Computer Tips for Travelers

Windows 7: Snapping Windows

chrisadmin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:51:45 +0000

Windows 7 has added several innovative ways to move your windows around the screen, and manage your desktop. A great way to familiarize yourself with them is to watch the Microsoft official Windows 7 videos.

I just want to tell you about one new windows management technique that I now use *all* the time. That is to Maximize the window just by dragging it to the top of your screen. No need to find that little maximize button and click it. No need to remember the keyboard shortcut, just click and drag the top of the window to the top of the screen. When it bumps into the top of the screen, it will snap into the maximized state.

If you’ve got that … then try snapping two windows. You can drag one to the left and the other to the right. They will ’snap’ into place, taking up exactly half of the screen. This is a great way to arrange 2 windows so you can see both at the same time. For example, you could arrange your screen so that Picasa is on the left, and instructions from our PicasaTutorials.com website are on the right.

Note: if you use 2 monitors, like I do, you can only ’snap’ to the left side of the left monitor and the right side of the right monitor.

How to Find Images / Clipart

chrisadmin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:48:05 +0000

We all know that pictures are worth a thousand words. But how do we find the picture that says the right thing? There are millions of images available to us now on the Internet. Did you know that you can ‘google’ for pictures just like you can google for anything else?

Let’s say you wanted an image of a motorhome. You can just google for motorhome, then find the little link that says ‘images.’

Now, instead of 41,000,000 results just for ‘motorhome’, you should be seeing around 1,250,000 images of motorhomes. If you see an image you like, you can right-click on it and either ‘copy image’ or ’save picture as’ to grab yourself a copy of that image.

Copyright Free Images

But, those pictures that Google found for you may belong to someone else. If you’re just using it for something for yourself, that’s one thing, but if you want it for a brochure or website for example, that’s something else. You should find images that are copyright free. If you google for copyright free clipart, you will find a lot, but many of them come with spyware attached. It’s important to trust your source.

I use Microsoft clipart for free, copyright-free images. You can search for just about anything and you can get results that include drawings, or photographs or both. I searched for ‘RV’ to get that group of clipart above. Microsoft gets their images on a promotional basis from some of the best names in the business.

Professional Images

If I need really good images, I’m willing to pay a few dollars to iStockPhoto. It truly blows me away the quality of the photos you can get for just a few dollars. I use them for all the websites I build. When using a photo on a website, you only need the smallest image. It costs more for the larger ones, but they’re really unneccessary on the web.

Updates are Like Rabbits

chrisadmin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:42:07 +0000

Updates, Updates, all those *maddening* updates. I just have to vent. Updates are important, and I will continue to accept them and wait for them to install, but OMG they’ve become SO numerous.

If you live in a house and have a hardwired Internet connection, you probably don’t notice it so much. Just leave your computer on and update automatically. But for folks who travel and have spotty Internet connections, we can spend all of our time downloading updates. I bought a new computer last fall, but the old one still works OK and I keep it in the bedroom to play an occasional movie, or watch TV with a USB TV tuner. Last night I turned it on for the first time in a couple weeks. It had 28 updates waiting to download and install. I fell asleep before it finished!

Ten to fifteen years ago, when Jim was a network administrator, he would often put off updating for a couple months, until they had proven themselves. We don’t have that luxury today, you must update.

Windows comes out with updates once each month, and sometimes more. There are two reasons for updates – to add functionality and to fix bugs. Most bugs today are about security. And, it’s not just Windows. It seems like Adobe Acrobat (necessary for viewing .pdf files) has sent updates almost every week this last couple months. And, programs like your anti-virus software, and Picasa. And now I have updates for the operating system and apps on my Droid cellphone too!

You really need to plug those security holes so you need to get the updates installed ASAP. But, if you feel like cursing at all those updates … I hear you!

Antivirus Slowing Your Computer?

jimadmin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 03:26:08 +0000

Practice Safe Computing.

You need to have security programs (Antivirus and Anti-Spyware) for your computer if you access the Internet.

Security suites are notorious for hogging system resources and requiring frequent updates.

The most popular programs tout many extra features, leading to what is referred to as “bloat”.

These programs will protect you, but in doing so, they will also slow your computer down. Sometimes drastically. They also cost $$.

On their websites, Trend Micro lists 13 major features and subsystems in its security suite, McAfee lists 14, and Symantec lists 33!

Do you need all these features? Probably not. Many of these features duplicate abilities built into Internet Explorer, Firefox and most other popular browsers. They all offer link-checkers, pop-up-blockers, parental controls, and more. Windows (especially Win7) has a very good firewall.

If you are running a business with multiple computers, you may want the support offered with these security suite programs. However, most users can get along with the free versions offered by many Antivirus vendors.

