Geek Speak Archive

                Help it’s late Saturday afternoon and my child has to turn in a PowerPoint project on Monday morning.  …and we don’t have PowerPoint on our computers at home.  What shall we do?  First of all be thankful they didn’t wait till Sunday Night.  You’ve still got some time.  Some readers may have had this same challenge with a Word project.

Before I suggest anything about substitutes for the Microsoft Office Suite programs, let me say that they are simply the best; MS office sets the world standards for productivity suites.  The Office Home and Student 2007 or 2010 family pack comes with Word, PowerPoint and Excel and can be installed on three of your computers (Regular price $149.99).  If you can afford that, by all means spring for it and you’ve covered the most common productivity needs for home and school use.  Other Suites containing Publisher and Outlook, etc are considerably higher.

But, let’s face it! Not all of us can afford $150 for software.  So let’s examine some less expensive alternatives.  There are several free, complete productivity suites available for the downloading.  OpenOffice, LibreOffice and Kingsoft Office come to mind.   Readers of this column know that I have long recommended OpenOffice and have recently bumped LibreOffice to the top of my list for economy class software.  As with anything that is free there are always a few little things that are not as good or as complete as a paid version.

I want to add Kingsoft’s Office Suite to the list for your consideration for a couple of reasons.  It is very small compared to the others and it will automatically save documents in the usual Microsoft compatible formats if you accept all the default settings during the installation.  Word processor documents are saved as .doc files for example, just as MS Word 2003 documents are saved.  You’ll note that Kingsoft’s free office suite has program interfaces that are similar to the MS 2000-2003 programs (and so do OpenOffice and LibreOffice files).  If you want a graphical user interface similar to the newer Word 2007-2010 programs, you’ll need to upgrade to the Kingsoft pro version at about $70 for the three programs.

Please also note that Kingsoft only offers the word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs while OpenOffice and LibreOffice include additional programs like drawing and database software.

If you want to make a judgment on your own, download and install the Kingsoft Free Suite and either one of the other two(they are too similar for you to need both).  Try the different versions and make and save a few projects. Let your kids create some and take to school (saved as MS documents) and then choose.  When you’re done, uninstall the one you’re not using and allow the remaining one to be your default for each program that you use.

Don’t be shy to fly first class if you can afford it, but choose economy if you need to.  The coach section is pretty large on most airlines.  Till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

                I get a lot of questions about printers and find it difficult to give specific answers because of the many brands, models and types of printers.   I do hear your pain and want to give a few general troubleshooting tips in this column.  I’m talking here about a printer that has been working but stopped for some reason.  Challenges with installing printers I’ll save for another column.

Printer problems with existing printers fall into two basic categories: connection problems and mechanical problems.  Let’s start with connectivity problems which are by far the most common.  Learn to access your printer’s controls from your control panel.  Control Panel/Printers & Faxes or Devices and Printers depending on your version of Windows.  Go to Settings/Hardware on a Mac.   Look at the icon that represents your printer and see if it shows an error message.  Is it set as the default printer if it’s supposed to be?  Is it running off-line? Is it “paused’ for some reason unknown to you?   Right click the icon and click on printer properties to open the printer properties dialog box.  From there you can send a test print to the printer.  If you doesn’t print, look for error messages either on your PC screen or on the printer control panel itself.  You may get a connectivity error message or something about a mechanical problem like paper jam or no paper or ink low.  If you get a connection error, check all connections whether you are running a USB connection, Ethernet to a router or sharing a wireless connection.  Check all the physical connections, and then turn off your printer and your PC and your router if you have one.  Now reboot in this order:  printer first, router second (give it time to connect and settle down), then your PC.  Give all the equipment time to reconnect.  Now repeat your test print and see if connectivity issue is solved.  If not, you may need more expert help.

For mechanical problems, there are many errors that can pop up especially with ink problems since your printer vendor is trying to sell ink and he misses few opportunities to remind you when you’re low.  Sometimes you can override the prompts, sometimes not.  If it does not appear to be a jam or lack of paper or low ink; it may be some little glitch in the printer software.  Sometimes these software problems can be solved by forcing the printer to reset its on-board computer.   I’m talking about turning it off and actually disconnecting the power cord.  Wait a minute, and plug it back in and turn it on.  Let it refresh itself and then try to test print again.

Problems like print head alignment and poor quality printing can often be fixed by accessing the printer’s built in maintenance utility.  If you don’t have an icon on your desktop or on your taskbar, try looking under All Programs and looking at sub menus under you printer brand name.   Click around till you find menus like “clean print heads” or “Align” cartridges” and the like.

Print away and till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

                “…backing up is hard to do”, is my word play on the 1962 pop hit by Neil Sedaka “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”.  Later generations remember it as a Carpenter’s hit.  The song and the need for backups have been around as long as we’ve used electronic media.  Actually the process of backing up is not that hard to do; it’s getting started and actually doing it that’s hard.

The reason I bring it up now is that another one of my clients got stung last week with the ugly reality of a PC not backed up when failure came.    Here are some actual quotes from previous clients who have been bitten with the dead computer bug:” You mean all my grandchildren’s pictures are gone?”, “What about my tax records for the last five years and my Quicken files?”, “You can save my music collection, right?” and “my whole family genealogy is not lost, is it?”

You may not even realize what treasures you have stored on your PC and how hard they would be to replicate from scratch.  Give it some thought as a New Year goal.  What files are important to you and would be difficult or even impossible to reproduce?  Lists, recipes, pictures, financials, address books and even Favorites and Bookmarks can be sorely missed when they are truly gone.

First decide what you want to back up and then choose a method and the proper media for your needs.  Begin with your documents.  Do you know where they are?  Are they spread all over your hard drive or are they neatly organized in one place like your “My Documents” folder?  What about your pictures?  Are they safely tucked into folders in your “My Pictures” folder?  Your personal pictures capture moments that cannot be duplicated and could be your number one backup priority.

What about your email and your contacts list or address book?  Where is it and is it important to you?  If you have 25 names in your contacts list, it is not hard to replace; but what if you have hundreds or thousands?  If you use webmail, your emails and address book are stored on some else’s server, but if you use POP mail (like Outlook Express for example) these files are on your PC and may need backups.

Once you’ve made your list of desired backups, decide what medium you want to use for the backups.  You need something that can be separated from your PC; you don’t want a lightning event to toast your PC and your backups at the same time.  You can use CD or DVD disks depending on how big your files are and what kind of burning (copying) software you have.  It is also easy (and cheap now) to use portable flash drives.  These type storage discs have the advantage that you can copy over them readily for subsequent backups.  Whichever you use, remove them from your PC and store them in a separate place.

When it comes to backups, adopt the Nike motto, “Just Do It”! Till next week, send your questions to:geekspeak@mchsi.com

                Microsoft lit the candles on a cake celebrating the demise of Internet Explorer version 6.0 last week.  As indicated in this column over the last couple of years IE6.0 had become increasingly vulnerable to malware attacks and needed to be replaced by IE  9 (Win 7 & Vista users) or IE 8 for Win XP users.  IE 6 usage in the US has dropped to under 1 % even though it still maintains popularity in countries like China.

The other big story in the ongoing browser wars is that Google’s Chrome browser has recently surpassed Firefox as the number two browser in the World.  StatCounter Global Stats show that Chrome overtook Firefox around the first of November and currently enjoys about a 28% usage.  These two browsers together beat IE worldwide since IE has slipped to about 38 %.  Safari (primarily for Mac users) holds around 6-7 % and Opera maintains a 2-3 % share.

What does all this mean to the average user?  Most browser experts agree that IE is not the safest browser to use and would nudge you to either Firefox or Chrome as your primary browser.  Most also think that IE will continue to be the largest worldwide as long as this is a Windows World.  The good thing about this competition is that all browsers are improving: safer, faster with more features.                 This is a clear case of how the consumer benefits from creative, innovative competition.

If you are trying to pick between alternative browsers, give them a test drive.  Chrome claims to be the fastest today, unless you believe Opera’s claim to that honor.  Studies that I have seen show Chrome to be fastest when opening one Website and Opera getting the edge with multiple simultaneous page openings.  Speed of opening is not the only criterion; what about speeds for rendering pictures and videos and other more complex files?

Veteran Firefox users claim that the browser from Mozilla has the most and the best add-ins.  That seems to be true at present, but remember how competition can change that quickly.  Also consider your adoption of add-ins and plug-ins especially additional toolbars.  Some add-ins give you useful features, but at the expense of speed and we all know that browsing is all about speed.  Impatience can really build with just fractional second pauses.  Our society seems addicted to speed!

Here are MY overall recommendations to you.  Make sure you are using either IE 8 or 9 when you use IE.  Adopt either Chrome or Firefox as your primary browser, especially if you have teens on your PCs.  You’ll benefit most by choosing one or the other since there are some differences and there’s no reason to suffer a learning curve.  Test drive them, pick one that suits you and take a little time learning the growing number of features that they offer.

Enjoy safe surfing and till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

    Clean Sweep

                What is the best all around computer cleaner for the average Windows user?  Good question!   Windows provides a built-in junk file removal utility called Disc Cleanup, but many users want something more effective and a utility that combines other maintenance chores into one interface.  You can do most of your maintenance chores from within Windows, but may have to jump around to do so and that means you have to remember where all the utilities are.  Third party all-in-one utilities combine needed access to various tools in one interface so that you can do most of your work by just navigating inside that program.

Over the years I have recommended several third party solutions dating back to EasyCleaner by ToniArts and more recently CCleaner by Piriform.     For the purposes of this article, I re-examined CCleaner, SlimCleaner by SlimWare Utilities and Glary Utilities by Glarysoft.  I did not evaluate paid versions of any of the utilities; just the free ones which I find to be adequate for a majority of users.

I enthusiastically endorse all three of the subject  products and will continue to use all three for different purposes as there are some features unique to each.  Glary offers some spyware removal, broken shortcut fixes and empty folder deletion that I did not find in the others.  SlimCleaner removes hijacking toolbars and rates some of your applications to help you determine those that are slowing down your Internet surfing.  CCleaner makes it easy (and I have found safe) to clean your registry and makes it simple to manage System Restore files

All three of the utilities do a credible job of cleaning your browser files including temporary files, history, cookies and form history irrespective of which browser(s) you use.  All of them can clean your Windows files like recycle Bin, recent Docs, temp files, log files and the like.  They all offer various degrees of control over which files your remove and each has some type of registry cleaning capability.

So which gets the nod for best of the best?  I want to clarify my answer by user group.  For beginning users, CCleaner is the best based on ease of use and based on riskiness.  It is possible to get into trouble using registry cleaners and I find CCleaner to be less aggressive and least likely to cause disruption from accidental deletion of important files.  My recommendation is to use the Run Cleaner function and use Tools to manage your Startup folder and to Uninstall unwanted programs.   Use the Registry Cleaner after creating a System Restore Point first.

For more advanced users, there are features in both SlimCleaner and Glary that you might find useful.  I use them both!  You may find that Glary has more features than you would ever use; choose what you need and ignore the rest.  Clean up your old clogged up system and till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com