Windows Live Mail Freezing When Opening Attachments

By terry Leave a Comment

Windows Live Mail crashes were giving long-time subsriber Raman problems, so he wrote to me to ask:


Hello Terry

When I try to open any attachments to my mail, the Windows Live Mail freezes. I checked on line and found many people have the same problem. Apparently this started after downloading Microsoft’s recent 11 updates.
Can you help?

Thank you
Raman

I wrote back to Raman to remind him that I don’t use Windows Live Mail. Unfortunately, that means I can’t give him any direct help as I have no idea what might be happening with it.

By checking online, he’s using the best approach for finding an answer to a problem caused by a new software release or new Windows updates. Searching Google or another search engine should point you to either a direct answer or a forum that has other users who likely have the same problem.

As he is aware from my newsletters, I’m using Thunderbird for my email program — and I like it a lot.

Continue reading Windows Live Mail Freezing When Opening Attachments

Filed Under: Email, Terry's Computer Tips, Troubleshooting, Usability, Windows Repair Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments on Upgrading to Windows 7

By terry Leave a Comment

Longtime subscriber Clif of the Clif Notes Newsletter wrote about my Windows 7 installation experience articles in last week’s online issue:


Hi Terry,

Thanks for the preview of the hassle to come when I move my laptop to win7 from the RC. Hopefully the drivers I have backed up will work. I’m hoping the driver backups I have will help me avoid the issues that you had getting the correct drivers installed.

See the following:

Continue reading Comments on Upgrading to Windows 7

Filed Under: Software, Speed-up, System Repair, Terry's Computer Tips, Updates, Upgrades, Usability, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Repair, Windows Updates, Windows XP

A Look at Foxit Reader | Foxit Reader Review

By terry Leave a Comment

Recently, one of my subscribers wanted to know about a free program to let him fill in PDF forms.

I made a quick check and realized that the free PDF reader Foxit Reader would do this. While Foxit Reader also has a Pro Pack available to add additional functions, the free version does almost everything that most users need.

More importantly, it does it without the baggage of Adobe Reader and its huge memory requirement, the huge delays in starting up (unless you let Adobe Reader preload and take up a bunch of your memory all the time, and its automatic updating, which caused me problems.

I’ve been using Foxit Reader for a couple years, off and on, but now it’s my main program for reading PDF files.

Before responding to the subscriber, I checked the Foxit website and found that I was using a version that was several iterations old. I had v2.0 installed, while the current version is v2.3. Needless to say, I downloaded Foxit Reader 2.3 and installed it. I also realized this was a good time to write about Foxit Reader.

Continue reading A Look at Foxit Reader | Foxit Reader Review

Filed Under: Free, Other, Software, Specials, Storage, System Control, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Vista, Windows XP

Broadband Problems and Questions

By terry Leave a Comment

Recently, I received two interesting questions from U.K. subscribers. I wrote about and answered the other one, which was about external hard drives, in this week’s email newsletter.

In this question, subscriber Robin wrote about problems she is having with her broadband connection…

Hi Terry

I have a stand alone desktop computer with a Tiscali.co.uk 8mb broadband connection and Windows XP Home edition.

Whenever I make or receive a telephone call, it cuts off my broadband connection. Any ideas on what could be causing this? I am using a Speedtouch 330 modem to connect.

Continue reading Broadband Problems and Questions

Filed Under: Broadband, DSL, Internet Access, System Control, Troubleshooting, Usability

Unable to Delete Email in Outlook Express

By terry Leave a Comment

Sherrill Kerbaugh wrote about a major problemm she and her husband were having on both of their computers:

Hi, Terry… We have a major problem…. My husband has been unable to delete daily e-mails for a few weeks now….we can’t figure out what in the world is wrong!?!?!?! Now, all of a sudden I can’t delete e-mails on my computer (same local area network and e-mail…Outlook Express)! HELP!!!!!!!!! Also, John can’t download or use Adobe Reader on his computer, but I can!?!?!?
We are going crazy here!

What are your thoughts? We just found your website this morning….hope you are our “computer angel”! : )
Thank you!

