10/5/09

HOW2 Setup Your Monitor: The Kim Komando Radio Show

Setup monitor basics - Tips, Reviews and Advice on All Things Digital - The Kim Komando Radio Show: "Q. How can I tell if my monitor is set up properly? There are so many options to set brightness and contrast. What should be done with what? Go easy on me. I've got old eyes."

9/18/09

How to Pee in Paris

kohuetherBy Katherine Huether     eHow Contributing Writer

A sanisette in France

A sanisette in France

Watch out if you need to use the restroom in Paris. The city has declared war on public urination and set up an elite, 88-member force, the Brigade des Incivilités, or Bad Behavior Brigade to ticket anyone foolish enough to do what the French call urine sauvage, which translates to "wild urine."
According to the "Wall Street Journal," France's capital is struggling with the presence of pipi and the paper reports that urine is hard to escape in certain parts of the city, be it on the street, in the Metro or in parks.
Similarly, New York City is battling its own public urination problem but offers only 47 free public restrooms, according to FreePee.org. Meanwhile, Paris offers some 400 free public restrooms scattered throughout the city, the "Wall Street Journal" reports.
So what do you do if you're in Paris, you need to use the restroom…                                    read more, seriously

8/23/09

HOW2 Stop Taking Blurry Pictures:

How to Stop Taking Blurry Pictures eHow.com
Contributor By Richard Burke

eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating: (19 Ratings) Sometimes Blur Can Be GoodThere may be times that you want an image to be blurry. The pictured image of a running doe and fawn was taken on a tripod and the tripod was panned during exposure to add a sense of movement to the image. In most cases though, you want to freeze the action of an image to define the ultimate moment of the scene. There are a number of reasons that images are blurry, but the most important factor is the movement of the camera during exposure. If the camera moves, the…"

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8/3/09

How to Prevent a Smelly Vacuum Cleaner | eHow.com

Prevent a Smelly Vacuum CleanerIt's Saturday morning, the sun is out and you're ready to do some cleaning around the house--but as you plug in your vacuum cleaner and turn it on--you're assaulted by a sour, smelly odor that permeates your very soul! It smells like your vacuum cleaner was doused in vinegar and left to sit in the sun for two weeks. So much for a nice smelling house!
It doesn't have to be this way. By following a few very simple steps--you can ensure that your vacuum cleaner never smells like spoiled buttermilk again.

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3/28/09

How2 Start a Compost Pile.

Informative seven step guide to starting your own compost pile.

  1. Get Supplies
  2. Set Up Your Bin
  3. Add to Your Pile
  4. Keep it Healthy
  5. What About Worms?
  6. Prepare for the Seasons
  7. Reap the Rewards

According to the U.S. EPA, every American throws away an average of 1.3 pounds of food scraps daily. In addition to this,

3/19/09

How2 Stop Spammers From Stealing Your Email Addresses.

For years I have been telling people why I don't open forwarded mail, or 'chain letter emails'.  Recently I took one of these chain letters and extracted the email addresses that it contained.  https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/295279_10151133825944674_561862526_n.jpg?oh=53a15f4161d57f8b9629cb1cef2015d2&oe=5559FEB6

This chain letter was less than a week old when I got it and in that week it had been circulated to 169+ people.  Many probably

3/18/09

How2 Stop Spam and Clean Up Your E-Mail:

from Kim Komando Show Electronic Newsletter - Feb. 28, 2009

Betty in Lincoln, NE never misses a show on KLIN 1400 AM. She wrote in to say that she's fed up! She's getting way too much spam.

So, Betty would like to limit her e-mail to messages from friends and family. She would like to know how to do this in Outlook.https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/295279_10151133825944674_561862526_n.jpg?oh=53a15f4161d57f8b9629cb1cef2015d2&oe=5559FEB6

You want to set up an approved senders list, Betty. Only mail from your approved senders will make it to your inbox. All other messages will be moved to the Junk folder. It can be

3/8/09

How2 Use System Restore:

One problem with Windows Vista is that when it creates System Restore points it doesn't remove the oldest Restore point.  This leads to an accumulation of a lot of outdated files that can eat up plenty of hard drive space.  If you have a small hard drive like I do this leaves you with too little free space at the most inopportune times.  So once every week or two I have to go in and delete the older Restore Point files.

But Restore Points are important.  To understand them click here to view an explanation and How2 at Tiplet.

GlennDL

How2 Keep Your Picture Files From Degrading:

 

Your JPEG photos are not degraded when you merely open the files. Rather, they degrade every time you edit and save them.

The JPEG format uses lossy compression. Compression is used to keep file sizes small; it's very common with photo formats. However, some data is discarded when JPEGs are compressed; hence the "lossy" part. And, each time you save a JPEG photo, it is further compressed. That means you

How2 Capture Screen Images:

According to Gabe Goldberg at Tiplet:

It’s often desirable or necessary to capture — that is, record into a file — what’s on your Windows screen. Windows has two basic tools for this: the Print Screen (or PrtScreen or some other variant) key captures the contents of your entire Windows desktop onto the Windows Clipboard; pressing Alt and PrintScreen captures only

3/7/09

How2 Speed Up Internet Explorer:

Try these tips and tricks to make Internet Explorer faster for Web browsing and downloads.

[click to view]

From Tiplet Newsletter: 2-23-09

1-21-2015 UPDATE: Still using Firefox (from the 2010 Update) and on its worst day its more reliable and faster than IE on it best day. Best tip EVER! Make the switch.

3-29-10 UPDATE:

I recently was having so much trouble with IE8 that I switched over to Mozella Firefox about three weeks ago and have had no problems. Kelly and her

3/4/09

2/21/09

How2 Read Office (Word, Excel, etc.) Files without Buying Expensive Office?

UPDATE: 1-21-2015
I have been using Open Office (see the 3rd option below) now for almost 4 years, over 3 different computers, and as a result didn’t even let the last computer activate Microsoft Office. With the exception of whatever version of Windows Mail/Outlook I no longer use any of the major free (supposedly) versions of Microsoft bundles.
The original conversion of old files is easy but could be time consuming and the learning curve awkward, as the non-Microsoft versions are similar but not the interface is not identical

2-12-09
by Gabe Goldberg
from the
‘Tiplet’ blog

While Microsoft’s Office applications suite dominates the Windows landscape, it’s expensive and not universally used. And if you only need occasional access to Office-format files, you surely don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy software you’ll rarely use, and even then only in limited fashion.

Fortunately, several free alternatives let you

2/14/09

How2 Clean and Erase Your Internet or Chat History

There’s usually three main reasons people want to do this:

  • Keep their computer from getting slow and bogged down with too many temporary or cache files
  • To make sure their computer activity remains their business, not the business of the websites they visit etc...,
  • Or occasionally they just want to wipe the history of their internet activities, downloads and chats to preserve their personal privacy within the home or office.

To view the full article at PCTuneUpTips click here. 

NOTE:  I find information at PCTuneUpTips very useful, but before trying their free scans please be aware that the free scans are part of their sales technique.  The scans will identify problems for you, and will even fix some of them, but the scans main purpose is to sale you the priced version which will fix the remaining problems.   gdl

How2 Tweak Your Windows Vista PC

Top 10 Windows Vista Performance Tweaks

  1. Turn off Windows Search Indexing.
  2. Turn off Remote Differential Compression. 
  3. Turn off Automatic Windows Defender Operation.
  4. Turn off Automatic Disk Defragmentation.
  5. Add a 2GB or higher USB Flash drive to take advantage of Windows Ready Boost (Additional Memory Cache).
  6. Turn off Windows Hibernation. 
  7. Turn off System Restore [*warning*]. 
  8. Disable User Access Control (UAC).
  9. Disable excess Windows Services that Auto-Launch at Startup. 
  10. Disable Excess Windows Features

Read the How2 and just as importantly the ‘Why’ at PCTuneups.  Its important