My favorite for many years has been AVG Free. I still like it, but it has fallen prey to feature bloat, too.

Microsoft recognizes the problem and has a free program called Security Essentials. Along with Windows built-in firewall and up to date browsers, you get all the protection and none of the bloat.

Microsoft Security Essentials is what I recommend for most Windows users. It works with XP, Vista, and Win7.

Mac users now have a built in Anti-malware program. They don’t advertise it, because they don’t like to admit that Macs can get infected.

Bottom line: Be smart and stay up to date.

Gmail: How do you organize email messages into folders?

chrisadmin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:34:57 +0000

We all have too much email these days and it’s hard to stay organized. Most email programs give you a way to create folders and store groups of email in those folders. Gmail doesn’t have folders, but it has ‘Labels’ which accomplish the same goal … and then some!

Let’s say that you work freelance for 3 companies A, B, and C. A and B are magazines, and C is a retail store. You want to keep all your correspondence with these companies, so you want a folder for Company A, another for B and a third for C. But, what if you also want to be able to see your emails grouped by Magazines or Retail? You can’t do that with folders, but you can with labels.

How to Apply Labels

With a message open (or any number of messages checked) you click on the menu option for Labels and select the Label you want to apply to that message or those messages. Notice that there are checkboxes next to the Labels so you can apply as many as you want. When you’ve checked all the Labels for the selected message(s) then click Apply. You can also ‘Create New’ to have more Labels available.

How Do you See what Messages have been Labeled?

When you’re looking at the messages in your inbox, you will see the applied labels

The Labels show up on the left sidebar and act like folders. In the image below, the ‘Magazine Stuff’ label is selected, so all the messages which have that label applied are showing up on the right.

How to remove them from the Inbox

The key is to get them out of the inbox without deleting them.

Archive.

Archive is the key. When you archive, the messages leave the Inbox. Where are they? Every message is in a storage area called ‘All Mail.’ Actually, ‘Inbox’ is just another Label. Archiving removes the Inbox label. Messages are in All Mail and can be found by searching for them, or you can view them by Label.

A little more about Archiving

Emails arrive in your inbox, these should be new emails. Once I read or answer an email, I want it out of my inbox. In most email programs, the only way to keep an email but remove it from your inbox is by moving it to a Folder. What if you don’t have a specific category for it, you just don’t want to delete it? In Gmail, you have another choice. You can ‘Archive’ it. That means, ‘Remove it from my Inbox, but keep it in that giant storage bin called ‘All Mail.’ Imagine that your Inbox has 2 trap doors, one for delete and one for keep. Archiving means to drop it thru the trapdoor for keep. It goes to a much bigger box where it can stay indefinitely. You can always find it by using Search.
So now, using Gmail, I read an email message, reply if necessary, and then I just click the Archive button. The message is removed from my Inbox but it is still stored in ‘All Mail’ where I can search for it by any words it contains at any time in the future that I may want to see it again.

Gmail is a little different, but if you take the time to understand it, you’ll find that it is very useful.

Blogger for Small Business

chrisadmin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:19:38 +0000

I’ve been using Blogger for our personal Blog since we began our RVing adventure in 2003. It is drop-dead easy. When I started, it only accepted text – no pictures, no videos. Over the years, they’ve added many capabilities while continuing to keep it drop-dead easy. At times, I’ve toyed with the idea that you could use Blogger for a regular business website, but so far have always opted to advise the use of standard Website building methods, or Wordpress.

Now I can recommend Blogger for a small business website.

The last few months have seen enhancements in Blogger that I think make it a viable choice for a small business who wants to do their website themselves. I’m not talking about a business Blog. I’m talking about a full-blown website. Probably the most important new feature making this possible is the addition of ‘Pages.’ You see, a Blog is made up of dated entries called Posts. Whenever you write a post, it is automatically put in date order with all the other posts. If you wanted to have one page where you listed all your products and prices, you don’t want that page to be dated and published in order with other posts. You want a page to be outside the flow, to stand on it’s own, and to be accessible from a menu. Another example is an ‘About Us’ page.

Blogger calls that a ‘Page’ as opposed to a ‘Post’ and it has been available since late 2009. What was still missing was any way to customize the design of the site so it didn’t look like everybody else’s Blog on Blogger. Blogger’s new Template Designer fills that hole. It is still in draft, but I’ve tried it and it seems to work great while still being very easy.

Blogger Stats

A business also wants to know if anyone is visiting their site. Blogger now has their own ‘Blogger Stats’ that is much more informative than just a hit counter.

Custom Domain

When you create a Blog using Blogger, you get a web address (URL) that ends in .blogspot.com. For example, MyRVStuff.blogspot.com. Most people with a small business don’t want an address like that. They want MyRVStuff.com. You can do that. It’s called a Custom Domain. If you own the domain name e.g. MyRVStuff.com there is a setting in Blogger to make your blog use that address. And, if you don’t already have your domain, you can buy one thru Blogger for $10 for a year.

