back up the most recent files.
Several small applications will check the health of your hard drive and predict when it will eventually fail. Run Pantera Soft's free HDD Health and see what it says. Also, see if you can hear whether the hard drive spins up when you turn the power on, and whether the laptop boots only after the hard drive kicks in. With a desktop PC, one idea is to lift the lid and hold the drive lightly, because your fingers will feel the disk start to spin. You might be able to feel it through the laptop case.
You can also try changing the boot order in your laptop's BIOS set-up chip so that it tries the optical drive before the hard drive. If your laptop will boot immediately from your Windows DVD, or a Linux Live CD, that suggests a hard drive problem.
With a laptop, there is no good way to isolate hangs that might be caused by loose connections. On a desktop, it's relatively easy to check that all the internal plugs and wires are correctly seated and that no expansion cards are slightly loose. It's harder to get to connectors on a laptop, but reseat any that are easily accessible.
Also, while waiting for the laptop to start, try pressing down gently on the keyboard and other parts of the case. Sometimes a slight movement will get things going, perhaps because there's a loose connection or because the motherboard has what we used to call (in the days when every home had a soldering iron) a "dry joint". However, if you can't recognise a dry joint on a motherboard – and I couldn't – then you have no chance of fixing it yourself. See if varying the power supply makes a difference. Try starting your laptop with the battery removed and the mains adaptor plugged in. Also, if possible, try it with a different mains adaptor.
There are a couple of things that you can do to find possible software faults. First, assuming your Windows installation is up to date, run a few searches to see if you can find more recent drivers, particularly video drivers. Guru3D's Driver Sweeper can help you clean out old drivers.
Second, run a check for rootkits and boot sector viruses. Microsoft's Windows Sysinternals has a free RootkitRevealer, but Sophos Anti-Rootkit and Kaspersky's TDSS Killer are worth a go. Finally, run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free from your desktop, selecting the Quick Scan option.
Knowing you have a secure backup, you could also try a "factory restore". To do this, reboot, your laptop and press F10 a few times when the HP logo appears. When you see the recovery screen, choose Next and then Yes to perform a non-destructive recovery. If that doesn't solve the problem, you could try choosing Advanced and then Yes to perform a destructive recovery. You will have to reinstall your software (including a lot of Windows updates!) afterwards, but a full reset can clear out a lot of junk and solve many niggling problems.
Alternatively, if your system is running Windows XP or Vista, then you could upgrade to Windows 7, preferably the 64-bit version. This provides much better monitoring (start typing "performance monitor"), which helps when things go wrong.
If all else fails, take your laptop to a local computer repair shop, since these have tools that can more easily identify faults. They should give you an estimate of the cost of attempting to repair it, though success is not guaranteed. It would be a shame to give up on a two-year-old machine that would probably run Windows 7 or Windows 8 for several more years. However, a quick look at ebay.co.uk should give you a good idea of the second-hand value of your PC, and there's a limit to how much it's worth spending to fix it.

Win7 hanging since I replaced HD -- HD or laptop problem?

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 08:02:00 +0000

I have a 2+ yr old laptop (HP dv7-6199us) that had been very reliable. Over time it got more and more sluggish, until it was nearly unusable. I tried re-installing win7, and it wasn't much better. (!? Maybe the disk was getting flaky?)

I tried swapping in an SSD, specifically a WD Black2 SSD/HD hybrid, with another fresh win7 install. Shazam! My old workhorse turned into a fire-breathing hot-rod. Performance was awesome. All was good.

But then I started noticing problems. I got a few BSODs shortly after installing the Black2, but that hasn't happened in the last 2 months. But lately I'm having a bigger problem: hangs.

The laptop occasionally (unpredictably) slowly hangs. I'll notice that one app has hung -- it quits responding and gives a spinny-circle mouse sprite. Usually the app screen grays out. Hung apps like that can't be killed or anything else. I can continue working with other apps -- shutting down, writing out data, media files are still playing, etc -- but usually within 2-3 minutes EVERYthing is hung. I have to kill the power. This has been happening every few days for the last 2 weeks.

I suspect it's temperature-related. The laptop has been running significantly hotter than it used to. The left palm rest gets extremely hot. Ambient temps are generally 75-85°F but it hung several times in the middle of the night when it was pretty cool.

I've been running Open Hardware Monitor to watch the temps, and the CPUs typically run in the 70-90°C range. Temps will jump 5° or more just by opening an app, even if the app doesn't stress the CPU. It's almost like just having the app in RAM makes it run hotter. When apps start hanging, it seems like the Monitor has already hung so I can't see what the current temps are. (Then I reboot and put the laptop on an ice pack. )

I'm not real confident in the Black2 SSD/HD. The logical next step is to replace it with a different SSD that hopefully runs cooler. But before I throw more money at this old laptop, does it sound like the Black2 is the culprit?

How to servicing your Motherboard?

