Last week we looked at Gmail’s General Settings.  As a result of your emails, today we move on to Gmail Labels.

You get to Labels the same way you got to General Settings last week.  You must first be logged into your Gmail account (gmail.com).  Then look to the upper right corner and hover the little "gear" icon.  It should say "Settings". If not, keep hovering until you find it.  Now click it, then "Settings."  Finally, click on the second tab, "Labels."

I think Gmail received a lot of grief because of calling them labels instead of folders because when they first created them no one understood…except for us geeks.  My guess is that in recent times Google has added, "Folders" to their icons at the top of the screen where you can "put" an email to calm everyone down.

The difference between folders in Gmail and other apps is that if you label it from your inbox, it will also have an "Inbox" label and stay in your inbox.  However, when you move it to a folder, it is removed from your inbox.  But guess what, if you move it back from the "folder" you still need to remove the label…too confusing for me, so I suggest playing in Gmail and using the one you like the best.

The only thing I don’t like about Labels (which is my own learning situation) is that if you delete an email with a label of Jokes and it is also marked with the Family label it is deleted from everywhere, not just from that label.  You should remove the label to get it "out of the folder" by selecting the email, clicking the label icon and unchecking the label you want to remove.

Tags: computer, Email, folders, Gmail, google, inbox, internet mail, labels, online, Ron Doyle, software, technology, whim, wife jokes

The column about my Toshiba Thrive from last week generated several intriguing emails. 

First, "I am looking for a Tablet PC and want to know if you can tell me more about yours?"  Well, I can but I only have so much space in the columns.  You can really find all you need online starting at Toshiba.com and Googling for the "Toshiba Thrive."   I will, however go on to talk about a couple of things I did not mention last week.

It has an amazing recharging capability. The specifications said it will recharge a totally discharged battery in an hour.  Well come on folks!  Do I look like I was born yesterday?  I am not new to this stuff and I found that pretty hard to believe.  So I tested it out.  I ran my battery down to less than a 10% charge.  I plugged it in for exactly one hour and checked it.  The charge was up to 89%.  No, that is not 100% but close enough for me.  It only took a few more minutes to make it to 100%.  Just think about it, your battery is low and you have 20 minutes to spare. Charge it for those 20 minutes and you may have 25% or more of your battery capacity back.  That is amazing compared to other charging experiences I have had.

I mentioned the full size USB port last week and someone wanted to know if it would also hold a SD Card.  The answer is of course. Yes, there is a slot for one of those also.  There is also an HDMI slot (to connect to a video device like TV to deliver digital quality.) You could not ask for much more on a tablet.  Oh but wait, there is one more thing you do not find on many other tablet PCs, if any at all.  The Thrive has a replaceable battery.  That means you can order a new battery if needed and put it in yourself.  With others you have to pay a geek to do it and maybe send it away for a few weeks.

The other emails said that I had mentioned, "Swype" and they wanted to know if I had misspelled "Wipes".  Swype is a great Android program which allows you to significantly increase your "typing" speed on your phone or any Android device.  You simply slide your finger from one letter in a word to another and it predicts the word you are typing.  It is amazingly accurate and if you have an Android device and you want to try it out this free app, go to Swype.com.

The last item for today is Skype (Skype.com) and no, I have not just misspelled Swype. They are two totally different programs. The really basic description of Skype is that it allows you to call phones and other computers via the internet.  It also has the built-in capability to have video along with your audio.  That allows you to talk to and see the boyfriend, girlfriend, kids, grand kids, etc. no matter where they may be located on the globe.  It is a free computer-to-computer service but for phone calls check out the rules on their site.

Have fun computing this week and keep those emails coming!  I love to hear from all of my readers and answer your great questions.

Tags: android, battery capacity, capability, computer, experiences, googling, hardware, software, tablet PC, toshiba

Donna S. from Shenandoah wrote and asked a couple of good questions.  They first thing she wanted to know was which files she should delete when working in her browser under Options.

In your browser’s Options when deleting temporary/old files (settings vary per browser), there is one that I don’t delete.  That is the one that has to do with deleting saved passwords.  Note that it is labeled slightly different in the various browsers but you will be able to figure it out from the title.  For more experienced users you may choose differently, but that is OK, to each their own.  I like to keep the “recorded” passwords in particular so that the individual sites will not need me to remember the passwords and retype them the next time I visit a site.  This is only true if you allow your browser to remember your sites’ passwords.

After saying all of that I have a better recommendation.  I am surprised, but it appears as though I have never mentioned this application before and I have been using it for many years.  The app is called “Ccleaner” (ccleaner.com) and according to the site, “Historically the software was originally called “Crap Cleaner”, but this was shortened to CCleaner to prevent any offense and to allow corporations to use it.”  So there you go for your “inside info”.

CCleaner will run through your programs and delete all of the unneeded files.  Now be warned that it is removing files from your computer which could cause problems; however, after using it for years, I have never, ever had any issues caused by CCleaner.

Once, you install it, run the CLEANER at the top, left side and after it completes run REGISTRY.  I always use the default settings and delete all of the suggested things that will come up in the list.  It will clean your browser (which must be closed for CCleaner to run) and your computers “junk” files too.  They ask for $24.95 for priority support, but as of now I have never had a reason to get support, so I suggest the freebie.

Donna also asked about what “InPrivate Browsing” which she saw while looking around her browser.  It is also labeled as, “Private Browsing” in FireFox and “Incognito Windows” in Google Chrome; however, it is the same thing.

The InPrivate browser settings are jokingly called by many geeks the “Porn Browser Mode”.  Basically, InPrivate and its other nomenclatures, will not leave a trace of where a person has gone on the internet.  Then if someone else checks their computer they can’t see what sites they have visited in the past.  Although you should be aware that your internet service provider can provide that information if needed,  InPrivate only keeps your history off of your local computer.

Tags: a browser is, a computers, antivirus free download, cc cleaner, CCleaner, clean pc, clean registry, Crap Cleaner, deleting files, download cleaner, free antivirus download, house cleaning, how to clean registry, ie download, iexplorer, in private browsing, internet explorer, private browsing, regclean, registry booster, registry cleaner, software, softwares, windows cleanup

I got an email from a reader in Mt. Crawford over a month ago asking an excellent question.  They wanted to know if there was a way to keep all of their programs up to date, keeping the latest version always on their system.

In talking back and forth with them we came to the conclusion that there should be something on the market that was similar to “Windows Update”.  WU comes with all versions of Microsoft windows as all of my readers should know.  It allows you to check and see if there are any new versions of your MS products that need updating.  If there are, it allows you to update them so that you can stay ahead of the curve.

After a little Googling and searching I found a program called Secunia-PSI.  I have no idea what “Secunia” means but PSI is for “Personal Software Inspector”.  This program does almost everything the reader wanted.  I have been testing it for a little over a month and it seems to work very well.

You can go to secunia.com to read about and download the personal edition of the application.  There are actually three different versions of Secunia.  They are OSI (Online), PSI (Personal) and CSI (Corporate).  I tried the OSI and it was adequate but does not look for as many programs as the PSI and CSI versions.  The CSI version is really for the corporate environment and home users do not need it.  All three are here: bit.ly/bx3f5u.

All versions are free but I recommend downloading/installing the PSI version which seems to  be very thorough.  You will find it in the middle of the three on the page recommended above.

The default setting for Secunia runs in the background all the time checking your computer’s software for updates.  I leave it like that on my desktop since I have loads of memory. However, for my netbook I just run it once a week or so.

I pride myself in always keeping all of my software up to date, so let’s take a look at how my three computers faired after being scanned by Secunia.

My netbook scored 100% as all of my software was up-to-date, yeah!

My notebook didn’t do as well.  There were four applications that weren’t up to standards.  But I still did better than 15% of users in Virginia; Secunia gives you this info if you register the product.  (free)

Now my pride and joy, my desktop computer…oops, I had 11 applications that were not where they should be.  I spent about an hour uninstalling some old versions which Secunia advised me to do, before I updated them.  I also downloaded some of the new versions from the links provided by Secunia.  And I learned a valuable lesson, as the bible says, “Pride goes before destruction.”

Now, let’s look at  a couple of drawbacks.  It indicated that all three browsers on my system were insecure and needed updates.  They are MSIE, Firefox and Google Chrome.  Come on, give me a break!  They were all updated and as secure as possible.  I guess it wanted me to uninstall all three of them. Of course, then my surfing the net time would be cut down considerably.  I decided to ignore those threats.  You can always make rules to ignore certain warnings.

Tags: application, browsers, desktop, netbook, notebook, PSI, Ron Doyle, secunia, software, update