I received a computer question by email from a subscriber named Willa Valdez, who is wondering what I think about Ubuntu and Open Source software in general. Here’s her question:

“Dear Worth,

Mahalo Nui Loa for your Newsletters. Your computer lessons have helped me tremendously.

I am thinking of purchasing a netbook. They both have the operating system Ubuntu (latest version) already installed. I am a newbie when it comes to Linux but I am curious about how how this system works. I installed Ubuntu via WUBI along side VISTA, however, my computer would freeze when I chose to boot with Ubuntu. I was able to boot with Ubuntu a couple of times and liked the Gnome desktop. Unfortunately, some of the applications I use were not supported i.e. Skype. I did not delve into learning the Command Line just yet.

I would appreciate your thoughts on Ubuntu and your general opinion on the Open Source concept.

Again, thank you for expertise and assistance.

Aloha,

Willa Valdez”

Below is a partial transcription of the audio:

What do I think about Ubuntu and open-source? There are a few things. Let’s start with some definitions. Not everybody is familiar with Ubuntu. A lot of people think it’s called Abuntu, but it’s Ubuntu. It’s an African word.

Ubuntu is a version of Linux. Linux is a type of operating system that is an alternative to the more mainstream Microsoft Windows and the mainstream, but not quite as mainstream as Microsoft Windows at least in terms of widespread use, Mac OS X. Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows are all examples of operating systems, which is just the underlying software that’s needed to let your computer run and allows everything else to work.

Linux is a project that has been going on for quite some time. It’s what is called an “open-source project,” and it’s part of the open-source movement.

Open source actually goes back to the roots of making software originally. The most widely used software is Microsoft Windows, and it’s developed by a particular company, which is Microsoft. That is not a value judgment but just how it is

That’s what you could call a closed-source program. It’s software that was designed by a particular company, and as a result, it’s guided a bit by the company’s agenda. That’s not some kind of “Microsoft is evil” kind of statement. Every company has some degree of agenda or plan.

Open source is an alternative to that. The way it works is you have a community of people from all over the world collaborating to find ways of improving the software and fixing problems.

They find problems in the first place. Person A finds a problem. Person B finds a solution, and then Person C implements the solution. That is perhaps how it might work. Basically, the whole idea is to work together to make the best software you can.

I think open-source is great. I don’t use it exclusively. There are some people who are very militant about it. It’s kind of cool in a way too, I should say. There are some people who insist on using only open-source software for ethical or moral reasons, but I don’t go that far.

I think open-source is great. It’s something that people can use in a lot of cases.
I try to recommend it in a lot of cases. Mozilla Firefox is an example of open-source software. Open-source generally, if not in every case, is free. They don’t charge for it, just like with Mozilla Firefox.

Mozilla Thunderbird, the email program I recommend for Windows users particularly, is another open-source program. I recommend using the OpenOffice program for Windows or NeoOffice for Mac.

Open-source is essentially just a collaboration of people from all over just trying to work together in a very altruistic kind of way to just try to make the world a better place through better software. That’s the principle behind it. Linux is an example of open-source software, and Ubuntu is one specific version of Linux, for there are many.

One of the downsides for Linux and one of the reasons that it has not been adopted widely is the fact that, on average, until recently, it has been significantly harder to use than Windows. I think Windows is harder to use than the Mac software.

It has really been something that was mostly used by the techy people who are really into tinkering. They want to be able to tinker with the computer as much as possible, and they’re perfectly happy with things not being set up and ready to go out of the box.

Ubuntu is one of the versions of Linux that has made a lot of strides to improve the situation and make it a lot more accessible to people. It’s not completely there, but certainly if you want to try it, I don’t want to discourage you.

A lot of the really inexpensive and lightweight laptops that have become popular over the last couple of years, and Netbooks particularly, are shipping with Ubuntu or some other version of Linux on it. It cuts down the cost of not just inexpensive hardware but also inexpensive software by providing this free open-source software.

It’s fairly easy to use the basic stuff now. You can get around. It’s usually going to come preloaded with most of the basic software you need, but you’re still going to run into issues.

I don’t have a copy of Ubuntu installed on any of my computers. I’ve played with it before, and it’s one of those things on my to-do list. When I theoretically start having free time to play with stuff like that, I definitely want to try it out because it has apparently become much better. I’ve seen a little bit with a couple of clients, and it has definitely come a long way.

It’s something that may not be for everybody yet, but it’s something that’s very cool. I really like the principles and ideals behind open-source software. It’s definitely something worth checking out.

One really neat thing about things like Ubuntu is that there is an easy way for you to try it if you want. They have something called a Live CD as you can do with a lot of Linux installations.

You go to their window and download an image of a CD. It’s stored in a file, and then you can use disc-burning software. They’ll have instructions on the website on how to do this.
You can burn a Live CD [or make a bootable USB drive] that allows you to start the computer and run Linux. You don’t have to worry about actually installing it, replacing anything, or trying to install it side-by-side with Windows, which doesn’t always work as Willa has discovered.

Those are some general thoughts about it. Hopefully that makes sense and answers some of your questions. Ubuntu and other versions of Linux are just going to keep getting better and better over the coming years.

I am a little bit hesitant about telling people to just rush off and start using it. If you’re a little more of an adventurous computer user and you want to try things out, then it’s definitely something worth trying.

I definitely support the concepts behind it, and I think that open-source software in general is a great thing. I’m actually using some to record this audio. WordPress is blogging software that I use for my websites many times. That’s free. It’s open source, and I highly recommend it.

Open Source is a great thing. I hope that makes sense and answers your questions.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

This time I’m going to take a question from someone who asks, “What is grounding? I’ve heard it phrased in so many places but don’t know what it is.”

This refers to draining off excess electricity. That’s basically what it’s about.

I’ve talked about how it’s important for someone working on the inside of a computer or any kind of electronic device that they be grounded.

If I work on a computer, take it apart and am upgrading or repairing it, any time I have the case open and am working in the inside of it, I’m always making sure that I’m grounded. The way I do this is that I have a special mat. It has a wrist strap attached to it. Then the entire mat and wrist strapped are attached through a conductive cable to an outlet where I plug in.

You may have noticed that with many, but not all, electrical devices, the power plug has three prongs. The third prong is the ground. The other two are the positive and negative poles that allow the current to flow and create a circuit. It goes in a circle. Then there’s the third prong, and that’s the ground.

On any modern building that’s been wired properly, that third prong is a separate wire. They all essentially go together and eventually have some connection that goes down into the ground, hence the term “grounding.” That drains off excess current. That’s basically what’s going on. For electronics to operate properly, they need to have that excess current bled off.

In terms of static electricity as opposed to the electricity you get from your power outlet, static electricity is generated by moving your arms around, for example. As I’m recording this, I’m gesturing with my hands. That makes no real sense since no one is seeing me when I’m doing this, but I’m still talking with my hands. As I’m doing this, it’s generating static electricity in my body.

If I went and touched a piece of electronics that wasn’t shielded properly, like exposed electronics on the inside of a computer, there would be a static discharge. Whatever the difference is between the charge in myself and the charge in the electronics, when I touch it it’s going to go through. If I’m not grounded, it’s going to go through the electronics and could damage it.

One way to think about this is almost like water pressure. Electricity and water are kind of similar. I like to think of them as being very similar, at least in a metaphorical or analogy way.

Water always flows downwards. It goes down to the lowest point. That’s essentially what electricity does. It always goes down the path of least resistance. It tries to go to ground.

By grounding myself and having this wrist strap on me, the wrist strap is conductive. It conducts electricity, and it’s attached to my skin directly. Everybody’s skin is conductive, so as my body generates that static electricity, it drains right on out of there like water flowing down to the lowest point.

The more static electricity in me, it’s almost like the water pressure building up. Too much pressure in a pipe could potentially burst the pipe. If there’s enough water pressure going through there and nowhere for it to be released, it could burst and damage the pipe.

In our analogy, that’s a circuit. It could be a circuit in a computer or a circuit board that contains many circuits. Those circuits can be burst open by that surge of electricity that comes through from static electricity.

The third prong, the outlet my grounding mat is attached to, is attached to ground or earth. The excess current drains out. Essentially, that’s what grounding is.

How does this relate to the average person? Most people don’t really need to worry about it too much. The typical person is not going to open up their computer and work on the inside of it, I would hope. It’s not usually a good idea.

If you do ever have to do it, particularly if you’ve got a computer tech coming to you or you’re taking it to a shop to have it repaired or upgraded, you want to make sure they follow proper grounding procedures.

Some places will say that it’s good enough that they touch the case occasionally. This particular example really annoyed me when I saw it, but there was a particular place I went one time. The one person was working there picked up a circuit board. It was a motherboard, also known as a main logic board. Before she did, she made a not really valid attempt to ground herself by touching the plastic case.

Plastic, of course, is not conductive. Therefore, it doesn’t work to ground you. They touched the plastic case on a laptop that was sitting on a wooden bench. Wood is not conductive. Plastic is not conductive. The laptop wasn’t even plugged in, which might have provided some pathway for that static electricity to go to ground.

Because the laptop plastic case was nonconductive on a wooden nonconductive surface, when she touched that thing, it didn’t do anything. She did not ground herself. Then she handled the electronic, and that damages it. It may not break it instantly, but it will weaken it and shorten the lifespan of the electronic, so it’s really important.

How does this apply to you? You want to make sure people actually use grounding mats. At the very least, instead of a wrist strap that attaches to a mat, some places will use an ankle strap. That’s essentially the same thing, but it attaches to the ankle instead of the wrist. That’s just as good.

You want to make sure they’re doing something like that. If they’re not, your electronics are not going to be taken care of properly. When you take it in for a repair, they might be doing damage.

The other bit of advice I can give the typical user of a computer is whenever possible, try to use a power adapter with a third prong for ground. This is never really going to be an issue for a desktop computer. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one, and if I have it’s certainly been many years, that did not have that third prong on it to ground.

Laptops, on the other hand, a lot of times come with a power adapter that only has two prongs on it. I’m thinking of some of the Mac laptops. A lot of times the MacBooks have a power adapter that you can pull off the end. It comes with a little square adapter that a two-prong plug flips out of.

That whole little flip out part you can actually pull off, and they provide you with an alternative cable that’s longer and gives you more length to get to the wall. It also gives you a third prong.

I would strongly recommend that if you have a laptop, whether it’s made by Apple or anybody else, if you have the option of choosing a two-prong or three-prong adapter, always use the third prong. It will also protect your laptop better than the two-prong.

Essentially, that’s what grounding is. It’s a way of draining off too much water pressure, so to speak. It’s a matter of having some conductive path that leads between you and the device to earth, or other words, to ground. It drains off the excess.

This protects electronics. Potentially in some cases, it can even protect the person if they’re working with electronics and happen to touch it. If it’s not grounded properly, it could give them a shock. In terms of repairing and working on the inside of it, it’s the static electricity you’re trying to drain. You’re trying to protect the computer and electronics rather than yourself.

Hopefully that makes sense. We gave you a few tips that can help you avoid potential problems and help you choose a good place to repair your computer.
– Audio computer lesson transcription ends –

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

Today I want to answer another computer question, this one coming from Leslie G. who writes:

If you need more step-by-step help with working with photos on your Mac or Windows computer, take use one of the following links to learn more about these easy video lesson courses that cover easy programs for working with pictures:

How to Use Picasa – Course for Microsoft Windows
or
How to Use iPhoto – Course for Apple Mac

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

The following audio & transcript are from a live computer Q&A event I recorded back in 2008, discussing a topic which is just as important today as it was then. This segment is a lesson giving a few tips on choosing a safe password, and also explaining a why it’s important to use strong passwords (and why assuming no one would target you is missing the point).

Due to the nature of the live recording the audio will sound a little “thinner” than usual, and I may talk a little bit faster than I normally do on my “studio recordings”. Use the player below to listen and you can find a transcript of the audio below the player.

AUDIO LESSON TRANSCRIPT BEGINS HERE:

I want to give you a couple of guidelines when you’re setting passwords. There are a lot of mistakes I see people making with passwords.

 

You want to follow some guidelines. One, for example, would be to not use the same password for everything. I know it’s easier to remember, but it’s also an easy way to get into your stuff.

 

You have to think of passwords like keys. I would hope you would not use the same key for your house, car, post office box and safety deposit box. If someone gets one of the keys, they can unlock your life.

 

In addition to not using the same password over and over again, which I see people do all the time, you need to use a hard password. A “strong” password is the term. This is a more complicated one.

 

I want to go back to my analogy of a password being like a key. The type of passwords I see most people using tend to be simple, regular words that you find in the dictionary or a person’s name.

 

In a recent email, I told a story about how 10 or 12 years ago, I was working at a computer shop in upstate New York where I used to live. Someone brought in their laptop. When I flipped the thing open and turned it on, I was somewhat dismayed to find that it had a password lock on it, which was pretty uncommon at the time.

 

She hadn’t bothered to tell anybody that there was a password. I couldn’t get in without it, but it also happened to have “If lost, return to Lisa,” or whatever her first name was, and the address. When I saw that, the very first thing I typed in was her first name, and that was the password. Not only did she use her own name as the password, but she also had it printed right on the screen.

 

I guessed on literally the first try. If I had been a criminal, or if someone had stolen the laptop and made the same guess, they would have had full access to everything on the computer.

 

It’s really important to use a strong password. The general guideline suggested for this is to make it long, and the longer it is, the better. You want a mix of letters and numbers. Get it as far away from a regular word that you might find in the dictionary as you possibly can. Mix uppercase and lowercase letters in a random way and even put in symbols like an exclamation point.

 

This will create a much stronger password. You might be thinking, “Why do I need to worry about my password? Who is going to target my information? Who’s going to target my computer?”

 

You can’t think of it that way because criminals these days use the internet. They use the internet and programs on the computers to commit crimes just the way that they used a lock pick in the past.

 

If you think of a computer as like a house, these programs are like a burglar. They can basically clone themselves a thousand times over and go to every single house in a dozen neighborhoods all at the same time.

 

They try every single door to see if there is no lock on the door. In other words, there is no password. They look to see if it has a bad, weak lock or an old-fashioned type of lock, both of which, of course, are easy to pick.

 

To use my key analogy, if you have a weak password, it’s like having a really old-fashioned key in an old-fashioned lock, like something they had 150 years ago. The reason they make different keys now, smaller and more complicated, is to make them harder to pick.

 

It’s the same idea with your password. They use these things called “brute-force password cracks.” They are little programs that basically try all the words in the dictionary starting with common ones. They run through them a thousand times in a minute on each computer, on a thousand computers at once.

 

It doesn’t have to be targeted, but you can still have your privacy violated or identity theft done on your computer if you’re not protecting it properly. There’s a whole series of things you can do to protect it, including adding a firewall and doing a lot of other things, which I deliberately included in my computer training courses, and I talk about them in my newsletter and so forth.

 

That’s passwords.

You can find more in-depth audio and video lessons expanding on computer security topics in my online courses, especially in the Safe & Easy Internet course for Apple Mac and the Safe & Easy Internet course for Microsoft Windows.

More related lessons can be found in the Safe & Easy Email course for Apple Mac and the Safe & Easy email course for Microsoft Windows.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this audio computer training lesson I answer a question from Vasilis who writes wanting to know just what the computer term “default” means.  Click the triangle play button below to listen to this computer question and my Plain English answer:

As I explain in the audio lesson, the computer term “default” is one that confuses a lot of people.  Basically, it means “what the computer is set to do until you tell it to do otherwise”.

So for example, you might get a brand new computer and have a certain picture set as the wallpaper (background image on the desktop) when you first turn it on. This is the default background image.

If you change that default image to a new one, it’s no longer using the default picture.

Another example would be the “default browser” on your computer.  Windows PCs come with Internet Explorer (the blue “E” icon) as the default browser, just as Apple includes their own Safari browser as the default on their Mac computers.

You can always install a different browser (highly recommended for Windows users) such as Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.  When you install a new browser, it typically asks you if you’d like to make it the default.  If you do, any time you do something which should take you to a web page (like clicking a link in an email for example) it will then open whatever browser you have “set as the default” to display that web page.

But that doesn’t prevent you from opening that same web page in a different browser if you prefer — you’re just not opening it with the default.

So it’s kind of like what the computer “assumes” (so to speak) unless you tell it otherwise.

Hope that makes sense.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

This computer question comes from a student named Edward, who writes:

“Dear sir,
I have followed your comments on here with great interest and find them very helpful.  I have a problem I am trying to sort out first with an Apple iBook. My problem is I cannot download applications, and when I do they will not mount or the image is corrupt?
Yours respectfully.
Edward O’Toole”

Hi Edward,
I’m glad you’re finding my newsletter helpful, and thanks for writing!

I suspect the problem is that you have very out of date software on your iBook. OS X (the “operating system” software for Macs) is currently on version 10.6 — that’s three major versions (and several years) newer than what you have.

New versions add new features, and sometimes things on the Internet rely on those new features to work, which means computers running older software sometimes run into problems like this.

What you might do is ask around and see if you know anybody who could help you put OS X 10.4 (a.k.a. “Tiger”) on your computer. This isn’t the newest version, but your Mac may not be able to run the more recent versions of OS X released after Tiger, but Tiger should be enough to get things working for you.

Whenever possible, you should keep your computer’s software up to date to avoid a variety of problems.

I hope that answer makes sense and helps!

If you found this lesson helpful, you might want to look into the Apple Mac Basics Course or the Microsoft Windows Basics Course — quick, easy step-by-step computer training in Plain English.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

A lot of people are unwittingly publishing information about themselves online when they share photos and videos online. This information is revealed in something called “metadata” which you can think about as “data about the data”, or info about the information (data) in the file.

This information about the file can be something as simple and visible as the file name, but the information most people are talking about when they mention metadata tends to be more “hidden” inside the file.

One example is “ID3 tags” in MP3 files which hold the musician’s name and other information, another example is the data in a photo which can reveal mundane information such as the camera settings when taking the photo and the date, but also GPS location information revealing exactly where the photo was taken.

This information is visible in typical photo viewing and editing programs such as Picasa for Windows or iPhoto for Mac OS X. It also often is revealed automatically on photo sharing websites.

A file name could be thought of as the simplest example of metadata since it can be used to describe the contents.

However, many types of files contain more information stored inside a special part of the file. Common examples of files with metadata include music, photos, & video files.

In photographs and videos the camera or smartphone typically records GPS information about your location and this can end up visible to the world when you share those files online.

This may not be a problem with all photos or videos, depending on where you shoot them, but ones taken of your home reveal where you live and what kinds of things you own. In effect, you’re casing your own home for potential burglars.

Most cameras and phones that can record this information will have a setting to prevent saving location information to the image. Consider sharing your photos privately with family and friends instead of in public galleries. When uploading to any site, look around (under privacy on the settings screen for example) for a setting that lets you turn off displaying GPS location data.

I show you how to disable location services in one of the video lessons in my How to Use the iPhone App.

Listen to the audio above for the full Plain English explanation and understanding of metadata and how it can affect your privacy.

You can also take a look at my easy online computer training courses for more in-depth and step-by-step computer help.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

This latest computer question comes from someone named Morgan who writes:

I have a question for you. My internet seems to be very slow. I am not sure if it is because of the ISP that our family uses or if it could be a problem with the modem or router. Our basement flooded and water got on the router. The router still works but it just feels like it is lacking power and performance. I was wondering if the reason our internet is slow is because of our ISP or because our router has water damage. I also believe our router is getting to be quite old as well. It is really impacting my ability to stream videos and play online on my xbox 360. Any advice you can give on this matter would be very helpful. Thank you for your time.

Morgan

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

Here is a simple thing to learn but is a big time saver you really need to know about when using the Internet.

I see many rookie, and even experienced computer users making this blunder (and remember, I’m not being critical; it’s not your fault if you’re making this computer mistake)

Don’t use a search engine like Google or Bing to search for web pages or web sites if you already know the address!

Search engines are like phone books. A lot of people don’t use them at all anymore, but when woukd you use one? You’d use one to look up a number if you don’t know it, right?

You don’t use a phone book when you already know the number, because that would be a waste of time and wouldn’t make sense, right?

But that’s exactly the mistake I’ve seen people making again and again over the many years I’ve helped people with their computers.

So for example, in my computer newsletter I may send out a link to a lesson on my site. Now normally you should be able to click on, but sometimes email programs will “break” the link so clicking it doesn’t work.

So what some people do is they try typing the address of the link into a search engine, and end up not being able to find the page!

That’s because the page in the example is for my subscribers only, and so is an “unlisted number” (so to speak) which isn’t listed in Google or any other search engines, just like an unlisted number isn’t found in the phone book.

Make sense?

So how do you “directly dial the number” of a web page you know?

Simple. In your web browser window (a web browser is the program you use to look at web pages, such as Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer) at the top of the window you should normally see a bar with the address of the website you are currently viewing.

So if you are on Amazon you’d see

http://www.amazon.com/

or if you’re using Google you’d see:

http://www.google.com/

etc.  In most cases you’d actually see something longer, but it will always begin with the “domain name” of the website.

That bar where you see the address of the site is called the location bar, or the address bar.

All you need to do to go to a website you know the address of, whether it’s a public page a private page, is to click ONCE on the address bar and typically this will “highlight” that address.

You can then either hit the delete or backspace key on your keyboard to clear it, or usually you can simply start typing and everything that is highlighted in blue will be replaced by what you’re typing.

So if you wanted to go to Facebook, you could type

http://www.facebook.com/

into that address bar and press Enter or Return on your keyboard and it would take you directly there.

You could also just type

facebook.com

and that would work too because the first part is almost always optional.

This is much better than *searching* for an address, finding it in the search results (or maybe not even finding it at all). Then clicking the link in the search results to get there, when you could just dial direct.

Even if it’s a public page that is listed, at the very least you’ve wasted time and effort searching for something you don’t need to search for, because you already know where it is.

Again, this is like using a phone book to look up a number you already know — and if it’s a private, unlisted web page, like the ones I share with my newsletter, it won’t even turn up.

Personally, the only time I type the address of a website into a search engine and search for it is when I’m trying to learn more *about* the site, rather than searching to get there.

So learn this basic computer tip:

If you know an address of a website, just type it into the address bar at the top of your web browser window and press the enter key on your keyboard.

Do not search for it as you are at best wasting time and effort, and at worst will not get where you’re trying to go.

I hope that helps.

Since I’ve seen so many people making this mistake over the years, I made a point of including an easy step-by-step video lesson on exactly what I talked about in this article as one of the first lessons on my “Safe & Easy Internet” course.

You can learn more tips to use the search engines correctly, browse more easily and more safely, all explained visually with my easy video lessons in Plain English. Just use one of the following links:

How to Use the Internet for Microsoft Windows

or

How to Use the Internet for Apple Mac

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this article I’m going to help you understand a computer term you’ve probably heard but may not have understood, and give you some advice that will protect you from a computer mistake.

There was a rumor floating around that Facebook was shutting down for good on March 15th of 2011. This is obviously not true (depending on your view of Facebook, that may be good news or it may be bad news).

The rumor most likely started with the fact that the original Yahoo Video shut down for good on that date. I want to use what happened as an example to help you understand a couple of things that are very important and will become more important in the coming months and the next few years.

If you’re wondering, Yahoo Video was a video sharing service Yahoo has offered for years, and was basically the same idea as YouTube, only not as widely used.

It may not be as big as YouTube, but it’s still used by millions and millions of people, so it’s a shame it’s going away, but is only a symptom of the larger problems going on with Yahoo at the moment.

As a matter of fact, things are not looking good for Yahoo right now, and the company may not be around at all for much longer — it’s rapidly shedding employees and closing down very popular and widely-used services.

This brings me to one of the main things I want to write about: why it’s a bad idea to trust your files to “The Cloud” and give up ownership of your personal or business data in the process.

There’s been a lot of talk about “the Cloud” over the last few years — if you’re not sure what the term means, it’s basically referring to storage and services accessed through the Internet instead of directly off your computer.

The cloud can provide seemingly unlimited storage and basically gives access to the tremendous computing resources of companies such as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and others.

A lot of companies are spending a lot of money to convince people that they want to put everything “in the cloud” and like to paint it as a huge benefit for you with no risks or downsides at all.

While “cloud-based” services can be very useful, they are not without their risks and I don’t think it’s a good idea to rely on them too much. Let me give you an example of why.

As I mentioned, Yahoo Video is shutting down for good in March. This means that all of the videos stored on the service will be gone forever unless the person who posted the video either has a spare copy or downloads a copy before the service shuts down.

Unfortunately, it’s very likely that a lot of Yahoo Video users uploaded their video and then deleted it off their computer, which was a mistake.

I say this because it’s a known fact that people are heedlessly doing this very thing every day when uploading photos to Facebook or to Flickr, or with videos they’re uploading to YouTube, documents they’re creating or storing on Google Documents, etc.

People do this because they’re not aware of the risks and because the big companies who are sinking their capital into developing cloud-based services are doing their best to convince you it’s the way to go.

But it ignores the fact that Internet connections still aren’t always as fast or as reliable as we’d like them to be (which means if you keep your only copy of an important file online you might not be able to get to it when it really matters).

It also ignores the very real possibility that the company you’re trusting your files to won’t be around forever and could vanish or be bought out with little or no warning to you.

It may seem impossible to imagine Facebook or Google could shutting down, or being bought by another company, but you could’ve said the same thing about Yahoo or AOL not that long ago, and it’s very possible both of those companies will be just memories in a year or two.

This isn’t just an online thing, either. Business history is littered with companies which seemed unbeatable at the time which floundered and failed due to mismanagement or bad luck.

So if you store the only copies of your files online and the company holding on to them for you fails, you could lose the files for good, or even worse, have them sold to the highest bidder and put to who knows what use?

The thing is, in many cases the user agreements you agree to when you join many sites says that you don’t really own the files you upload to them!

So my advice is this — you’ll keep hearing a lot of hype about “the Cloud” in the future and many companies will be encouraging you to store more and more online and not where you have physical access to it (like on your computer’s hard drive).

Try to remember that while this can be convenient, it does have its risks and you should at least make sure to keep copies of your files on your computer AND make sure to back up those files and keep one or more copies (the more the better) where you have physical access to them.

Otherwise you may not have those files when you really need them.

For step-by-step help with backing up your computer the right way, take a look at my easy video lesson courses on:

How to Back Up for Microsoft Windows

or

How to Back Up for Mac OS X

Note: article updated 6-12-11, mainly changing intro from future to past tense.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

Heat is one of the most damaging things for electronics. People are often not aware of this and are causing their computers and other devices to fail long before their time because they’re not doing what they need to do to keep them cool.

You’ve probably noticed that computers typically have fans which you can spinning whenever the computer is running. You may also have noticed that the fans get louder sometimes more than others.

Most parts of a computer generate some amount of heat, with certain parts such as the hard drive and the processor generating more than others. The fans are designed to keep the computer from overheating and burning out.

Because of this, it’s important to make sure the fans are able to do their job, or you might end up having to replace your computer before its time.

