Kevins Tips

If you surf the web, it’s nearly impossible to keep predators from accessing your computer. Short of never connecting to the web, you will have to lock down your computer and secure as best you can. However even with some of the best lock down strategies, it’s inevidable that a virus will make it’s way through.

The two most common paid options are Norton Antivirus by Symantec and Mcafee Antivirus

There is also a very popular FREE Antivirus Software available if you don’t want to purchase the Symantec or Mcafee software.

FREE Antivirus Software - AVG

If your like me, you occassionally go to your local rental store and rent a movie for the night. You make the trip to the store, spend time figuring out what you want, drive home, get settled, and start the movie.

As you are become involved in the movie it freezes - UGHHH!!!

You take it out, flip it over to discover it’s all scratched up. So what are your options? Well you can get back in the car, drive to the store, and get a replacement - Good Luck if it’s a new release.

Here is a better thing to try.

First wash it with warm running water and then dry it with a paper towel. If it’s just gunky, this will fix it right up. If it’s scratched, go and get some toothpaste, put some on a paper towel, and polish the DVD. Make sure to dry off all excess toothpaste when you are done.

Unless the scratch is very deep, this will fix it right up, at least good enough to find out who the murdered was.

Well it was inevetiable I guess.  Google has created a new Web Browser called Chrome.

I’ve had a chance to install it and kick the tires.  So far it seems pretty slick.

What’s New and/or Different?

Without getting all techy let’s stick to the basics.   According to Google it’s faster (faster is always good).  Also a bad website won’t crash the whole browser (stability is also a good thing), if you have other tabs open.  The reason is that each tab is like a separate program is running, and each tab is unrealted to the other.  In techy terms, each tab runs it’s own independent process.  Google Chrome has an “Icognito” Mode.  This means that your browser doesn’t store cookies, or keep any history.

Google was good enough to keep many of the same keyboard shortcuts found in Firefox and Internet Explorer.  I found that was nice, since I do use a couple.  For instance Ctrl+T opens a new Tab, Ctrl+N opens a new window.

Where are my Bookmarks?

Google has always tried to make things simple and less cluttered.  When Google Search came out (and to this day), the page is very clean and simple, unlike it’s competitors which made their searches busy with a lot of extra stuff you didn’t want to see.  Google has taken the same approach with Google Chrome.  It’s very simple and basic, with little clutter.  This is great, but one of the things they made the default was not to show you the bookmarks (or links) you are used to seeing in header bar.  You can see them when you open a new Tab, but for me that’s a little annoying.  Getting them to show is simple though.

To get Bookmarks to show in Google Chrome use the shortcut Ctrl+B

I’ve tested Google Chrome now on several sites, from very simple ones, to those that stream music and videos, with great success.  Seeing as how it’s so new, I’m sure there are sites that will not work, particularly those that use plug-ins.  This is just part of the development curve.

It does appear to be pretty fast though.  Keep in mind that speed is relative, if your connection is slow, your computer is running slow, or the site you are accessing is slow, then of course things will appear a little slow.

I’d recommend downloading it and giving it a try.

Website: Goolge Chrome

Do you get emails from friends and family about some outrageous things? Emails that get passed on and on to dozens, hundreds, thousands of people only to find out later that it’s all a hoax?

Stop those fake emails from getting passed around and around.

There is a great website called Snopes that can help you debunk those phony emails and/or validate them as true. Simply search on their website using part of the email, or something about the email. You’ll be amazed at how old some of those things are.

Since I’ve been checking things on Snopes, I rarely get such emails passed along to me anymore. I tell everyone I know about the site, and eventually they start checking it on their own BEFORE they send it to me.

Website: Snopes

If you are in need of a basic Photo Editor for FREE, Google has a nice one called Picasa. This is for the average snap shot taker, who needs some software to fix up their photos as well as help organize them.

Previously I mentioned some FREE Online Photo Editors, which is fine for fixing up the occasional photo, but if you have a lot. Googles Picasa is an easy and simple to use editor for the casual snap shot photographer.

Website: Google Picasa

If you use Google Search regularly, you’ll notice the Big Google Graphic changes regularly. Sometimes the graphic is obvious like for St. Patricks Day, but sometimes it’s strange. Want to know what it is today - just click on it. It will bring you to search that will enlighten you.

Google has kept an archive of all it’s previous Holiday Graphics.

Check them out - Google Holiday Logos

Firefox was created to be a lean web browser. In order to so, all the extra features found in many of the competing browsers (like IE) had to be removed. These are features that the average person most likely will not use.

You see when a piece of software, like a Web Browser starts up, it has to load up everything it needs all at once.

Let’s look at it in a layman’s type of example…

Say you are going on Vacation and in order to go on “Vacation” you have to pack clothes. However this abstract thing “Vacation” doesn’t know where you are going, so you have to pack ALL of your clothes, winter and summer clothes. Well if you “always” vacation in Florida, taking winter clothes will be a waste of time, effort, and space. This is what a web browsers in the past have been doing all this time because “maybe” you’ll be going to someplace cold??? Not to mention the people that never go on vacation.

Now comes along Firefox. Firefox doesn’t know anything about “Vacation” (it comes with just some basic functions), however you can get an “Add On” that allows you to tell it about your Florida Vacation. You load it into your personal version of Firefox and when you go on “Vacation”, it knows you only need summer clothes. Now you will be able to pack faster, with less effort, and have a lot less to carry and bring with you.

Software has been made this way for a long time. There are a lot of features that you may never use, yet they are included in the software, resulting in bloated software.

Firefox took a different approach and said, what’s the basic things you’ll need to browse the web, fast and securely. Let’s give you that, and then YOU can add want you want to use use as Add Ons. This way the browser will load and work fast.

So where do you get these Add Ons? When you bring up Firefox, look under Tools>Add-ons — then look at the bottom right hand side of the pop-up window. There is a link called “Get Extensions”, click on it and it will bring you to the Add on page. Including Add ons into the browser is straight forward, just click on the button “Add to Firefox” and it installs. You will have to restart Firefox in order for it to take effect though.

How much do Add ons cost? - Nothing, they are FREE

What kind of Add ons are there? Check here - Add ons

Here are a few of my Favorites…

- Mouse Gestures - This is a MUST have - I use it mostly to open a new Tab for a link. It seems almost silly at first, but its very useful.

- Image Zoom - Let’s you right-click and instantly enlarge any photo or image on a web page by using the mouse wheel.

- Tiny URL Creater - Create a Tiny URL by a right-click and selecting it from the pop up menu.

What’s a URL? Simply put, a URL is a Web Address like http://KevinsTips.com

Many times a URL is MUCH longer then that and may have all kinds of information in it. Very often, the long URLs come from places like News websites like CNN. When you copy/paste the URL and email it to someone, half the time it get’s cut into several lines and may not work.

Along comes “TinyURL”.

TinyURL is a simple concept, it’s just a unique, short, URL that will forward you to that long URL. It’s also simple to use. Highlight the long URL, Right-click on your mouse and select Copy (or Ctrl-C), then go to the TinyURL website, Right-click on your mouse and select Paste (or Shift-Insert) into the form. Then click on the “Make Tiny URL” Button. You will be given a URL like http://tinyurl.com/68xq68 or you can make a custom one like http://www.tinyurl.com/kevinstips (if it’s available) If you put this URL into your browser, it will bring you to the same web page as the long URL.

There are some other websites that do this same thing, TinyURL is the one I’ve been reliably using for years and is used by most people. Firefox also has an Add on that makes the entire process even easier by simply doing a Right-click on the webpage your on, and select “Create TinyURL for this Page” from the pop up menu. Then you just shift-insert (ie. paste) it where you want.

Website: TinyURL

Searching the web has gotten easier and faster over the years, however most of the times your search returns numerous pages. After you click on the link to a page, you then have to locate the words you originally searched on within that page. This can be often be a tedious task.

Well if you’ve been carefully looking at your search return from Google, you’ll notice that next to the URL or Link for the website, there is often a link called “Cached”. This is a copy of the page that Google has kept for you, from sometime in the past. This can be useful for several reasons, but the one I’m going to introduce you to is the fact that these “Cached” pages will have your search words Highlighted. This can really expedite your searching since you can quickly get to the area in the web page with the words you were searching for.

Here is an Example Search: FREE site: KevinsTips.com

Remember, click on the word “Cached” on one of the pages it returns.

Here is a handy little tool.

See just how fast your internet connection REALLY is….

It’s a good thing to check once in awhile. Make sure you are getting the internet speeds that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) tell you that you are getting.

If the speed is not within that range, you probably want to give them a call, seeing as how they are charging your for it!

Note: I’ve added this icon at the top right of KevinsTips.com, so you can check it anytime you like and you don’t have to go hunting for this post.

Internet speed fluctuates constantly, so when if you run it 5 times in a row, you will get 5 different speeds. However, they all should be close to or better then the speed you are paying for.

How to run the test!
Click on the large Speed Test Icon or the one at the top right of this page. When you get to the Speed test, click one of the servers under “Choose a Server”. Generally you want to pick the one nearest to you.

The Speed Test will give you two numbers, one that shows you your “Download Speed” and one that shows you your “Upload Speed”. Your download speed will be MUCH faster then your upload speed. This is common, since 98% of your internet connection will be downloading.

Downloading
Remember that anytime you visit a website, watch a video, listen to music, etc. you are pulling or downloading that information.

Uploading
You upload when you are doing things like adding photos to your online gallery.

If you’ve noticed, it’s always much much faster to download a photo, then to upload it.