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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:

secret menu — Windows has a secret “Send to” menu Mar 28, 2016
Show notes

You’re probably already familiar with the “Send to” menu in Windows. What most people don’t know is that there’s a hidden, expanded “Send to” menu that gives you a lot more options.

The regular Send To menu is certainly no secret. In fact, I use it all the time – most commonly, to put shortcuts to often-used programs right on the desktop for easy access.

Just about any file or folder can be “Sent” somewhere. When you right-click on a file or folder, you get a short menu that pops up, and one of those options is “Send to”. When you put your mouse over the words “Send to”, you’ll see another menu fly out – and you can choose where you want to send that file.

It looks like this:

So you can see I have the option to send that Word document to Adobe Audition, or a compressed folder, or Dropbox, or Evernote, or any other of the locations or programs in that list.

But what you’re seeing there is just the REGULAR “Send to” menu.

We’re looking for the Secret Super Duper EXPANDED “Sent to” menu.

To get to that, you just add one small step to the process. Before you right click on the file or folder that you want to send somewhere, hold down the SHIFT key. Then right click on the file or folder (you can release the Shift key after you do the right click). When the menu appears, move your mouse down to the Send To line, and you’ll now see this:

As you can see, lots more options! Instead of 12 locations or programs that we had in the first one, the “Secret Send To Menu” has 28 – more than double. Most of the additional options are the commonly used folders on your Windows computer

Of course, what shows up as options in the “Send to” menu (either one) will vary somewhat between different computers. In my case, I have added a few of the options manually on the shorter version. You can add to that menu or delete items from it so that it’s customized the way you want it.

The post Windows has a secret “Send to” menu first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

secret send to menu — Windows has a secret “Send to” menu Mar 28, 2016
Show notes

You’re probably already familiar with the “Send to” menu in Windows. What most people don’t know is that there’s a hidden, expanded “Send to” menu that gives you a lot more options.

The regular Send To menu is certainly no secret. In fact, I use it all the time – most commonly, to put shortcuts to often-used programs right on the desktop for easy access.

Just about any file or folder can be “Sent” somewhere. When you right-click on a file or folder, you get a short menu that pops up, and one of those options is “Send to”. When you put your mouse over the words “Send to”, you’ll see another menu fly out – and you can choose where you want to send that file.

It looks like this:

So you can see I have the option to send that Word document to Adobe Audition, or a compressed folder, or Dropbox, or Evernote, or any other of the locations or programs in that list.

But what you’re seeing there is just the REGULAR “Send to” menu.

We’re looking for the Secret Super Duper EXPANDED “Sent to” menu.

To get to that, you just add one small step to the process. Before you right click on the file or folder that you want to send somewhere, hold down the SHIFT key. Then right click on the file or folder (you can release the Shift key after you do the right click). When the menu appears, move your mouse down to the Send To line, and you’ll now see this:

As you can see, lots more options! Instead of 12 locations or programs that we had in the first one, the “Secret Send To Menu” has 28 – more than double. Most of the additional options are the commonly used folders on your Windows computer

Of course, what shows up as options in the “Send to” menu (either one) will vary somewhat between different computers. In my case, I have added a few of the options manually on the shorter version. You can add to that menu or delete items from it so that it’s customized the way you want it.

The post Windows has a secret “Send to” menu first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Windows dialogue box — How to copy and paste the contents of a Windows dialogue box Mar 21, 2016
Show notes

This is so simple and so useful, I can’t believe it’s not more widely known. It would be really handy for when a client is trying to tell me what an error message says, or what the content is in some other Windows message.

The way this comes up most of the time is this: a client gets some kind of error message that pops up on their computer, and they don’t know what it means or what to do with it. So they call me. Sometimes by the time they call, the message has disappeared on its own, or they have clicked on something and caused it to close, so they can no longer tell me what the message actually said.

Or, if the message is still on the screen, they don’t read me the exact wording – they just sort of “summarize” what it says. This doesn’t work, since their summary doesn’t necessarily include all of the critical content that could tell me what is going on.

What I need is a quick relay of ALL the actual text and what buttons are available to click. What most people don’t realize is that you can do that with a simple copy and paste.

To show how it works, I’ll use a dialogue box that I created:

When you see something like that come up on your Windows computer screen, here’s what you do:

Click anywhere inside the box – EXCEPT on any of the buttons. One left click anywhere else, inside the box.

Hold down the CTRL button and tap the letter C. So far, it will seem like nothing has happened because you didn’t see anything change.

Open up Notepad (or any word processor program) and click CTRL + V. There it is – all the text from the dialogue box:

And rather than open a word processor program, you could just as easily open your email, compose a new email message and paste the content of the box right there.

The nice thing is that the copy/pasted content includes everything – the title at the top, the content of the message itself, and the names of all the buttons that are available. This way it leaves no margin for error – your tech can easily and accurately see what the dialogue box is telling you.

Of course, if someone knows how to do it, it’s possible to just take a screenshot of the dialogue box and save that image, then email that. But that’s not nearly as easy as a simple copy and paste!

The post How to copy and paste the contents of a Windows dialogue box first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Windows dialogue box — How to copy and paste the contents of a Windows dialogue box Mar 21, 2016
Show notes

This is so simple and so useful, I can’t believe it’s not more widely known. It would be really handy for when a client is trying to tell me what an error message says, or what the content is in some other Windows message.

The way this comes up most of the time is this: a client gets some kind of error message that pops up on their computer, and they don’t know what it means or what to do with it. So they call me. Sometimes by the time they call, the message has disappeared on its own, or they have clicked on something and caused it to close, so they can no longer tell me what the message actually said.

Or, if the message is still on the screen, they don’t read me the exact wording – they just sort of “summarize” what it says. This doesn’t work, since their summary doesn’t necessarily include all of the critical content that could tell me what is going on.

What I need is a quick relay of ALL the actual text and what buttons are available to click. What most people don’t realize is that you can do that with a simple copy and paste.

To show how it works, I’ll use a dialogue box that I created:

When you see something like that come up on your Windows computer screen, here’s what you do:

Click anywhere inside the box – EXCEPT on any of the buttons. One left click anywhere else, inside the box.

Hold down the CTRL button and tap the letter C. So far, it will seem like nothing has happened because you didn’t see anything change.

Open up Notepad (or any word processor program) and click CTRL + V. There it is – all the text from the dialogue box:

And rather than open a word processor program, you could just as easily open your email, compose a new email message and paste the content of the box right there.

The nice thing is that the copy/pasted content includes everything – the title at the top, the content of the message itself, and the names of all the buttons that are available. This way it leaves no margin for error – your tech can easily and accurately see what the dialogue box is telling you.

Of course, if someone knows how to do it, it’s possible to just take a screenshot of the dialogue box and save that image, then email that. But that’s not nearly as easy as a simple copy and paste!

The post How to copy and paste the contents of a Windows dialogue box first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Laptop care — How to make sure your laptop has a long life Mar 14, 2016
Show notes

Obviously you want to make sure your computer lasts as many years as possible. And now, this is especially true if you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8 because if you buy a computer right off the shelf now it will most likely be running Windows 10. The laptops I sell are almost all Windows 7 since that is still the preferred operating system (in my humble opinion) and it will be supported through January of 2020. But it’s all the better if you can keep your current laptop running well for as long as possible.

Here are 6 things you can do to help your laptop to have a long life:

1. Never use it on a soft surface. You might see ads for laptops showing someone in bed but that’s just marketing nonsense. A laptop by nature runs hotter than a desktop computer because all of the components are crammed into a small space. There are exhaust vents on the bottom or sides that need to be kept open for the hot air to escape. If it doesn’t, your laptop will overheat – this can damage it, and it might even shut down if it gets too hot.