A few steps you should take to help keep your computer and other electronics from overheating:

1. Keep them out of direct sunlight - I often see people who keep their laptop or desktop computer near a window where it’s exposed to direct sunlight for a few or several hours a day. This will, understandably, raise the temperature in the computer above what it’s supposed to be.The internal fans are designed mainly to cool off components from the heat those parts generate themselves, not from external heat sources
2. Don’t put them on a desk right next to a radiator or over a floor vent – this one is pretty self-explanatory; basically the same idea as keeping them out of direct sunlight
3. Don’t put your computer in a tight space – this is one I see a lot. People will hide their desktop computer in a cabinet or one of those desks with the internal space for a computer, or perhaps they’ll hide the computer in a cramped space between the desk and the wall.

   This is a bad idea because this usually will block the vents and trap heat, or trap the heat in the space surrounding the computer, which is just as bad.

4. Never pile stuff on top of the computer – a couple of things is fine, but don’t go overboard with stuff packed in around or on top of the computer as this can also trap heat and block vents
5. Avoid using a laptop on a soft surface where the computer sinks into the surface, such as in bed with the laptop resting on the blanket; this will usually mean at least one of the fan vents is blocked, plus the blanket is an insulator (that’s why it keeps you warm, after all) and it will trap the heat in the laptop, causing damage over time.

   If you like to use the laptop in bed, or while sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket, you can still do this, just rest the laptop on a hard flat surface to give it plenty of airflow and to avoid blocking the vents.One great way to do this is by using one of those trays you can buy very inexpensively that have a nice flat surface on the top and a built-in cushion underneath.

   These help protect the laptop from trapped heat, and have the side benefit of make it more comfortable to work with the laptop by keeping your lap cool and putting the computer at a more comfortable angle and height.

6. Use a laptop cooling pad whenever possible – this will help save your computer and keeps your legs cool too.  Some of them come with fans, and this is the type I suggest using as it does the best job cooling. Usually these will require you to provide power through a power cord, or more commonly, through the laptop’s USB port.

   Just as with the internal fans, make sure not to block the fans on the cooling pad with papers or a bedspread or anything similar, or they can’t do their job.

7. Avoid keeping computers in dusty environments such as on the floor – dust can get inside computers and coat the parts inside and can even block the air vents in extreme cases. If either one of these happens, heat is trapped inside causing damage.It’s also a good idea to use a can of compressed air, which you can pick up pretty much anywhere that they sell electronics, and periodically open up the case and use the compressed air to clear out the dust.

   Be careful when you do this, however, as touching the electronics inside can cause damage, something I explain in another article.  If you feel more comfortable doing so, consider letting a technician do this for you to prevent accidentally damaging something.

Hopefully by following the advice I’ve given you, you can avoid causing  your computer to break down before its time by not making these common computer mistakes.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

The following article is another except from Worth’s new book titled “How to Avoid 7 Common & Costly Computer Mistakes – Explained in Plain English” and follows from my previous post where I answered the question “Why Back Up?” and my post where I explained how to back up using incremental backup.

In this article I want to explain one general method for how to back up your computer, namely something called “cloning”.  I won’t repeat the many reasons why it is absolutely essential that you back up on a regular basis, but I will give you some recommendations on methods you can use to protect yourself, including information for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac computers.

First off, let’s define “cloning” backups.

Cloning refers to making an exact 100% copy of your computer’s hard drive, typically onto a second internal hard drive, or better, an external hard drive which is left turned off except during the backup process to minimize wear and tear and keep it more reliable.

Some people argue that cloning isn’t really a method of backing up, and while I agree the original reason it was developed as an option was probably to make it easier to upgrade to a new hard drive, it also can make a great way to back up your computer.

If done correctly, when you clone your computer’s hard drive, the clone should be “bootable”, which is to say, you can start the computer up from that drive in exactly the same way you normally start up with your computer’s main hard drive.

The benefit of having a bootable backup copy of your drive is that it minimizes downtime and expense. In some cases, you can start your computer up from the external drive and literally be up and running again in a minute or two.

Running your computer off the backup drive in this way is not a long-term solution, but if you’re waiting on a replacement drive or you’re waiting for a computer tech to replace the main drive after it fails you can at least get work done in the mean time and everything will be exactly the way it was as of the last time you cloned the drive.

Cloning your drive in this way can also save you money by minimizing the time spent by a technician repairing your Mac or PC.  In many cases the tech can simply take the external hard drive out of the case and put it into the computer in place of a bad hard drive, then put the new replacement drive into the external case.

This can take as little as 5-10 minutes to get you back up and running again, as opposed to potentially hours of time with the bill getting bigger by the minute doing it “the old fashioned way” by putting the replacement drive into the computer, installing Windows or Mac OS X, and restoring all the files from the backup and potentially (depending on how you backed up) also reinstalling each and every program such as Microsoft Word, etc. and getting everything manually configured exactly how you had it before.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of options to create a hard drive clone like this for Windows. Mac OS X users are fortunate to have more options, but it’s still possible to do on pretty much any computer.

I have found a couple of programs that will duplicate your hard drive in this way for Windows, both of which are free (although there are a couple of caveats on this which I’ll explain in a moment).

The first program for Windows, which makes these 100% “cloned” copies is something called XXClone.  This is a completely free program which does a great job and which I use myself.  The only problem with this program is that it only works properly with Windows XP, and is unfortunately not compatible with Windows Vista or Windows 7. You can find this program by Googling “XXClone”.

Another option for Windows users that does seem to work with all versions of Windows is Seagate DiscWizard (formerly Maxtor MaxBlast).  Discwizard is available for free from Seagate’s website — just Google “Seagate DiscWizard download” to get the link.

The one minor hitch to this is that for it to run, it does require at least one of your hard drives to be either a Seagate or Maxtor brand drive (Maxtor was bought by Seagate a while back).

This isn’t a really big problem for most people because when you buy your USB drive, you can either buy a Maxtor or Seagate brand, which are pretty easy to find, or go to a local computer store and ask them to put a Maxtor brand hard drive into any USB case for you.

These brand drives are also extremely common in computers, so there’s a very good chance you already have one of them as the main internal drive in your PC. I’ve been using Maxtor and more recently Seagate DiscWizard (which is the exact same program with a different name) for years and have tested this out extensively and it seems to have no problems as long as one of the drives is Seagate or Maxtor.

On the Apple Mac side of things people have a few options, the main two being something called “SuperDuper!” and another called Carbon Copy Cloner. SuperDuper is inexpensive, CCC is free (but appreciates donations).

Both are good programs, but I’ve been using CCC for the better part of a decade now as my main backup program and so it’s what I recommend to my clients. Both programs work in the same basic way, so pretty much anything I say about CCC applies equally to SuperDuper.

Unlike Seagate Discwizard on the PC, CCC does not require any specific brand of hard drive, and unlike XXClone — which only works properly with one version of Windows — should work with any modern Mac. If you have an older Mac they also, the last time I checked, keep an older version of CCC available if you need it, but unless your Mac is several years old you should have no problem running the current version of CCC.

On either type of computer, the time it takes to complete the backup varies a lot depending on how much you have on your hard drive, and what type of connector (USB, Firewire, eSATA) you use for the external drive. To do a complete backup it can take anywhere from half an hour to several hours in extreme cases (this is only usually going to be the case if you have an extremely large number of big files such as video files).

But you can start it and walk away, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. This should be done at least once a month, maybe more frequently if you plan to make a lot of changes to the computer, like installing new software, or updating your system with a major update to Windows or the Mac OS.

One of the things I really like about Carbon Copy Cloner (which I believe is also true of SuperDuper, but which unfortunately does not seem to be an option for the Windows programs I’ve mentioned) is that you can actually combine cloning with the other main way to back up your files, known as versioned (or incremental) backup.

Basically CCC can give you the best of both worlds.  With this option turned on, it takes a couple of hours to do the first cloned backup, but then after that it can be as quick as 5 minutes. Because of this, I back up my main computer using CCC every single day as the last thing I do.  This way I know I have everything backed up, and it happens quickly and literally as easily as the flick of the power switch on my external drive.

As a side note, Windows users who might want the ease of backup enjoyed by Mac owners should keep in mind that all Apple Mac computers can run Windows and it’s possible to do this and have Windows backed up right along with the main Mac OS X files.  There are a lot of other benefits to using Macs, but that’s a topic for another time.

If you need more help, take a look at my easy video lesson course on backing up your computer, available for either Mac or Windows computers. In the lessons I show you step by step how to correctly set up use the programs I talk about in the article you just read.

To learn more, click one of the following two links:

How to Back Up – Apple Mac

How to Back Up – Windows PC

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

The following article is another except from Worth’s new book titled “How to Avoid 7 Common & Costly Computer Mistakes – Explained in Plain English” and follows from my previous post where I answered the question “Why Back Up?”

In this article I want to explain one general method for how to back up your computer, namely “incremental backup”.  I won’t go into the many reasons why it is absolutely essential that you back up on a regular basis, but I will give you some recommendations on methods you can use to protect yourself, including information for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac computers.

First off, let’s define “incremental” backups, also known as “versioned” backups. When you create an incremental backup, it is where you are backing up your files in such a way that you have multiple copies of each file, or at least multiple copies of the files that have changed.

Incremental backups can be achieved either “manually”, by burning a new disc each time you backup to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/etc., or automatically by a backup program.

The benefit of versioned backups is that if you make unwanted changes to a file or it becomes corrupted or otherwise lost, you can go back to an earlier point and retrieve the old version.

First, use either optical disks or USB flash drives or maybe online backup (or all of the above to be extra safe) for your documents and other smaller files which are frequently changed or updated.

This incremental backup should be done on a frequent basis, once a week for the average computer, once a day in an office environment where you have files critical to running your business. This can take as little as five minutes to do and it’s well worth it!

Again, if you use optical discs such as CD or Blu-Ray, don’t use reusable discs but instead burn a fresh disc each time and keep at least the last 2-3 copies as spares.  If you use USB flash drives (or flash memory cards, which are basically the same as far as this goes) you again should rotate between at least two drives so you have a spare copy.

You also don’t have to do incremental backups “manually” like this, as there are backup programs that you can set up once and then they will do this for you automatically.

On the Windows side, the built-in backup software can do this, but the problem is it is notoriously hard to set up and use for most computer users. Fortunately, there is a very simple program I’ve discovered which puts an easy to use “front end” on the Windows backup system that makes it dead simple to use.

The program is called Oops!Backup and while you do have to pay for it, it is a one-time payment (not a yearly or monthly subscription in other words) and very inexpensive. The peace of mind and insurance you get from using it are well worth the low price (under $40 US the last time I checked).

The program will run automatically and back up all of your critical personal files & settings either on a regular hourly basis, or automatically as soon as you plug in a backup drive. You can use either an external hard drive for this, or get a large-capacity USB flash drive or memory card.

On the Mac side there is an incredibly simple to use program called Time Machine which is so simple to set up it literally requires only one click to do with standard settings.  Time Machine works the same basic was as Oops!Backup (in fact, Oops!Backup is designed to be the Windows version of Time Machine according to the company website) and lets you “go back in time” through a simple screen and grab any older version of a file and “bring it forward in time” to replace a lost or damaged file.

Note: Time Machine is not the same thing as Time Capsule. Time Capsule is an physical device which combines a wireless router and a backup (external) hard drive.  Time Machine does not require a Time Capsule, even though Time Capsule was designed with Time Machine in mind (hence the similar names).

In fact, I strongly suggest that you do NOT buy a Time Capsule as they are designed to be left on all the time, which as I mention several times in this report, is a bad idea because it makes the drive less reliable.

In my opinion, I think an external USB or Firewire hard drive is about the best place you can back up your files, but ideally you should leave the drive off when not in use to reduce wear and tear. If you leave it turned on all the time, then the backup drive isn’t really any more reliable than the main drive, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Regardless of which exact method you use to create your backups, make sure you do back your computer regularly; it’s a huge mistake to do otherwise.

If you need more help, take a look at my easy video lesson course on backing up your computer, available for either Mac or Windows computers. In the lessons I show you step by step how to correctly set up use the programs I talk about in the article you just read.

To learn more, click one of the following two links:

How to Back Up – Apple Mac

How to Back Up – Windows PC

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

This latest computer question & answer comes from Mavis Wood who writes:

“I have PeoplePC news in my Bookmarks, and I read that news every day.  But each category headline has the words “Back to Top” super-imposed on it.  That makes the headline very difficult to read.  My computer geek doesn’t know how to erase that or how to move it up or down so that it isn’t on top of what I want to read.

Also, each time I read a news story and click the “Go Back One Page” arrow, I always end up back at the top. I wish it would come back to where I had been when I clicked on a story I wanted to read. There are always many stories I like to read about at that site.

Thanks so much for your time and patience.

Mavis”

I’ve seen that kind of thing before, where the text is overlapping like that, and it usually means the webpage was not written well for compatibility with whichever web browser you’re using. Sometimes you can fix the problem by making the web browser window wider or more narrow.

If you’re not already using it, I strongly recommend using Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.  If you’re using Firefox or any browser which supports “tabbed browsing”, one thing you can do is right-click the headline (control-click for Mac users) you want to read and you’ll see a menu pop up which includes the option “open in new tab” or words to that effect.  Use this to open the headline in a new tab in the same window and then just close the tab when you’re done and you’ll still have the original list open.

Listen to the audio for the more complete version of this computer question & answer lesson.

For step-by-step video lessons on how to use tabbed browsing and a lot more that makes your web browsing experience safer & easier, take a look at my

Basics of How to Use the Internet CDs for Apple Mac

or

Basics of How to use the Internet CDs for Windows

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this audio lesson I’ll be answering a computer question from Gold Club member Peter Proud, who asks:

“Good morning,
Having subscribed to your tutorials I now am having a problem of my own.
I am using windows xp on my laptop and when go to use Internet Explorer get “navigation to webpage was cancelled”.
I can still use Google for the net but would appreciate any advice you can offer to solve this problem. Regards,

Peter”

Well Peter,

It sounds to me as if your Internet connection is working just fine since you’re able to use Google, so my guess is that whatever webpage you are using as your homepage (the first page that opens when you open up your web browser window) is having a problem.  This may resolve itself, or you may need to change your homepage.

On a different but important & related note, I strongly suggest you do not use Internet Explorer for your web browser as it is not the most secure program in the world; you’re much better off using Mozilla Firefox which you can download and install for free from Mozilla.com.

As a side benefit, installing this may fix the problem you’re having too.  One thing to nearly guarantee it will fix it: when you install Firefox, during the setup it will ask you if you want to import your home page from Internet Explorer or use the one provided by Mozilla — if you choose the option to NOT import the one from IE (it’s OK to have the program import/bring over the other stuff such as your bookmarks) it will move you to a new homepage which has the Google search built right in and should avoid the problem you’re writing about.

I hope that makes sense.  Listen to the audio lesson to get the more detailed answer to this computer question.

For easy, step-by-step lessons on using the Web take a look at my

Basics of How to Use the Internet CDs for Apple Mac

or

Basics of How to use the Internet CDs for Windows

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I’ve been trying to get caught up so I could have a chance to write a new article for my blog, so with this recent story to illustrate a point, I thought I’d share this important advice to protect your privacy and security.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about the recent news about people who had their cards charged against their will by Apple’s iTunes Store, but it’s been all over the news, at least in the tech world.

A lot of people have been blaming Apple and saying the iTunes App Store was hacked, but it looks like a problem with passwords.

In this article I’ll help you understand what happened, and give you a few tips to avoid similar problems.

First off, if you’re not familiar with it, the App Store is part of Apple’s iTunes Store, and is an online market where you can get free or paid “Apps” for mobile devices such as the iPod Touch, iPhone, and the iPad.

Apps are basically programs (also called applications) just like you would find on your computer, but designed to run on a mobile device like a smartphone.

Apple’s App Store lets you browse through thousands of these apps which let you do a wide variety of things from keeping up with news, to reading a book, to working with photos, to playing games, and a lot more.

Again, the same basic idea as an application or program for a computer, just the “pocket sized” edition, so to speak.

The App Store can be found within the iTunes program on your computer, or by using the App Store icon on an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Other companies also provide app stores for their devices.

So what happened with these unauthorized charges everyone is talking about?

Well, basically what happened is, people noticed that 40 out of 50 of the top-ranked apps (ranked in terms of copies sold) in the books category were all from the same person!

This seemed a little suspicious that one person would have managed to pull this off without being up to something. The next piece of the puzzle turned up when people started reporting unwanted charges on their accounts for hundreds or even in some cases over a thousand dollars, all orders for Apple Apps.

It seems that somehow criminals had gained access to at least a few hundred accounts people had on iTunes, they’d been used to place orders for dozens of apps, racking up big bills for each person who had been victimized.

Some people thought the App Store itself had been hacked, but most likely the each account had been broken into individually, probably by one of two means.

The first is known as a “brute force password crack”, and it’s where a program is used to try one password after another, starting with common ones, until the right one is guessed.

This may sound like a time-consuming process that no one would ever bother with, but remember it’s a program that does it automatically, and it starts with the easy to guess common passwords that so many people make the mistake of using.

The other possibility is that the passwords were stolen via a “phishing scam”, which is were people are tricked into entering their passwords into a website designed to look legit, but which is not.

Who is to blame?

At this point, the people behind it are unknown, but seem to be based in Asia. It is most likely an organized criminal organization instead of just one person acting alone.

Here’s what to do if you have an iTunes Store account:

If you’re concerned your account may have been compromised, you can find out by opening iTunes on your computer, then clicking the iTunes Store on the left side.

Then click your email address where it appears in the upper right of the window and you’ll be asked for your password. It’s OK to enter it there.

Once you log in, you’ll see a list of account-related items, including a “Purchase History” button you can click to look over any orders. You should be able to spot if there are items listed which you never ordered.

On the accounts screen you can also click the button “Edit Account Info” to change your password as a precaution.

If you find fraudulent charges, you can call Apple at: 1-800-275-2273 (to talk to a real person, press 0 at each prompt)

Here are a few tips for being safe with passwords:

1) Avoid using a simple word as your password, especially easy to guess things such as your name, your child or pet’s name, your phone number, the word ‘password’, etc.

Basically avoid anything you’d find in the dictionary to start with.

2) Don’t use the same password for everything – passwords are like keys, and I don’t think you’d hire a locksmith who used the same lock & key for every door and every customer. Don’t make the
same mistake with your passwords!

3) Longer and more complicated passwords are safer: as I mentioned above, brute force cracking methods will basically run through the dictionary when trying to break in — the longer the password is, and the more you mix in numbers with letters, UPPER and lower case letters (liKe THis), and even punctuation, the better.

4) Be careful about where you enter in your username and password information, and especially be wary of emails that come out of the blue asking you to “reset your account”, “update your information”, etc. And make sure that you look at the address bar on the top of your web browser window and read the address to make sure you’re on an official site when you sign in.

If you want to learn more, I talk more in depth about passwords and safety on a variety of my easy computer lesson CDs available on my website, including on the CD “5 Common & Costly Computer Mistakes and How to Avoid Making Them Yourself” which is part of the Windows Basics and the Apple Mac Basics bundles.

I also have CDs with audio and video lessons on how to recognize and avoid the phishing scams I mentioned earlier, which can help protect you against having your password or other important information stolen.

You can learn more and stay safer by taking a look at my easy, Plain English lesson CDs by visiting:

On that page you can either scroll down for written and video testimonials, or click the Apple Mac training or the Windows computer training links to see the list of lessons for your computer type.

Either way, I hope this lesson helps you stay safe and secure. If you have questions or comments about any of this, feel free to scroll down and use the comments box below.

Until next time, take care, and enjoy,

Worth Godwin
Plain English Simplicity For This Complex Modern World

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this computer question & answer audio lesson, I’m answering a question sent in by subscriber Patt Davis who writes:

“Hello Worth,
I have been enjoying your advice for some time now and I appreciate the help.

My computer just recently has been hijacked by a so called Windows Security Alert that wants me to purchase their anti-virus software and it will not let me access any other program other than the internet.

No exe programs will run. Not even my magicjack phone. Keep getting a warning pop-up. Has a green sheild with a check in the middle. Keeps looping back to their site for me to purchase it.

Is there anything I can do on my own to stop this? Or will I have to take my hard drive in to have a professional clean it? I do have AVG but of course this virus will not let me run it… any suggestions?

Thank you,
Patt Davis”

This kind of problem is very common these days, and is caused by something called “hijackware”. Listen to this audio computer lesson to hear my suggestions about what to do if your computer is infected, plus tips on how to avoid getting infected in the first place.

