With all this talk about Windows 7, I thought to write an article about those of us who use Windows XP and intend to keep using it. A customer recently asked me about reinstalling Windows XP. After saving their data, inserting their re-installation CD and reinstalling Windows XP, a lot of things that used to work, didn’t work. Things like sound, connecting to the Internet (with either a wire or wireless), and their screen didn’t look right. This is a job for DRIVERS! continue reading

I thought to write an article about how we handle a new customer and the process behind meeting their needs with a new website or revamping their existing one. To put it simply, we follow a short list that seems to work every time:

1. Get to know the target market: who are we trying to attract?
2. Understand the goal of the website: what do we want the site visitor to do when they arrive?
3. Design a mock-up: a first draft image of what the web site could look like.
4. Begin coding: sending links to the client when pages are ready for review.
5. Keep optimization in mind: always making sure it will be readable by search engines.
6. Complete, test, and launch: the site is live and ready to work.

Let’s look at these steps in some detail and see what’s going on. continue reading

A really common question I get is what to do with  a computer that’s slow and, sometimes, outdated. The answer depends on many factors, but I’ll give a few scenarios that might be close enough to home to help you make the right choice regarding your laptop or desktop computer.

Scenario 1: The family computer is riddled with spyware and viruses

This is the computer I see most often. In some cases it’s just slow and unresponsive, but in other cases it won’t connect to the Internet at all. And most of the time the computer is not that old. I’ve received computers that won’t allow Windows updates due to spyware, and others that wouldn’t print until all traces of spyware were removed. continue reading

After writing the previous article about backing up, I was confronted again about whether or not to click that little “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the lower right corner before unplugging my new USB backup drive.

And looking around on the web, it’s going to depend on who you trust for advice. The problem lies in how and when the computer is writing to the drive. Obviously unplugging something when it’s in use is a bad idea. For USB hard drives (and flash/thumb drives) there is usually an indicator that the drive is in use. For my Toshiba drive there’s a little blue light that blinks when in use, and stays steady when it’s not in use, but plugged in.

continue reading

I’ve recently implemented a straight forward backup method I think anyone and everyone should be doing. So today’s article is going to try and convince you to start doing those all-important backups at home and at work (if you’re not already backed up some other way). The idea is simple, get a hard drive with plenty of capacity and plug it in. Then tell it what to back up, how often, and viola, you’re ready for catastrophe to strike.

For me, I purchased a Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from TidgerDirect.com. First, an external hard drive is just another name for a big closet to keep all your stuff. When you get one, you just plug it in and the computer sees another hard drive (or closet) and you can put your stuff in it. External hard drives can be used as extra storage, but I’m going to use it to make an extra copy of everything just in case the computer goes kaput one day. I bought it on line from Tiger Direct because they’re reliable, have quick delivery, and great prices. But you can pick up an external hard drive at Best Buy or Staples if that’s more convenient for you. continue reading

A customer recently asked if there was a way to keep track of the changes made to a few documents he was collaborating on with another person in the office. The scenario was that he would create a document, then send it to his colleague to review it. The colleague would make changes to the document and send it back, then explain the changes made in an email message (which would get pretty confusing after a while!).

To make things more complicated, he needed to collaborate in both Word and PowerPoint.  Could he do something like this?

Luckily there’s a cool feature in Microsoft Word 2002, 2003 and 2007 called  “Track Changes”. This feature lets you make changes to a document, and as you do so, it keeps track of everything you change on the side of the screen. PowerPoint is another issue… continue reading