2. Always use a cooling pad. This kind of goes along with #1 – it keeps your laptop nice and cool. A cooling pad is basically just a small “platform” that your laptop sits on while you use it. The cooling pad has one big fan or 2-3 smaller fans built in, so that it automatically sucks the hot air away from the laptop. A cooling pad is less than $20 and you can get them anywhere computer supplies are sold (here’s a nice one for $15 on Amazon).

3. Don’t lift up just one side of the laptop. This is something I see all the time. When a laptop is brand new, the connection that the power cord has when plugged in to the back of the laptop is nice and solid. But if you tilt up the laptop from the front (to retrieve a piece of paper, or to look under it, etc.) the power plug is stressed. Doing it once might not matter, but when you do that more than a few times, eventually it will mean that the power cord plug won’t make contact with the power jack inside the laptop. That’s when you have to wiggle it or hold it a certain way in order for it to make contact and provide power. You can eliminate most of that problem ahead of time though – if you want to get under the laptop, just lift up the whole thing at the same time.

4. Thunder or lightning? Unplug! In our house, whenever we hear thunder or see lightning, we unplug all of the computers as well as the big screen TV. You should unplug anything you would not want to have to replace. Voltage surges can happen anytime, but they are usually the worst during an electrical storm. And don’t tell me, “It’s okay, I have a surge protector.” If lightning strikes nearby, your little surge protector is no match for it. The nice thing about a laptop is, assuming your battery is good, you can still keep using it even during the storm. I also leave my Verizon FIOS modem plugged in, so I can still go online with my laptop. If the modem gets fried, Verizon will just send me a new one.

5. Remove the battery for extended periods of non-use. If you’re planning to not use the laptop for 30 days or longer, it’s best to just take the battery out during that time. Depending on how strong the battery is, it might be low (or dead) when you put it back in, but just let it charge up and start using it again.

6. Keep liquids away! It’s always a shame when someone brings me their computer after it’s had something spilled on it. Coffee, beer, milk, Coke, Kool Aid – it’s all bad and has the potential to permanently destroy your expensive laptop. If you’re going to spill anything on it, spill water – it’s the least destructive and at least it will dry completely. But if it short-circuits something on the motherboard, even spilled water can mean you’re about to replace your laptop. And it’s so easily preventable! If you must have a drink nearby while you’re working on your laptop, make it something like a bottled water that has a lid. Replacing the lid each time you take a drink is a whole lot better than replacing your laptop!

The post How to make sure your laptop has a long life first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

laptop care — How to make sure your laptop has a long life Mar 14, 2016
Show notes

Obviously you want to make sure your computer lasts as many years as possible. And now, this is especially true if you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8 because if you buy a computer right off the shelf now it will most likely be running Windows 10. The laptops I sell are almost all Windows 7 since that is still the preferred operating system (in my humble opinion) and it will be supported through January of 2020. But it’s all the better if you can keep your current laptop running well for as long as possible.

Here are 6 things you can do to help your laptop to have a long life:

1. Never use it on a soft surface. You might see ads for laptops showing someone in bed but that’s just marketing nonsense. A laptop by nature runs hotter than a desktop computer because all of the components are crammed into a small space. There are exhaust vents on the bottom or sides that need to be kept open for the hot air to escape. If it doesn’t, your laptop will overheat – this can damage it, and it might even shut down if it gets too hot.

2. Always use a cooling pad. This kind of goes along with #1 – it keeps your laptop nice and cool. A cooling pad is basically just a small “platform” that your laptop sits on while you use it. The cooling pad has one big fan or 2-3 smaller fans built in, so that it automatically sucks the hot air away from the laptop. A cooling pad is less than $20 and you can get them anywhere computer supplies are sold (here’s a nice one for $15 on Amazon).

3. Don’t lift up just one side of the laptop. This is something I see all the time. When a laptop is brand new, the connection that the power cord has when plugged in to the back of the laptop is nice and solid. But if you tilt up the laptop from the front (to retrieve a piece of paper, or to look under it, etc.) the power plug is stressed. Doing it once might not matter, but when you do that more than a few times, eventually it will mean that the power cord plug won’t make contact with the power jack inside the laptop. That’s when you have to wiggle it or hold it a certain way in order for it to make contact and provide power. You can eliminate most of that problem ahead of time though – if you want to get under the laptop, just lift up the whole thing at the same time.

4. Thunder or lightning? Unplug! In our house, whenever we hear thunder or see lightning, we unplug all of the computers as well as the big screen TV. You should unplug anything you would not want to have to replace. Voltage surges can happen anytime, but they are usually the worst during an electrical storm. And don’t tell me, “It’s okay, I have a surge protector.” If lightning strikes nearby, your little surge protector is no match for it. The nice thing about a laptop is, assuming your battery is good, you can still keep using it even during the storm. I also leave my Verizon FIOS modem plugged in, so I can still go online with my laptop. If the modem gets fried, Verizon will just send me a new one.

5. Remove the battery for extended periods of non-use. If you’re planning to not use the laptop for 30 days or longer, it’s best to just take the battery out during that time. Depending on how strong the battery is, it might be low (or dead) when you put it back in, but just let it charge up and start using it again.

6. Keep liquids away! It’s always a shame when someone brings me their computer after it’s had something spilled on it. Coffee, beer, milk, Coke, Kool Aid – it’s all bad and has the potential to permanently destroy your expensive laptop. If you’re going to spill anything on it, spill water – it’s the least destructive and at least it will dry completely. But if it short-circuits something on the motherboard, even spilled water can mean you’re about to replace your laptop. And it’s so easily preventable! If you must have a drink nearby while you’re working on your laptop, make it something like a bottled water that has a lid. Replacing the lid each time you take a drink is a whole lot better than replacing your laptop!

The post How to make sure your laptop has a long life first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

chrome tricks — A couple of handy features in Google Chrome Mar 07, 2016
Show notes

My default web browser is Google Chrome. I also use Firefox for some things and it’s fine, but I really like Chrome. Recently I came across a couple of interesting things in Chrome.

Feature #1: Customize website zoom level

Have you noticed that as you get older, some of the text on certain websites gets smaller and harder to read? It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my eyesight changing as I age. Must just be a defect in the computer, right? Of course.

I’ve found this to be an issue only with some websites, not all. So certain websites I view at 100%, some 125%, some 150%. The nice thing with Chrome is that you don’t have to adjust the zoom each time you visit a particular website – you can set the preferred zoom level, and Chrome remembers it.

Here’s how you do it:

Go to a website for which you need to adjust the size of the text (make sure this is the only tab open in Chrome).

Hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard, and roll the wheel on your mouse to adjust the size of the text. Rolling the mouse wheel away from you makes the text larger, and rolling it toward you makes the text smaller.

When the text is at a comfortable size for reading, close Chrome.

Open Chrome and go back to that same website, and you’ll see that it stays at the zoom level you chose.

Note: as an alternative to scrolling with the mouse wheel, you can click the Customize button (the 3 horizontal lines in the top right of the Chrome window), go down to the “Zoom” area and hit the “+” or “-” buttons to adjust screen content size.

You can do this for every website you visit. And if you want to see all of the websites that Chrome is storing for you at customized zoom levels, you can click the Customize button, then click Settings, Show Advanced Settings. Under Privacy, click Content Settings, then scroll all the way to the end and click on “Manage” under the Zoom Levels section. Nice list of all your customized sites:

Feature #2: Customize website notifications

I had a client ask me about this recently. He kept having a recurring, annoying problem:

Scott – I do like to use Facebook sometimes. But when I’m doing some actual work or research on my computer, I close Facebook and email and other distracting websites so that I can focus on my work. But then while I’m working, all of a sudden I see a little window pop-up on my screen, and it’s a Facebook notification that someone has liked my post, or someone commented, or something else has just happened on Facebook. I don’t know how this is happening when I don’t even have Facebook open! How do I get rid of that?”