Computer security is a complex topic and is an issue not just for Windows computers but also Apple’s Macs, despite what many people think. If you need more help, you’re not alone.

I suggest taking a look at my Safe and Easy Internet course CDs, which are available for either Apple Mac or Windows PC. Both versions include lessons on recognizing and avoiding problems like these, including one lesson which safely lets you see a common example of the tactics used by malicious sites which try to trick you into infecting your computer.

You get to see step-by-step exactly what to look for, and what to do if you encounter a site like that, including the BIG mistake most people make and how to avoid making it yourself. And that’s just one of the dozens of quick, easy lessons you get.

Take a look at one of the two links below, depending on which type of computer you use:

Basics of Using the Internet Safely & Easily for Microsoft Windows PCs

or

Basics of Using the Internet Safely & Easily for Apple Mac OS X

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I heard from a reader named Phyllis who wrote with the question:

“Could you please tell me why I can’t print from Microsoft Office?”

In this audio computer lesson I answer the question based on what information I’m given. Chances are, this is caused by using a “trail version” of MS Office (which includes the programs Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). A trial version of Microsoft Office is often included with new computers, but some critical features have been disabled until you pay for it.

Listen to the entire audio computer question and answer lesson to hear what I have to say about this, including a tip on getting a 100% free alternative to Microsoft Office and save hundreds of dollars when you do.

For more help with Microsoft Word, use the links below (one for Windows PCs, the other for Apple Mac)

Learn how to use Microsoft Word course for Windows

or

Learn how to use Microsoft Word course for Apple Mac

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I’ve recorded a new audio lesson to help warn you about a pretty common email scam which is going around these days. It’s not brand new, but not everybody knows about it so I wanted to post this new computer lesson to help you protect yourself.

I received an email which appeared to be from a newsletter subscriber named John, but I spotted it as a scam as I’ve seen this type of thing before.  It was clearly sent from an email address which had been broken into, and the criminal who did so used the address to try to fool me and everyone else they sent it to into thinking they were the actual owner of the email account.

I’ll post the audio lesson below and then quote the email below that so you can take a look to help you recognize and avoid similar scams in the future:

Here’s the email I received (full name and details removed for privacy) :

“Hello

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In the over fifteen years I’ve been helping people with computers as a professional, I’ve found that a majority of people — even ones who have been using the computer for years — have huge gaps in their basic computer skills and as a result are making using the computer much harder for themselves than it has to be.

One of the basic skills I see people commonly have missed out on learning is how to cut, copy and paste — this is a very simple thing to do and can be such a huge time saver.

To help make computers easy for you, I’ve prepared this Plain English video training which will help you understand what cut, copy and paste mean, and it shows you the steps of how to cut and paste. Watch the video lesson above and you’ll finally know how to do this even if you’re a real basic computer user.

To make this most compatible with not just computers but also with mobile devices like the iPhone, I’m adding the video twice below. The first video has better picture quality and should work best on desktop or laptop computers. If you can’t play the first one, then scroll further down and try the second video which is designed specifically for mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone and iPad.

If you want to learn more, click one of the following two links:

Learn Apple Mac Basics

Learn Windows Computer Basics

Try this second video if the first one doesn’t work for you:

Did this lesson help? I hope it did. You deserve to have the ability to use your computer confidently, and learning the basic skills is the way to empower yourself to do so.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this video lesson, I continue from the previous lesson where I explained how a router and modem work in non-technical terms and demonstrate how to hook them together. In this lesson I demonstrate a quick fix to a common Internet problem where you can’t get online (make sure you use the link above to watch the first lesson if you missed it).

Using this tip can help save you a long time waiting on hold, or the expense of hiring a computer tech to come to your house when you could fix the problem yourself in a couple of minutes.

This will not solve all Internet problems, but a majority of the time when you can’t get online (and there’s not a major problem happening at your Internet service provider) this quick fix is all you need.

To improve compatibility so the site works for not just computers but mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads, I’ve added the video lesson two different ways. The first video player below should play on pretty much any laptop or desktop computer. The second is designed for iPhone & iPad, but should work on many computers and other devices too.

If you see the video player box below, watch the video lesson by using the first player. During playback you can click the square button in the lower right corner of the video to make it full screen:

If you don’t see a video player above this line, then you should be able to use the second player below to watch the lesson:

Remember, if you want to empower yourself further with your computer, feel free to take a look at my easy computer training CDs.

Also, if you liked this lesson, please share your thoughts using the comment box a little further down the page.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

In this easy video lesson I answer the questions what is a router and what is a broadband modem in Plain English, while also showing you the steps to hook your router up to your cable or DSL modem so you can get your desktop or laptop computer on the Internet.

Once you see and hear this simple explanation of these computer terms and concepts, you’ll find these important devices we all use these days will make more sense than they did before. 

To improve compatibility so the site works for not just computers but mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads, I’ve added the video lesson two different ways. The first video player below should play on pretty much any laptop or desktop computer. The second is designed for iPhone & iPad, but should work on many computers and other devices too.

If you see a video player box directly below, watch the video lesson by using the first player. During playback you can click the square button in the lower right corner of the video to make it full screen:

If you don’t see a video player above this line (or it has an error message in it), then you should be able to use the second player below to watch the lesson:

If you liked this lesson, you may want to watch the second half where I show you some basic troubleshooting steps which can help fix a common type of Internet problem.  I’ll post this in the next day or two and will add a link to the video at that time.

Update: You can watch the second part of this lesson by clicking the following link:

How to Reset Your Modem & Router to Solve a Common Internet Problem

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.

I worked for about fifteen years as a computer tech. That is to say, I have years of experience repairing computers and even building them from parts.  Something you may not know about electronics (including computers) is that the insides of all electronic devices are very sensitive to static electricity.

The fact is, a small static shock (too small to even feel) is enough to cause damage to the incredibly delicate and sensitive circuits in modern electronics.

Unfortunately, many computer repair shops and technicians are poorly trained about this and do not take proper precautions to protect electronics when working on them.

In the video below, I talk about why protecting against “electrostatic damage” or ESD is so critical, and why you absolutely must make sure that any computer tech who will be repairing, upgrading, or building a computer for you is taking the proper steps to protect your computer or other electronics.

I also give you a few suggestions on what to look for and ask about to help make sure you choose the best computer help when you need it.

To improve compatibility so the site works for not just computers but mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads, I’ve added the video lesson two different ways. The first video player below should play on pretty much any laptop or desktop computer. The second is designed for iPhone & iPad, but should work on many computers and other devices too.

If you see a video player box directly below, watch the video lesson by using the first player. During playback you can click the square button in the lower right corner of the video to make it full screen:

If you don’t see a video player above this line (or it has an error message in it), then you should be able to use the second player below to watch the lesson:

Hopefully this will help you avoid problems and save you some money in wasted repairs, as well as the headaches which can go along with them. I will publish other similar tips on this site in the future.

Audio and video lessons also available via computer training podcast.