The Pixelthinker.com blog

Let’s start this new blog of mine off with a nice, loud BANG!

Here is an article I wrote last year, long before I came up with Pixelthinker.  Enjoy. 

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I have been using computers since 1989.  Here are some of the best tools, downloads, bright ideas etc. that I have encountered in my time with computers.  Enjoy.

 

BEST FIRST ADVICE FOR ANY COMPUTER USER: QUIT USING INTERNET EXPLORER TO SURF THE WEB! USE FIREFOX!

Surf to www.getfirefox.com, download Firefox, let it install (in other words hit “run” when you are given that choice), and click on “yes” and “OK” on everything it asks you to do. Then use Firefox to surf the web from now on. It is the best way to avoid popups and things on the web that can annoy you. Also, it is built to not allow as much “junk” to get installed on your computer as Internet Explorer does.

BEST FIRST ADVICE FOR ANY COMPUTER USER, PART II: after you get Firefox, learn what “Firefox Extensions” are.

Firefox was designed so that creative programmers could add their own customized little programs to let Firefox do much more than it was originally designed to do. There are thousands of Firefox extensions (also called “add-ons”) to choose from.

After installing Firefox, have fun looking at all the possibilities at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox. You will see way too much good stuff there. A good thing to do is to go to google.com and search for “best firefox extensions” for other people’s good ideas that can work for you. Here are my own personal favorite Firefox extensions:

ADBLOCK PLUS: Tired of flashing ads in your face when you surf? Use Firefox to download Adblock Plus from http://adblockplus.org/en and enjoy no more obnoxious ads. Just download, wait for a window to pop up that mentions “subscriptions” choose “USA” and start surfing your favorite website. You won’t believe how much cleaner your websites will look.

NUKE ANYTHING: If Adblock Plus cannot block it, you can make it possible to right-click nearly any annoying thing on a webpage and kill it temporarily using the Nuke Anything extension. Just go to https://addons.mozilla.org, search for “Nuke Anything” and download it.

REMOVE IT PERMANENTLY: “R.I.P.” does what Nuke Anything does except whatever you decide to remove, it will never come back. Just go to https://addons.mozilla.org, search for “Remove It Permanently” and download it.

FLASHBLOCK: If Adblock Plus cannot get rid of that annoying flashing animated ad on your favorite web page, and Nuke Anything and Remove It Permanently can’t do the job either, it may be time to install the ultimate “animated web ad” killer. Flashblock is an extreme solution. It will turn any “flash” type of animated ad into just an anonymous box with a button on it. The only way you can see the ad or animation is by deliberately clicking the button. Sometimes you just need to bring out the heavy guns to do the job. http://flashblock.mozdev.org.

EBAY NEGS: On Ebay, you can see all the positive feedback on a seller very easily. However one of the most difficult and annoying things about Ebay is that it is normally impossible to see the negative feedback on a seller all in one place. With the Ebay Negs firefox extension, you can right-click on the seller’s name and pop up a new page with every neutral and negative feedback attached to their name! Just go to ebaynegs.mozdev.org and download the EBay Negs extension. The rest is easy.

LINKIFICATION: We have all seen websites where someone put in some web-address that SHOULD link to that site, but actually doesn’t. That means they did not do the extra work to make that web-address clickable. That means you have to copy that link and paste it into the address bar of your web browser. No problem with the Linkification extension. Go to https://addons.mozilla.org and search for “Linkification” to make any URL you see on the web easy to click on.

VIDEO OOK, UNPLUG and VIDEODOWNLOADER: All three of these add-ons do pretty much the same thing: allow you to download nearly any video you see displayed on a web page. Of course, being the ethical person you are, you would only download videos from YouTube, Google Video, etc. for which you have clear written permission to start with, right? Of course you would. Which means you need to know how to also play the videos you downloaded. Just search on https://addons.mozilla.org for the names of each of these specific extensions to download and install them into Firefox. To play the videos, look for Videolan VLC at http://www.videolan.org/vlc (also mentioned below).

HOW TO FIND THE BEST FREE (OR NEARLY FREE) LEGAL SOFTWARE ON THE INTERNET:
Find out what “open source” means. It’s not a company name, it’s more of a philosophy, a different approach when it comes to computers and software. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source and learn something new that is absolutely facinating. Then you will know why when you see “open source” on this BYFIC, it’s a reason to be happy about downloading that piece of software.

BEST OPEN SOURCE SUBSTITUTE FOR PHOTOSHOP: http://www.gimp.org/downloads

BEST OPEN SOURCE SUBSTITUTE FOR MICROSOFT OFFICE: www.openoffice.org/

BEST OPEN SOURCE PDF CONVERTER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDFCreator

BEST OPEN SOURCE SOUND EDITOR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity

BEST OPEN SOURCE MEDIA PLAYER: Videolan VLC at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

BEST FREEWARE PICTURE VIEWER/CONVERTER: http://perso.orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enxnview.html

BEST OPEN SOURCE REAL PLAYER ALTERNATIVE: Real Alternative at http://www.codecguide.com/about_real.htm

BEST OPEN SOURCE ALTERNATIVE FOR OUTLOOK or OUTLOOK EXPRESS: Mozilla Thunderbird at www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird where you should download, install and say “yes” and “ok” to every part of your installation. Then quit using that Outlook software.

BEST OPEN SOURCE FTP CLIENT: Filezilla via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileZilla (Note, if you don’t know what FTP is, you probably don’t need it. If you plan to create and upload web pages in the future, you probably need Filezilla)

BEST SOURCES FOR A LOT OF OTHER GOOD OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: www.sourceforge.net

HOW TO FIND FREE, LEGAL SOFTWARE THAT IS NEARLY AS GOOD AS OPEN SOURCE:

Find out what “freeware” means at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/freeware. Understand that only about 10% of freeware out there is wonderful and usable. Stick with whatever your nearest geek recommends to you, or is mentioned on this sheet.

BEST FREEWARE SOFTWARE SOURCE:

www.pricelesswarehome.org

BEST FREEWARE WAY TO BLOCK ANNOYING WEB-ADVERTS: “Mike’s Ad Blocking Hosts File” at http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html

BEST FREEWARE FOR CLEANING OUT UNNECESSARY FILES FROM YOUR COMPUTER: Crap Cleaner at http://www.ccleaner.com/

HOW TO FIND CHEAP, LEGAL SOFTWARE THAT CAN BE NEARLY AS GOOD AS OPEN SOURCE OR FREEWARE.

Find out what “shareware” means at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/shareware. Understand that only about 10% of shareware out there is wonderful and usable. Stick with whatever your nearest geek recommends to you.

BEST SHAREWARE TO VIEW AND MANAGE FONTS:
Look for the shareware program “Printer’s Apprentice” at http://www.loseyourmind.com, download and install it.

BEST SHAREWARE FOR SOUND EDITING: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

BEST SHAREWARE FOR ANTI-VIRUS: “Avast” at http://www.avast.com

BEST SHAREWARE FOR ANTI-VIRUS PART II: AVG at http://free.grisoft.com

BEST SHAREWARE FOR ANTI-SPYWARE: Spyboy Search and Destroy at www.lavasoftusa.com

BEST SHAREWARE FOR ANTI-SPYWARE, PART II: Spybot Search and Destroy at www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

SOLVING MINOR COMPUTER PROBLEMS:

BEST SITE FOR RESEARCHING SPYWARE ISSUES: www.spywarewarrior.com

HOW TO FIND OUT WHY YOUR COMPUTER GIVING YOU AN ERROR:
Go to google.com and type that error into the search. Chances are you may come up with a good idea on how to fix it.  

How to tell if a set of instructions to fix it make sense: the same set of instructions show up on more than one website.

On the other hand: if you end up on a website that wants you to pay money to get a download to fix it, chances are it’s a ripoff and won’t work anyway.

Never click on a “sponsored link” on the very top or right side of a resulting google search when researching a computer error. The folks who pay to have those links put up there usually want money and free fixes can often be found elsewhere.

HOW TO FIX YOUR WINDOWS 2000 0R WINDOWS XP MACHINE SO THAT YOU CAN SEE THE ENTIRE NAME OF ANY FILE YOU HAVE:

Wouldn’t be handy if you could tell just by looking if a file you have is a Word doc, an image file, or any other kind of file without having to click on it with your mouse? Here’s how to do that:

1. Click on the “My Computer” icon.

2. Look for the “Tools” menu item and click on it.

3. Under Tools, click on “Folder Options:

4. Click on the “View” tab

5. Buried in that geeky-looking box is a choice called “Hide extensions for known file types” UNcheck that option. (Don’t click on any other checkmarks)

6. Look for the button towards the top that says “Apply to all folders” and click on it. Hit any yes or OK button that comes up, including the box that has the “apply to all folders” button on it.

7. Look at any file you have. Now you can see the entire file name!

HOW TO INSTANTLY CLOSE ANY WINDOW WITHOUT USING YOUR MOUSE:
Hold down the “CTRL” key, then quickly hit the “F4″ key. Then instantly let go of both keys. If there are several windows up at once that you need close, hold down the control key continuously and hit the F4 key several times very fast. The windows will disappear faster than you will believe.

HOW TO FIND GOOD ADVICE ON FIXING WINDOWS XP: www.fixmyxp.com

HOW TO FIND GOOD ADVICE ON FIXING WINDOWS Vista: www.fixmyvista.com

MISCELLANY:

HOW TO GET YOUR FILES BACK AFTER A HARD COMPUTER CRASH:

While your computer is still good, do some preventive medicine. Get the help of a geek to http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html where you can download Knoppix. Ask the geek “How do I burn this ISO?” Then ask the geek to demonstrate how to boot from your new CD-ROM.

You will end up with a temporary session of something that looks something like Windows, though not quite. You can then see how you want to back up your files, since your normal Windows is not working. You can transfer files to a thumb drive, or anything you want to do.

HOW TO GET YOUR FILES BACK AFTER A HARD COMPUTER CRASH: Version 2: If the geek tells you it’s a nearly hopeless case, ask them if it is possible to buy a new hard drive, install a fresh new install of Windows on the new drive, let that become your new default C drive and then “slave” your old one.

Any good geek would know what that means. Translated to non-geek, it means you will still have access to your old files, because your old hard drive is now a spare drive on your computer. That is much less painful than reformatting your existing hard drive, losing all your files and starting over. Plus you get to have lots of extra room on your new drive!

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A PC AND ARE THINKING OF WINDOWS VISTA: Windows Vista or XP? They are still working out the bugs in Vista. Stick with Windows XP until around mid-2008 before switching to Vista. Let everyone else work out the bugs first.

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF BUYING YOUR NEXT LAPTOP:Consider a Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad. Thinkpads are more expensive, but they are built like 1960’s Volkswagens. Nearly any geek with a few tools, some good smarts, some talent and a manual can fix a Thinkpad. That also means that if something goes wrong, it’s cheaper to fix it.

Need a laptop that is built like a tank, can survive a drop from a high cliff, and best of all, is even not be affected by coffee spilled into the keyboard? Go research the “Panasonic Toughbook”. Yeah, would you believe Panasonic is now making quality, indestructible laptops? If you have a job that is incredibly tough on laptops, it may be worth the extra expense.

BEST ONLINE SOURCE FOR COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS: www.newegg.com. And no, they are not paying me to say that. I am just a customer who is pleasantly surprised by how good their service is.

Considering going to “Geek Squad” to get your computer fixed? Think twice first by going to www.consumerist.com and searching that site for what THEY think of the Geek Squad. Their perspective may surprise you.

BEST WAY TO TRANSFORM ANY LONG WEB-ADDRESS (URL) INTO A VERY SHORT ONE: www.tinyurl.com or http://metamark.net

BEST (or worst) WEBSITES FOR WASTING TIME READING WAY TOO MUCH INTERESTING STUFF: www.fark.com, www.digg.com and www.reddit.com

BEST WEBSITES FOR FINDING ANY UNIQUE, NEW, FREE FONT: www.dafont.com, www.fonts500.com, http://www.urbanfonts.com or www.betterfonts.com

FASTEST WAY TO SLOW DOWN YOUR COMPUTER (without meaning to): Install too many fonts, then wonder why your computer is slow! If your love to install new fonts because fonts are so cool, keep the number of fonts down to a minimum of around 300 on your computer. If your computer is slow and it’s not because of too many fonts, consult your local computer geek.

BEST WAY TO CLEAN UP A SLOW COMPUTER: Download CCleaner (see “freeware” section above)

BEST WAY TO RE-USE AN OLD, SLOW COMPUTER YOU DON’T NEED ANYMORE: Get your local computer geek to wipe out Windows and then install Ubuntu Linux on it. (If your geek does not know what that means, they are not really a geek.) Then give your wonderfully revived computer to an older relative. Grandma or Grandpa will be delighted to have a free computer that they can easily use for just email and web-surfing, hardly ever needs fixing, and never has virus problems. It gives recycling a whole new positive meaning.

BEST HELPFUL WEBSITE FOR PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH VIDEO: www.videohelp.com

BEST FREEWARE TO CONVERT ONE VIDEO FILE FORMAT INTO NEARLY ANY OTHER FORMAT: “SUPER – Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer” http://www.videohelp.com/tools/SUPER_1

BEST WAY TO STOP POP-UPS: First install Firefox. Then get the Adblock Plus extension. Then getting “Mike’s Ad Blocking Hosts File” at http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html is always a good idea. All these have already been mentioned above.

If that does not work, get AVG at http://free.grisoft.com and run it. Then get Spybot Search and Destroy at www.lavasoftusa.com and run that for good measure.

Then scan your computer with your choice of anti-virus software. If you want to get Avast and/or AVG just to try them out, you can. Some people run both on their computer at once as double insurance. (Just don’t run either of those at the same time you have Norton or MacAffee on the machine.)

If you STILL get too many popups after all that, you either have a severly infected computer and/or a teenager in the house who is surfing questionable websites on your computer without telling you. Get the kid a Mac (Macs are very hard to infect) and tell the kid they cannot touch your computer anymore. Then go to www.craigslist.org to find yourself a competent computer geek to fix your computer.

If you are 100% new to computers, never used one in your life and are thinking of buying one for the first time, get a Macintosh and ignore the rest of this cheatsheet. Macs are incredibly resistant to viruses, are much better designed than PCs and come with 90% of the software you’ll need to get up and running to start with. PCs are much more difficult to fix and maintain than Macs.