Yes, sometimes it does seem like Facebook follows us everywhere even when we want to get away from it. I noticed this same thing happening a while back. Fortunately, there is a way to turn off those Facebook notifications.

Click the Customize button and click on Settings, and Show Advanced Settings.

Find the Privacy section, and click on Content Settings.

Scroll about halfway down that list to the section called Notifications, and click on Manage Exceptions

Find Facebook in that list, and out to the right you can click on “Allow” and it will give you a drop-down menu where you can choose “Block”

Click the “Done” button in the lower right corner.

And now you can work without Facebook popping up every 30 seconds to distract you!

And of course, you can probably customize Firefox to resolve these issues as well but I have not really researched that specifically since I usually use Chrome.

The post A couple of handy features in Google Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

chrome tips — A couple of handy features in Google Chrome Mar 07, 2016
Show notes

My default web browser is Google Chrome. I also use Firefox for some things and it’s fine, but I really like Chrome. Recently I came across a couple of interesting things in Chrome.

Feature #1: Customize website zoom level

Have you noticed that as you get older, some of the text on certain websites gets smaller and harder to read? It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my eyesight changing as I age. Must just be a defect in the computer, right? Of course.

I’ve found this to be an issue only with some websites, not all. So certain websites I view at 100%, some 125%, some 150%. The nice thing with Chrome is that you don’t have to adjust the zoom each time you visit a particular website – you can set the preferred zoom level, and Chrome remembers it.

Here’s how you do it:

Go to a website for which you need to adjust the size of the text (make sure this is the only tab open in Chrome).

Hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard, and roll the wheel on your mouse to adjust the size of the text. Rolling the mouse wheel away from you makes the text larger, and rolling it toward you makes the text smaller.

When the text is at a comfortable size for reading, close Chrome.

Open Chrome and go back to that same website, and you’ll see that it stays at the zoom level you chose.

Note: as an alternative to scrolling with the mouse wheel, you can click the Customize button (the 3 horizontal lines in the top right of the Chrome window), go down to the “Zoom” area and hit the “+” or “-” buttons to adjust screen content size.

You can do this for every website you visit. And if you want to see all of the websites that Chrome is storing for you at customized zoom levels, you can click the Customize button, then click Settings, Show Advanced Settings. Under Privacy, click Content Settings, then scroll all the way to the end and click on “Manage” under the Zoom Levels section. Nice list of all your customized sites:

Feature #2: Customize website notifications

I had a client ask me about this recently. He kept having a recurring, annoying problem:

Scott – I do like to use Facebook sometimes. But when I’m doing some actual work or research on my computer, I close Facebook and email and other distracting websites so that I can focus on my work. But then while I’m working, all of a sudden I see a little window pop-up on my screen, and it’s a Facebook notification that someone has liked my post, or someone commented, or something else has just happened on Facebook. I don’t know how this is happening when I don’t even have Facebook open! How do I get rid of that?”

Yes, sometimes it does seem like Facebook follows us everywhere even when we want to get away from it. I noticed this same thing happening a while back. Fortunately, there is a way to turn off those Facebook notifications.

Click the Customize button and click on Settings, and Show Advanced Settings.

Find the Privacy section, and click on Content Settings.

Scroll about halfway down that list to the section called Notifications, and click on Manage Exceptions

Find Facebook in that list, and out to the right you can click on “Allow” and it will give you a drop-down menu where you can choose “Block”

Click the “Done” button in the lower right corner.

And now you can work without Facebook popping up every 30 seconds to distract you!

And of course, you can probably customize Firefox to resolve these issues as well but I have not really researched that specifically since I usually use Chrome.

The post A couple of handy features in Google Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

email scam — An email scam that’s often effective Feb 29, 2016
Show notes

There’s an email scam that’s not new, but a lot of people have not heard about it and it has some elements that make it seem very legitimate. I was a target in this scam recently so I’m laying out the details here so you can avoid being taken.

This is the email that was sent to me:

The interesting thing here is that this email actually WAS sent from the email account of my friend (for the purpose of this blog post, I’ll call him Steve). Steve either inadvertently revealed his email password at some point, or (more likely) the password he used when he created his account was a simple one and easy to remember. This means it was also easy for the scammer to guess.

In this situation, I know Steve primarily from church. He also owns a local business. We definitely don’t have the type of personal relationship where he would ask me to loan him money. Because of that, and the fact that I have heard of this scam before, I knew it was not a legitimate email.

The first thing I did was to call Steve’s office and make sure he was aware of what was happening. But beyond that, I wanted to “play along” with the scammer and see how it played out. I replied to the email:

Not too long after that I get the whole scam story:

Poor Steve. His mother is dying and he is without the needed funds to pay the doctors to save her life. There are a few things about this email that are important to note:

He is specific about the name of the disease – this makes it sound more legitimate

He is appealing to my sympathy – if I don’t help, his mother may actually die

The loan request is not because he’s broke, but because he’s in a temporary difficulty

There is a sense of urgency – I must make a quick decision

The request for privacy – this makes sense because of the nature of a request to borrow money, but in reality he doesn’t want me to check around with any of our mutual friends and find out that the whole story is a fake

He has not yet stated a dollar amount. This is because A. He wants me to agree to the loan first, and B. He’s judging by my communication how much money he should ask for

So I respond:

I really wanted to see if he would give me a dollar amount at this point. When I ask him directly about this, it would be difficult for him to avoid the question because obviously the hospital or doctor would have already told him how much is needed for the medical procedure. Also, I played dumb about the actual money transfer process – in almost every case it’s through Western Union since that’s worldwide and cash can be retrieved anonymously (which is why scammers love Western Union).

He replied:

As predicted, he requests that I send the money via Western Union. If you send someone money via WU, then realize later that it was a scam, there is no way you are getting that money back. It’s like walking through a crowd in Times Square and handing people $100 bills – you could never hope to get anything back, or even know who actually ended up with the money. It’s just gone. He’s asking me for 2000 pounds – roughly about $2800 in US dollars.

Usually when I’m stringing a scammer along, this is where the story ends. Obviously I’m not going to send the money and he doesn’t want to waste any more time on me since he is playing with a bunch of other targets at the same time. But I wanted to see how he would react if I told him WU was not an option. I told him I didn’t know how to use Western Union and asked if there were any other way to get the money to him. He replied:

Ah, here we go. He’s hinting that there may actually be a way possible other than Western Union. In reality, what he is suggesting is really silly though. He’s supposed to be in a foreign country, without any resources, and yet he’s saying that in this strange city he will be able to locate someone who has an offshore account and can receive the money from me, then transfer the money to Steve after deducting a commission. Pretty unlikely scenario, but at this point he probably figures he has nothing to lose since Western Union is out of the question.

So I told him yes, please set it up. Shortly after that, he emailed me with the new arrangement:

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to see this. He has apparently given me an actual bank account number with Bank of America. This doesn’t quite make sense, since obviously a bank account can be traced back to a person. I reported the incident to Bank of America but I never heard back from them in any way (not a big surprise).

What I suspect is that the actual account holder is also being scammed. The scammer could have gotten her account number from a check or by some other means, and he is playing a scam on her such that she will be expecting $5000 to be deposited in her bank account for some type of purchase, then she needs to forward on $3000 to the scammer via Western Union.

There are a lot of different ways for this to be explained, but that’s where it ended for me. Heard nothing more from the scammer, and I guess Bank of America can’t be bothered with something so trivial as this.

Think about this from Steve’s point of view – he has no idea anything unusual is happening until he starts getting phone calls from a bunch of his friends asking about this. But what if he has 300 friends in his email contact list? They will all get that same email. And even if most of them realize it’s fake, all it takes is ONE person to fall for it and the scammer has had a very profitable day.