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 19:10:00 +0000

Computer Mother Board is one of the vital parts in CPU. This consists of all the Microprocessor and other integrated chipsets elements which support every computer to function more efficiently. What will you do when it is on repair? Try repairing on your own with detailed tips on how to repair computer monitor.

source:netizens-stalbans.co.uk

Finding such complicated issues like Mother board not booting, No Clock, DIMM clock chip is failed, CPU Reset signal, The whole board without reset or may be the reset does not boot can be precise problems that can find only by smart technicians. In case of above issue, no big risks involved for any person/consumer.

What should you do when a CPU Total OFF?
Do you think of a mother board issue? Most common problems might be power issue and display issue due to faulted capacitor/may due to integrated graphics card.
Check the power cable in case of motherboard repair to find whether it rotates in that power or reinstall ATX1. Inspect the position of CMOS Jumper in mother board. IC Chipset is connected to power source and locate whether it generates excessive heat, if yes, it could be damaged. Replace it CMOS IC Chipset. Check the fans are rotating in good condition. Else replace it or replace IC regulator around the socket on mother board power. Change 1000S.D/3300DF capacity. Use anti-virus software to remover virus from the computers to overcome memory RAM Problem with blue screen display. You can

How to Change the Display Language (Including Welcome Screen) in Windows Vista

noreply@blogger.com (Computer Tips and Technology Support) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 09:44:00 +0000

The display language is the language that Windows uses in wizards, dialog boxes, menus, Help and Support topics, and other items in the user interface (UI). In Windows Vista, additional display languages in MUI (Multilingual User Interface Language Pack) can be installed by users of Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions (other editions allow only one display language). When there is more than one languages installed, users can change and switch display language using steps below.

How to Change the Display Language (Including Welcome Screen)

Click on Start Menu, then go to Control Panel.
Click on Clock, Language, and Region option (or Regional and Language Options icon in Classic View).
Click on Change display language under “Regional and Language Options”. For users on Classic View, click on Keyboards and Languages tab.
Under Display language, choose a language from the list.
If no list of display languages been shown, make sure that you have installed additional language packs or files.
Click OK (skip if you intend to change the language of Welcome screen too).

The new language is now applied to user interface. Log off and log on again to apply the change. The new language set is applied for your user account only, but not on Welcome screen nor default user account settings for new users. To effect the change of language in Welcome screen and/or default user account, follow these steps:

In the “Regional and Language Options” window, click on Administrative tab.
Click on Copy to reserved accounts button under “Reserved accounts” section.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation by UAC, type the password or provide confirmation.
In the “Regional and Language Settings” dialog box, check to select System accounts (local system, local service, and network service) check box. The system accounts are special accounts used by Windows‌ services. This setting allows administrators to specify a display language and keyboard layout for the Welcome screen. It also sets the display language for users who have not specified a display language.
Optionally, to copy the current settings to the default user account, select the Default user account (new users) check box. The default account is used as a template for creating new user accounts. This setting allows administrators to set the default format, keyboard layout, and display language for new users. Any user account created on the computer after the settings have been copied to the default user account has these settings applied to it. Existing user accounts are not affected.
Click OK to apply the change.

Computer Tips and Technology Support

Five Blogging Tips

Here are some of Irwin’s best tips for getting the most out of small business blogging.

Email Tips

5 Ways to Protect Your Computer from Email Viruses and Scans

1. DON'T OPEN UNEXPECTED ATTACHMENTS

2. USE SPAM FILTERS

3. BEWARE OF EMAIL PHISHING OR SPOOFING

4. USE CAUTION WITH SENSITIVE INFORMATION IN EMAIL

5. AVOID CLICKING ON LINKS IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL MESSAGE

Computer hard drive buying tips

Computer hard drive buying tips

Adding a new drive

Replacing existing drive

Interface

Speed of hard drive

Other considerations

Price range

Ready to purchase

Installing a hard drive

Improve Your Website Security For 10 Tips

1 – Update, Update, Update!

2 – Passwords

3 – One Site = One Container

4 – Sensible User Access

5 – Change the Default CMS Settings!

6 – Extension Selection

7 – Backups

8 – Server Configuration Files

9 – Install SSL

10 – File Permissions

So here are some computer mouse tips:

mouse tips:

Need More Space On Your Mac?

Try These Tips

Anatomy of a Web Address

http://www.crsd.org/buildings/nj/index.html

How to Search Like a Pro

Using +, - and “ “ (quotes) to narrow your searches:

Lock the Computer Before you Go

USB Drives

Featured YouTube Video,

Mega Byte This

So What’s a Byte anyway?

Printer Principles

The Printer's Progress:

Security & Privacy Guides

What is Internet Relay Chat?

Internet Mail Questions

Internet Address Questions

Expert Searching

A Guide to Developing Your Search Skills

What is the World Wide Web?

The Internet

What is the Internet?

What can I do on the Internet?

So here are some computer mouse tips:

A laptop that doesn't want to start

Win7 hanging since I replaced HD -- HD or laptop problem?

How to servicing your Motherboard?

How to Change the Display Language (Including Welcome Screen) in Windows Vista

Using +, - and “ “ (quotes)
to narrow your searches: