Sunday, December 31, 2017

Class Notes 12-28-2017

Google photos

There are a number of ways to get your photos up to Google’s FREE photo cloud storage. You do not have to install anything on your PC to do it. Just open photos.google.com and whether your images are on a flash drive from your camera or on in your Pictures folder on your PC you can upload them.



In the upper right, click UPLOAD and locate the images you want to upload to the cloud.



When the upload finishes a window will upen saying X items uploaded. At the bottom of that window, click ADD TO ALBUM.



At the next window, click New Album



Type the name to call the Album, replacing Untitled.

If you are taking pictures on your smartphone, install the Google Photos App. Then every picture you take will be automatically uploaded to your cloud.

We spent time in other areas of Photos as well such as animation and editing right in Google Photos. You can also install a program for Google Photos on your PC and it will automatically upload any pictures on your PC to the cloud including those you transfer from your camera SD card or copy from your cell phone, assuming you are not using the Mobile App to do it.

How to get music from a CD/DVD into a MP3 format to put on a cell phone or MP3 player. I use the Windows Media Player and let it rip the music files and convert them into MP3. Then I can open the folder on my C drive and copy them to whatever device I choose.

On the bottom left of your taskbar, in the search box, type WMP.



Right click to put the shortcut on your Start menu or on your taskbar.

Open Windows Media Player

Go to Organize > Options > Rip Music



Make the Format MP3

Check both the Rip and Eject boxes

Click Apply

When you put a CD in the drive, WMP will automatically rip the songs of it and format then as MP3. When finished the CD will eject and your songs will be in the folder you have listed under Rip music to this location on the Options window (see above).

Many in attendance were unaware of the Tinyurl site. Often we have to send someone a link to a website we have found. We know we can grab the URL to that page in the Address bar and copy it to the clipboard. Then we can paste it into an email or even a FB message to them. However, the address may be many lines long and a tough item to type for them. Instead we turn that long URL into a manageable one using Tinyurl. Then we send th shortened link to our friend. I is easy to type the tiny version. This is what makes opening the Hangout link for our weekly meetings--tinyurl.com/DickEvans

If you want your own email address instead of one from your internet provider or a generic one from Gmail or Yahoo or Live, you need to own a domain name at a host site. A host site provides a place for a website to live. A domain name takes someone to that host site opening the web pages for that domain. For example www.rwevans.com is hosted by a hosting company I use. I pay for the domain name on an annual basis. I pay for them to host or store my web pages on their servers. Because I am hosting my site with them I am given the option of having email address ending in @rwevans.com. If you want information about hosting a site, please see evanshosting.com

Windows comes with a Snipping tool to grab anything on your screen. You “snip” it by drawing a box around what you want. You can then copy it to the clipboard or save it as an image. I use this tool quite a bit.



Type Snip in the search box next to the Start button. Click to open it. Click New to drag the box and use it to create an image of the desired portion of your screen. You can also press PrtScr on the keyboard to capture the entire screen in your clipboard.

Bulk Crap Uninstaller 4.0 update released. Many use a program called Revo to uninstall programs from a PC. It works better than the included uninstaller in Windows because it finds more of the pieces of some of the software on your PC. This program does a similar job, but has some neat extra features.
http://tinyurl.com/ycjkwory




When running CCleaner, always look to the bottom right and click Check for updates. The old version still work but do not catch the newer issues. Get the latest and then run it. Do NOT pay for it. Say you do not want to but the upgrade and on the next page scroll down and Download the FREE version.

I leave all the checkboxes alone. I use the ones that come with the program so as not to remove things like my saved sites and passwords. If you have been using it for a while it remembers your old settings when you upgrade. You might consider uninstalling it completely and then download the latest version set to the normal defaults.

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Class Notes 12-21-2017

Tired of those pop ups that tell you about a post on Facebook. They can get quite annoying. Here is how to stop them on Google Chrome. The other browser should be similar.

Allow or block notifications from all sites
  • In the upper right corner of the browser window, click the Chrome menu .
  • Click Settings > Show advanced settings.
  • In the "Privacy" section, click Content settings.
  • In the dialog that appears, go to "Notifications" and choose...
Tired of those videos auto playing when you go onto a website? Google Finally Lets You Mute them In Chrome—Here’s How
http://tinyurl.com/yaxe2dkc

Have you fallen for one of those “we are from Microsoft” phone calls or popups? Here is how To Beat The Fake Microsoft Virus Scam Syskey PASSWORD.
http://tinyurl.com/y7h7e4j3

This is a way to host for free podcasts. Perhaps recordings of meetings or teachings or whatever you want to let others here. This is a The easiest way to start podcasting
http://tinyurl.com/y8v62hrk

Facebook Stats will give you things that are interesting but maybe not what you care about--LOL. Everyone on Facebook is connected to one another by an average of 3.57 degrees of separation. Also that the average Facebook user has 155 friends. Lots of details statistics for your browsing pleasure.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/

A good article on Fixing Hard Disk Problems titled "How To Survive A Hard Disk Failure" October 24, 2017 by Marc Thomas
http://tinyurl.com/yb94rsdj

Check websites for security and performance issues with Sonar
http://tinyurl.com/ybyxehjh

Controlled Folder Access in Windows 10 1709
http://tinyurl.com/ybuwg5b6

Use MailStore To Backup Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Emails to your hard disk
http://tinyurl.com/ydga8jpk

Here is some detail about MailStore Home 10.2
http://tinyurl.com/yc6zwdl9

Windows 10 Event Viewer can be located by typing Event in the search box. http://tinyurl.com/yawoyu2c

How to take what is on an email and post it on Facebook. Also how to take something on Facebook and use it in an email.

Open the email and select the words you want to post on FB. Then right-click the selection and choose Copy. Open FB and paste into a new post.

Open a FB post and select the words you want to send in an email. Then right-click the selection and choose Copy. Open your email program and click to compose a new email. In the message portion of the email, paste what you copied.


PC won’t boot? If you created a recovery drive you will be able to get into the drive. Find this option in the Control Panel.
http://tinyurl.com/y9t45jfm

Login Password
Your computer has a password associated with it. You will forget it someday if you do not use it regularly. Write it down and keep it in a safe place. When you need it you can go to that safe place and find it. However, maybe you forget where the safe place is. LOL

Backup Facebook
Facebook contains a lot of “stuff” about you, your connections to others, and your image collection. On your page, click the down arrow to open a dropdown list of choices and choose Settings. Under General, find the link at the bottom:



Click Download a copy… FB will create a file containing all your stuff that you can download to your computer or even save on your backup drive or a flash drive.

Image editing
In Ninite you will find a free download named Irfanview. It has many feature including editing your image by cutting, enhancing the color, converting to B&W, and more. Even a way to resize one or a group of images.

Nextdoor.com
The best way to stay in the know about what’s going on in your neighborhood—whether it’s finding a last-minute babysitter, learning about an upcoming block party, or hearing about a rash of car break-ins. There are so many ways our neighbors can help us. We just need an easier way to connect with them.
http://tinyurl.com/6wd7323

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Class Notes 12-14-2017

More this week on Facebook. We looked at saving a picture from someone's facebook page and then using it in an email or private message someone else or to even modify (change size, crop, add words on the image) it using the Paint program. Looked at Irfanview (available on ninite) to resize a picture.

We talk a lot about tagging pictures and that when you tag someone in a picture the picture is seen by your friends and by the friends of the person who posted it.

We looked at notifications and how to turn off email notifications. If you are getting notifications on your cell phone I suggest going into the App on your phone and turning that opeiton off or you'll be inundated with a bunch of notifications daily.

I reminded them of the use of the print screen key on the keyboard. When you press it an image to what is on the screen is copied to the clipboard. Hold the Windows key down and press it and a png file of the screen is placed in your Pictures folder in a folder called screenshots.

Amazon delivery late again? Use this sample email to request compensation
http://tinyurl.com/ybpp2prk

Check a phone number with CallerName
http://tinyurl.com/y7vw2t6s

keyboard shortcuts
http://tinyurl.com/y9ynygk9

What Are File Attributes
http://tinyurl.com/ycjasle7

Printing a Web Page
Ctrl+P and choose Save as PDF. Then you can view the PDF and print the pages you want to have a hard copy of. And the links on the page will be active in the PDF view.

Sleep vs. Hibernate
While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power.



Under System Settings you can change what happens when you do certain things like closing the lid on a laptop. And define the options such as set your sleep and hibernate keys in the start menu.

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Class Notes 12-7-2017

We spent most of the time on Facebook. I had some rough notes of what I was intending to cover but that was altered as the questions began to come. Next time we will continue to look at Facebook and entertain questions on any other subject.

Here is a great reference I found online from the dummies website.
http://www.dummies.com/social-media/facebook/facebook-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/

Facebook Stats… Facebook has more than a billion active users and this article takes a look at many other statistics as well.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Class Notes 11-9-2017

Printing a Web PageRight click and choose Print or Ctrl+P and choose Save as PDF. Then you can view the PDF and print the pages you want to have a hard copy of.

Password reset disk in Windows 10
https://notepad.pw/xrfv1nd2



I talked about extensions and we looked at the Adblock one in Google Chrome. I was at a person's house working on their PC and they had block 1,689,000 add in the past 9-10 months. To add it to your browser, click the three dots in the top right of your chrome page. Choose More Tools > Extensions. Scroll to the bottom and click to Get more extensions. Type Adblock and press Enter.



Click ADD… to install it in your Chrome browser.

We talked about getting pictures to your PC from a smartphone. First method I suggest is installing Google Photos on the smartphone and let it upload your pictures as you take them. Another is to use the charging cable to connect your phone to your PC. It will be treated like a USB flash drive and you can drag pictures from the phone to your PC. You can also email the pictures to yourself and when you receive the email download them on your PC. Then open the program you want to use the picture in and follow the instructions about uploading the pictures.

We also discussed a number of items that I did not have notes for. And I was asked to talked about Facebook next time. That will be on November 30th here at the club. Bring you questions.

====================================
In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Monday, November 6, 2017

Class Notes 11-2-2017

Question on how to download pictures from Facebook. Click on the picture to open it.

At the bottom of the picture, click Options



Click Download to save the picture on your PC in your default download folder.



Ninite was not known by a number of class members this week. Simply stated it is a quick, easy, and safe way to download programs. Many of the programs available on Ninite are used by us in the club. More details on this program at the November general meeting. You can also search this blog for more information using this search:
ninite site:dickevanstraining.blogspot.com

We looked at FreedomPop phones once again. More on this in the blogs over the past couple of months. Simply stated you order a free smartphone and activate it for $30. They give you a trial of their unlimited 2gb package for one month. Within that month you can downgrade to the free plan and keep the phone. I did. The free plan comes with 200 minutes of talk on the phone number they have assigned to you, 500 messages, and 500mb of free data to search the internet with.
https://www.freedompop.com/

Use https://myaccount.google.com to see how much data you have in your google cloud drive and much much more about you and Google. And https://myaccount.google.com/dashboard brings up your dashboard where you can see and manage the data in your Google Account.

List all installed packages on Windows machines. Now you can see the programs in the Uninstall page but this programs shows you more information about each program.
http://tinyurl.com/y873xxxt

How to skip the queue and install the Windows 10 1709 Update today. It will download all 4+gb of data when it decides it is your turn. This shows you how to go get the update now and run it when you want.
http://tinyurl.com/y9fb8kgw

This is a good article on How To Download Your Pictures From Google Photos. It is straightforward but a few pictures to guide you is never a bad idea.
http://tinyurl.com/y89vay5f

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Class Notes 10-26-2017

Pictures
The starting question was about pictures. A member was having difficulty uploading a picture to an email by either dragging it to the email or attaching it. It just spun and spun without completing. The issue is the size of the image. Our newer phones and cameras create images that are 3+mb in size. If you resize the image the size can be cut down to a few kb and will send quickly. Or will upload to FB quickly or anywhere else.

To resize a picture quickly, open it on the screen and use the snipping tool to capture it and save it as a JPG. You will be surprised at how small the new image will be. I just used this approach to capture an image that is 3,985 kb or 3.985 mb in size. The new image is only 137 kb and it still fills the screen.

Then we talked about a couple of ways to save your images. The first I suggested is using Google Photos. You have an unlimited amount of storage for images and video with your Google account, which is free. There is an app for your cell phone that will send every picture you take to your cloud account. Similarly, Dropbox can be configured to do the same. With Dropbox you only get a few gb of free storage and after that 1tb cost about $10 per month. We also discussed using Mozy to backup data on your PC.

Awesome Internet Links
A home page for your browser that give you access to many useful sites.



http://tinyurl.com/y93323qy

Popcorn time
Watch current movies instantly for free. And TV shows. And more. One of our members recommended this one. I have not tried it out.
http://tinyurl.com/y7andsux

Cut The Cable
Many are paying big bucks for their internet/cable TV connections. We talked about ways to get shows to watch without the $100 Plus fees. The easiest is to just pay for internet service and no longer get the cable channels or phone service. Use your cell phone. Buy a indoor (or outdoor) antenna and watch TV directly. I have a pair of rabbit ears and get over 20 channels. And do not pay for high speed internet--you can stream movies at 6 mbs.

Solid Signal
Another member recommends this site for TV antenna to allow you to cut the cable and watch TV at home without paying for it.
http://tinyurl.com/y7c8n6up

Free Office Programs
Here is a download for you. Abiword and Gnumeric portable versions that work fine in Windows 10. Read and Write DOC and XLS files. Free Office software. Just click the Free Office Programs link on the bottom left column of my website.
http://rwevans.com

The Windows-key
It powers quite a bit of functionality on Windows machines. It is used by some shortcuts on the system, for instance, Win Pause to open the System Control Panel applet or Win Print Screen to create a screenshot (in Windows 10) as a PNG file saved in the Pictures/Screenshots folder. Win R opens the Run dialog box. Win E opens file explorer. And Win I opens the Settings window.

CCleaner default cleaning rules changes
CCleaner 5.36 changes some of the program's default cleaning rules. Default rules are those that are set when you run the program for the first time--the checked or unchecked boxes.

Probably the biggest change in this regard is that CCleaner won't delete browsing session data anymore by default. Users of the program who did not pay attention to the cleaning rules have had their browsing session deleted when they ran CCleaner.

Also, CCleaner 5.36 does not clean Windows Defender scan history, the MRUs of Microsoft Office, and most recently used documents and other MRU files of Windows Explorer anymore.

Automatically delete files in Downloads folder & Recycle Bin after 30 days in Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/y9ddg5ov

List of Free Portable Windows Software, Utilities, Applications. These are a few of many apps that do not have to be installed to run under Windows. You may place them on a flash drive and open them. Abiword, Gnumeric and Libreoffice are a few that can work this way. See the link on rwevans.com to download those three.
http://tinyurl.com/js8jlz4

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update removes these features the most notable of which is the MS Paint program we have used for years. Instead, they want us to use its 3D version. However, it looks like it is not going away, just not in the new 1709 build. Here is a note I found from Microsoft: “MS Paint is here to stay, it will just have a new home soon, in the Windows Store where it will be available for free.”
http://tinyurl.com/y7samb7q

Cell phone battery life
If you have an Android phone I have found a considerable improvement in battery life by shutting Sync off. Also, to speed up charging turn on Airplane Mode. Just remember to turn it back off or you will not receive any calls.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Class Notes 10-5-2017

We talked about the various browsers we use. Edge comes with Windows 10. Internet Explorer is there but hidden. They are both Microsoft programs. You should have at least one non-microsoft browser installed, even if you do not use it regularly. If your Microsoft browser ceases to work you will need another browser go use to determine and fix the problem. I like the Google Chrome browser. Other like Firefox and Opera.

The browser gets you access to the internet and displays web pages on your screen. To locate pages on the web you use a search engine. There are hundreds out there. I like to use Google (Not to be confused with the Google Chrome browser). If you are using a Microsoft browser, the default search engine is usually Bing. There are others like Yahoo, MSN, and more.

To set your starting pages--the pages that open when you start the browser, You open Settings in Chrome or Internet options in IE. There you set the pages you would like to see on opening.

A bookmark bar allows you to create buttons to quickly access pages you like such as your email, weather, and news. You turn on the bar in settings and save web address to it by going to settings > show bookmark bar in Chrome. In IE it is called the favorites bar. You turn it on by right-clicking the title bar (top of the IE window) and selecting it.

We demonstrated adding the Adblock extension in Chrome. Once running ads stop appearing in the web pages you browse. To add an extension open more tools > extensions and scroll to the bottom of the page and click get more extensions. Type adblock in the search block and them select it from the list and Add Extension.

Useful Hot Keys:

Ctrl L moves the cursor to the address bar and selects all

Ctrl + increases magnifies the browser window (makes the words and images larger)

Ctrl - decrease the size

Ctrl 0 brings the size back to default

Alt F4 closes the active window

Forgot your password to get into Windows? If your OS is Windows 7 or earlier, we have an easy way to reset it. If Windows 8 or higher it is harder and may not be possible depending on the computer. The newer the computer, the harder it is. The only approach may be to save your data using another OS booted from the CD or USB port and reinstalling Windows.

One of the participants showed us a neat Chrome extension called Privacy Badger.
Privacy Badger protects you from trackers as you surf the web! It is also available for Firefox.
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/...

Here are a couple of articles I found this past week that might be useful

How To Fix Loose USB Cable
http://tinyurl.com/ybhg2fku

OneDrive changes announced
http://tinyurl.com/yavgedcf

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Class Notes 9-28-2017



Free Office word and excel like programs. Click and a zip file will download. Unpack it and place shortcuts on your desktop to use them. Will work on USB drives, too. Abiword and Gnumeric work similar to Word and Excel.
http://rwevans.com/



About.me free web site is a good way to create a presence on the Internet for those that own a home business, are writers… check out how to set up a free page and take a look at mine.
http://tinyurl.com/y6v25d8e
https://about.me/dickevans

Send and receive texts on your computer or tablet. You will be assigned a phone number and be able to send and receive texts with people who have text capable cell phones.
http://tinyurl.com/yamcmtyf




The Ripl mobile application
Create eye-catching animated videos and share them on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram with one tap. It is completely free to download and includes access to 8 free designs, as well as one free Ripl Pro design daily that can be found in the Design Catalog. Each free design has a selection of music tracks you can use royalty-free. You can quickly create animated social media posts and customize them to align to the look and feel of your business or organization.
http://tinyurl.com/y9mm2eph

Windows 10 Indexing Options. Article showing how to control what files are indexed automatically and speed up processing by removing indexing in areas you do not have a need for searching.
http://tinyurl.com/ycyvdb29

Discussed the FreedomPop phone and using Google Voice. I had told you that I was canceling the Phone but it works fine down here in Port Charlotte. I lowered the service down to the free one with limited voice, text, and data. I can send and receive calls fine. Google Voice allows you to set up a phone number and make and receive calls right at your PC.

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.


Thursday, September 21, 2017

Class Notes 9-21-2017

CCleaner Compromised

CCleaner 5.35 released with new digital signature
http://tinyurl.com/ybtujk7r

32 bit version 5.33 of the CCleaner app offered for download between August 15 and September 12 was modified to include the Floxif malware.
http://tinyurl.com/y7zqdown

Florida Road Closure information and more
https://fl511.com

Using Excel and Word to print address labels using MailMerge
http://tinyurl.com/yb9x53a9

How to download YouTube videos:
There's a simple trick, just add the letters dl to the url of the video on youtube and press enter to get sent to the downloader’s page where you choose the quality of video you wish or mp3 for audio. The dl must go after the www. Here are a couple of other ways...

http://tinyurl.com/hjxb7lg MP4 Video

http://tinyurl.com/heaz7h8 MP3 Audio only

How to clean out a computer to donate it someone

Your stuff is on the hard drive. You could take the hard drive out and keep it. Let them find one to install. Or you can easily goto Control Panel > User Accounts and add a new user with another name as an administrator. Then sign off and sign back as that new user. Go back to Control Panel > Users and remove your original user and when it asks if you want to keep the files, say NO. Then run Glary Utilities and goto Advanced > Privacy >Free Space.

Create a Ninite shortcut on the desktop
After you run ninite from their website, the installer that ended up in your downloads folder can be copied to your desktop or a shortcut made to it. Then each week simply run the downloaded before you run you weekly maintenance apps. This keeps them up to date allowing you to ignore the nagging to upload each of them.

What to do with the data in the download folder
When you download from your browser, the resulting file ends up in your download folder. You do not have to keep it there and if it is a picture or a document you might want to move it to another folder. Programs that you download like ccleaner are not needed after you install them. There should be nothing in downloads that needs to be kept. Having said that, having things in there does not slow down your PC.

FreedomPop experience
We talked about this a few sessions ago and I ordered one. Had difficulty getting it setup and working in KY. This was probably due to the fact that there is no Sprint service where I live. When I went to the next large town over (Somerset) it worked fine. The smartphone is free. There is a $29.99 activation fee you pay upfront. It ships with a 30 day trial of their $29.95 plan which gives you unlimited voice and text and 2gb of data. I changed to their “free”’ plan before my trial was over. That plan has 200 minutes of voice, 500 texts, and 500mb of data all free. Yes, you pay if you go over.

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Class Notes 9-14-2017

I had some Internet issues here in KY today. Here is the list of items I spoke of but was unable to share with you while we were online. Next week the class will be online and at the club. On another note, I am canceling my FreedomPop phone as I was unsuccessful getting it to work. I can make a call and send/receive texts. I cannot receive a call! The first month was a trial of their 2gb data plan. I can downgrade to the free plan and I will not be charged for the second month (I hope). The headphone/mic I suggested last week works great. I used it today for the class. I could hear everyone and they could hear me much better. If you are going to be using the online capability it sure helps and will help avoid the feedback issues.

Google Drive is being replaced
http://tinyurl.com/y87gyply

How To Disable Targeted Ads On Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/ycq4zwc7

How To Make Your Own Paper CD Sleeves
http://tinyurl.com/ya45mcus

Recover deleted files in Windows
http://tinyurl.com/ya84wbzs

How to delete large folders in Windows super fast
http://tinyurl.com/y85hqbcx

Avast acquires Piriform, makers of CCleaner
http://tinyurl.com/yafkyhwg

How to reset Data usage in Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/y767284d

Tool negotiates with your cable and internet provider to lower your bill
http://tinyurl.com/y7jf6lfs

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Class Notes 9-7-2017

WizTree: fastest large file finder for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/ydcsxsvv

Novabench: Windows benchmark software
http://tinyurl.com/yafa9ucp

17 Really Cool Google Tricks That Will Blow Your Mind
http://tinyurl.com/ybgc73m8

If you google Google Gravity in your smart phone, the screen will begin falling.
And it will make the words in the screen in Windows to fall also.
Also, Google backwards (elgoog) and you will be put in a backwards Google search engine

Secret games are hidden on Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/y7nhqx42

7 games hidden in Google
http://tinyurl.com/y7jo7n6p

Walkie Talkie App
Push the button for instant, radio-style talk on any Wi-Fi or data plan. Look for me as K1CVP
http://tinyurl.com/kz7xzpa

9v battery to charge cell phone
http://tinyurl.com/yc9o3nkk

USB Headset
http://tinyurl.com/y9ckdym2

Backups by Dick Evans a white paper on doing backups in Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y7bjwkbb

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Class Notes 8-31-2017

Blend photos together with Image Inc for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y7atnmyj

How to delete Chrome’s browsing data super quickly
http://tinyurl.com/yawod7h8

SepPDF: Split PDF documents on Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y8yzewrb

Chrome: launch sites in borderless windows
http://tinyurl.com/yawod7h8

Explore Space with NASA’s Eyes
http://tinyurl.com/y92bs8j2

Backblaze Personal
A $5 per month online backup plan that promises unlimited storage, no file size limits and unrestricted bandwidth.
http://tinyurl.com/ybrh3sru

How to Load Google Play On Kindle Fire
http://tinyurl.com/y874mbgb

Windows 10 AutoPlay Options
http://tinyurl.com/y7wwyhqs

How To Recover Lost Files From SD Card, Hard Drive
http://tinyurl.com/y8kndena

Add your favorite websites to the Windows 10 Taskbar
http://tinyurl.com/yb5vo6v3

How to hide the Microsoft Edge button in Internet Explorer on Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/y75mx57y

And here are the notes on pictures from the library class here in KY yesterday:

There are many great apps out there to manage and edit your images. We are going to look at using what came with your computer from Microsoft for most of these examples.

Uploading pictures from your camera or cell phone

If your camera has an SD card, eject it from the camera and place it in the SD slot in your computer. It will mount as an external disk drive. You can locate it and the images on it using Filemanager (Win+E). You will find them in a folder named DCIM.

If your camera does not have an SSD card, then all the images are in the memory of the camera. Using the charging cable for the camera, plug the USB end into a USB port on your computer. It will mount as an external disk drive. You can locate it and the images on it using Filemanager (Win+E). You will find them in a folder named DCIM.

If you have a Smartphone, using the charging cable for the phone, plug the USB end into a USB port on your computer. It will mount as an external disk drive. You can locate it and the images on it using Filemanager (Win+E). You will find them in a folder named DCIM.

Using File manager, drag the images to a folder on your computer. Typically you would create a new folder in the Pictures folder naming it something appropriate. If they are pictures of your recent vacation you might name it Vacation August 2017. Then locate the pictures you want to place in that folder and drag them to the new folder. (Remember the shift-click method to select multiple images) They will still be on the camera or phone when you are done.

Renaming your pictures

In File manager (Win+E), right-click on a picture and select Rename. You can rename a group of pictures by selecting them all and then right-click on any one of the selected ones and rename it. The first will get the new name followed by a number in parenthesis. The rest will have the same name with the number in parentheses incremented by one each. Name (1), name (2), name (3)...

Organizing your pictures

Use File Manager (Win+E) to create folders for groups of pictures giving them appropriate names to make it easier later to find the group of pictures you saved. It is good to have folders within folders. Perhaps a folder for 2017 and then inside that folder individual folders for various events.

Cropping your pictures

In the Photos app click the Edit button (pencil icon) or press Ctrl+E > Click Crop > Resize the anchors to your desired size, then click the Check Mark

In Microsoft Paint, use the Crop Selection button, then select the area of the photo you want to Crop, then click Crop. If you want to resize, under the same Home tab, click Resize, then enter dimensions

Adding captions to your pictures

In Microsoft Paint, use the A in the Tools group. Draw a box where you would like to see a caption and type away.

Uploading pictures to Facebook

Open your personal page and click the Photos tab.

Click Album and select the album you want the picture to be added to or create a new Album and add to it. Then click + Add Photo

Turning old photographs into digital images

One slow way is to use a scanner. However, with the increased quality of our smartphone cameras, I simply take a picture of a photograph and then enhance it with cropping and the other tools in the Photos app.

Using images found on the Internet

Right-click on the image and either download it or save it to your computer. Some pictures are not able to be taken this way. But if the picture is on your screen you can grab it with PrintScreen; a key on your keyboard usually in the top right. Make sure the image is displaying on your screen. If it does not quite fit, try F11 to remove the bars at the top of your screen. (When done F11 will bring them back again) If that is not enough, Ctrl+- will make the image smaller. Once you have the picture on the screen > Win+PrintScreen. This places a picture of the screen in the Screenshots folder in your Pictures folder. Locate the picture using Filemanager (Win+E) and open it in the Photos app or Paint and crop it to show the image you want to use. Save it naming it whatever you want.



Another method to “grab” a picture off of the screen is to use the Snipping Tool that comes with Windows. Click New > drag a box around the image > let go of the mouse button > save the image

Backing up your pictures

You should keep your pictures in two places. Perhaps on your phone or camera and in your computer will work for you. I have too many pictures.to keep them all on my phone. Uploading them to Facebook is a good way to organize them as well as backing them up to “the cloud”. You can also make copies on CD’s or DVD’s or flash drives or an external hard drive. And if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can store them there for free. And a Google account gives you free unlimited storage in their cloud. More on these in future talks on Google and Backing Up.

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Class Notes 8-24-2017

Facebook Basics
http://tinyurl.com/y9268z7t

Safe Mode
Restart your PC by holding the shift key down and pressing the Restart button

Captura desktop recording program for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y8zmzcej

Thunderbird 52.3.0 is out
http://tinyurl.com/yd6hrs5f

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Class Notes 8-17-2017

Storage Sense
http://tinyurl.com/ybnlak7j

78 rpm records archive is online
http://tinyurl.com/ycwttt84

Checklist Guide to Reinstalling Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y7992dbc

Microsoft Paint lives on, just not inside Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/ybps2y2q

Windows 10 Updates Sharing
http://tinyurl.com/y8v3wqbx

Is Windows Defender Good Enough?
http://tinyurl.com/y9frrrk2

How to remove a user from a Windows PC
They must have an Administrator account. Sign in and then create a new user as an Administrator. Sign out and sign back in as the new user. Then remove the other user not saving their data. To get to the Control Panel: Windows+R, type Control Panel and hit Enter. Locate User Accounts.

Why web pages don’t work the same in all browsers
Each browser works a little differently in the way they render pages and other behind the scenes activity. When a website is designed right it takes into consideration all the possible browsers it wants the page to work on. Some sites work best with Chrome, some with IE, and some with Firefox. Some older sites do not play well with Chrome because it has not been around as long as Firefox or IE. If what you are doing does not work well in the browser you are using, try it in another one. I find this true with some Microsoft pages and some financial pages. It is a good idea to have all three on your PC--IE, Firefox, and Chrome.

Thanks gang for a great afternoon…



In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.


Thursday, August 10, 2017

Class Notes 8-10-2017

Ever look for a web site and it is no longer there? Well, here is a site that inventories sites that are no longer active for whatever reason. http://www.archive.org

Jigsaw Puzzles online
http://Jigzone.com

Keyboard Shortcuts
http://tinyurl.com/yb86gtpx

Registry Cleaner Scams
http://tinyurl.com/yckxur8u

How To Stop Auto-Play On Facebook App
http://tinyurl.com/ybvh5yjb

How To Set Up New Computer With Ninite
http://tinyurl.com/ybwwprwx

100% Free Cell Phone Service
http://tinyurl.com/ya2h2xma

Sys Minion: run Windows system commands
http://tinyurl.com/yb43gm7w

Turn Wi-Fi back on automatically on Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/y8dxe27j

Display all time zones with TimeZonesView
http://tinyurl.com/y8nehrw6

Openmailbox Free eMAIL
http://tinyurl.com/yauaopgc

Use Thunderbird for your email and save them to your PC. Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to setup and customize - and it’s loaded with great features!
http://tinyurl.com/3dhvppf

Launch Taskbar Programs With This Keyboard Trick
Press the Windows key and then the number corresponding to the position of the program on the taskbar. Windows Key + 1 opens the program to the right of the start button and so on. Works from 1-10 (10=0)

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Class Notes 8-3-2017

We covered a number of topics as I answered questions from the group both in the meeting room at the club and on the hangout site. We will do this both ways again next week and then I will be traveling again and doing hangouts only. If we had someone who could run the netting in the club meeting room, we could open the room up each week. I would be on the screen and not in the room itself. So if you would be willing to learn how to do that it would be a big help. Let us know and we will make the arrangements. Thanks!

If you are on the internet and want to join in on the meeting from home, just open a browser and go to this URL: http://tinyurl.com/dickevans. This will open the hangouts page and let you JOIN IN. If you do not have a webcam you can still join in. We just will not see you. You will be able to see and hear what is happening.

Here are the things I talked about from my notes. But we did cover a number of other questions during the class. If you have something you remember and want we to type it up, let me know.

Text from your computer, sync'd with your Android phone & number. This site allows you to text with others on their cell phone without you having a cell phone.
http://tinyurl.com/z7dymtd

Access free movies and TV shows. This is not Kodi but will let you see some current run movies right on your PC. Be aware that there are some links to a few XX sites you might want to avoid. And do not download any extras.
https://fmovies.se/

Google keeps a complete list of almost everything you've looked at on the internet. Yes they do keep track of everything you do. However, you can turn their tracking off. This article tells how. And we checked, incognito searches are not tracked.
http://tinyurl.com/ya39qsro

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update: Removed Features. This article tells about the upcoming version of 10 that is coming soon in your automatic updates. Paint is being removed from the release in favor of Paint 3D.
http://tinyurl.com/y8prjbw5

How To Recover Forgotten Windows Password. This article outlines how to be ready in advance to recover. This is not a secret door into locating or changing your password.
http://tinyurl.com/yazlzm6w

Harold presented on passwords in January. Here is a link to that talk: http://cccgc.info/wp-content/uploads/Password-Jan2017.pdf

Here is a summary of one of his slides and an easy way to create and never forget a password:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Easy to remember passwords

First 3 letters of mothers first name, & first 3 letters of father's first name.

• Insert a “&” between the names
• Add your birth year – the last three digits
• *************************************
• My mother: rose, father: howard, my birth year 1944
• Base password: ros&how944

Now use the first letter of the site you are needing the password for, a capital letter. And use the last letter of that site as the last letter of the password, a lower case letter.

If the password is for Amazon, place an A in front and n at the end.
Aros&how944n

If the password is for Microsoft, place an M in front and a t at the end.
Mros&how944t

If the password is for Yahoo, place a Y in front and an o at the end.
Yros&how944o

Get the picture? All your passwords are easily remembered by you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to Sync Your Desktop PC with Google Drive (and Google Photos).
http://tinyurl.com/yco4pkfr

I presented on this topic at the August club meetings. Here is the link to my notes from that talk: http://cccgc.info/wp-content/uploads/Sync-Google-Drive-8-1-2017.pdf

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Class Notes 7-20-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Windows ISO Download
http://windowsiso.net/

How To Free Up Drive Space
http://tinyurl.com/y78g7dqz

Retro Games
http://tinyurl.com/y9f9zgvt

6 Free Portable Retro Games
http://tinyurl.com/ybrjs6t7

Remove the Windows.old folder manually/ Windows creates the folder Windows.old on a PC running Windows when you upgrade the PC to a new version of the operating system.
http://tinyurl.com/y8xlyvmc

Google Backup and Sync is a new program by Google that combines Google Photos and Google Drive functionality in a single client application.
http://tinyurl.com/yd795b2g

Friday, July 14, 2017

Class Notes 7-13-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Delete something by accident?
Ctrl+Z will bring it back

How To Change The Login Screen Background
http://tinyurl.com/ya97vgd9

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Class Notes 7-6-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Watch HDTV for free... TVScout will automatically show you all the channels, just pick one and enjoy! I got mine. It does work, but I think it is no different than what you can pickup at WalMart and elsewhere. And I am miles from the TV stations here in KY.
https://goo.gl/0fKyU7

How To Customize Details In File Explorer
http://tinyurl.com/tdk9e56

Windows 10 Annoyances
http://tinyurl.com/rlqsqu2

How To Clear Your Android Cache
http://tinyurl.com/vsha74v

What to delete when your phone runs out of storage space
http://tinyurl.com/ybaospl8

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Class Notes 6-29-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

QuickViewer is an ultra-fast Windows image viewer
http://tinyurl.com/yav2r2nw

Edit Facebook Homepage Shortcuts
http://tinyurl.com/y8gxpelb

Finding Forgotten Passwords Hidden In Browser
http://tinyurl.com/yauz6eju

Folder Icons
http://tinyurl.com/yco8cna6

WannaCry? You will if you don’t back up!
http://tinyurl.com/yasv5g8t

For a simple way to store your password is a simple notepad program called locknote

To publish a book on Amazon

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Class Notes 6-22-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Download Safari for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/ycb5g2a7

See the graves of thousands of famous people from around the world.
https://findagrave.com/

Create and print posters on Windows
http://tinyurl.com/yb6e3ujc

HDCleaner: system cleaner and optimizer for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y8cbevg3

StorURL: cross-browser bookmarks manager for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/y7332w6a

Google Drive Will Backup Your Entire Computer
http://tinyurl.com/ycxpwrla
http://tinyurl.com/y88mgltn

Uninstall Apps
http://tinyurl.com/ydck85cp

Control Panel
http://tinyurl.com/y83jeumv

Reveal Hidden Password Behind Asterisks
http://tinyurl.com/y7yc9smg

Locked Out Of Facebook? Try Trusted Contacts
http://tinyurl.com/yax87o86

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Class Notes 6-15-2017

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.

Watch HDTV for free... TVScout will automatically show you all the channels, just pick one and enjoy!
https://goo.gl/0fKyU7

How to Use Safe Mode to Diagnose a PC Problem
http://tinyurl.com/yc9ov9jn

List of Windows tools
The following list provides you with detailed information on tools that you can run on Windows PCs using nothing but a short name that is associated with them.
http://tinyurl.com/y8xt7982

How To Customize Google Home Page
http://tinyurl.com/y95xvcu8

Custom Hotkeys revised
http://tinyurl.com/ybctlk8q

Resize, share images from Windows context menu
CoolTweak is a free software program for Windows that adds image editing and sharing options to the Windows Explorer context menu.
http://tinyurl.com/yb2ymm5x

Windows 10 Build 16215
Microsoft released the new Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16215 June 8th, and it ships with a massive list of usability improvements.
http://tinyurl.com/y7gm2358

Advanced Uninstaller Pro is a free program for Windows that enables you to monitor and remove software installations from PCs running Windows.
http://tinyurl.com/y9p4ehj7

Revo Uninstaller 2.0 Free is the latest version of the popular software uninstallation program for Windows that performs clean-up operations afterward.
http://tinyurl.com/y8y5loaq

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Class Notes 6-8-2017




To run a program in compatibility mode, locate the .exe and right-click it. Select Properties and in that window select Compatibility tab.


Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
http://Archive.org

Archiver Menu is a Firefox addon that allows you to make a copy of a web page on archiving sites, and to retrieve a cached copy of it. There are situations where you may want to keep a copy of an article or web page. Maybe for local access, legal reasons, reference, documentation, or fear that it may be taken down.
http://tinyurl.com/y72kdu3k

Everything Desktop Search. Everything is a long-standing desktop search program for Microsoft Windows devices that is both powerful and very fast.
http://tinyurl.com/yahsqutj

Kodi 18 to launch with 64-bit version for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/ycawqrqq

Capture2Text: OCR Software for Windows
http://tinyurl.com/yaq5gsxa

How To Invoice From Personal PayPal Account
http://tinyurl.com/y9keeem2

Speed up Chrome start by lazy loading tabs
Native Lazy Load is a useful browser extension for all Chrome users who have configured Chrome to load the previous browsing session on start. You will notice that Chrome will start faster, and that memory use is way lower.
http://tinyurl.com/y74dbc4c

The World's Most Accurate Online‎ Grammar Checker Is Now Free!‎‎
Services: ‎Advanced Grammar Rules‎, Contextual Spell Checker‎, Vocabulary Enhancement‎
http://tinyurl.com/ybdxhq4o

Friday, June 2, 2017

Class Notes 6-1-2017

Turn your cell phone into a professional camera using this app on it. Instead of just pointing and shooting, you can adjust all the settings like your phone camera was one of those expensive SLR ones.
http://tinyurl.com/y7cuy9jh

Edit your pictures right on your cell phone. Snapseed is a complete and professional photo editor developed by Google. Better than the one that comes with your phone, it even lets you wipe out portions of the image and automatically fills in the space to be like adjacent area. Very easy to use.
http://tinyurl.com/a6foody

Another App for the Fire Stick instead of Kodi. As we know, Kodi allows you to see everything on your TV using the Amazon Firestick. By everything we mean live TV, movies, TV shows, sport events, etc. This is another app you can load instead of Kodi, which is a little difficult to install, and wee the same type of things.
http://tinyurl.com/y7lsj34d

Launch Google Chrome Automatically at Startup or any other program. This will make it much easier to set up a computer for someone who is not that tech savy. When they turn on their computer it will just go to the program you have set it for. If that is Google Chrome, instead of the desktop, they will already be in Chrome. Set the starting tabs to those they like and they are all set to use their computer without being concerned with the start button, double clicking on the desktop icons, etc.
http://tinyurl.com/y98wefgy

Home - New Tab Page
A homepage you will fall in love with! Notifications, badges, recently closed tabs, quick notes and more. Also great for the not too tech savy. Actually I am using it, too.
http://tinyurl.com/ya29bqne

Opera Adds Social Media, Other Features In New Release. Opera is one the polular browsers out there along with Chrome and Firefox. I use Chrome as my primary. Opera has some new features that you might like. It also is free.
http://tinyurl.com/y7k3cp6m

Secret Guide to Computers & Tricky Living (Thanks Donna). A 700+ page book with all you want to know and more. The page is primitive, but gives you links to view sections of the book for free or a link to order the book.
http://tinyurl.com/y8k2sbga

Set Windows Defender Antivirus blocking to high on Windows 10. It seems that Defender has some hidden features that are not turned on by default. This article explains what they are and how to take advantage of them
http://tinyurl.com/y7ep88q7

Backup Windows and Office Activation tokens
The main purpose of the program is to restore the activation tokens after you install Windows anew, run into activation issues after the system activated successfully, or restore backups.
http://tinyurl.com/ycbl79s7

A beginner's tutorial to hosting websites in GNU/Linux. In other words, a way to create a file server at your house to host your own and other’s web sites.
http://tinyurl.com/m4bcx2c




Friday, May 26, 2017

Class Summary 5-25-2017

I was having lunch at Wendy’s and could not get my phone to get into Hangouts. So I went to the car and grabbed my laptop. When I turned it on, guess what? Yup, had to wait for Windows updates to be added. So I was a little late… No questions today. But here is a summary of the things I had found during the week to pass on:

How to use the Windows shutdown command
This shows you how to create a shortcut on the desktop to perform a shutdown with one click
http://tinyurl.com/lj8crtb

Free Online Excel Training
A good source for learning basic through advanced Excel
http://tinyurl.com/mtpmrzg

Turn Your Android Into Universal Remote
Now you do not have to fight over the remote! LOL Use your cell phone
http://tinyurl.com/kgua99y

You should disable automatic downloads in Chrome right now
An interesting article. I have not done this yet, but will read it again
http://tinyurl.com/mbzp5gu

Protect PDF Documents with PDF Anti-copy
Make your PDF documents readable, but not copyable…
http://tinyurl.com/mtfo47q

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Class Notes 5-18-2017

Drive Fragmentation
http://tinyurl.com/l8rjqwq

Create your own Windows Hotkeys
http://tinyurl.com/n6xkjn4

How To Convert Malwarebytes Premium Trial To Free
http://tinyurl.com/lteh338

If you installed the Premium Trial Version and want to switch to the Free Version, just open the program.

Go to the Settings tab on the left-hand side.

Then, on the top tabs, click on My Account, and click on the Deactivate Premium Trial button.


Be Really Careful with Email
Email is one of the main infection methods of all malware and specifically of WannaCry ransomware. Before you click on it, you can go to the free virustotal.com service. It will tell you whether or not it has been reported as a dangerous link.
New CCleaner available v5.30
http://tinyurl.com/n286koy


5 CCleaner hidden gems
http://tinyurl.com/kauc7d3

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Class Notes 5-11-2017

Customize Win+X menu in Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/k9wpwlk

Need a survey for a club or church group? Survey Monkey is a good choice.
http://tinyurl.com/a7u4ar

Rufus is a free and open-source portable application for Microsoft Windows that can be used to format and create bootable USB flash drives or Live USBs.
http://tinyurl.com/k268uwt

Make a free chromebook
http://tinyurl.com/m4chcsx

Control WIndows 10 updates
Windows Update Mini Tool Wrapper Script, or short WUMT Wrapper Script, is a free script for Windows 10 to control Windows Updates.
http://tinyurl.com/m7mnwot

Use Honey to auto apply promo codes with Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/mvphqh5

Freefileviewer.com
Will display the contents of any file in hex and decimal. Allows editing of a file at the byte level

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Class Summary 4-13-2017

Show Passwords when they are hidden. Useful when you go to sign in to another computer or your cell phone and you do not have that list available. It is an extension you can add to Chrome or the other browsers. In Chrome, click the menu button, then settings, then extensions. Scroll to the bottom and add more extensions. Search for “show passwords” and select one.

Windows 10 build 1703 is on its way. You can download a copy and install it directly, but it will come down all by itself in time. You will not see too many differences from 1607, but one we notice is the absence of Control Panel from the Wind+X menu (or right-click on the Start button). Instead just search for Control Panel and pin it to the Start menu. If you want to know which build you are running, Win+R > type WINVER > press Enter. A window will display with the details.

Slow Computer?

If it just when you are browsing the net, don’t blame the Internet service provider, yet. Know what speed you are paying for and then run speedtest.net to see what you actually are getting. If there is a big difference between what you are paying for a getting, give them a call. But first, unplug your modem, let it stay off for a minute or two, then plug it back in and check the speed again.

If it is not the Internet connection, often the slow running is because of too many processes running in the background. Right-click the taskbar and open Task Manager to see the performance. It will show you what percentage of your CPU is in use and how much RAM is used. 100% is not good and indicates that stuff has to be cleaned up.

Restart in safe mode and see if you get your speed back. Safe mode only starts the processes necessary to do Windows. You can run all the maintenance programs in safe mode and they will run faster. This cleanup may be all you need.

If the slow running just started, it may be due to something you recently installed. Restore to a previous date and see if that fixes things.

No? Then you may want to consider backing up and then reinstalling Windows. A clean install will get you back to the original configuration without all the extras you may have installed over time. When that works, get your data back from the backup you made and install the extra programs you need.

Cell phones have temporary files taking up space just like our computers. But they cause problems more often than on our computers. You may have run into memory issues when trying to install or even update apps. If you have an Android phone, I suggest installing the CCleaner App. Works like the one we use on our computers and cleans out unneeded files freeing up space. The iOS (iPhone) does not have CCleaner in its App Store. The app I use is called Battery Doctor. It is free and does a good job cleaning up space.

Ninite is a great way to install programs and not have to worry about missing an option in the install process that results in unwanted installations or browser toolbars. I have covered this in previous summaries. See http://tinyurl.com/mnqhj4x for a summary of ninite and some good into on the maintenance programs as well.

Microsoft Word will create an automatic Table of Contents. We gave an example of one during class. Simply stated you format your chapter titles as headings. Insert page numbers in the document. Open a blank page where you want the TOC to be placed. In the reference tab click on Table of Contents to see it automatically created on your blank page.

Adblock is an extension that blocks ads that appear on web pages. You know the ones; annoying and sometimes confusing. On the computer I am using right now, a Chromebook, it has blocked over nine thousand ads. You will be very glad you added this one. http://tinyurl.com/a8h5opk

Walmart Saving Catcher is an app for your cell phone or you can access it on your computer. When you purchase something from Walmart, scan the code at the bottom of the receipt (or enter the code on your computer) and all the nearby stores are checked to see if they offer any of the items you purchased at a lower price. If so, you are credited with the difference! You get it in the form of a Walmart gift card when you choose to take it.

Join the revolution and liberate yourself from overpriced, under-featured satellite and cable DVRs. With a Plex Pass, now you can record free digital broadcast channels and watch your favorite HD TV shows, movies, news, and sports on any device, anywhere in the world.
https://www.plex.tv/features/dvr/

Wikibuy offers items they say at lower prices than Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/lac3jc2

Using the Windows built in image backup instead of Reflect or EaseUS. The main difference I see is that you cannot retrieve individual files or folders with the Windows utility and you can with either of the other two.
http://tinyurl.com/kg354vw

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Class Notes 4-6-2017

Piglet lets you know what is eating up your memory on your PC slowing you down
http://tinyurl.com/mozfcwk

Amazon Giveaways really does get you things for nothing… well nothing more than giving up your email address to them and/or taking a survey.
http://tinyurl.com/km3c5b6

Free Websites that are easy to build on your own. Add a domain name and you have all you need to be on the web. Even without your own domain name you will be on the web with a subdomain name from webs.com -- yourname.webs.com instead of yourname.com.
http://www.webs.com/Signup

We talked about the easiest way to create a slideshow using Microsoft’s PhotoStory3. All you need is a group of picture and in minutes you can have an animated slide show to send to others. You can add captions, narrations, and background music all easy to do.



The original version of Windows 10 was build 1511. The Anniversary edition came out last August and it was build 1607. Yesterday MS came out with build 1703. You should see it coming down over the next few weeks. MOre on what is different as we test it out. To see what version you have, on the keyboard press Windows+R. In the box enter WINVER and press the Enter key. A a window will display telling you about the version you have installed.


The above is in Google Chrome, Advanced Settings...

Here is one I learned today. In your browser’s advanced settings you can tell it DO NOT TRACK and when you search for something in your browser it will not tell the world you did so. In others words, you will not start getting ads for what you just looked for on Facebook and other places.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Data Backups 4-4-2017

Data Backups 4-4-2017
By Dick Evans, www.rwevans.com

We talk a lot about the importance to doing backups on a regular basis. Macrium Reflect is one that we use to make an image backup of our computers. It copies the entire contents of the hard disk drives to a single compressed file on an external hard drive. It is built in such a way that a crashed hard drive can be replaced and the image used to restore everything to the new hard drive. The system works just the way it did on the day the image was made. You can also use the image to locate individual data files and restore them back.

However, anything you have done since the image is not anywhere except on your hard drive. So if you have an issue either with the hard drive or just a corrupted file, you have no way to get it back. Unless…

Many have been using USB flash drives to save their important data like tax forms and important letters. But this is only as good as the last time you remembered to update the flash drive.

There are many cloud storage web sites that allow you either for free or for a monthly fee upload anything to their cloud.

OneDrive has 5gb of free space and anything you save to your OneDrive folder gets synced to the cloud.

Dropbox is another one. You get 2gb free and can up that to 1tb for $99 per year. If you download the App to your PC anything you save to your DropBox folder gets synced to your Dropbox account similar to OneDrive.

I use both of the above and Google Photos, but my day-to-day data I let Mozy Free automatically save. I don’t have to drag anything to a special folder or even think about it. It happens. So if I lose everything on my hard disk, I can restore it from my latest image using Reflect and then restore all my day-to-day data from Mozy. And I have had to do just that a couple of years ago when my hard disk crashed in my laptop.

First let’s see what we are talking about. What is data? Simply put, if it is not a program (application), it is data. Your data is what needs to be backed up and you find it in folders under your user name. If you have multiple uses, you need to backup each one.




Desktop contains all the items on your desktop--shortcuts and whatever else you have saved to the desktop.

Documents is where most programs save what they create, like Microsoft Office and LibreOffice. And if you are like most of the users I know, your data in this folder is generally only a few hundred megabytes.

Downloads contains everything you have downloaded from the web. When something important is file there it is a good idea to move it to a folder in Documents. That way you can easily find it and it will be backed up with Mozy.

Music can contain a large number of files and take up a good deal of space, but if you really want them backed up daily you can add an additional 50gb of space for $5.99 a month. But remember that all your files, including your music are in your latest Reflect image backup. So if you just added a new album to your music library, make a new image and you will have it backed up without having Mozy do it.

Pictures can take up the most room and I do not suggest using Mozy to back them up. I use Google Photos and have the App on my Cell Phone. Everytime I take a picture it uploads to my free cloud space in my Google account. And the space it takes does not count against the 15gb of free space every Google user receives. There is an App for the PC as well that will upload any pictures you have on your PC to Google Photos.

Videos can be super large is you are one that downloads movies to your hard drive. If you take short movies on your cell phone, they will be backed up to Google Photos if you are using that App on your phone. If you have a lot of movies on your hard drive, Treat them like what I said about music. Do more frequent images with Reflect and do not use Mozy to store them. Better yet, stop downloading movie and use Kodi to stream them.

http://mozy.com/free use code GFBU22 and you will get an additional .25gb of free space for yourself and for me, too. Thanks.



Once you have installed Mozy you get to determining the backup sets you want. Mozy will assume you want all data folders backed up and that will take more than the 2.25gb of free space. Uncheck what you do not need to have Mozy handle for you.



Open the File System list and then drill down on your User Name.




Now check the folders and even down to the files level of what you want Mozy to handle for you.



When Mozy runs it displays a completion message showing you what it backed up for you. And form here you can go to settings and make changes.

Give it a try. It works great for me!

Friday, March 17, 2017

Class Summary 3-16-2017

The local Library has a new 3D printer! So if you are looking to see how one works, check out future classes there. We have come a long way from dot matrix printers of the 1980’s.
http://tinyurl.com/h9ucfsx

New video on Kodi (Thanks Ian). This is a well done how to video on YouTube for installing a different build of Kodi than the one we have been using.
http://tinyurl.com/hue3j6m

Another one with how to get live TV. This one shows us how to get into live TV from all over the world. And although this is an interesting build, we can see most to what we want in the IPtV menu of our current build,
http://tinyurl.com/z5s2fgr

Voter Records from all over the country can be found on this site. Just type in your name and see what it says about you.
https://voterrecords.com

County Records for Charlotte County Florida can also be viewed online. A simple record search of just your last name or just your street name works best.
http://ccappraiser.com

This article explains how to set Facebook Comments & Likes by Others so not everyone can. You decide who can do what on your posts. Good explanations off this page to other security issues.
http://tinyurl.com/h8am9xd

Wondering how to stop all those email notifications from Facebook? On the top row, click the down arrow way to the right. This will pull down a list of options. Choose Settings > Notifications > Email and turn off all but important ones.

My Start Menu is free from all the items Windows 10 came with. To remove an item, right-click on it and choose Unpin from Start. On that same option list you have the ability to resize. Notice I made all mine small. I can tell what they are by the image and by hovering over it with my mouse to see a popup of its name.




Printing the Screen
When you need to capture a screenshot that contains a pull down menu, the Snipping Tool does not work. It allows you to capture a piece of the screen, but the pull down you wanted to get goes away. Instead use Win+PrtScr. This captures the entire screen as it appears and places the image in your Pictures folder in a subfolder called Screenshots. Open that image and then use the Snipping Tool to grab just the portion you need.

Now I use an old standby called MWsnap. This allow me to press a hotkey (Ctrl+SHift+A) and draw a box around the portion of the screen I need including the pull downs. The resulting image is placed in the clipboard for me to paste were I need it.


Thursday, March 9, 2017

Class Summary 3-9-2017

Kodi tutorials and more for those of you attempting to install Kodi on your PC or Firestick
http://tinyurl.com/hm3pulp

Post Card Blank template for MS Word. When you click the link the doc file will download. Open it in MS Word or even Libreoffice.
http://rwevans.com/cccgc/Post Card Blank.doc

Some shortcuts to use in Excel to create Quick Charts and more
http://tinyurl.com/h84bd5l

Capture and share images and video with Jing
http://tinyurl.com/z3mgz55

A couple of Apple Mac notes. The mouse only has one button; no left and right like on a PC. Click it is like a left click. To get the right-click, hold Ctrl down while you click the mouse. Also, if you forget your password to get on, you can reset it on boot by holding down the Command key and the R key while pressing the power on button.

SmallPDF.com is a great site to convert a PDF into a word document so you can edit it. Will only work with a file that has been saved as a PDF; not for a scanned file. The scanner will create an image.

What about being able to fill out a form that is in an image format (you scanned it in)? Open a new MS Word document and insert it as a custom watermark. Then you can type anywhere over the image to fill in the blanks.

How do I send a folder of pictures to my Google Photo Cloud? First open photos.google.com and create an album with 1 picture. Name the album the same name as the folder of pictures you want to place in the album. Remove the 1 picture so the album is empty. With the empty album open, drag the folder into the album. All the pictures will be uploaded to photos and be placed into the folder.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Class Summary 3-2-2017

Demonstrated a loud bluetooth speaker. It was the S5 Zealot. It is easy to pair up with a cell phone.

Polaroid 360° Motorized Rotating HDTV Amplified Antenna with Remote. An inexpensive rotatable TV antenna you can put in your attic.
http://tinyurl.com/h78gq85

New Lenovo $199 Windows 10 laptop/tablet. A low end but lightweight and useful laptop.
http://tinyurl.com/z9fbqau

Explorer++ is a free multi-tab file manager that features the same familiar interface as Windows Explorer, while introducing several enhancements and improvements for a much richer file browsing experience.
http://tinyurl.com/3nejp42

Email Checker is a simple tool for verifying an email address. The free version allows you to check up tp 5 address per day.
http://tinyurl.com/j4om3ql

Printing Postcards
https://www.canva.com/
Or you can use a template right in MS Word.

Sneak Peeks, Advanced Access, and Special Giveaways at instafreebie.com. Free ebooks for Kindle and other book readers delivered daily to your email.
http://tinyurl.com/z2y2jdg

Walmart savings catcher is an app for your cell phone that allows you to scan in your receipts. Once scanned, Walmart views all the local ads to see if you could have gotten each item cheaper elsewhere. If so, they give you the difference in a store credit.

Sam’s Club Scan and Go is available on Android or on your iPhone. It lets you scan the items as you place them in your basket. When you are done, click Pay and you get to avoid all the lines and walk right out.

Efax lets you receive and send a fax from your PC. Free up to 10 per month received. 30 day trial on the sending.

CamScanner is a great way to scan documents to your cell phone, edit them, and save them as PDFs or even editable documents.

Searching on the class blog is easy when you use the site parameter in your browser. Let’s say you want to look for the summaries that talk about using LibreOffice. If you just type LibreOffice into your browser, you will get thousands of results and probably nothing about the class summaries on the first few pages. Instead type the following:

LibreOffice site:dickevanstraining.blogspot.com

You are telling your browser that you want to search for LibreOffice, but only on pages contained in the site named dickevanstraining.blogspot.com.

Auto Forward emails when you have multiple email addresses. For example, I have my comcast email set to forward all emails to my Yahoo account. I do that by opening my comcast email page and setting the auto forward address to my yahoo address. All email servers allow you to do this.

To post email content on Facebook, simply select what you want to post on Facebook in the email and Copy it to the clipboard. Then go to Facebook and paste it into your post.

Use Blogger to create a free website or www.evanshosting.com for an easy to build low cost one.

Saving LibreOffice Documents by Default in Microsoft Office Formats

Choose Tools > Options > Load/Save > General.

In the Default file format and ODF settings area, first select a document type, then select the file type for saving. I suggest setting it for Microsoft Word 2007-2010 which will use the docx format,

Friday, February 24, 2017

Class Summary 2-23-2017

Began with a discussion on folders. A folder is a container used to organize other folders and files within. Windows comes with some preset folders like Documents, Downloads, Pictures, and others. You may create additional folders inside or under any of them. Open the folder you wish to add a folder under.



Then either click New Folder in the ribbon, right-click in the folder and choose New > Folder, or just type Ctrl+Shift+N. A new folder will appear with the name new folder selected. Replace that temporary name with the name you want to give it.

We discussed the Downloads folder. When you receive an email with an attachment. The downloaded file ends up in your download folder. So do the pictures you download from Facebook or elsewhere. And the programs you download to install. So downloads generally ends up with a lot of junk you do not really need to hand on to. However, when you do download a picture or a file that you want, move it to a better place. Like pictures to your picture folder or documents to your document folder. You might even create a subfolder to better organize your stuff. Like a folder for trip to disney 12-2016 and place all your pictures from that trip in that folder. This makes it much easier to locate them later.

The question came up about placing emails in folder for easy access to the later. Years ago we had a program that came with Windows called Outlook Express or we worked in an office that used the paid for Outlook program. Those programs actually received our emails and placed them on our computers. We could then back them up or organize them as we wished. Today our emails are stored in the cloud at our email provider. Comcast emails are stored at comcast and we access them through the internet wherever we are. Same with gmail, yahoo, live, AOL, and others. The only way to “save” them on our computer is to print them as a PDF and store the resulting file.

When we get a new computer, we need to move data from one computer to another--from the old one to the new. I suggest an external hard drive be plugged into the old computer and the files and folders under your username be copied to it. Then plug the external into the new computer and copy them to the new. Programs cannot be moved from the old to the new. You will need to install them on the new. Locate your original installation media and key codes. There is a product called PCMover that will move some, but not all, programs. I have not used it, but it gets good reviews. It is not free.

Recuva is a free program from Piriform.com that will scan your hard drive and locate deleted files. Yes, the ones you deleted and then removed from the recycle bin.

https://fmovies.se/ is a site that lets you access free movies and TV shows. I have not used it, but one of our members recommend this.

I wrote a paper on the maintenance programs I use to keepy PC clead. Here is a link to that paper: http://www.rwevans.com/ComputerMaintenance.pdf

I installed and demonstrated Photo Clip 7 which is a paid for program that makes it incredibly easy to set your main subject against a new background! In the following example, the picture of the family is removed in only 3 steps and placed in front of a new background, resulting in a completely new image!
http://tinyurl.com/zg6fvhg