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The Computer Tutor — Software How-To
The Computer Tutor

Computer repair, personal computer instruction in Safety Harbor, Clearwater, Tampa, St Pete

Latest Episodes:

speed up your PC — 4 things that actually WILL supercharge your PC Oct 31, 2016
Show notes

Last week we talked about all the nonsense things that are thought to be the “magic pill” to speed up your Windows computer (clean the registry, defrag, etc). Today we’ll talk about what actually DOES speed up your Windows computer.

1. Stop programs from running in the background
When you install software, in many cases it designates itself to start up and run every time you turn on your computer. You might not see a window on your screen that shows it running, but it’s running. And the more programs you have running at the same time, the slower they ALL run. So you need to tell your computer that when you boot it up, it doesn’t need to run all those programs.

In Windows 7, click the Start button and type MSCONFIG and click that when it shows up in the menu. Click the Startup tab, and uncheck anything that doesn’t always need to run.

In Windows 8.1 or 10, hold down Ctrl + Shift and tap Escape. If necessary, click “More details”. Click the Startup tab, then right-click and disable anything that doesn’t always need to run.

Now the big question – which programs need to run all the time and which ones don’t? I can’t really answer that specifically for you, since your list is specific to your computer. Of course you want to always have your antivirus program running, and probably your automated backup software, and programs that are related to the actual functioning of your computer (such as the audio, the touchpad, etc.). If you’re not sure about something, better just leave it there. I can take care of this remotely if you want.

2. Remove viruses – malware – browser junk
If you don’t have a good antivirus program, you might have all kinds of viruses and malware running on your system. These things will really slow things down. If you’re using Norton or McAfee, you need to replace that with a good antivirus. Has your browser home page changed recently? Have you noticed that your searches that used to be on Google are now using some search engine site you’ve never heard of before? Does some odd site show up when you click to open a new tab? These are all signs that your browser is infected with this junk. You need to get rid of that stuff.

There are lots of programs that are designed to remove viruses and malware from your computer. But most of them are created with the idea that it will probably be a technician using them. If you don’t know how to do this, there is the possibility that you could mess things up. This is a process that I can handle for you remotely if you aren’t familiar with how to do it.

3. Add more memory
Memory (also known as RAM) is a different thing from storage space. If you want to know how much memory you have, open File Explorer (Windows key + E) and do a right click on “Computer” or “This PC” and choose Properties.

Most computers being sold today have at least 4 gb of memory. In general, the more memory your computer has, the faster it will run. Most machines will run okay on 4 gb, but if it’s in the budget and you can get 8 gb, that’s even better. Doubling the memory will usually create a noticeable increase in speed.

Memory isn’t something you can download. It’s a physical thing that goes inside the computer. It looks like this:

And you will probably be surprised at how easy it is to install. You can go to YouTube and look up videos on how to install memory in laptop or desktop computers and you’ll see the process is not difficult at all and only takes a few minutes. Definitely worth the effort.

4. Upgrade your hard drive to a solid state drive
You might say I’ve saved the best for last. One of my favorite upgrade projects is replacing a traditional hard disk drive with a solid state drive, because I know the client’s reaction will be amazement at how much faster the computer operates.

Your current desktop computer’s hard drive is basically a metal box, about the size of a paperback book, with some spinning platters on the inside. That’s where your data is stored. If you use a laptop, the drive is smaller but the same mechanical principle applies. With those moving parts, the computer takes longer to boot up and longer to open programs and access your data.

A solid state drive has no moving parts. The data is stored in flash memory, kind of like the storage that’s on your thumb drive. They’re still more expensive than a regular disk drive, but those prices continue to come down and a lot of people are making the switch.

So how much faster is it? Well, think about when you turn on your computer – how long does it take from the time you hit the power button, until the computer is completely booted up, everything is displayed, all of the programs that are supposed to be running (such as your antivirus) are running, and you’re connected to the internet? Some people hit the power button and then go make a cup of coffee and come back rather than sit there and watch it.

With a solid state drive, that process can take as little as 20 seconds. Total. I’ve done several recently that were that fast after the upgrade. In addition to a fast boot time, you’ll also find that individual programs open more quickly, and they also process information more quickly when they’re running. It’s pretty amazing.

Upgrading to a solid state drive is not a project that the average person would want to take on. In addition to physically taking out the current drive and installing and connecting the new drive in the computer, you have to consider the fact that the new drive is blank. All of your software and files and folders need to be brought over. In most cases, I can do that in such a way that everything on your computer looks just like it does now. It will just be a lot faster. If this is of interest, get in touch with me. I just need to get a bit of information from you and then I can let you know what it would cost.

One final thought – even though doing one or all four of these things will speed up your computer, none of them will speed up your internet connection. That’s a separate issue and is directly related to your internet provider and the speed they are able to give you from the modem or router.

The post 4 things that actually WILL supercharge your PC first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

memory — 4 things that actually WILL supercharge your PC Oct 31, 2016
Show notes

Last week we talked about all the nonsense things that are thought to be the “magic pill” to speed up your Windows computer (clean the registry, defrag, etc). Today we’ll talk about what actually DOES speed up your Windows computer.

1. Stop programs from running in the background
When you install software, in many cases it designates itself to start up and run every time you turn on your computer. You might not see a window on your screen that shows it running, but it’s running. And the more programs you have running at the same time, the slower they ALL run. So you need to tell your computer that when you boot it up, it doesn’t need to run all those programs.

In Windows 7, click the Start button and type MSCONFIG and click that when it shows up in the menu. Click the Startup tab, and uncheck anything that doesn’t always need to run.

In Windows 8.1 or 10, hold down Ctrl + Shift and tap Escape. If necessary, click “More details”. Click the Startup tab, then right-click and disable anything that doesn’t always need to run.

Now the big question – which programs need to run all the time and which ones don’t? I can’t really answer that specifically for you, since your list is specific to your computer. Of course you want to always have your antivirus program running, and probably your automated backup software, and programs that are related to the actual functioning of your computer (such as the audio, the touchpad, etc.). If you’re not sure about something, better just leave it there. I can take care of this remotely if you want.

2. Remove viruses – malware – browser junk
If you don’t have a good antivirus program, you might have all kinds of viruses and malware running on your system. These things will really slow things down. If you’re using Norton or McAfee, you need to replace that with a good antivirus. Has your browser home page changed recently? Have you noticed that your searches that used to be on Google are now using some search engine site you’ve never heard of before? Does some odd site show up when you click to open a new tab? These are all signs that your browser is infected with this junk. You need to get rid of that stuff.

There are lots of programs that are designed to remove viruses and malware from your computer. But most of them are created with the idea that it will probably be a technician using them. If you don’t know how to do this, there is the possibility that you could mess things up. This is a process that I can handle for you remotely if you aren’t familiar with how to do it.

3. Add more memory
Memory (also known as RAM) is a different thing from storage space. If you want to know how much memory you have, open File Explorer (Windows key + E) and do a right click on “Computer” or “This PC” and choose Properties.

Most computers being sold today have at least 4 gb of memory. In general, the more memory your computer has, the faster it will run. Most machines will run okay on 4 gb, but if it’s in the budget and you can get 8 gb, that’s even better. Doubling the memory will usually create a noticeable increase in speed.

Memory isn’t something you can download. It’s a physical thing that goes inside the computer. It looks like this:

And you will probably be surprised at how easy it is to install. You can go to YouTube and look up videos on how to install memory in laptop or desktop computers and you’ll see the process is not difficult at all and only takes a few minutes. Definitely worth the effort.

4. Upgrade your hard drive to a solid state drive
You might say I’ve saved the best for last. One of my favorite upgrade projects is replacing a traditional hard disk drive with a solid state drive, because I know the client’s reaction will be amazement at how much faster the computer operates.