The keys to remember from this situation:

if you get an unusual email from a friend, verify it with them directly by phone or in person (NOT by replying to the email)

if someone proposes a deal to you that involves Western Union, assume it’s a scam

use strong passwords and don’t use the same password for more than one account (Steve could have avoided this whole situation just by using a strong, unique password for his email account)

The post An email scam that’s often effective first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

email scam — An email scam that’s often effective Feb 29, 2016
Show notes

There’s an email scam that’s not new, but a lot of people have not heard about it and it has some elements that make it seem very legitimate. I was a target in this scam recently so I’m laying out the details here so you can avoid being taken.

This is the email that was sent to me:

The interesting thing here is that this email actually WAS sent from the email account of my friend (for the purpose of this blog post, I’ll call him Steve). Steve either inadvertently revealed his email password at some point, or (more likely) the password he used when he created his account was a simple one and easy to remember. This means it was also easy for the scammer to guess.

In this situation, I know Steve primarily from church. He also owns a local business. We definitely don’t have the type of personal relationship where he would ask me to loan him money. Because of that, and the fact that I have heard of this scam before, I knew it was not a legitimate email.

The first thing I did was to call Steve’s office and make sure he was aware of what was happening. But beyond that, I wanted to “play along” with the scammer and see how it played out. I replied to the email:

Not too long after that I get the whole scam story:

Poor Steve. His mother is dying and he is without the needed funds to pay the doctors to save her life. There are a few things about this email that are important to note:

He is specific about the name of the disease – this makes it sound more legitimate

He is appealing to my sympathy – if I don’t help, his mother may actually die

The loan request is not because he’s broke, but because he’s in a temporary difficulty

There is a sense of urgency – I must make a quick decision

The request for privacy – this makes sense because of the nature of a request to borrow money, but in reality he doesn’t want me to check around with any of our mutual friends and find out that the whole story is a fake

He has not yet stated a dollar amount. This is because A. He wants me to agree to the loan first, and B. He’s judging by my communication how much money he should ask for

So I respond:

I really wanted to see if he would give me a dollar amount at this point. When I ask him directly about this, it would be difficult for him to avoid the question because obviously the hospital or doctor would have already told him how much is needed for the medical procedure. Also, I played dumb about the actual money transfer process – in almost every case it’s through Western Union since that’s worldwide and cash can be retrieved anonymously (which is why scammers love Western Union).

He replied:

As predicted, he requests that I send the money via Western Union. If you send someone money via WU, then realize later that it was a scam, there is no way you are getting that money back. It’s like walking through a crowd in Times Square and handing people $100 bills – you could never hope to get anything back, or even know who actually ended up with the money. It’s just gone. He’s asking me for 2000 pounds – roughly about $2800 in US dollars.

Usually when I’m stringing a scammer along, this is where the story ends. Obviously I’m not going to send the money and he doesn’t want to waste any more time on me since he is playing with a bunch of other targets at the same time. But I wanted to see how he would react if I told him WU was not an option. I told him I didn’t know how to use Western Union and asked if there were any other way to get the money to him. He replied:

Ah, here we go. He’s hinting that there may actually be a way possible other than Western Union. In reality, what he is suggesting is really silly though. He’s supposed to be in a foreign country, without any resources, and yet he’s saying that in this strange city he will be able to locate someone who has an offshore account and can receive the money from me, then transfer the money to Steve after deducting a commission. Pretty unlikely scenario, but at this point he probably figures he has nothing to lose since Western Union is out of the question.

So I told him yes, please set it up. Shortly after that, he emailed me with the new arrangement:

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to see this. He has apparently given me an actual bank account number with Bank of America. This doesn’t quite make sense, since obviously a bank account can be traced back to a person. I reported the incident to Bank of America but I never heard back from them in any way (not a big surprise).

What I suspect is that the actual account holder is also being scammed. The scammer could have gotten her account number from a check or by some other means, and he is playing a scam on her such that she will be expecting $5000 to be deposited in her bank account for some type of purchase, then she needs to forward on $3000 to the scammer via Western Union.

There are a lot of different ways for this to be explained, but that’s where it ended for me. Heard nothing more from the scammer, and I guess Bank of America can’t be bothered with something so trivial as this.

Think about this from Steve’s point of view – he has no idea anything unusual is happening until he starts getting phone calls from a bunch of his friends asking about this. But what if he has 300 friends in his email contact list? They will all get that same email. And even if most of them realize it’s fake, all it takes is ONE person to fall for it and the scammer has had a very profitable day.

The keys to remember from this situation:

if you get an unusual email from a friend, verify it with them directly by phone or in person (NOT by replying to the email)

if someone proposes a deal to you that involves Western Union, assume it’s a scam

use strong passwords and don’t use the same password for more than one account (Steve could have avoided this whole situation just by using a strong, unique password for his email account)

The post An email scam that’s often effective first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

computer instruction — Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff Feb 22, 2016
Show notes

A lot of people want to be reasonably knowledgeable about one or more aspects of their computer. Not like a computer programmer or someone that works on computers all day, but familiar enough to use popular software and be able to handle things that come up from time to time. But how do you learn? There are several ways to learn, and today I’ll compare the pros and cons of 5 methods of learning.

Learning Method #1: Books
If you walk into any Barnes & Noble, you’ll see a big section of books on just about every computer-related topic you can think of. For every popular computer program, there are several books available to teach you how to use it. Usually these books range from $20 to $50. Some might even include a DVD with some additional content.

Pros: Books are readily available. You can find one or several online and have it in your hand very quickly. Often, there is a book available specifically for what you want to learn. And once you own it, you always have it for easy reference.

Cons: Not all books are very well written so the instruction given might be confusing. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of the “For Dummies” series of books. The ones I’ve read seem to be trying too hard to be humorous. Not to mention the whole “you need this book because you’re a dummy” idea is kind of condescending. Also, a book is “one size fits all” – the instruction is not personalized for you.

Learning Method #2: Website tutorials
For most subjects, there are several websites that have some basic instruction. In fact, this is the kind of thing I post on my website most Mondays – step by step instructions on how to perform a particular task on your computer.

Pros: There are lots of websites available that can offer instruction on a particular topic, and the vast majority of them are free.

Cons: Since anyone with a computer and an internet connection can create a blog or a website, there’s really no telling how accurate the information is. The person that created the site might be the foremost authority on the subject, or it could be written by a teenager living in a basement in Cleveland. In some cases you can research the author’s credentials, which is a good idea. Also, a website can be taking down at any time so this might not be a permanent or even long-term source of information.

Learning Method #3: Instructional videos
Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine (after Google of course)? You can go to YouTube and do a search there on just about anything, even very specific things, and it’s likely you find that someone has made a video about it. Want to replace the power supply on your Dell desktop computer? Watch someone else doing it, and just do what they do.

Pros: Probably the biggest advantage with online videos is the fact that they are visual. You can actually watch “over the shoulder” so to speak while someone does what you want to learn to do. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in many cases a video is even better.

Cons: If anything is incorrect or unclear about the video, you might be kind of stuck. On YouTube, there’s no button for “Contact the video creator” and many people don’t include their contact information with the video. So if you have a question there’s no one to ask. Also, like a website, a video can be removed from YouTube at any time so you might go back to watch it a second time and find that it’s gone.

Learning Method #4: Classroom
Obviously, the classroom setting has been a popular method of teaching for a long time. This is often considered the “standard” teaching model – a classroom of students who are there to learn about a particular subject, and a teacher who is an authority on that subject.

Pros: The biggest advantage of this process is the more personal approach. You are actually being taught by a human. In most cases, you can also ask the instructor questions and get personalized answers.