Your blog/website will be hosted on Blogger’s free servers, but people will get to it by typing the custom domain name. Your viewers will never see .blogspot.com. They type www.MyRVStuff.com and they will see the website you created with Blogger.

Will it Look Professional?

Well, that depends on just how picky you are! Using Blogger’s new Template Designer, you can certainly make it look very nice. But, if you have specific ideas of exactly how you want your website to look, this probably isn’t for you. You may find a third party Blogger template that will work for you, but it has been my experience that once you use features that aren’t part of Blogger’s direct offerings, you may lose some of the functionality that Blogger offers. There is a LOT of offerings though in third party templates, you might find something perfectly suited to your design needs.

If you don’t find anything in Template Designer or in Third Party Templates to suit your needs, then you need a Web Designer, and that can get very expensive. I’m a believer in a small business starting up with what they can afford, and at $0, Blogger is something you can afford. I say, build something that looks nice and is functional, for free. When the business can afford it, you can get fancy!

Show-Me-How Videos on Blogger that apply to this article:

Add a Photo to your Blog Header (Members Only)
Blogger Stats (Free)
Blogger’s Template Designer (Members Only)
Changing Template – using 3d Party Templates (Free)
All Blogger Show-Me-How Videos If you’re not a member of Geeks on Tour, you can Join Today! It’s only $39 for a year of access to all the videos in our Complete Learning Library.

Windows 7 Search

chrisadmin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:57:37 +0000

We’ve been using Windows 7 for 9 months now, and Vista for 2 years before that, so the Search feature is second nature to us now, and if you attended any of our Vista seminars, or watched the videos, you know all about Search too. But, we’ve heard from many people who are just now switching from XP and going to Windows 7. For all of you, PLEASE learn about the Search feature in Windows 7. It makes life with the computer SO much easier!

Using XP – i.e. Before Search

You want to use a program called Excel and it doesn’t have an icon on your desktop. In XP you would click on Start, then All Programs, then Microsoft Office, then Excel. What if you didn’t know that Excel was within Microsoft Office? You’d just keep hunting and hunting, until, tired and frustrated, you either found the program or gave up?
Another example: let’s say you use an obscure bookkeeping program called Easy Bookkeeper. You don’t have a desktop icon for it, and you don’t even remember that it is named ‘Easy.’ You have no idea where in ‘All Programs’ it is, but if you hunt long enough, you might find it in All Programs, Easy Software, Easy Bookkeeper. You’d like to make a desktop icon, but you don’t know how

Enter Vista/Windows 7

Search has now become a way of operating your computer. You don’t need to know where your programs are, let Vista/Windows 7 find it for you. All you have to know is the name of the program.

To use Excel, just click on Start (the ‘Orb’ in the lower left.) You should see that an empty box has opened up directly above the Start button, and your cursor/insertion point is blinking away just waiting for you to type something. Type Excel. If Excel is on your computer, you will see it show up at the top of the list. Now you can just click it, or press Enter if it’s at the top of the list. Excel is now open and running.
Now, what about ‘Easy Bookkeeper’?’ Same thing, just click Start and type the name. If you don’t remember that the name starts with ‘Easy’ you can even type Book and ‘Easy Bookkeeper’ will show up on the list. Select that, and you’re in business.

A New Interface to Using your Computer

This isn’t just a way to search for something you’ve lost! This is a new way to use your computer. You don’t have to find a program and double-click on it. You just click Start, type the name of the program and press Enter. If you’ve been using Windows XP and are now getting a new computer with Windows 7 do yourself a favor and learn the new features. Our video series that was recorded on Windows Vista is applicable to Windows 7 as well. The big changes came in the upgrade to Vista. Windows 7 only has minor user interface changes.

Videos to Watch:

No 1 favorite feature: Search (Free)
Overview of Files and Folders (Members Only)
Desktop Tricks (Members Only

The Best RVing Stories

chrisadmin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:33:43 +0000

If you like to read about RVing, have I got a page for you! Forget about that novel on your bedside table, this will provide you many, many hours of delightful stories.

RV Centennial Stories at RV.net

Did you know that this year marks the 100 year anniversary of RVing? That’s the theme at The Rally, and there are some vintage RVs here to honor it, the earliest being from 1936! We’ll take some pictures today and add them here. And, yes, I had to submit my story as well … actually it’s my parents’ story, since I was only 10 at the time of our first RV trip.

