Friday, September 30, 2016

Class Summary 9-29-2016

Speedtest.net Is what I use to test my Internet speeds. You should be getting what you pay for. Here is a test of my home system:



Ping is how long it takes for a signal to leave my computer, go to the server, and return. Download is the speed I am downloading at in million bits per second. Upload is the speed at which I am sending up to the server. I am paying for 15 Mbps so this reading is pretty good. If you are getting much less than you are paying for, complain.

Insert hyperlink into a Facebook post by including the full URL in the post. Th, is works in a browser: rwevans.com. That is because the browser fills in the first part for you. To use it in a post on Facebook include the rest of the address: http://rwevans.com

When you are running Glary Utilities on your system, the default settings will cause a popup to the right of the taskbar when programs you have installed need updates. It is OK to click the popup and do the installs. Just be careful that you do not let the installs add additional programs to your PC. You can turn the notification off by opening Glary > Overview tab > uncheck the bottom box (Check for software updates automatically).

Maintenance software we suggest includes Ccleaner, Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, and Glary Utilities. However the fact that you have them on your computer does not do anything for you. You also have to run each on a regular basis, like once a week or more often, to get any benefit from them. AND you must update the software it the associated data base as well or you will be missing on checking for all the latest potential issues.

Backup to external drive using a program that will create an image of your total hard drive. Acronis (pay), EaseUS (free), and Reflect (free) are some of the ones used by club members. There are classes a couple of times a month at the club on how to use Reflect. You will need an external hard drive. A Portable 1gb or larger drive will work fine.

How to find Reflect backup: there are links right on the club site at cccgc.inf



Do I use lastpass? No I use locknote.ext and keep a simple notepad program called Locknote to keep a password protected note. I use it for my passwords so they are all in one place and protected instead of being in a Word file called passwords! Here is a link to download that program: http://sourceforge.net/projects/locknote/

Center click on mouse = new tab. Most of the time we use the left mouse button to take a link from a page in the browser. This typically opens the link on top of the current page. Use the center button (scroll wheel) instead and the link will open in a new tab. Right click and there are a number of different options to take.

Duckduckgo.com is a browser said to be better than Google.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Class Summary 9-15-2016

Talked about a couple of cell phone tips I picked up this week. When taking a selfie use the volume control button to take the picture instead of reaching for the button on the screen. Also, do not use the zoom feature of the camera. Take the full picture and then edit it to crop it down to the size you desire. This gives you more pixels to work with and you can always revert to the original one.

I was asked about voice to text. There are a number of ways to use this feature. In Windows 10 Cortana let’s you speak your request and will find things for you using Edge. Microsoft Word has a voice to text feature that lets you train it to your voice. You can also use our voice to control your actions in Windows 10 by turning on that feature. But what I like best is what Google offers. Firstly when you open google.com, in the search box you will find a picture of a microphone over to the right. Click it and you can speak your request into the browser search. The second is when using google docs, you can speak your words and it types them for you. Cool feature that I use when composing written works. When in the document window, Ctrl+Shift+S will turn it on.

Then we talked about the difference between a full and a quick scan when using maintenance programs like superantispyware and the antivirus that comes with Windows - - Defender. Quickscan takes a look at those folders on your C drive that's typically are used to store malicious software and viruses. However although this is a quick way to get through the maintenance it does not search through your entire drive for potential errors that may have been there for a long time. So I suggest you take the time once in awhile to allow those programs to do a full scan.

We talk more about Google photos. you can access your photos add photos.google.com. If you download the app to your smartphone every time you take a picture it will be uploaded using Wi-Fi to your Google account. your account is free and you have unlimited storage for photos. When on your PC you can either download and install a program to automatically upload photos from your PC to Google photos. Instead of installing a program you can also open up the photos.google.com page and click the picture of a cloud with an arrow in it appearing at the top of the page to manually upload your photos.

Somebody asked what a PNG file. It is an image file similar to a JPG. it is a format created by Microsoft and is a higher quality than a jpeg file. The program that come with Windows that you use to open a JPG should also open a PNG file. You can also open a browser and drag that file into the browser window to view it.

We talked about scanning photos into the computer and the fact that they would all have today's date. There is no way in Windows to change the creation date do something that would be more realistic for those scan photos. We did find a way to change the date and time in Google photos. I found a utility online it will allow you to modify the date and times right on your PC. I have not actually downloaded it and run it yet but if you want to play with it you can find it here : http://tinyurl.com/2utcbo4

Then I was asked if there was any way to check the recovery disk that the backup program Reflect or EaseUS had you create. The answer is yes. Insert that recovery disk into your CD drive or if you used a USB flash drive plug it in and then restart your computer booting to that external device. You may have to go into setup and change the order in which the operating system looks for a device that is bootable. Make the CD or the USB first on the list. You will know it worked because Windows won't start . Instead you will see the backup software screen. If that appears your recovery disc is ready to go.

The 4 maintenance programs that I use on a regular basis are Glary utilities, Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, and CCleaner. All but the last can be downloaded the ninite.com site. To find CCleaner goto piriform.com and click the download link.

Another backup question. How do I know my backup is any good? First, when you make the backup be sure to turn on verify option. See the white papers on the club site at cccgc.net for step by step instructions. And to check the image or to recovery 1 or more files from it without doing a complete restore, see the last white paper.



In a nutshell, you open Reflect on your PC, plug in your external drive, Click the Restore tab, and then Open and image… in Windows Explorer. Then you can view all the files, open one or two, or even copy one or more to your PC.

Create a shortcut on the desktop for any file including an executable program simply locate the file, right click on it, and select create shortcut.

We took a look at some searching techniques using your browser. although we used Google Chrome work the same in most other browsers. as an example we typing a couple of words and found millions of results. By putting a plus sign in front of the words it narrowed our search down because we were telling the search engine to include the first word plus the ssecond word plus the third word etcetera. Putting quotes around multiple words forces the search engine to look for that exact configuration. We located a useful website explaining a number of these browser tips. you can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/ncdmmuk

BTW (by the way) I typed most of this document using Google speech to text in Google Docs.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Class Summary 9-8-2016

Sorry this took a while to get to. Been busy since I got back to Port Charlotte. We had a good group in class and a group online using Google Hangouts. A little communications issue with the Hangout connection. Hope to have that worked out for this week.

We talked about using MS Word to merge a list of names and addresses with a document using the MailMerge feature. This is a nice way to personalize a letter being sent to a group of people. They all get the same letter but with their name in the letter. This is what those advertisements you get with your name printed right in the ad are using.

We talked about cloud storage. Amazon gives you unlimited storage for pictures and a limited storage for documents with a Prime account. Without Prime you just have document storage with your free account. Google, on the other hand, gives you 15gb of storage for anything with your free account. And you get unlimited image storage with aps to automatically upload photos taken with your smartphone. And a desktop app for your PC that uploads any pictures stored on your hard drive. We also looked at OneDrive which comes with Windows 10. Whatever you save in your OneDrive folder on your PC automatically saves in the cloud in your Microsoft account. New accounts limited to 5gb. You can purchase more storage with any of these clouds.

Talked about extensions in Google Chrome and specifically how to get thee adblocker exterinoit to limit the number of ads appearing on website.

In the address bar in chrome, type “chrome://extensions/” and hit the Enter key.

Scroll the bottom and click Get more extensions

Type adblock and hit Enter

Click + ADD TO CHROME

Then we tested out the new extension by opening Speedtest.net. A number of ads were blocked. We talked about running this speed test when you internet seems to be slow. Make sure you are getting the speed you are paying for. If you speed is good and you are still running slowly, perhaps it is time to run those maintenance programs to clean you PC.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Presentation Summary 9-6-2016



Make the Windows 10 Start Menu yours...
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Make TinyURL easy to use

On the main screen for TinyURL, click the Make Toolbar Button and follow the instructions. Now when you highlight the URL to be made tiny, just click the shortcut and TinyURL will create its tiny version without any more clicks.
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Word non breaking space. When you have a series of words you do not want to have separated on two lines use a non breaking space between the words. Like with Mark 16:15-18.

Shift+Ctrl+Space
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Automatically hyphenate a Word document
On the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click Hyphenation, and then click Automatic.

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Free spreadsheet that allow you to update Excel files. Gnumeric cannot be installed for Windows, but the portable app works great. This program plus Abiword are great to replace Word and Excel at no cost and little memory use.

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Add favorite programs to the top of Windows 10's Start Menu

http://tinyurl.com/jojs9rl

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How to Get Desktop Icons Up Quickly in Windows 10

http://tinyurl.com/hm5cx38

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GVMate lets you plug a “regular” house phone into your PC and use it with Google Voice eliminating all your phone charges for that house line.

http://tinyurl.com/z7q958a

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Win+S or Q opens the start menu with text input

Ctrl+Esc opens the start menu

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Another great shortcut to remember in Windows 10

Win+i opens the Settings Window

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Magnify

Win+ Increase
Win- Decrease
Win+Esc Reset

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Hiding the webcam

http://tinyurl.com/zfxlse3

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A great set of card games and all online and all free

https://cardgames.io

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Control over automatic downloads

Win+I > Network & Internet

Advance options



Set as metered connection ON