Cons: Class size can be an issue. If you are one of 200 students, the teacher may not have enough time available to give personalized help to you or any of the other students. Also, the teacher may or may not be an expert on the subject (though you can research this before enrolling usually). Finally (and this is a big one), not everyone in the class will be at the same level. So even though you grasp the material and want to move on, there may be several others that are constantly asking very fundamental questions and keeping the rest of the class from moving forward. Or the reverse – you could be struggling but the instructor is moving ahead with new material and you could feel left behind.

Learning Method #5: One on one tutoring
With this method, there are only two people involved: you and the instructor. You have a specific thing you want to learn, and you hire an instructor who knows about that area, and you are taught personally.

Pros: The biggest advantage is that you learn exactly what you want to learn, and at your own pace. If something confuses you, you can stop the instructor right there and ask a question. And with only one student, the teacher will have a better idea of how well you are grasping the material. This is the kind of instruction I do. If there’s a particular task someone wants to learn, for example, how to format a cell in an Excel spreadsheet – we do it three times. First, I do it and the student just watches. Second, I do it again but slowly and step-by-step, so that the student can write down each step. Third, we switch seats and the student performs the task following those notes that were just written down. That way we know that task can be done after I leave.

Cons: Personal computer instruction is generally more expensive than taking a class or buying a book and learning on your own – that’s part of the price for learning the material more quickly and more efficiently.

With remote access technology, personal computer tutoring can be done without you or the instructor leaving home.

The post Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

computer instruction — Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff Feb 22, 2016
Show notes

A lot of people want to be reasonably knowledgeable about one or more aspects of their computer. Not like a computer programmer or someone that works on computers all day, but familiar enough to use popular software and be able to handle things that come up from time to time. But how do you learn? There are several ways to learn, and today I’ll compare the pros and cons of 5 methods of learning.

Learning Method #1: Books
If you walk into any Barnes & Noble, you’ll see a big section of books on just about every computer-related topic you can think of. For every popular computer program, there are several books available to teach you how to use it. Usually these books range from $20 to $50. Some might even include a DVD with some additional content.

Pros: Books are readily available. You can find one or several online and have it in your hand very quickly. Often, there is a book available specifically for what you want to learn. And once you own it, you always have it for easy reference.

Cons: Not all books are very well written so the instruction given might be confusing. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of the “For Dummies” series of books. The ones I’ve read seem to be trying too hard to be humorous. Not to mention the whole “you need this book because you’re a dummy” idea is kind of condescending. Also, a book is “one size fits all” – the instruction is not personalized for you.

Learning Method #2: Website tutorials
For most subjects, there are several websites that have some basic instruction. In fact, this is the kind of thing I post on my website most Mondays – step by step instructions on how to perform a particular task on your computer.

Pros: There are lots of websites available that can offer instruction on a particular topic, and the vast majority of them are free.

Cons: Since anyone with a computer and an internet connection can create a blog or a website, there’s really no telling how accurate the information is. The person that created the site might be the foremost authority on the subject, or it could be written by a teenager living in a basement in Cleveland. In some cases you can research the author’s credentials, which is a good idea. Also, a website can be taking down at any time so this might not be a permanent or even long-term source of information.

Learning Method #3: Instructional videos
Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine (after Google of course)? You can go to YouTube and do a search there on just about anything, even very specific things, and it’s likely you find that someone has made a video about it. Want to replace the power supply on your Dell desktop computer? Watch someone else doing it, and just do what they do.

Pros: Probably the biggest advantage with online videos is the fact that they are visual. You can actually watch “over the shoulder” so to speak while someone does what you want to learn to do. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in many cases a video is even better.

Cons: If anything is incorrect or unclear about the video, you might be kind of stuck. On YouTube, there’s no button for “Contact the video creator” and many people don’t include their contact information with the video. So if you have a question there’s no one to ask. Also, like a website, a video can be removed from YouTube at any time so you might go back to watch it a second time and find that it’s gone.

Learning Method #4: Classroom
Obviously, the classroom setting has been a popular method of teaching for a long time. This is often considered the “standard” teaching model – a classroom of students who are there to learn about a particular subject, and a teacher who is an authority on that subject.

Pros: The biggest advantage of this process is the more personal approach. You are actually being taught by a human. In most cases, you can also ask the instructor questions and get personalized answers.

Cons: Class size can be an issue. If you are one of 200 students, the teacher may not have enough time available to give personalized help to you or any of the other students. Also, the teacher may or may not be an expert on the subject (though you can research this before enrolling usually). Finally (and this is a big one), not everyone in the class will be at the same level. So even though you grasp the material and want to move on, there may be several others that are constantly asking very fundamental questions and keeping the rest of the class from moving forward. Or the reverse – you could be struggling but the instructor is moving ahead with new material and you could feel left behind.

Learning Method #5: One on one tutoring
With this method, there are only two people involved: you and the instructor. You have a specific thing you want to learn, and you hire an instructor who knows about that area, and you are taught personally.

Pros: The biggest advantage is that you learn exactly what you want to learn, and at your own pace. If something confuses you, you can stop the instructor right there and ask a question. And with only one student, the teacher will have a better idea of how well you are grasping the material. This is the kind of instruction I do. If there’s a particular task someone wants to learn, for example, how to format a cell in an Excel spreadsheet – we do it three times. First, I do it and the student just watches. Second, I do it again but slowly and step-by-step, so that the student can write down each step. Third, we switch seats and the student performs the task following those notes that were just written down. That way we know that task can be done after I leave.

Cons: Personal computer instruction is generally more expensive than taking a class or buying a book and learning on your own – that’s part of the price for learning the material more quickly and more efficiently.

With remote access technology, personal computer tutoring can be done without you or the instructor leaving home.

The post Comparison of 5 ways to learn computer stuff first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

cool websites — More cool websites Feb 15, 2016
Show notes

Enough Windows 10 nonsense – let’s have some fun with some great websites!

Every few months I do a blog and podcast about some interesting websites I’ve come across. There’s no exact criteria for what makes the list. I just look for ones I find interesting, entertaining, or educational.

FotoJet
www.FotoJet.com
If you want a place that will make you look like a super creative person on social media, this is it. If you have a YouTube channel, or an Instagram account, or a Twitter account, or virtually any other type of social media account, you want it to look nice with professional photos. But it’s difficult to do that unless you have good photo editing software, and the skills to use it correctly.

FotoJet makes it easy to make really nice images with overlaid text, and they know exactly what size the photo needs to be for each type of social media account. For example, a header image on a YouTube channel should be 2560 pixels wide and 1440 pixels high. FotoJet already knows those types of details so you don’t have to learn through trial and error. To see what is available for you to create, click on the “Samples” link at the top of the website.

Twitter headers

YouTube covers

Facebook covers

Facebook posts

Google Plus covers

Pinterest graphics

Instagram posts

Photo magazine covers

Photo comics

Run Pee
www.RunPee.com
Everyone watches movies, and everyone has to pee eventually. But what about when you’re with a group of friends watching a great movie, and you have to use the bathroom? If the movie is really good, you don’t want to leave for a few minutes and miss something that’s critical to the story line. But you know you can’t wait another hour or more until it’s over. That’s where the RunPee app comes in handy. You can access this on a computer, but it’s probably more effective using the app on your phone.

When you run the app, it displays a list of movies. New movies are added every week on the day the open in theaters. Through the magic of crowdsourcing, each listing will tell you when there is a 3-5 minute stretch where you can leave and come back without missing anything important. Most films have a few of these, and they are summarized in a sentence or two.

If you start the app and start the timer when the movie starts, you can even get a vibrate alert on your phone when one of the “pee times” comes up!

All My Faves
www.AllMyFaves.com
This is one of those sites that is REALLY useful. They’ve taken just about every type of website (such as videos, maps, news, weather, car rental, photos, movies, genealogy, lots more) and put them in a list down the left side. Then, for each category, they have the most popular websites in that category displayed via the logo. Each logo is a link that takes you to that site.

