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Computers
Flash Drives and USB Devices
At the suggestion of her computer helper, Mom is using a pair of USB flash drives to back up her new computer. It’s a good, simple strategy that should keep her data safe in the event that her new computer unexpectedly blows up. She did come up with a question though about using these drives:I have my Flash Drive plugged in. Where do I locate its presence so that I can safely extract it? I find if I do leave it plugged in, the next time I want to turn my computer on, I get a message indicating an error and am not allowed to log on.
The short and simple answer: To remove the flash drive, double click on the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the system tray (the icon circled in red in the image at right). From the next window, select “USB Mass Storage Device” and click the Stop button. Click OK in the confirmation window and you’ll get a message that it’s ok to unplug the device. It will automatically re-enable itself when you plug it back in.You can also just unplug it while the computer is turned off, to prevent it from complaining when you restart. The reason it does that is that the computer tries to find it’s start-up (boot) files on removable devices before looking on the hard drive. When it finds the device but not the files, it throws an error. Seems silly to me; it should ask you if you want to boot from the hard drive instead. But there you are. (more…)
Popularity: 15% [?]
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Computers
Question on Icons
One of the last steps in setting up my mother’s new computer was general housekeeping, including desktop cleanup. The next morning, the following question arrived in my inbox:My icons on the desktop need to be arranged. I’d like to have them start down about an inch from the top. I can’t place them where I want as I use to. Can you give me a clue how to do it.
Right-click on the desktopWhen I was cleaning up the desktop, I set the icons to auto-arrange, which places them in vertical rows, starting at the upper left corner of the desktop. To turn this off, right-click on any blank space on the desktop, select “Arrange Icons by”, and uncheck “Auto Arrange”. Your icons will then stay where ever you move them. If you leave “Align to Grid” checked, the icons will remain aligned with each other both horizontally and vertically.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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Internet Caregivers
Mom’s New Computer: Part 2
What do you think you’re doing, Dave?All in all, our plan (see Part 1) worked pretty well. Mom had to wait a few days after her new Dell was delivered for an appointment with Alyx, her computer consultant. During that time, Time Warner patched up a couple of loose ends and Dell delivered an additional box that had gone missing (I never did find out which one it was). As with most new computers, a large amount of effort went into moving data over from the old computer. The old HP had a CDRW drive, so everyone agreed that transferring the data to CDs would be the easiest thing. Not so fast, it said in an old wheezing voice. No CD’s for you!
Prompting my mother to write:
Belatedly naming my old computer: Remember Hal from “2001″. This computer is named after it. Hal is in charge and Hal does whatever he wants to do, disputing my authority. He is about to get the ax.
Popularity: 24% [?]
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Computers
Fighting Off a Virus
Photo: Andrzej PobiedzinskiBlogging was interrupted late last week by the urgent need to remove a virus from one of our computers. With the experience fresh in my mind, here are a few tips for the prevention and eradication of computer viruses.
Viruses are much easier to prevent than they are to cure. If you are a Mac or Linux user, you can sit back and gloat because viruses for these systems are so rare that they can almost be ignored altogether. But for us Windows users, these are the rules:
Popularity: 11% [?]
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Internet Caregivers
Mom’s New Computer: Part 1
Photo by Michael Cote’My mother has decided to replace her 8 year old HP Pavilion with something that doesn’t suddenly stop responding for minutes at a time and can play online videos without stuttering. Since we no longer live in the same city, I can’t go shopping for one with her but I told her that we could still get her set up with a new system.
I haven’t tried this before but I think there are two keys to making it work. We’ll have someone on my mom’s end with some technical skills, a woman named Alyx, who does computer consulting. She will be able to get everything unpacked, plugged in and running. Once that’s done, she will also set up a remote desktop connection, using LogMeIn. This service is set up on her current computer and it has been a huge help when I need to see her screen or make changes that are too hard to describe to her. The free version of this service does everything that we need.
Popularity: 11% [?]
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