Your current desktop computer’s hard drive is basically a metal box, about the size of a paperback book, with some spinning platters on the inside. That’s where your data is stored. If you use a laptop, the drive is smaller but the same mechanical principle applies. With those moving parts, the computer takes longer to boot up and longer to open programs and access your data.

A solid state drive has no moving parts. The data is stored in flash memory, kind of like the storage that’s on your thumb drive. They’re still more expensive than a regular disk drive, but those prices continue to come down and a lot of people are making the switch.

So how much faster is it? Well, think about when you turn on your computer – how long does it take from the time you hit the power button, until the computer is completely booted up, everything is displayed, all of the programs that are supposed to be running (such as your antivirus) are running, and you’re connected to the internet? Some people hit the power button and then go make a cup of coffee and come back rather than sit there and watch it.

With a solid state drive, that process can take as little as 20 seconds. Total. I’ve done several recently that were that fast after the upgrade. In addition to a fast boot time, you’ll also find that individual programs open more quickly, and they also process information more quickly when they’re running. It’s pretty amazing.

Upgrading to a solid state drive is not a project that the average person would want to take on. In addition to physically taking out the current drive and installing and connecting the new drive in the computer, you have to consider the fact that the new drive is blank. All of your software and files and folders need to be brought over. In most cases, I can do that in such a way that everything on your computer looks just like it does now. It will just be a lot faster. If this is of interest, get in touch with me. I just need to get a bit of information from you and then I can let you know what it would cost.

One final thought – even though doing one or all four of these things will speed up your computer, none of them will speed up your internet connection. That’s a separate issue and is directly related to your internet provider and the speed they are able to give you from the modem or router.

The post 4 things that actually WILL supercharge your PC first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

junkware — 5 Things you DON’T need to do for your computer Oct 24, 2016
Show notes

For a long time, there have been programs advertised on the internet that promise to speed up your computer. They usually go by names like “PC Optimizer”, “Perfect Speed”, “Ultimate Optimizer” or other similar sounding names, and they want you to think that if you just buy this program, your computer will be SOOO much faster. Sorry, not true.

Here are 5 common things these junk programs offer to do:

Clean the Registry. Ah, of course, the infamous Windows Registry. Most people don’t even know what the Registry is, but some program says it needs to be “cleaned” so it must need to be cleaned, right? No. Virtually every Windows computer has stray registry entries or other little inconsistencies, but the effect of this on your computer’s speed is trivial. You don’t need to clean your Registry.

Update the drivers. “Drivers” isn’t really a descriptive name for what these things are. It really just means the software that lets your computer communicate with other devices such as your printer, your monitor, your mouse, etc. I’m a pretty firm believer in “if it’s working, leave it alone”. So if you get something that says “you need to update your drivers to speed up your computer!” I recommend just ignoring it. In fact, sometimes “updated” drivers actually do more harm than good.

Clean out temp files. Another mostly useless task. “Temp” files are just what the name implies – temporary. When you view a web page, your computer might be storing all of the images on that page temporarily on your hard drive. That means if you go back to that same web page tomorrow, it will load more quickly because the images are being pulled from your hard drive instead of downloading from the internet again. But you could have hundreds or thousands of temp files on your computer, and getting rid of them won’t usually make any noticeable difference in speed. Not that it’s a bad thing to do; it just doesn’t do a lot.

Clear your website history and search history. This is basically just a list of websites you’ve visited and searches you’ve done. This information takes up virtually no space on your drive, so deleting these things won’t free up any space. And sometimes it’s handy if you’re trying to think of something you saw on a website a few days ago, to go back in your browser history and find it. Of course, deleting your website and search history would keep other people on your computer from seeing it, which might be a reason. But it’s not going to improve your computer’s performance.

Run a separate defrag program. If you’re running Windows 7 or later, your computer defrags itself on a regular basis. No need to have a third-party software installed to do this.

So when you see these junkware programs telling you to do all these things, just ignore them. If you do want to do these things anyway, you could do it yourself from within Windows.

Or, if you are dead-set on having software to do it for you, you can do it with CCleaner – which is free here. But be careful installing it, because it will try to put other stuff on your computer. And when you’re done with it, uninstall it or it will want to run in the background all the time. It will clean your registry, and remove temp files, and delete your history, but since none of that has any real effect, why bother?

The post 5 Things you DON’T need to do for your computer first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

listen to my podcast in iTunes — 5 Things you DON’T need to do for your computer Oct 24, 2016
Show notes

For a long time, there have been programs advertised on the internet that promise to speed up your computer. They usually go by names like “PC Optimizer”, “Perfect Speed”, “Ultimate Optimizer” or other similar sounding names, and they want you to think that if you just buy this program, your computer will be SOOO much faster. Sorry, not true.

Here are 5 common things these junk programs offer to do:

Clean the Registry. Ah, of course, the infamous Windows Registry. Most people don’t even know what the Registry is, but some program says it needs to be “cleaned” so it must need to be cleaned, right? No. Virtually every Windows computer has stray registry entries or other little inconsistencies, but the effect of this on your computer’s speed is trivial. You don’t need to clean your Registry.

Update the drivers. “Drivers” isn’t really a descriptive name for what these things are. It really just means the software that lets your computer communicate with other devices such as your printer, your monitor, your mouse, etc. I’m a pretty firm believer in “if it’s working, leave it alone”. So if you get something that says “you need to update your drivers to speed up your computer!” I recommend just ignoring it. In fact, sometimes “updated” drivers actually do more harm than good.

Clean out temp files. Another mostly useless task. “Temp” files are just what the name implies – temporary. When you view a web page, your computer might be storing all of the images on that page temporarily on your hard drive. That means if you go back to that same web page tomorrow, it will load more quickly because the images are being pulled from your hard drive instead of downloading from the internet again. But you could have hundreds or thousands of temp files on your computer, and getting rid of them won’t usually make any noticeable difference in speed. Not that it’s a bad thing to do; it just doesn’t do a lot.

Clear your website history and search history. This is basically just a list of websites you’ve visited and searches you’ve done. This information takes up virtually no space on your drive, so deleting these things won’t free up any space. And sometimes it’s handy if you’re trying to think of something you saw on a website a few days ago, to go back in your browser history and find it. Of course, deleting your website and search history would keep other people on your computer from seeing it, which might be a reason. But it’s not going to improve your computer’s performance.

Run a separate defrag program. If you’re running Windows 7 or later, your computer defrags itself on a regular basis. No need to have a third-party software installed to do this.

So when you see these junkware programs telling you to do all these things, just ignore them. If you do want to do these things anyway, you could do it yourself from within Windows.

Or, if you are dead-set on having software to do it for you, you can do it with CCleaner – which is free here. But be careful installing it, because it will try to put other stuff on your computer. And when you’re done with it, uninstall it or it will want to run in the background all the time. It will clean your registry, and remove temp files, and delete your history, but since none of that has any real effect, why bother?

The post 5 Things you DON’T need to do for your computer first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

HP printers — The HP printer fiasco and what I recommend Oct 17, 2016
Show notes

A lot of major corporations these days are doing some pretty sketchy things. Recently HP confirmed that they are definitely on the list of companies who don’t mind doing sneaky/slimy things to their customers just to make more money.

I’ve been wary of HP for a long time, mainly because of what I see when I install an HP printer. They use the same subversive methods as a lot of other companies do, in trying to sneak software on to your computer. If you just go through the “default” installation process, you’ll end up with the “Shop for HP Supplies” icon on the desktop, the Yahoo toolbar in your web browsers, and a few other things that most people would decline if they were aware of the option to decline. To avoid those things you have to find the “customize” link during the installation and UNcheck all those things you don’t want. It’s the same slimy method used by the people that put malware and adware on the computers of unsuspecting people.

But a few weeks ago, HP really let their true colors shine through.

A little background first. Do you know why inkjet printers are so cheap these days? It’s because all the profit is made through the ink cartridge sales. HP doesn’t really care if they practically give away the printers, since they are planning on making such a huge profit on that darn ink.