They’re laid out like this:

And they fit all of it on one page! Here’s a smaller, abbreviated version but you should just go to the website to see all that’s there.

Status History
www.StatusHistory.com
This one is Facebook-related, since almost everyone on the planet now has a Facebook account. Except my dad – he refuses to participate.

The Status History site allows you to see all of your previous Facebook status updates – right back to when you first got on Facebook. It took about 6 minutes for it to find all of mine (2196 total). Pretty interesting to see what I was posting back as far as 2008.

You can also see some other interesting numbers:

How many “likes” you’ve received

Who has made the most comments on your posts

How many times you’ve commented on friends’ posts

Who has given you the most likes

It’s interesting to see this information, but when I see these historical totals, I also can’t help but think about how much time is wasted on Facebook. Maybe my dad has the right idea.

InnerBody
www.InnerBody.com
I love this one because it is so educational, and so easy to use. And it is useful for just about everyone, since we all have a body. And most of us have very little knowledge about how organs and body systems work, or even where they are. This website changes all that, and in a very visual way.

When you first see the website, there’s a human body displayed, and you can mouse over (without clicking) the list on the left to highlight a particular system:

Then when you actually click on the system you want to explore, you’ll find much more detailed information on that area. And the image also becomes interactive – you can even see a 3D image, which you can rotate and zoom in on with your mouse.

There is a LOT of information here so you could spend a lot of time on this site. And the graphics, while anatomically correct, are done tastefully. Very useful and informative.

The Kitty Convict Project
http://www.explodingkittens.com/kittyconvict
This makes so much sense – as long as people are aware of it. Check these facts:

Here in the US, over 7 million pets go missing every year (I had no idea it was that many).

For dogs, about 26% are reported and end up returning home. But for cats, it’s less than 5%! Here’s why:

More dogs have ID collars on than cats do.

Cats are better at hiding.

When someone sees a dog running around the neighborhood, they assume it’s lost. When they see a cat running around the neighborhood, they assume it’s just an outdoor cat, so it never gets reported.

This website offers a solution to that problem: If your cat is an indoor cat, dress them in orange – such as an orange collar or an orange scarf.

One reason for orange is that it’s easy to see. But more importantly, it brands your cat as a “Kitty Convict”. This tells anyone that might happen to see it that this cat belongs INSIDE, so it has probably escaped its home and needs to be reported.

If you have a cat, you can get an orange collar on Amazon, here: http://amzn.to/1mv4BJu and it can have a custom ID tag, or you can get your phone number embroidered right on the collar itself.

Google Feud
www.GoogleFeud.com
This one is kind of fun and kind of addicting. As I was researching this blog post, this is the site I ~~spent~~ wasted the most time on. You know how Family Feud works, right? They take a survey of 100 people and make a list of the top 6-10 answers for a particular question. And you have to guess as many of those as you can. If you guess one that’s not up there, that’s a strike. When you have 3 strikes, you’re done.

This game works pretty much like that. But what you’re trying to guess are the top ways a Google search is autocompleted. You know, when you’re typing in Google and before you do an actual search, Google tries to predict what you’re wanting to search for. This is based on what thousands or millions of people before you have searched on. For example, if you type in Google “Baseball is” you’ll see some potential searches that might match what you want.

So on GoogleFeud, you’re trying to guess what the top “autocompletes” were for a given phrase. You have 4 categories to choose from:

Culture

People

Names

Questions

When you go there and try it, you’ll see it’s pretty easy to figure out. The game keeps score for you so you can try to beat your previous high score.

And if YOU know of a website that you think people might like to hear about, send me an email and it just might get featured in an upcoming blog post.

The post More cool websites first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

cool websites — More cool websites Feb 15, 2016
Show notes

Enough Windows 10 nonsense – let’s have some fun with some great websites!

Every few months I do a blog and podcast about some interesting websites I’ve come across. There’s no exact criteria for what makes the list. I just look for ones I find interesting, entertaining, or educational.

FotoJet
www.FotoJet.com
If you want a place that will make you look like a super creative person on social media, this is it. If you have a YouTube channel, or an Instagram account, or a Twitter account, or virtually any other type of social media account, you want it to look nice with professional photos. But it’s difficult to do that unless you have good photo editing software, and the skills to use it correctly.

FotoJet makes it easy to make really nice images with overlaid text, and they know exactly what size the photo needs to be for each type of social media account. For example, a header image on a YouTube channel should be 2560 pixels wide and 1440 pixels high. FotoJet already knows those types of details so you don’t have to learn through trial and error. To see what is available for you to create, click on the “Samples” link at the top of the website.

Twitter headers

YouTube covers

Facebook covers

Facebook posts

Google Plus covers

Pinterest graphics

Instagram posts

Photo magazine covers

Photo comics

Run Pee
www.RunPee.com
Everyone watches movies, and everyone has to pee eventually. But what about when you’re with a group of friends watching a great movie, and you have to use the bathroom? If the movie is really good, you don’t want to leave for a few minutes and miss something that’s critical to the story line. But you know you can’t wait another hour or more until it’s over. That’s where the RunPee app comes in handy. You can access this on a computer, but it’s probably more effective using the app on your phone.

When you run the app, it displays a list of movies. New movies are added every week on the day the open in theaters. Through the magic of crowdsourcing, each listing will tell you when there is a 3-5 minute stretch where you can leave and come back without missing anything important. Most films have a few of these, and they are summarized in a sentence or two.

If you start the app and start the timer when the movie starts, you can even get a vibrate alert on your phone when one of the “pee times” comes up!

All My Faves
www.AllMyFaves.com
This is one of those sites that is REALLY useful. They’ve taken just about every type of website (such as videos, maps, news, weather, car rental, photos, movies, genealogy, lots more) and put them in a list down the left side. Then, for each category, they have the most popular websites in that category displayed via the logo. Each logo is a link that takes you to that site.

They’re laid out like this:

And they fit all of it on one page! Here’s a smaller, abbreviated version but you should just go to the website to see all that’s there.

Status History
www.StatusHistory.com
This one is Facebook-related, since almost everyone on the planet now has a Facebook account. Except my dad – he refuses to participate.

The Status History site allows you to see all of your previous Facebook status updates – right back to when you first got on Facebook. It took about 6 minutes for it to find all of mine (2196 total). Pretty interesting to see what I was posting back as far as 2008.

You can also see some other interesting numbers:

How many “likes” you’ve received

Who has made the most comments on your posts

How many times you’ve commented on friends’ posts

Who has given you the most likes

It’s interesting to see this information, but when I see these historical totals, I also can’t help but think about how much time is wasted on Facebook. Maybe my dad has the right idea.

InnerBody
www.InnerBody.com
I love this one because it is so educational, and so easy to use. And it is useful for just about everyone, since we all have a body. And most of us have very little knowledge about how organs and body systems work, or even where they are. This website changes all that, and in a very visual way.

When you first see the website, there’s a human body displayed, and you can mouse over (without clicking) the list on the left to highlight a particular system:

Then when you actually click on the system you want to explore, you’ll find much more detailed information on that area. And the image also becomes interactive – you can even see a 3D image, which you can rotate and zoom in on with your mouse.

There is a LOT of information here so you could spend a lot of time on this site. And the graphics, while anatomically correct, are done tastefully. Very useful and informative.

The Kitty Convict Project
http://www.explodingkittens.com/kittyconvict
This makes so much sense – as long as people are aware of it. Check these facts:

Here in the US, over 7 million pets go missing every year (I had no idea it was that many).

For dogs, about 26% are reported and end up returning home. But for cats, it’s less than 5%! Here’s why:

More dogs have ID collars on than cats do.

Cats are better at hiding.

When someone sees a dog running around the neighborhood, they assume it’s lost. When they see a cat running around the neighborhood, they assume it’s just an outdoor cat, so it never gets reported.

