Class Summary 10-1-2015

We had a large range of questions today from printer problems to finding music on the internet. Some are finding that their printers are not being found in Windows 10. This usually has to do with the driver not being compatible with the new OS. Locate the website for your printer manufacture and look for the page about drivers for your device. Know what its model number is. Then download the latest driver and install it. This will fix your printer issues. If a driver is not available for your printer because it is just too old, you may have to get a new printer or revert back to your last OS that worked with the printer.

We looked at using Join.me as a way to help someone else remotely with their computer issues. May be a way to walk them through using a program or even helping them run the maintenance programs. And remember DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE ACCESS TO YOUR PC unless you know them. You do not want someone from some foreign country to access all your files on your PC even if they say the are from a legitimate company in America.

Talked about backing up and I discussed what I do. Much of this is expanded on in past classes. I run an image backup program on my PC at least once a month. I plug in an external hard drive to one of my USB ports and it makes a bit for bit image of everything I have on my hard disk drive. I then put that somewhere safe. If my computer crashes (and I hope it never does) I have but to replace or format the hard drive and use the image backup I made to restore back to the date of that last backup. No need to install any software, download any Windows updates, or remember any codes for programs I purchased. Everything comes back just as it was the day I did the image.

That's great except… any files that were added or changed since the last image are gone. What I do is to use a cloud backup service called Mozy.com. It is free for the first 2.3 gb of data and allows me to select what files/folders I want backed up. Here is the link to download that software:

Backup in the Cloud; use code GFBU22. http://www.mozy.com/free. Free is 2 gb of data. Use the code and you and I receive the other .3 gb. Thanks!

About three times a day when your PC is on and connected to the Internet, Mozy backs up any new file or changed file to the cloud. It is as simple as that. When the crash occurs, you restore the image and then go to your Mozy account and restore all the changed or added files. This does not restore any programs you may have added or updated since the image, so you may have to download and install those. The more often you do an image the easier it will be to remember what you installed since the image.

Looked a WinDirStat that can be downloaded from ninite.com as a good program to looked at the size of thte folders and files on your disk. Also used the duplicate file finder program in Glary Utilities to find duplicate pictures on disk so we can remove them.

Talked about how to change the default starting page in a browser to be what we want to see and not what our Internet service wants us to view. Click the settings button in the upper right and look for Settings. In IE click Internet Options and you can tell it what website or sites you want to open when the browser starts. In Chrome and Firefox you will find a place to change the website address for when the browser opens.

Chrome:





There were many other things discussed, but this is what I remember. See you next week for a whole new set of questions. And remember, you can email me questions any time at richard@rwevans.com