To put this in perspective…

Human blood costs about USD $1500 per gallon. Not that it’s expensive to acquire, but the processing after the acquisition is what comprises a lot of that cost. That makes paying $3 for a gallon of gasoline seem really cheap. But regular black ink – the kind you purchase by the ounce wherever you buy your inkjet cartridges – comes in at a whopping $2700 per gallon. No wonder HP wants to sell a lot of that ink! And of course they want you to keep buying it regularly.

What HP really hates is when those high profit margins are cut into by the non-HP ink cartridges. You know, those third-party cartridges that are much less expensive but in many cases produce just as good a result as the high-priced “genuine” HP ink cartridges.

So, HP came up with this scheme to make their printers actually NOT WORK when a non-HP ink cartridge is used. And they even took it a step further by implementing a time-delay feature. They sent out what they called a “security update” this past March, which had the “printer time bomb” in it, but didn’t activate it until just last month (September). When this was activated, users who had third-party ink cartridges in their HP printers found themselves with a printer that would only display error messages. HP effectively broke their printer.

Obviously this resulted in a LOT of very angry and frustrated customers. And rightly so.

The good guys in this situation is a group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (you can learn more about this great organization at www.eff.org). EFF wrote an open letter to HP very quickly, pointing out the problems with what HP had done. The major points of the letter are:

HP deprived its customers of a useful, legitimate feature. HP customers should choose HP ink because it’s the best, not because their printer won’t work with a competitor’s brand of ink.

HP abused its security update mechanism to trick its customers. People expect a “security update” to be a necessary patch to prevent security problems, not a tool to deliver an anti-feature. This means that many people will now doubt the patch process (as they should).

The time-delay feature was a bait-and-switch. People bought HP printers with the assumption that they would work with third-party ink cartridges. Now they are left with a less-useful printer, and perhaps a pile of useless competitor cartridges.

In response to all the backlash to this stupid move, HP has been forced to announce that they will offer another firmware update (optional of course) that would reverse the one that broke a lot of printers last month. But in true “corporate” fashion, they defended this dumb move by saying they only wanted the “best printing experience” for their customers, and they were trying to protect consumers from “potential security risks”. Yeah right.

What should you do? I can only tell you what I’ve done and what I recommend:

I use a Brother all-in-one printer and love it. No more HP printers for me.

Sign the EFF petition here to tell HP what you think of this.

Get away from buying ink cartridges completely, by using a laser printer. My Brother is a laser printer that only uses black toner, which is MUCH cheaper than ink, and I only replace the toner cartridge maybe once every 12-18 months (that might be different for you, depending on how much printing you do). You can also get laser printers that print in color if you need that.

The post The HP printer fiasco and what I recommend first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

listen to my podcast in iTunes — The HP printer fiasco and what I recommend Oct 17, 2016
Show notes

A lot of major corporations these days are doing some pretty sketchy things. Recently HP confirmed that they are definitely on the list of companies who don’t mind doing sneaky/slimy things to their customers just to make more money.

I’ve been wary of HP for a long time, mainly because of what I see when I install an HP printer. They use the same subversive methods as a lot of other companies do, in trying to sneak software on to your computer. If you just go through the “default” installation process, you’ll end up with the “Shop for HP Supplies” icon on the desktop, the Yahoo toolbar in your web browsers, and a few other things that most people would decline if they were aware of the option to decline. To avoid those things you have to find the “customize” link during the installation and UNcheck all those things you don’t want. It’s the same slimy method used by the people that put malware and adware on the computers of unsuspecting people.

But a few weeks ago, HP really let their true colors shine through.

A little background first. Do you know why inkjet printers are so cheap these days? It’s because all the profit is made through the ink cartridge sales. HP doesn’t really care if they practically give away the printers, since they are planning on making such a huge profit on that darn ink.

To put this in perspective…

Human blood costs about USD $1500 per gallon. Not that it’s expensive to acquire, but the processing after the acquisition is what comprises a lot of that cost. That makes paying $3 for a gallon of gasoline seem really cheap. But regular black ink – the kind you purchase by the ounce wherever you buy your inkjet cartridges – comes in at a whopping $2700 per gallon. No wonder HP wants to sell a lot of that ink! And of course they want you to keep buying it regularly.

What HP really hates is when those high profit margins are cut into by the non-HP ink cartridges. You know, those third-party cartridges that are much less expensive but in many cases produce just as good a result as the high-priced “genuine” HP ink cartridges.

So, HP came up with this scheme to make their printers actually NOT WORK when a non-HP ink cartridge is used. And they even took it a step further by implementing a time-delay feature. They sent out what they called a “security update” this past March, which had the “printer time bomb” in it, but didn’t activate it until just last month (September). When this was activated, users who had third-party ink cartridges in their HP printers found themselves with a printer that would only display error messages. HP effectively broke their printer.

Obviously this resulted in a LOT of very angry and frustrated customers. And rightly so.

The good guys in this situation is a group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (you can learn more about this great organization at www.eff.org). EFF wrote an open letter to HP very quickly, pointing out the problems with what HP had done. The major points of the letter are:

HP deprived its customers of a useful, legitimate feature. HP customers should choose HP ink because it’s the best, not because their printer won’t work with a competitor’s brand of ink.

HP abused its security update mechanism to trick its customers. People expect a “security update” to be a necessary patch to prevent security problems, not a tool to deliver an anti-feature. This means that many people will now doubt the patch process (as they should).

The time-delay feature was a bait-and-switch. People bought HP printers with the assumption that they would work with third-party ink cartridges. Now they are left with a less-useful printer, and perhaps a pile of useless competitor cartridges.

In response to all the backlash to this stupid move, HP has been forced to announce that they will offer another firmware update (optional of course) that would reverse the one that broke a lot of printers last month. But in true “corporate” fashion, they defended this dumb move by saying they only wanted the “best printing experience” for their customers, and they were trying to protect consumers from “potential security risks”. Yeah right.

What should you do? I can only tell you what I’ve done and what I recommend:

I use a Brother all-in-one printer and love it. No more HP printers for me.

Sign the EFF petition here to tell HP what you think of this.

Get away from buying ink cartridges completely, by using a laser printer. My Brother is a laser printer that only uses black toner, which is MUCH cheaper than ink, and I only replace the toner cartridge maybe once every 12-18 months (that might be different for you, depending on how much printing you do). You can also get laser printers that print in color if you need that.

The post The HP printer fiasco and what I recommend first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Facebook hidden features — 3 little-known things you can do with Facebook Oct 10, 2016
Show notes

Most of us are on Facebook every day and pretty much do the same things – look at what our friends have posted, maybe post a new status of our own sometimes. But there are some things you can do with Facebook that a lot of people don’t know about. Today I’ll show you 3 of them.

1. Get a copy of everything you’ve ever posted on Facebook

For some people, that’s a TON of stuff – photos, videos and status updates. Just click the drop-down menu that shows the “Settings” option, click on that and look at the “General” tab:

When you click that, you see this:

Click “Start my Archive”. You’ll have to enter your Facebook password again, then Facebook will start organizing your entire archive of content and they’ll send you an email when it’s ready for you. Mine took about 10 minutes.

When it’s ready, click the link in the email to download, enter your password again, and you can download everything in a .zip folder. Open it up and there’s all your stuff!

2. Designate what happens to your Facebook account after you die

If you have had a Facebook friend who has passed away, you might have wondered this yourself. Wouldn’t it be ideal to have some kind of final post on your Facebook status to let all your friends know when you have died? I mean, obviously some of your real-life friends and family would already know, but a lot of them would have no idea. In anticipation of this, you can designate someone to be what Facebook calls your “Legacy Contact”. You just choose someone who will be able to log in to your account and write a pinned post (meaning that post stays at the top) to let everyone know you are no longer around.

To do this, log in to Facebook and go to Settings -> Security -> Legacy Contact. Find the Legacy Contact “Edit” option and you can enter one of your friends to have this job. Of course, it needs to be someone you trust.

3. Upload a 360 degree picture or video

You’ve probably seen some of those cool pictures or videos that a friend has uploaded to Facebook. As you move your phone around, you can see a full 360 degree view – just like you’re standing where the person was when they took the picture.

This doesn’t require any expensive equipment. You just need your smartphone and the Google Street View app (free for Android and iOS). Basically you just run that app and open the Camera option within the app. Then you take a picture, move to the right a little and the app takes a picture on its own when it’s lined up properly with the previous one. You just keep doing that, save the file, and then upload the picture to Facebook.

Here’s a video showing how to do this:

The post 3 little-known things you can do with Facebook first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Facebook general settings — 3 little-known things you can do with Facebook Oct 10, 2016
Show notes

Most of us are on Facebook every day and pretty much do the same things – look at what our friends have posted, maybe post a new status of our own sometimes. But there are some things you can do with Facebook that a lot of people don’t know about. Today I’ll show you 3 of them.

1. Get a copy of everything you’ve ever posted on Facebook

For some people, that’s a TON of stuff – photos, videos and status updates. Just click the drop-down menu that shows the “Settings” option, click on that and look at the “General” tab:

When you click that, you see this:

Click “Start my Archive”. You’ll have to enter your Facebook password again, then Facebook will start organizing your entire archive of content and they’ll send you an email when it’s ready for you. Mine took about 10 minutes.

When it’s ready, click the link in the email to download, enter your password again, and you can download everything in a .zip folder. Open it up and there’s all your stuff!

2. Designate what happens to your Facebook account after you die

If you have had a Facebook friend who has passed away, you might have wondered this yourself. Wouldn’t it be ideal to have some kind of final post on your Facebook status to let all your friends know when you have died? I mean, obviously some of your real-life friends and family would already know, but a lot of them would have no idea. In anticipation of this, you can designate someone to be what Facebook calls your “Legacy Contact”. You just choose someone who will be able to log in to your account and write a pinned post (meaning that post stays at the top) to let everyone know you are no longer around.

To do this, log in to Facebook and go to Settings -> Security -> Legacy Contact. Find the Legacy Contact “Edit” option and you can enter one of your friends to have this job. Of course, it needs to be someone you trust.

3. Upload a 360 degree picture or video

You’ve probably seen some of those cool pictures or videos that a friend has uploaded to Facebook. As you move your phone around, you can see a full 360 degree view – just like you’re standing where the person was when they took the picture.

This doesn’t require any expensive equipment. You just need your smartphone and the Google Street View app (free for Android and iOS). Basically you just run that app and open the Camera option within the app. Then you take a picture, move to the right a little and the app takes a picture on its own when it’s lined up properly with the previous one. You just keep doing that, save the file, and then upload the picture to Facebook.

Here’s a video showing how to do this:

The post 3 little-known things you can do with Facebook first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Yahoo hack — The Yahoo data hack – what it means to YOU Oct 03, 2016
Show notes

Yahoo recently announced that hackers were able to get into their system and steal a lot of personal information. Here’s what you need to know, and what you need to do.

When did the data breach take place?

This is one of the more concerning factors about this problem. Yahoo says that the hack into their servers actually happened back in 2014 – 2 years ago. This means that the 500 million users that were affected by this have gone for two years not even knowing there was a problem. The real question is, when did Yahoo find out about it? If they knew about it in 2014, then they have acted quite irresponsibly in not announcing it. If they just found out about it, how can their security systems and processes be so lax that a breach of this magnitude can go unnoticed for two years?

What information was stolen?

Yahoo has concluded from their investigation that these things may have been stolen:

User’s names

User’s email addresses

User’s dates of birth

User’s telephone numbers

User’s passwords

User’s security questions and answers

Does this only affect Yahoo email users?

Unfortunately, probably not. Yahoo owns several other popular websites, including Flickr and Tumblr. They also own the popular fantasy football site called Rivals. If you currently have, or have ever had, an account at any of those sites, you need to change your password and security questions right away.

What do you need to do?

If you have ever had a Yahoo account, or an account with any of the sites mentioned above, yes you need to do a few things:

1. Change your password
This might seem obvious, but it is something you need to do. And as long as you’re changing your password, make it a strong one (just random letters and numbers that don’t have any meaning) and don’t use any password that you’ve used on any other account.

2. Create new security questions
You might be prompted to do this anyway when you change your password. But if not, it would be a good idea to change those questions that are used to confirm your identity (like your mother’s maiden name, what was your first car, etc.) since the hackers could have those questions (and the answers). They could potentially still use those questions and answers to get into some of your other accounts, but changing them on Yahoo is just another precaution.

3. Change password on other sites where that password was used
This might be the most important step. Think about the original password that you had with Yahoo (before you just changed it). If you have used that password on any other online accounts, you need to go to THOSE accounts and change the password there as well. Think about it. If your Yahoo email was “redsoxfan1975@yahoo.com” it’s possible that you used that email as the user name on lots of other accounts, such as Facebook, your bank account, YouTube, medical records, the power company, etc. So the hacker will use software to try logging in to tons of other accounts using that email address and the password they stole from the Yahoo records. This is the danger of using the same password across multiple accounts. I know it’s much easier to just remember one password for everything, but it also makes it a lot easier for the hackers.

4. Don’t use Yahoo
If this were the only data breach Yahoo has had, that would be one thing. But this happens repeatedly to them. They have proven that they are incapable of keeping your data private and secure. I would even go so far to say Yahoo may be almost as incompetent as AOL. I opened a Yahoo account many years ago, before Gmail even existed, and one of the big reasons I switched to Gmail was because Yahoo’s email spam filters were worthless – my inbox was constantly filled with emails that were clearly spam, but Yahoo couldn’t figure out how to filter them out. That was just one of several reasons I switched to Gmail in 2004 and have been very happy with Gmail since then.

The post The Yahoo data hack – what it means to YOU first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

listen to my podcast in iTunes — The Yahoo data hack – what it means to YOU Oct 03, 2016
Show notes

Yahoo recently announced that hackers were able to get into their system and steal a lot of personal information. Here’s what you need to know, and what you need to do.

When did the data breach take place?

This is one of the more concerning factors about this problem. Yahoo says that the hack into their servers actually happened back in 2014 – 2 years ago. This means that the 500 million users that were affected by this have gone for two years not even knowing there was a problem. The real question is, when did Yahoo find out about it? If they knew about it in 2014, then they have acted quite irresponsibly in not announcing it. If they just found out about it, how can their security systems and processes be so lax that a breach of this magnitude can go unnoticed for two years?

What information was stolen?

Yahoo has concluded from their investigation that these things may have been stolen:

User’s names

User’s email addresses

User’s dates of birth

User’s telephone numbers

User’s passwords

User’s security questions and answers

Does this only affect Yahoo email users?

Unfortunately, probably not. Yahoo owns several other popular websites, including Flickr and Tumblr. They also own the popular fantasy football site called Rivals. If you currently have, or have ever had, an account at any of those sites, you need to change your password and security questions right away.

What do you need to do?

If you have ever had a Yahoo account, or an account with any of the sites mentioned above, yes you need to do a few things:

1. Change your password
This might seem obvious, but it is something you need to do. And as long as you’re changing your password, make it a strong one (just random letters and numbers that don’t have any meaning) and don’t use any password that you’ve used on any other account.

2. Create new security questions
You might be prompted to do this anyway when you change your password. But if not, it would be a good idea to change those questions that are used to confirm your identity (like your mother’s maiden name, what was your first car, etc.) since the hackers could have those questions (and the answers). They could potentially still use those questions and answers to get into some of your other accounts, but changing them on Yahoo is just another precaution.

3. Change password on other sites where that password was used
This might be the most important step. Think about the original password that you had with Yahoo (before you just changed it). If you have used that password on any other online accounts, you need to go to THOSE accounts and change the password there as well. Think about it. If your Yahoo email was “redsoxfan1975@yahoo.com” it’s possible that you used that email as the user name on lots of other accounts, such as Facebook, your bank account, YouTube, medical records, the power company, etc. So the hacker will use software to try logging in to tons of other accounts using that email address and the password they stole from the Yahoo records. This is the danger of using the same password across multiple accounts. I know it’s much easier to just remember one password for everything, but it also makes it a lot easier for the hackers.

4. Don’t use Yahoo
If this were the only data breach Yahoo has had, that would be one thing. But this happens repeatedly to them. They have proven that they are incapable of keeping your data private and secure. I would even go so far to say Yahoo may be almost as incompetent as AOL. I opened a Yahoo account many years ago, before Gmail even existed, and one of the big reasons I switched to Gmail was because Yahoo’s email spam filters were worthless – my inbox was constantly filled with emails that were clearly spam, but Yahoo couldn’t figure out how to filter them out. That was just one of several reasons I switched to Gmail in 2004 and have been very happy with Gmail since then.

The post The Yahoo data hack – what it means to YOU first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Frustrated user waiting on Windows Updates — Shut down your Windows computer WITHOUT waiting for updates to finish Sep 26, 2016
Show notes

It’s one of the most frustrating things about Windows. You go to shut off your computer, and rather than just shut down, it decides it’s time to install a bunch of updates. So you wait and wait while this happens, all the while wondering why your computer is forcing you to stand there and watch it until it says you can go. There’s an easier way!

Don’t get me wrong – Windows Updates are important. They are sent out on the second Tuesday of each month, which is called Patch Tuesday because most Windows Updates are little pieces of code that patch up security holes or software bugs that have been recently discovered. In a few rare cases, a Windows Update has been known to cause a problem, but that’s very uncommon. So you should get those updates when they come out, in order to keep your computer as safe and secure as possible.

There are two steps in the Windows Update process:

Downloading the updates

Installing the updates

The downloading part of the process you probably don’t even notice, since it happens in the background even when you’re using the computer. Or it might happen overnight, when you’re not using the computer.

So the updates are downloaded, and then they’re just sitting there waiting to be installed. At this point, if you don’t do anything with your computer, those updates will be installed automatically at 3 am the next day. BUT – if you happen to decide to shut down your computer or restart it before that, the updates will want to install right then.

For me, this usually happens at a really inconvenient time. Like when a client is coming to pick up their computer and they’ve checked it all out and everything is repaired and working properly, so we go to shut it down and now we have to wait for the updates to install. I actually try to get any Windows Updates while I’m working on it, but sometimes that happens. Or, if I hear thunder or see lightning, I immediately go around and unplug all the computers from the wall in order to avoid any voltage surge problems. At a time like that, I really don’t like waiting for the computer to finish getting all the updates while there’s an electrical storm happening.

Fortunately, there is a way to turn off your computer and SKIP installing those updates. You’ll still need to get them, but you just don’t have to get them right that minute.

Here’s how you shut down your computer and skip the installation of Windows Updates.

Close all open windows so you are just looking at the desktop with the icons.

Hold down the ALT key and tap the F4 key. This brings up the Windows Shutdown dialogue. In the drop-down menu, just choose “Shut down”. If there are updates waiting, there will be other menu options such as “Update and shut down” or “Update and restart”, which of course you don’t want to use.

This is the menu in Windows 10 (just not showing those other two update options since my computer isn’t currently waiting to install any updates):

This is what it looks like in Windows 7:

What you DON’T want to do is to get in the habit of just using this shut down menu to continually put off getting those Windows Updates. This is just a way to get around it at the moment if you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for them to install.

The post Shut down your Windows computer WITHOUT waiting for updates to finish first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Windows 10 shutdown menu — Shut down your Windows computer WITHOUT waiting for updates to finish Sep 26, 2016
Show notes

It’s one of the most frustrating things about Windows. You go to shut off your computer, and rather than just shut down, it decides it’s time to install a bunch of updates. So you wait and wait while this happens, all the while wondering why your computer is forcing you to stand there and watch it until it says you can go. There’s an easier way!

Don’t get me wrong – Windows Updates are important. They are sent out on the second Tuesday of each month, which is called Patch Tuesday because most Windows Updates are little pieces of code that patch up security holes or software bugs that have been recently discovered. In a few rare cases, a Windows Update has been known to cause a problem, but that’s very uncommon. So you should get those updates when they come out, in order to keep your computer as safe and secure as possible.

There are two steps in the Windows Update process:

Downloading the updates

Installing the updates

The downloading part of the process you probably don’t even notice, since it happens in the background even when you’re using the computer. Or it might happen overnight, when you’re not using the computer.

So the updates are downloaded, and then they’re just sitting there waiting to be installed. At this point, if you don’t do anything with your computer, those updates will be installed automatically at 3 am the next day. BUT – if you happen to decide to shut down your computer or restart it before that, the updates will want to install right then.

For me, this usually happens at a really inconvenient time. Like when a client is coming to pick up their computer and they’ve checked it all out and everything is repaired and working properly, so we go to shut it down and now we have to wait for the updates to install. I actually try to get any Windows Updates while I’m working on it, but sometimes that happens. Or, if I hear thunder or see lightning, I immediately go around and unplug all the computers from the wall in order to avoid any voltage surge problems. At a time like that, I really don’t like waiting for the computer to finish getting all the updates while there’s an electrical storm happening.

Fortunately, there is a way to turn off your computer and SKIP installing those updates. You’ll still need to get them, but you just don’t have to get them right that minute.

Here’s how you shut down your computer and skip the installation of Windows Updates.

Close all open windows so you are just looking at the desktop with the icons.

Hold down the ALT key and tap the F4 key. This brings up the Windows Shutdown dialogue. In the drop-down menu, just choose “Shut down”. If there are updates waiting, there will be other menu options such as “Update and shut down” or “Update and restart”, which of course you don’t want to use.

This is the menu in Windows 10 (just not showing those other two update options since my computer isn’t currently waiting to install any updates):

This is what it looks like in Windows 7:

What you DON’T want to do is to get in the habit of just using this shut down menu to continually put off getting those Windows Updates. This is just a way to get around it at the moment if you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for them to install.

The post Shut down your Windows computer WITHOUT waiting for updates to finish first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

padlock — How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 2 Sep 19, 2016
Show notes

Last week we talked about a “low-security” way to keep someone out of a particular file or folder, just by “hiding” it. Today is part 2, and this procedure uses a separate program to provide a much higher level of security.

Rather than just protecting a file by making not readily visible, this process encrypts it so that in order to be viewed, a password needs to be entered.

The program we’re using for this is called AxCrypt, and you can download it at AxCrypt.net.

AxCrypt has both a free version, and a paid version. Obviously you get more features with the paid version, but the biggest difference I can see is that the paid version allows you to encrypt entire folders, whereas the free version only allows individual files to be encrypted. The paid version is 24 Euros per year, which currently converts to about $27 in US dollars.

So, in order to use the free version, you just need to encrypt all of your individual files (pictures, documents, spreadsheets, etc). You might find it easier to just create a folder for all of those files. Someone would still be able to get into the folder, but they wouldn’t be able to open any of those files unless they have the password.

Here’s how you get AxCrypt set up on your Windows computer:

1) Go to the website AxCrypt.net and click the Download link at the top

2) Click the download button that is appropriate for your computer. For most people it would be 64 bit, unless you’re using a computer that is pretty old.

3) After the download has completed, double click to run it and follow the standard installation process:

4) When AxCrypt runs for the first time, you have to enter your email address:

5) Then you’ll get an email with a 6-digit code to confirm that it’s actually your email:

6) This is the email:

7) After you have confirmed your email, you’ll need to create a password. Remember, as with all passwords, it should be strong and unique (not a password you have used anywhere else). That will activate your account.

8) Finally, you can now sign in to your account:

Now you can start using the program. To try it out, create a test file such as a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, or just a regular text file with Notepad. Save that test file in your Documents folder. In the example below, I created a text document called “TEST FILE.txt”. When you right click on that file, the menu that comes up will have an entry for AxCrypt. Just mouse over that menu, and another one will fly out to the size, and you can choose to Encrypt that test file.

When that file becomes encrypted, you will notice two things about it. First, the icon changes to the AxCrypt icon (the padlock). And the file extension changes to “.axx”. These things are how you can tell at a glance that a file has been encrypted with AxCrypt:

Whenever you’re working on your computer, it’s good to make sure you are signed OUT of your AxCrypt account. You can do that by right-clicking on a file and this time choosing “Sign out”. That way, if someone tries to get into any of your encrypted files, they will need to sign in with your password in order to gain access.

And of course, you can decrypt a file by going through the same right-click process and choosing “Decrypt”. You’ll be asked for your AxCrypt password, and that file will be decrypted and viewable by anyone.

If you have a need to encrypt a specific folder, or multiple folders, it might make sense for you to get the paid version. Otherwise, for most people with just a single file or a few files that need to be protected, the free version is sufficient.

Here are a couple of videos from the AxCrypt website that show more detail. The first one is for setting up your AxCrypt account, and the second one is getting started with using it.

https://youtu.be/grEu_gglHB4

https://youtu.be/FXa7RnikL7Q

The post How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 2 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

axcrypt — How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 2 Sep 19, 2016
Show notes

Last week we talked about a “low-security” way to keep someone out of a particular file or folder, just by “hiding” it. Today is part 2, and this procedure uses a separate program to provide a much higher level of security.

Rather than just protecting a file by making not readily visible, this process encrypts it so that in order to be viewed, a password needs to be entered.

The program we’re using for this is called AxCrypt, and you can download it at AxCrypt.net.

AxCrypt has both a free version, and a paid version. Obviously you get more features with the paid version, but the biggest difference I can see is that the paid version allows you to encrypt entire folders, whereas the free version only allows individual files to be encrypted. The paid version is 24 Euros per year, which currently converts to about $27 in US dollars.

So, in order to use the free version, you just need to encrypt all of your individual files (pictures, documents, spreadsheets, etc). You might find it easier to just create a folder for all of those files. Someone would still be able to get into the folder, but they wouldn’t be able to open any of those files unless they have the password.

Here’s how you get AxCrypt set up on your Windows computer:

1) Go to the website AxCrypt.net and click the Download link at the top

2) Click the download button that is appropriate for your computer. For most people it would be 64 bit, unless you’re using a computer that is pretty old.

3) After the download has completed, double click to run it and follow the standard installation process:

4) When AxCrypt runs for the first time, you have to enter your email address:

5) Then you’ll get an email with a 6-digit code to confirm that it’s actually your email:

6) This is the email:

7) After you have confirmed your email, you’ll need to create a password. Remember, as with all passwords, it should be strong and unique (not a password you have used anywhere else). That will activate your account.

8) Finally, you can now sign in to your account:

Now you can start using the program. To try it out, create a test file such as a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, or just a regular text file with Notepad. Save that test file in your Documents folder. In the example below, I created a text document called “TEST FILE.txt”. When you right click on that file, the menu that comes up will have an entry for AxCrypt. Just mouse over that menu, and another one will fly out to the size, and you can choose to Encrypt that test file.

When that file becomes encrypted, you will notice two things about it. First, the icon changes to the AxCrypt icon (the padlock). And the file extension changes to “.axx”. These things are how you can tell at a glance that a file has been encrypted with AxCrypt:

Whenever you’re working on your computer, it’s good to make sure you are signed OUT of your AxCrypt account. You can do that by right-clicking on a file and this time choosing “Sign out”. That way, if someone tries to get into any of your encrypted files, they will need to sign in with your password in order to gain access.

And of course, you can decrypt a file by going through the same right-click process and choosing “Decrypt”. You’ll be asked for your AxCrypt password, and that file will be decrypted and viewable by anyone.

If you have a need to encrypt a specific folder, or multiple folders, it might make sense for you to get the paid version. Otherwise, for most people with just a single file or a few files that need to be protected, the free version is sufficient.

Here are a couple of videos from the AxCrypt website that show more detail. The first one is for setting up your AxCrypt account, and the second one is getting started with using it.

https://youtu.be/grEu_gglHB4

https://youtu.be/FXa7RnikL7Q

The post How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 2 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

lock a folder — How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 1 Sep 12, 2016
Show notes

I recently got this email from a podcast listener:

Dear Scott, I live in Dubai and I enjoy your weekly podcast, which is simple and informative. Please keep up the good work! Scott, could you please cover in a future podcast how I can create (in Windows 10) a normal file folder but one that can be password protected. So, for example, if I hand over my laptop to a friend or colleague, I can simple shift my personal files to that folder and then move them back when I need to. Or else, all those files that are private I can file in my password protected folder and not have to worry about password protecting each and every file. Can you help? Best wishes and thanks once again for a great podcast. Regards, Faisal

Thanks for the great question, Faisal! I know the podcast is heard all around the world but I’m still a little taken aback when I hear from listeners from so far away as Dubai.

There are actually a couple of ways to protect a file from being viewed by some other person – a low-security way, and a high-security way. Both are free, and neither one is very difficult. I’ll talk about the low-security process today, and next Monday I’ll go over the more secure process.

The low-security way to protect a file or folder

This process does not require any other software other than Windows, and it will work on Windows 7, 8 or 10. It is based on the premise that a nosy person can’t peek at a file if they don’t know it exists.

Now, I should say up front that this method will not stop anyone that is even a little bit tech-savvy or knows a little bit about how Windows works. But it would be effective for a large percentage of computer users.

Let’s say if you go into your computer and open the Documents folder, you see the following folders:

Does anything there stand out to you? Of course, the “Private files” folder. Anyone who’s even a little curious would probably click on that to see what’s in there. Which is exactly what you DON’T want them to do.

So what you need to do is HIDE that folder so that it’s still there, just not visible in that list.

It’s easy to do that. Just do a RIGHT click on the folder name, and choose Properties at the bottom of the menu. In the new window, under the “General” tab, check the box labeled “Hidden” and click OK:

Now if you look at that same list of folders, this is what you see:

Keep in mind, you didn’t DELETE that private folder, you simple designated it as HIDDEN. So no one sees it, not even you.

“Great, Scott. But now how do it get it back?”

In order to see it again and access it, you have to tell your computer that you want it to display any files or folders that are designated as “Hidden”.

To see the “hidden” files and folders, go to Control Panel and click on Folder Options (in Windows 10, it’s called File Explorer Options). Then click the View tab, and check the button that says “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click OK:

Now go back to the list of folders and here’s what you see:

You can kind of see that the “Private” folder is visible, but the icon is a different color than the other icons. That is just the indication that the folder is designated as “hidden” but you can still see it because you told the computer to show you the hidden files.

If you want it to not be seen at all, just go back to the previous step and choose “Don’t show hidden files, folders or drives”.

Like I mentioned earlier, and you can probably tell, this is not a very secure way of keeping someone out of your private files and folders. Anyone that knows how to tell the computer to display hidden files will be able to find that private folder. Only you can decide if this method is sufficient for you. Two factors to consider:

How critical is it that no one sees that file or folder?

How “computer smart” is the person you’re trying to hide it from?

If the file is super-duper private, or the person might know how to do what I just showed above, you probably won’t want to use this method. A week from now, I’ll show you another process that uses a free piece of software and it’s much more secure.

The post How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 1 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

lock files — How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 1 Sep 12, 2016
Show notes

I recently got this email from a podcast listener:

Dear Scott, I live in Dubai and I enjoy your weekly podcast, which is simple and informative. Please keep up the good work! Scott, could you please cover in a future podcast how I can create (in Windows 10) a normal file folder but one that can be password protected. So, for example, if I hand over my laptop to a friend or colleague, I can simple shift my personal files to that folder and then move them back when I need to. Or else, all those files that are private I can file in my password protected folder and not have to worry about password protecting each and every file. Can you help? Best wishes and thanks once again for a great podcast. Regards, Faisal

Thanks for the great question, Faisal! I know the podcast is heard all around the world but I’m still a little taken aback when I hear from listeners from so far away as Dubai.

There are actually a couple of ways to protect a file from being viewed by some other person – a low-security way, and a high-security way. Both are free, and neither one is very difficult. I’ll talk about the low-security process today, and next Monday I’ll go over the more secure process.

The low-security way to protect a file or folder

This process does not require any other software other than Windows, and it will work on Windows 7, 8 or 10. It is based on the premise that a nosy person can’t peek at a file if they don’t know it exists.

Now, I should say up front that this method will not stop anyone that is even a little bit tech-savvy or knows a little bit about how Windows works. But it would be effective for a large percentage of computer users.

Let’s say if you go into your computer and open the Documents folder, you see the following folders:

Does anything there stand out to you? Of course, the “Private files” folder. Anyone who’s even a little curious would probably click on that to see what’s in there. Which is exactly what you DON’T want them to do.

So what you need to do is HIDE that folder so that it’s still there, just not visible in that list.

It’s easy to do that. Just do a RIGHT click on the folder name, and choose Properties at the bottom of the menu. In the new window, under the “General” tab, check the box labeled “Hidden” and click OK:

Now if you look at that same list of folders, this is what you see:

Keep in mind, you didn’t DELETE that private folder, you simple designated it as HIDDEN. So no one sees it, not even you.

“Great, Scott. But now how do it get it back?”

In order to see it again and access it, you have to tell your computer that you want it to display any files or folders that are designated as “Hidden”.

To see the “hidden” files and folders, go to Control Panel and click on Folder Options (in Windows 10, it’s called File Explorer Options). Then click the View tab, and check the button that says “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click OK:

Now go back to the list of folders and here’s what you see:

You can kind of see that the “Private” folder is visible, but the icon is a different color than the other icons. That is just the indication that the folder is designated as “hidden” but you can still see it because you told the computer to show you the hidden files.

If you want it to not be seen at all, just go back to the previous step and choose “Don’t show hidden files, folders or drives”.

Like I mentioned earlier, and you can probably tell, this is not a very secure way of keeping someone out of your private files and folders. Anyone that knows how to tell the computer to display hidden files will be able to find that private folder. Only you can decide if this method is sufficient for you. Two factors to consider:

How critical is it that no one sees that file or folder?

How “computer smart” is the person you’re trying to hide it from?

If the file is super-duper private, or the person might know how to do what I just showed above, you probably won’t want to use this method. A week from now, I’ll show you another process that uses a free piece of software and it’s much more secure.

The post How to password protect a Windows file or folder – part 1 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

hard drive crash — Why would you need TWO backups? Sep 05, 2016
Show notes

For some of my clients, I have a hard time convincing them that they need to have a backup process in place. Usually these are people that have not (yet) experienced a hard drive crash and lost some, or all, of their important files. Their computer is working fine at the moment, they’ve never had a problem, so setting up a backup is not very high on their priority list. Those people are likely to have an unpleasant surprise some day.

So you can imagine, if they don’t think a backup process is all that important, there’s no way they would see the need to have TWO backups in place.

But for a lot of people, having two different backups is definitely the right solution. That’s because they do two different things.

The two types of backups are local backup, and cloud backup.

Local backup means you use a portable hard drive that sits next to your computer, and it plugs into a USB port to do the backup. I usually set this to happen overnight, like from 1 am to 3 am, while the computer is not being used. This local backup takes everything – EVERYTHING – on your hard drive and puts it into a single file on that portable drive. So this means your Documents, your Pictures, your wallpaper, your MS Office software, your antivirus, everything on that hard drive is backed up.

For the local backup, you just need a portable drive like the one I linked to above. The software I use for this, Macrium Reflect, is free for personal use. And if you want me to set it up for you, I can do that remotely (takes about 30 minutes).

Cloud backup means you are backing up your important files on a different computer. That’s really all “cloud” means – it’s storage space on a computer other than your own. Cloud backup is completely automated. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to do anything. This type of backup safely stores your important files, such as Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Outlook emails, that kind of thing. It does not backup your software such as MS Word or your antivirus program.

For the cloud backup, your cost for your personal computer is $60 per year (that goes to the backup service I recommend, which is Carbonite).

Now back to the initial question: why do you need both of these backups? Why not just choose one of them?

To answer that, let’s say you only have one of these backups when your hard drive crashes:

If you only have the cloud backup, your documents and pictures and other files are safe. So you just take out the crashed drive and put in a new one, but before you can do anything, you have to install Windows. Do you have your Windows installation disc? Do you have the product key required to activate Windows after it’s installed? Do you have your installation disc for Microsoft Office? You can download Office and install it – but for that you need your user name and password for the Microsoft account. And you need to install all the other software, such as Chrome or Firefox, your antivirus, and any other software you normally use. THEN you can go to your cloud backup service and download all of your files such as documents and pictures.

As you can imagine, this whole thing is quite a lengthy process and it can be a while before your computer is back up and running with all of your programs and important data. If you use your laptop for your everyday work, you might find that you don’t have use of it for a few days while all of this is being restored to the new drive. So it’s good to have the cloud backup service, but it’s not that convenient if that’s the ONLY backup you have.

On the other hand…

If you only have the local backup to your portable drive when your computer’s hard drive crashes, you can just put in the new replacement hard drive, and then restore everything from the last local backup to the new drive. Everything will be there – all of your programs, your documents, your screen saver, everything is exactly like it was when that most recent backup was done.

But what if you haven’t done a local backup in a month? or 6 months? The process for doing a local backup is simple – just plugging in the USB cable at night and unplugging it in the morning – but you do have to remember to do it. If you don’t, your most recent backup might not be very recent.

And here’s another factor. Usually, that portable drive is going to sit next to the computer. So the original hard drive (in your computer) is right next to the backup drive. What if you have a fire? The computer AND the backup could get destroyed at the same time since they’re in the same place. Or remember the recent massive floods in Louisiana? Lots of computers were destroyed, and if the portable drive with the backup was in the same location, the backup was destroyed as well.

Also, that portable drive can get lost, stolen, dropped, stepped on, etc. even under normal conditions. So it’s good to have the local backup to the portable drive, but it’s kind of risky to have that as your ONLY backup.

So, if A) you want to be really sure that your files are safe, and B) you want to be able to be back up and running as soon as possible after a hard drive crash, it really makes sense to do both of these backups.

And finally, the other question I get sometimes after I explain all of this to clients – if I were only going to do one type of backup, which one would be better?

My answer would be the local backup would be the one I would prefer, if I could only do one. But that choice comes with one qualifier – that you are disciplined enough to do it. If you don’t think you’ll remember to plug that portable drive into your computer at night, and unplug it in the morning, then don’t rely on that type of backup. The cloud backup is completely automated so you don’t have to do anything.

The post Why would you need TWO backups? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

listen to my podcast in iTunes — Why would you need TWO backups? Sep 05, 2016
Show notes

For some of my clients, I have a hard time convincing them that they need to have a backup process in place. Usually these are people that have not (yet) experienced a hard drive crash and lost some, or all, of their important files. Their computer is working fine at the moment, they’ve never had a problem, so setting up a backup is not very high on their priority list. Those people are likely to have an unpleasant surprise some day.

So you can imagine, if they don’t think a backup process is all that important, there’s no way they would see the need to have TWO backups in place.