This website offers a solution to that problem: If your cat is an indoor cat, dress them in orange – such as an orange collar or an orange scarf.

One reason for orange is that it’s easy to see. But more importantly, it brands your cat as a “Kitty Convict”. This tells anyone that might happen to see it that this cat belongs INSIDE, so it has probably escaped its home and needs to be reported.

If you have a cat, you can get an orange collar on Amazon, here: http://amzn.to/1mv4BJu and it can have a custom ID tag, or you can get your phone number embroidered right on the collar itself.

Google Feud
www.GoogleFeud.com
This one is kind of fun and kind of addicting. As I was researching this blog post, this is the site I ~~spent~~ wasted the most time on. You know how Family Feud works, right? They take a survey of 100 people and make a list of the top 6-10 answers for a particular question. And you have to guess as many of those as you can. If you guess one that’s not up there, that’s a strike. When you have 3 strikes, you’re done.

This game works pretty much like that. But what you’re trying to guess are the top ways a Google search is autocompleted. You know, when you’re typing in Google and before you do an actual search, Google tries to predict what you’re wanting to search for. This is based on what thousands or millions of people before you have searched on. For example, if you type in Google “Baseball is” you’ll see some potential searches that might match what you want.

So on GoogleFeud, you’re trying to guess what the top “autocompletes” were for a given phrase. You have 4 categories to choose from:

Culture

People

Names

Questions

When you go there and try it, you’ll see it’s pretty easy to figure out. The game keeps score for you so you can try to beat your previous high score.

And if YOU know of a website that you think people might like to hear about, send me an email and it just might get featured in an upcoming blog post.

The post More cool websites first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Is Windows 10 a virus? — Microsoft’s newest tactic for force-feeding Windows 10 Feb 08, 2016
Show notes

With an announcement this past week, Microsoft made sure that millions of unsuspecting Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will be surprised to find their computer “upgraded” to Windows 10. You can stop it, though.

What Microsoft announced is that they are now going to re-categorize the Windows 10 “upgrade” as a Recommended update. (sorry, but I always have to put that term in quotation marks in reference to Windows 10 because “upgrade” usually implies that what you’re getting is an improvement).

Here’s what this means.

Microsoft sends out Windows Updates monthly. It’s on the second Tuesday of each month and has become known as Patch Tuesday. This month, it’s February 9.

When those updates are sent out, they are classified as either “Important” or “Optional”. An Important update would be something like a security hole that’s discovered in Windows that needs to be patched so that hackers cannot exploit it and cause problems. An Optional update would perhaps be a driver update for your mouse – might be good to have, but not critical.

But in addition, Microsoft designates some Windows Updates as “recommended”. These are the ones that THEY think you should get. And in your computer, in the Windows Update settings, there’s an option related to how your computer handles the “Recommended” updates. You have the option to either get the recommended updates the same way you get your Important updates (which for most people is automatically installed at 3 am the day after they come in), or you can choose NOT to get them automatically. Here’s what the option looks like. It’s just a simple check box:

Here’s the key point in this discussion: When you get your computer, that box is already checked by default. Therefore, unless you have unchecked that box, you are going to get whatever updates Microsoft categorizes as “Recommended”. And they just classified the Windows 10 “upgrade”as “Recommended” with this recent announcement.

So, lots of people – probably millions – will be getting Windows 10 this week, even though they really don’t want it.

Here are three things you can do to prevent Windows 10 from getting into your computer:

In Control Panel, open Windows Update. On the left side, click on Change Settings. UNcheck the box that says “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” and click OK. (If you’re on my Managed Service Plan, ignore this step.)

Get GWX Control Panel installed (it’s free) and make sure “Monitor Mode” is enabled. I did a full post about GWX Control Panel, which you can read here.

I would also recommend getting on my Managed Service Plan (description and pricing here). This is the best security protection you can have for your computer, and it handles the Windows Updates for you, so you won’t get any unexpected ones. But even with that, I would still want GWX Control Panel installed.

The more I hear about Windows 10, the more it really sounds like a computer virus.

What are the characteristics of a virus?

Sneaks on to your computer against your will

Code written poorly, so it often doesn’t run properly

Spies on the user

Created to exploit the user for financial gain

Frustrates its victims

Difficult to remove once it gets in

Those things all describe any common computer virus, but they also describe Windows 10. Not something I would want on my computer.

The post Microsoft’s newest tactic for force-feeding Windows 10 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Windows updates — Microsoft’s newest tactic for force-feeding Windows 10 Feb 08, 2016
Show notes

With an announcement this past week, Microsoft made sure that millions of unsuspecting Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will be surprised to find their computer “upgraded” to Windows 10. You can stop it, though.

What Microsoft announced is that they are now going to re-categorize the Windows 10 “upgrade” as a Recommended update. (sorry, but I always have to put that term in quotation marks in reference to Windows 10 because “upgrade” usually implies that what you’re getting is an improvement).

Here’s what this means.

Microsoft sends out Windows Updates monthly. It’s on the second Tuesday of each month and has become known as Patch Tuesday. This month, it’s February 9.

When those updates are sent out, they are classified as either “Important” or “Optional”. An Important update would be something like a security hole that’s discovered in Windows that needs to be patched so that hackers cannot exploit it and cause problems. An Optional update would perhaps be a driver update for your mouse – might be good to have, but not critical.

But in addition, Microsoft designates some Windows Updates as “recommended”. These are the ones that THEY think you should get. And in your computer, in the Windows Update settings, there’s an option related to how your computer handles the “Recommended” updates. You have the option to either get the recommended updates the same way you get your Important updates (which for most people is automatically installed at 3 am the day after they come in), or you can choose NOT to get them automatically. Here’s what the option looks like. It’s just a simple check box:

Here’s the key point in this discussion: When you get your computer, that box is already checked by default. Therefore, unless you have unchecked that box, you are going to get whatever updates Microsoft categorizes as “Recommended”. And they just classified the Windows 10 “upgrade”as “Recommended” with this recent announcement.

So, lots of people – probably millions – will be getting Windows 10 this week, even though they really don’t want it.

Here are three things you can do to prevent Windows 10 from getting into your computer:

In Control Panel, open Windows Update. On the left side, click on Change Settings. UNcheck the box that says “Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates” and click OK. (If you’re on my Managed Service Plan, ignore this step.)

Get GWX Control Panel installed (it’s free) and make sure “Monitor Mode” is enabled. I did a full post about GWX Control Panel, which you can read here.

I would also recommend getting on my Managed Service Plan (description and pricing here). This is the best security protection you can have for your computer, and it handles the Windows Updates for you, so you won’t get any unexpected ones. But even with that, I would still want GWX Control Panel installed.

The more I hear about Windows 10, the more it really sounds like a computer virus.

What are the characteristics of a virus?

Sneaks on to your computer against your will

Code written poorly, so it often doesn’t run properly

Spies on the user

Created to exploit the user for financial gain

Frustrates its victims

Difficult to remove once it gets in

Those things all describe any common computer virus, but they also describe Windows 10. Not something I would want on my computer.

The post Microsoft’s newest tactic for force-feeding Windows 10 first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Wizmouse — A little program that I now can’t live without Feb 01, 2016
Show notes

I love little pieces of software that focus on a single problem and solve it efficiently. A while back I found something that does this, and now I use it every day. In fact, if it’s turned off for some reason, I notice the difference almost immediately. And it’s free.

Here’s the problem:

Windows has this thing called “focus”. This basically just means that one window is always “in front of” any other open windows. Whatever window you’re currently working on, that’s the window that is in front of the others – it has the focus. Even if two windows are side by side, only one of them can have the focus at a time.

If you’re working in one window and then move your mouse over to a website and try to scroll down the website page, nothing will happen because that window doesn’t have focus. In order to do anything in the web browser window, you have to first click somewhere in that window to tell the computer “Hey, give this window the focus now” – and then you can scroll down the page.

It’s just one of those weird things that has been in effect in Windows computers for many years. Most people have gotten so used to it that it might not even seem like an inconvenience.

But wait til you get used to NOT having that inconvenience!

Wizmouse is a free program (get it here) and it’s very small so it uses almost no resources. When it’s running, it eliminates the “focus” feature in Windows. You don’t have to keep clicking on whatever window you want to work with in order to do anything – all you have to do is move the cursor to that window and start working.

Wherever your mouse is, that window has the focus!

When you download and install Wizmouse, you’ll have a window that has some options available to you. For me, I just check the boxes to make sure Wizmouse is enabled, and I have it start with Windows so that it’s running all the time. And I have it run as Administrator.

Sometimes when I’m recording my podcast, before I hit “Record” I’ll go through and shut down whatever programs are running in order to give the audio recording the full use of the processor and memory. Later on, when I start using the computer for other things, it’s a very short time before I realize Wizmouse is disabled and I need to start it up again because I am so used to the way it makes windows work. I’ll bet you get spoiled by it pretty quickly too.

Also – Wizmouse is free, but you’ll notice on the website and on the settings screen in the program, there’s a button to click if you want to donate to the programmer who created it. Always a nice thing to do.

The post A little program that I now can’t live without first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Wizmouse — A little program that I now can’t live without Feb 01, 2016
Show notes

I love little pieces of software that focus on a single problem and solve it efficiently. A while back I found something that does this, and now I use it every day. In fact, if it’s turned off for some reason, I notice the difference almost immediately. And it’s free.

Here’s the problem:

Windows has this thing called “focus”. This basically just means that one window is always “in front of” any other open windows. Whatever window you’re currently working on, that’s the window that is in front of the others – it has the focus. Even if two windows are side by side, only one of them can have the focus at a time.

If you’re working in one window and then move your mouse over to a website and try to scroll down the website page, nothing will happen because that window doesn’t have focus. In order to do anything in the web browser window, you have to first click somewhere in that window to tell the computer “Hey, give this window the focus now” – and then you can scroll down the page.

It’s just one of those weird things that has been in effect in Windows computers for many years. Most people have gotten so used to it that it might not even seem like an inconvenience.

But wait til you get used to NOT having that inconvenience!

Wizmouse is a free program (get it here) and it’s very small so it uses almost no resources. When it’s running, it eliminates the “focus” feature in Windows. You don’t have to keep clicking on whatever window you want to work with in order to do anything – all you have to do is move the cursor to that window and start working.

Wherever your mouse is, that window has the focus!

When you download and install Wizmouse, you’ll have a window that has some options available to you. For me, I just check the boxes to make sure Wizmouse is enabled, and I have it start with Windows so that it’s running all the time. And I have it run as Administrator.

Sometimes when I’m recording my podcast, before I hit “Record” I’ll go through and shut down whatever programs are running in order to give the audio recording the full use of the processor and memory. Later on, when I start using the computer for other things, it’s a very short time before I realize Wizmouse is disabled and I need to start it up again because I am so used to the way it makes windows work. I’ll bet you get spoiled by it pretty quickly too.

Also – Wizmouse is free, but you’ll notice on the website and on the settings screen in the program, there’s a button to click if you want to donate to the programmer who created it. Always a nice thing to do.

The post A little program that I now can’t live without first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

rename pictures — How to rename 1000 images in 32 seconds or less Jan 25, 2016
Show notes

You just got back from the trip of a lifetime. For some people that would be a cruise to Alaska, for others it might be a guided tour through the Holy Land of Israel, and for some it could be visiting some of the old castles of Ireland. Personally, I would enjoy any of them. But now that you’re back home, you have a computer folder full of pictures, and each one has a name like “DCF2016070901.jpg” which of course tells you nothing about the pictures itself. Those pictures – all 1000 of them – need to be renamed.

Of course, one option is to open up the folder that has all your pictures, and start at the beginning. On the first picture, do a right click, then choose “Rename”, type “Disney1” and hit Enter. Then do the same thing with the next picture and call it “Disney2” and hit Enter. Yeah! Only 998 to go!

As you might guess, that’s not really the most efficient way to go about this since it would take a very long time and most people would just get tired of it and quit before they got all thousand pictures renamed.

Here’s the much easier way. This process assumes you have all of your Disney pictures in one folder.

With that folder open, so you see the entire group of pictures, hold down the CTRL key and tap the letter “a” (for “all”). Now all of the pictures are selected (highlighted).

On the first picture in the list, do a right-click and choose “Rename” and type the word “Disney” (no number, just the name Disney). Hit Enter.

In just a few seconds, every picture you see in that folder is renamed. So now the list is Disney1, Disney2, Disney3 all the way up to Disney1000. So much easier to have the computer to that work!

Now, I can hear some of you saying, “But Scott, our vacation was divided up and we weren’t at Disney the whole time. We went to Disney for 4 days, and Sea World for 3 days, then we went to Busch Gardens for a day.”

That’s fine. This just means you have to divide them into their own folders first. Just make 3 folders:

Disney

Sea World

Busch Gardens

Then just drag each of the pictures into the appropriate folder based on what you see in the thumbnail image. Once the large group of folders is divided into those 3 folders, then go into each of those folders and do the same renaming process as before.

You can really narrow it down as much as you want, although the more specific you want the file names to be, the more time it will take to get it that way. Even so, the process I outlined here (called “batch renaming”) is a whole lot faster than just renaming each image individually.

The post How to rename 1000 images in 32 seconds or less first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

listen to my podcast in iTunes — How to rename 1000 images in 32 seconds or less Jan 25, 2016
Show notes

You just got back from the trip of a lifetime. For some people that would be a cruise to Alaska, for others it might be a guided tour through the Holy Land of Israel, and for some it could be visiting some of the old castles of Ireland. Personally, I would enjoy any of them. But now that you’re back home, you have a computer folder full of pictures, and each one has a name like “DCF2016070901.jpg” which of course tells you nothing about the pictures itself. Those pictures – all 1000 of them – need to be renamed.

Of course, one option is to open up the folder that has all your pictures, and start at the beginning. On the first picture, do a right click, then choose “Rename”, type “Disney1” and hit Enter. Then do the same thing with the next picture and call it “Disney2” and hit Enter. Yeah! Only 998 to go!

As you might guess, that’s not really the most efficient way to go about this since it would take a very long time and most people would just get tired of it and quit before they got all thousand pictures renamed.

Here’s the much easier way. This process assumes you have all of your Disney pictures in one folder.

With that folder open, so you see the entire group of pictures, hold down the CTRL key and tap the letter “a” (for “all”). Now all of the pictures are selected (highlighted).

On the first picture in the list, do a right-click and choose “Rename” and type the word “Disney” (no number, just the name Disney). Hit Enter.

In just a few seconds, every picture you see in that folder is renamed. So now the list is Disney1, Disney2, Disney3 all the way up to Disney1000. So much easier to have the computer to that work!

Now, I can hear some of you saying, “But Scott, our vacation was divided up and we weren’t at Disney the whole time. We went to Disney for 4 days, and Sea World for 3 days, then we went to Busch Gardens for a day.”

That’s fine. This just means you have to divide them into their own folders first. Just make 3 folders:

Disney

Sea World

Busch Gardens

Then just drag each of the pictures into the appropriate folder based on what you see in the thumbnail image. Once the large group of folders is divided into those 3 folders, then go into each of those folders and do the same renaming process as before.

You can really narrow it down as much as you want, although the more specific you want the file names to be, the more time it will take to get it that way. Even so, the process I outlined here (called “batch renaming”) is a whole lot faster than just renaming each image individually.

The post How to rename 1000 images in 32 seconds or less first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

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