Continue reading Unable to Delete Email in Outlook Express

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Filed Under: Email, Outlook Express, PC Repairs, Software, Stability, Storage, System Control, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows Repair

Converting Vinyl LP Records to Digital

By terry Leave a Comment

Subscriber Cary wrote with questions about project common to many people:

I’m starting a little project to record about 100 vinyl LPs to mp3s on my hard drive. I\’m looking for free software that will let me record a line-in source. I\’ve heard that Audacity is very good, but one critical feature I want is for the software to recognize a few seconds of silence as the end/beginning of a song and stop/re-start recording a new song. Otherwise, I\’ll end up with one very long mp3 that is basically the contents of the entire album. Do you have any recommendations? Cary

Cary

Having dreamed the same dream, let me say that you just wish you could do it in one step. Remember that your digitizing process is the most fixed in real time — a 45 minute album will take 45 minutes plus startup and shutdown of the record process.

I discovered very quickly that the idea of digitizing and immediately breaking into cuts made me do the recording over and over.

Continue reading Converting Vinyl LP Records to Digital

Filed Under: Hardware, HowTo, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability

Controlling Microsoft Word’s Auto-formatting and Auto-Correction Functions

By terry Leave a Comment

Microsoft built a lot of automatic capabilities into Microsoft Word. By default, it checks your spelling as you type and marks misspellings as it finds them. You can even set Word to auto-correct your spelling for specific typing errors you normally have.

Word also will automatically create bulleted lists. All you have to do is hit the Enter key, type 1), type the words for that entry, and hit the enter key again. Word automatically goes into Bulleted mode, creating a Numbered List automatically.

This particular feature is kind of nice, but sometimes frustrates me. Why? Well, as an example, I write my newsletters as HTML code so that I have control of formatting as I write. When I start a numbered list in Word, I type the original “1)” and the words. Then, I press Enter and almost invariably type the “2)” — and promptly have to erase them because MS Word put them in automatically.

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Filed Under: HowTo, Office, Office Suites, Software, System Control, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability

Traveling with a Computer

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It’s the season for traveling again — are you going to take a computer on your trip? Or, are you going to take a break from the world of email and web? Or, do you plan to find an available computer to use?

Of course, some people travel a lot for business. They know that email has become a critical part of their business world, so they carry their Blackberry or their notebook computer (or both) to stay in touch.

But, most of us travel occasionally for business or pleasure. We may take along our office computer, if it is a notebook, or our home notebook if we have one. However, both of those options solves many of our needs, but not all of them.

If we’re traveling for business, we often have equipment supplied by our employer to help us keep in touch while we’re on a business trip (or when we’re on vacation .

Continue Reading Traveling with a Computer

Filed Under: Backup, Cable, Dialup, DSL, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability

The Windows Right-Click Send-To Menu

By terry Leave a Comment

One of the neat features of Windows is the drag-and-drop system, where you can use the mouse to drag an icon (or a file name in Windows Explorer), over a target icon — and drop the dragged icon on target icon.

When you do that, many Windows programs will start and do whatever they do to that file.

Drag an icon onto the Recycle Bin, let go, and the icon will go into the Recycle Bin.

Drag a document icon over the icon for Microsoft Word, Word will start and open the icon.

Drag an image icon into Internet Exporer when it’s open, or drag and drop it on the IE icon if IE’s not open, and IE will display the image.

Many programs work that way and it’s a big convenience.

But, there are times where you don’t have an icon…

Continue reading The Windows Right-Click Send-To Menu

Filed Under: HowTo, Other, Speed-up, System Control, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows XP

The SeaMonkey Internet Suite (Free!)

By terry Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, Netscape was THE Internet web browser — and it was a commercial product. Then, along came the big bad wolf. He dreamed of world (wide web) conquest and so he wrote his own web browser; then, he gave it away with the operating system he sold.

It was bad, but it was free and everyone got it whether they wanted it or not. And, his monopoly grew…

Netscape (the company) eventually sold itself and became a part of AOL, but not before they released a snapshot of the web browser source code to an open source foundation that they created. Thus was born the Mozilla Internet Suite.

Continue reading The SeaMonkey Internet Suite (Free!)

Filed Under: Email, Firefox, Internet Access, Internet Explorer, Security, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Web Browsers, Windows XP
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