But for a lot of people, having two different backups is definitely the right solution. That’s because they do two different things.

The two types of backups are local backup, and cloud backup.

Local backup means you use a portable hard drive that sits next to your computer, and it plugs into a USB port to do the backup. I usually set this to happen overnight, like from 1 am to 3 am, while the computer is not being used. This local backup takes everything – EVERYTHING – on your hard drive and puts it into a single file on that portable drive. So this means your Documents, your Pictures, your wallpaper, your MS Office software, your antivirus, everything on that hard drive is backed up.

For the local backup, you just need a portable drive like the one I linked to above. The software I use for this, Macrium Reflect, is free for personal use. And if you want me to set it up for you, I can do that remotely (takes about 30 minutes).

Cloud backup means you are backing up your important files on a different computer. That’s really all “cloud” means – it’s storage space on a computer other than your own. Cloud backup is completely automated. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to do anything. This type of backup safely stores your important files, such as Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Outlook emails, that kind of thing. It does not backup your software such as MS Word or your antivirus program.

For the cloud backup, your cost for your personal computer is $60 per year (that goes to the backup service I recommend, which is Carbonite).

Now back to the initial question: why do you need both of these backups? Why not just choose one of them?

To answer that, let’s say you only have one of these backups when your hard drive crashes:

If you only have the cloud backup, your documents and pictures and other files are safe. So you just take out the crashed drive and put in a new one, but before you can do anything, you have to install Windows. Do you have your Windows installation disc? Do you have the product key required to activate Windows after it’s installed? Do you have your installation disc for Microsoft Office? You can download Office and install it – but for that you need your user name and password for the Microsoft account. And you need to install all the other software, such as Chrome or Firefox, your antivirus, and any other software you normally use. THEN you can go to your cloud backup service and download all of your files such as documents and pictures.

As you can imagine, this whole thing is quite a lengthy process and it can be a while before your computer is back up and running with all of your programs and important data. If you use your laptop for your everyday work, you might find that you don’t have use of it for a few days while all of this is being restored to the new drive. So it’s good to have the cloud backup service, but it’s not that convenient if that’s the ONLY backup you have.

On the other hand…

If you only have the local backup to your portable drive when your computer’s hard drive crashes, you can just put in the new replacement hard drive, and then restore everything from the last local backup to the new drive. Everything will be there – all of your programs, your documents, your screen saver, everything is exactly like it was when that most recent backup was done.

But what if you haven’t done a local backup in a month? or 6 months? The process for doing a local backup is simple – just plugging in the USB cable at night and unplugging it in the morning – but you do have to remember to do it. If you don’t, your most recent backup might not be very recent.

And here’s another factor. Usually, that portable drive is going to sit next to the computer. So the original hard drive (in your computer) is right next to the backup drive. What if you have a fire? The computer AND the backup could get destroyed at the same time since they’re in the same place. Or remember the recent massive floods in Louisiana? Lots of computers were destroyed, and if the portable drive with the backup was in the same location, the backup was destroyed as well.

Also, that portable drive can get lost, stolen, dropped, stepped on, etc. even under normal conditions. So it’s good to have the local backup to the portable drive, but it’s kind of risky to have that as your ONLY backup.

So, if A) you want to be really sure that your files are safe, and B) you want to be able to be back up and running as soon as possible after a hard drive crash, it really makes sense to do both of these backups.

And finally, the other question I get sometimes after I explain all of this to clients – if I were only going to do one type of backup, which one would be better?

My answer would be the local backup would be the one I would prefer, if I could only do one. But that choice comes with one qualifier – that you are disciplined enough to do it. If you don’t think you’ll remember to plug that portable drive into your computer at night, and unplug it in the morning, then don’t rely on that type of backup. The cloud backup is completely automated so you don’t have to do anything.

The post Why would you need TWO backups? first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Facebook Messenger — The personal Facebook messages you didn’t even know you had Aug 29, 2016
Show notes

If a friend sends you a Facebook message, you see the notification at the top of the Facebook page, click on it and read it. Simple. What if someone sends you a message, and you actually do know that person in real life but you aren’t yet Facebook friends? You might never even realize that message exists, unless you know where to look for it.

This happened to me a few times before I got wise and started checking it regularly. It would be nice if Facebook popped up some kind of notification that there was a message waiting for you somewhere other than your “regular” inbox, but they don’t (as far as I know). When you check this, you might be surprised to find messages that people sent to you months or even years ago!

There are a couple of types of messages that you won’t be notified about: Filtered Messages, and Message Requests.

If Facebook’s algorithm detects that the message might be from a spammer or a scammer, they just put it in the Filtered Messages area.

If you get a message from someone you might know, that one will go in the Message Requests area. The sender might be someone you aren’t friends with, but maybe you have some mutual friends so there’s a connection. Or maybe both of you are also members of a few different Facebook groups.

Every so often, I’ll get a reply from someone on Facebook, and it’s a reply to a message I sent them a LONG time ago (sometimes more than a year). That just means that person just now figured out how to see those hidden messages.

Here’s how to check for these messages:

Open Facebook, and click on the “Messages” icon in the top right area of the page:

When you click on that, you’ll see a list of your most recent messages. At the bottom, click on “See All”:

Then look up in the top left area. When you click the “More” button you’ll get a drop-down menu and one of the options is “Filtered”. If there’s a number in parentheses there, that’s how many Filtered messages are waiting for you.

Just to the left of the “More” button is the “Message Requests” button. When you click that, you’ll see a list of the people that have sent you a message, along with the message they sent.

At this point, if you have messages in either of these categories, you can respond to them, ignore them, or delete them.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when you send someone a Facebook message, but you’re not friends with them on Facebook. They might not be ignoring you – they might just have no idea that your message is sitting there in hiding, waiting to be read!

The post The personal Facebook messages you didn’t even know you had first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Facebook hidden messages — The personal Facebook messages you didn’t even know you had Aug 29, 2016
Show notes

If a friend sends you a Facebook message, you see the notification at the top of the Facebook page, click on it and read it. Simple. What if someone sends you a message, and you actually do know that person in real life but you aren’t yet Facebook friends? You might never even realize that message exists, unless you know where to look for it.

This happened to me a few times before I got wise and started checking it regularly. It would be nice if Facebook popped up some kind of notification that there was a message waiting for you somewhere other than your “regular” inbox, but they don’t (as far as I know). When you check this, you might be surprised to find messages that people sent to you months or even years ago!

There are a couple of types of messages that you won’t be notified about: Filtered Messages, and Message Requests.

If Facebook’s algorithm detects that the message might be from a spammer or a scammer, they just put it in the Filtered Messages area.

If you get a message from someone you might know, that one will go in the Message Requests area. The sender might be someone you aren’t friends with, but maybe you have some mutual friends so there’s a connection. Or maybe both of you are also members of a few different Facebook groups.

Every so often, I’ll get a reply from someone on Facebook, and it’s a reply to a message I sent them a LONG time ago (sometimes more than a year). That just means that person just now figured out how to see those hidden messages.

Here’s how to check for these messages:

Open Facebook, and click on the “Messages” icon in the top right area of the page:

When you click on that, you’ll see a list of your most recent messages. At the bottom, click on “See All”:

Then look up in the top left area. When you click the “More” button you’ll get a drop-down menu and one of the options is “Filtered”. If there’s a number in parentheses there, that’s how many Filtered messages are waiting for you.

Just to the left of the “More” button is the “Message Requests” button. When you click that, you’ll see a list of the people that have sent you a message, along with the message they sent.

At this point, if you have messages in either of these categories, you can respond to them, ignore them, or delete them.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when you send someone a Facebook message, but you’re not friends with them on Facebook. They might not be ignoring you – they might just have no idea that your message is sitting there in hiding, waiting to be read!

The post The personal Facebook messages you didn’t even know you had first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

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