I know I’ve posted this video in the blog before, but I think it bears repeating! Here’s the video I did about my family’s early RVing days:

And, as long as I’m at it, here’s a little video of our current RV home and how we modified it with our offices: And, here’s a brief overview of where we’ve been in this RV so far: In case you’re wondering, all three of the videos above were created using Photo Story 3 – a free program from Microsoft. We’re teaching a seminar on how to do it (it is SOO easy!) on Sunday here at The Rally.

No related posts.

New Fulltime RVers ask, “How do we Get Internet on the Road”

chrisadmin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:29:00 +0000

Email from Ron, “Hi, We are new-bees and are gearing up to doing fulltiming RVing. We need a wireless service that will do our banking, and pay our bills, we also would like to have the the ability to watch netflix, we need to keep the monthly cost as low as possible but still get all of the above. I was hoping if you can recommend a service with in the $80.00 range Thanks Ron

Congratulations on becoming fulltimers!

We got a kick out of the wording of your question. We too would like a service that would pay our bills and do our banking.

Seriously, all wireless technologies have limits. We have used all three. Cellular, Satellite, and WiFi.
Banking and other legitimate money or credit transaction websites have built-in security, so you are safe as long as your computer is clean, up to date, and you are on secure websites. Look in the address bar for HTTPS:// and the lock icon.

Cellular Connections

A wireless cellular data connection will cost about $60/month. If you go with a 2 year contract, the cost of the adapter is often free. We generally recommend Verizon because they have the best overall coverage in the US. Your choice of carrier may be influenced by where you like to travel. Most plans will limit you to 5 Gigabytes per month. A single full length feature film from Netflix is 2 to 3 GB. If you go over the limit, you will be charged per Megabyte. That can add up fast.

Satellite Connections

Satellite Internet will cost about $80/month and the initial investment in equipment is pretty steep. A new automatic system will cost over five thousand dollars, installed. A new portable or manual tripod system will be over a thousand dollars and cost $60/month. Service is limited to less than 400 Megabytes of data in a rolling 24 hour period. Go over that, and your speed will be throttled back drastically. That is called FAP, or Fair Access Policy. There is a FAP-free time overnight to allow for large downloads.

Wi-Fi Connections

Wi-Fi is available in many locations and is often free. No contracts or (usually) download limits. Speed and reliability are the main issues here. Your proximity and orientation to the Access Point is very important. Wi-Fi was never designed to go very far. External adapters can be purchased for better connectivity. If the Wi-Fi hotspot is connected to the Internet with a fast connection, you will have good speeds.

Each hotspot is unique with some requiring passwords. Because it is a shared connection, the number of users on at any one time will affect your Internet experience. Likewise, the types of activity will affect you. Most hotspots are fine for casual browsing and email. High bandwidth activities like streaming movies or VOIP phone calls will slow everyone down.

Safe Travels.
Jim

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Online Medical Records

chrisadmin — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:10:39 +0000

by Chris Guld, www.GeeksonTour.com

When you live fulltime in an RV, like we do, everything you own is with you, including any medical records. What happens if you visit a Doctor in Arizona, and lose the written report? Your medical records will be incomplete, and your regular Doctor in Florida won’t know anything about it. We try to get a printed report any time we visit a Doctor anywhere. But, paperwork is a problem in our small home, even though we took out the couch to add filing drawers.

Don’t Count on your Doctor to Maintain your Records

We just spent the entire winter season in our old hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and considered it a luxury to be able to visit the same Doctors’ office that we did in years passed. When we returned for a followup visit, we found the doors closed, the phone disconnected and NO information. A new doctor needed some old information and I couldn’t give it to her.

Take a Picture

Without those historical records, I had to go get a new Xray of an old knee surgery in order to know whether there was any metal pins or staples in my knee. So, this time, when we were looking at the Xray, I asked if I could take a picture with my cell phone. They said, ‘Sure.’ I also took a picture of the written report. You’d be surprised at the quality of the results. I’ve created a folder on my computer called medical records and it contains photographs of all pertinent records. Now *that* doesn’t take up any space!

MedicAlert

Because of a family member with Alzheimer’s, I’ve been learning about the MedicAlert + Safe Return program. The more I learn, the more I think that *everyone* should have a MedicAlert bracelet. Especially travelers. The bracelet is engraved with your member ID number and the MedicAlert phone number. If you are ever in a situation requiring the services of emergency personnel, they will see the bracelet, call the number and be able to find out the phone numbers for your emergency contacts, as well as any allergies, conditions, and Doctor phone numbers. This is life-saving stuff. If you change Doctors, you go online, log in to your MedicAlert account, and update the information yourself. Easily done. You pay $25/year for the service. There is a MedicAlert ‘Gold’ program for $9.95/mo to store all your records.

Google Health

I have recently started using the free online medical records system by Google at www.Health.Google.com. In addition to allowing me to enter Doctors, Allergies, Conditions, Procedures and Test results, I can also: