Mentioned on today’s show:

1. Learning curve will be large if you’ve never used computers.
2. Courses at BRCC and MTC which are excellent
   • I have had students from 16-96
   • Retired person 96 who just wanted to learn more
   • One woman in 80s who had a hobby and wanted to sell her hobby online.
   • I taught her to build her own web site and did a great job and sold her items
3. Desktop or Portable?
   • Screen Size
   • Can change text and graphics in most all programs
   • Size of monitor may be hard to navigate if too small
4. Still need “room” to move around on the screen.
5. Weight
   • My backpack weighs 11 lbs. would that be feasible for all?
   • How much do you want to carry around for a Notebook (~5-8 lbs.)
   • Small Netbook computers (~2 lbs.)
   • Tablet – iPad all the rage as of yesterday (~1 lb.)

Tags: citizen, computer, computer help, Jeff Ishee, Jim Britt, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, senior, WVSA

Last week’s column about “Working At Home” and using “Remote Desktop Connection” received many thanks and a couple of emails with suggestions.  (Thanks to all of you who write each week; I really appreciate “talking” to my readers even if it is just to say, “Hi”.)  One of those suggestions submitted by Daryl in Elkton suggested a site/application that I had not heard of before.

The application is named, “TeamViewer” and is a free and reasonably simple way to log into  another computer with the TeamViewer software installed.   Keep in mind that this is only available free to home users and not commercial businesses.  Go to the site to, “Find out why more than 60 million users trust TeamViewer!”

There are several excellent benefits and one potential drawback.  The benefits would start with ease of installation.  The site says you can be up and running in 2 minutes.  That is a fairly accurate statement, but if you read all the documentation I would plan on 15-30 minutes.  Next, you can create a group which has all of your computers in the group.  This allows you to login using your group username and password and easily connect to any of your group’s computers.  Another benefit is the ability to easily transfer documents back and forth between computers.

Since I have limited space here I will hit one HUGE benefit of TeamViewer.  If you set it up correctly you do not have to have the TeamViewer software installed on a computer to access your group’s computers.  You can log onto your account using your internet browser.  The address is simple (login.teamviewer.com) and once you log in there you may connect to one of your computer’s desktops to interact with your “long distance” computer as if you were sitting in front of it!  This is a tremendous advantage over most ways to access your computers from a distance.  It sets up a secure site connection using “https” the same as your bank’s website, so security should not be an issue.

The one drawback that does bother me is that they have a menu item that reads, “Enable black screen”.  I have tried this feature with computers that are side by side to check that and other features.  When I choose to “black” the remote screen it does, but not when I click on the remote screen.  The remote computer flashes and anyone can see what is clicked.  This is not terrible but I believe it is a security problem.  At my home it really doesn’t matter since it is just my wife and me, but if you have visitors or robbers it is different.  If someone from TeamViewer would like to contact me and tell me how to correct this issue I would whole heartedly recommend TV to everyone.  However, at this point I see that as a possible security issue.

OK, one last benefit.  Since you can log onto your computer long distance using your browser it works on all windows enabled computers.  I have installed it on my wife’s notebook, our desktop and even my little netbook.  Two of these computers run Windows 7 and one of them Windows XP so I can verify that it works well across those operating systems (including Mac OS X 10.4 and up).

Give it a try this week and let me know what you think.  And as with all software I recommend, use at your own risk and check their website for issues since I can’t possibly know all the details for all the software I use/recommend.

Last but not least, “Happy New Year” to you and your families!”

Tags: add-on, computer, computer help, google docs, new computer, other computer, RDP, Ron Doyle, Transferring Files, viewer

I bought a DVD movie of the newest installment in the Star Trek line this week. Yes, I guess I  have to admit it but I am a little bit of a trekker, trekkie or whatever they call us today. I was 11 years old in 1966 and my dad and I used to tune into the original series every Thursday night at 8:30 pm for the first season, first run of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. (Of course, in the original space/time continuum Spock wasn’t making out with Uhura.)

I will offer a slight review of the new movie here. It was OK, not great, but none of the movies have been terrific, with the exception of Khan. This one  was quite humorous slightly reminiscent of “The Trouble with Tribbles.” I understand exactly why they did what they did with this new one in the space/time continuum; however, I still didn’t care for it. OK, that’s enough from me on that…onto the subject of this column.

I got a good surprise this week when I opened the DVD. I consider myself to be a pretty well versed user of the iPod and several of its versions. However, this week I was surprised to see that they also included a digital copy of the movie on the disc. This allows me to “burn” a legal copy of the entire movie to my 120GB iPod Classic. I had not experienced this before.

Of course, I only watch movies on my iPod when I fly. This means that I don’t need many movies on my iPod since I’ve flown only twice in the last ten years. So now I have this one ready to go.

The surprise, other than having never done this before, was how easy it actually worked. It also worked exactly as the instructions said it would; “working as described” is something that I don’t experience very often with most products today. That is unfortunate too but at least this one did work.

If you purchase a movie with a digital iPod ready copy here is all you do. Start up iTunes (yes, I don’t care for it either but it does its job), insert the DVD into your DVD player on your computer. Wait for a few seconds for a menu to popup then choose “Transfer digital copy to iTunes”. After you enter a secret code to prove that you really bought it, the install starts. I also imagine the code registers your movie which should stop anyone else from using the same code for additional copies. That is speculation on my part, but I’m pretty positive about that scenario.

Following a 5-10 minute wait the installation to iTunes will be complete. The next time you  sync your iPod you will have a crystal clear, excellent sounding copy of the movie on your iPod. You may now view it at your convenience – on your two inch wide monitor. OK, well nothings perfect!

I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving with friends and family this week!

Tags: computer help

“A well known telephone scam is now being used on cellular telephones.”

“If you receive a phone call on your mobile from any person saying that he or she is a company engineer, or telling that they’re checking your mobile line, and you have to press 90#.”

“End this call immediately without pressing any numbers. There is a fraud company using a device that once you press 90# they can access your “SIM” card and make calls at your expense.”

“Forward this message to as many friends as you can to stop it.”

AND

“If you are ever forced to withdraw monies from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse order. The machine will still give you the monies you requested, but unknown to the robber, etc, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.”

OK, I’ve had enough from some of my well meaning readers and one or two relatives in particular.  Please STOP sending me warnings like these.  They are hardly ever true and I have written about ones similar to the above two before, but many people just don’t get it.

The two above are resurfacing from a couple of years ago.  And they, like all other crazy warnings are false. At least these two are based on pieces of truth.

The 90# was related to something that could have possibly happened in the past, but no longer.  In the past some commercial phone systems only required you to dial “9″ for an outside line, there is a very slight possibility that this could have led to something but no longer.  Also home phones and cells phones can not be affected by this so don’t forward this message to anyone. 

The Reverse PIN trick was explored by Joseph Zingher in 1994 or 1998 (I’m not sure this is true since I have found multiple references to him that disagree on his employment and dates).  He thought up the idea although no ATMs have ever used it.  I have read that it would cost too much money and the police may not be able to get to the scenes quickly enough.  In addition, under pressure, you may not be capable of remembering your PIN backward.  Consider also those pesky palindromic numbers like 2992 or 1221 or even 5555?

Just Google a few words from these warnings and find out BEFORE you send them to others that they are fakes.  For one of the above I just pasted “you have to press 90#” into Google.com and in a second found that it was an obvious Urban Legend.  Don’t waste your friends’ and relatives’ time.

Oh, by-the-way, have you heard that there is someone online who wishes to meet you and is lonely tonight…give it up please!

Tags: computer, computer help, doyle, internet, newspaper column, Ron Doyle, Urban Legend

I got several emails about transferring files from old computers to new Christmas computers recently.   They wanted to know the best/easiest/least expensive way to move old, but still important files onto the new computer.

First — don’t move your program files.  For instance you don’t want to transfer a game to your new computer, primarily because it won’t work.  Programs must be installed on your new computer because when a program installs, it writes information in many places on your computer that you don’t know about.  Without just one small bit of that information it won’t work.  So gather all those CDs you threw in a drawer somewhere and start installing them on your new computer; when you have plenty of time.

The data files or files that you have created using those programs, can be transferred to your new computer a number of ways.  These are files like photos, the book you are writing, drawings, scans, poetry, etc.

An easy way is to copy them to CDs or DVDs with your burners (hopefully both computers have one).  Next, copy the files from the CD or DVD to the new computer.  One CD can hold a lot of info (about 700 MB) and a DVD can hold about 7 times that (4.7 GB).  This is an easy, fairly inexpensive way but it will take a while. 

If you don’t have a burner you can use a flash drive in the same way as a CD or DVD transfer.  Depending on size one of these could hold more files than a DVD.

Another way is to purchase an USB file transfer cable (under $25) if both computers have USB ports.  You then link the two computers together using the cable and XP’s transfer program.  If one computer has XP on it, it will allow you to copy the program to the other computer on a floppy disk.  Go to ALL PROGRAMS / ACCESSORIES / SYSTEM TOOLS / FILE AND SETTINGS TRANSFER WIZARD and follow the wizard’s instructions.

Also, with the price of external hard drives down well below $200 they could also be an option for your data files.  Copy them to the external drive and copy them back to the new computer’s drive.  Then use the external drive for backups or with MojoPac (mentioned last week).

Advanced users could install the old hard drive into the new computer and drag files to the new drive.  Wipe the old one clean and leave it for more storage.  BEWARE!  This will most likely void your warranty!  If you have the computer built locally, ask the tech to do it for you…it will be worth the additional cost. 

No matter which way you go you will need to be organized in locating the files you want transferred and do not select files you do not really need.  This could be a good time to perform some file spring cleaning.

Tags: computer help, doyle, new computer, newspaper column, old computer, Ron Doyle, Transferring Files