The Keys to the Kingdom

Coming across clients that are unaware of the various capabilities built into their computers is still commonplace even today. For example, I recently worked on a client’s computer as they stood nearby and watched. I needed to update some drivers, wanted the tech specs on the PC and also a list of compatible memory sticks for the machine. I opened one internet browser window and brought up the manufacturers website. As that window was loading, I opened a second tab in the browser by clicking on the tiny tab next to the open one and navigated to the website of the driver provider. While the second page was loading I opened a third tab and searched for memory manufacturers. I even opened a fourth tab and brought up a local store to see if they carried any of the memory the PC needed. The client observed all these windows opening and stated that he didn’t know you could work in multiple windows at one time. The only limit to the number of windows is the memory and speed of the processor. How do we know when we have reached our PC’s limit? It will slow down as it runs out of resources and is forced to complete one job before moving on to the next. I could have opened other programs as well, such as a word processor or a picture program as long as my PC’s resources were sufficient.

Another area that computer users are unaware of is the keyboard. Most of us use the mouse to move ourselves around the computer, opening programs or the program list by clicking here and clicking there. But there are some simple shortcuts we can use that bypass the mouse and perhaps save us just a bit of hand movement. Let’s start by examining one of the most underutilized keys on the keyboard. Take a look, usually on the same row of keys that contains the space bar, for a key that has the Windows Logo on it. This is called the Windows Key and using it in conjunction with other keys will allow for a multitude of actions all at the touch of the keyboard. Here is a list of commands and what they do. Remember, the “windows” key listed here is usually found on the bottom row of keys and is the anchor for the other keys. This means that the “windows” key should be pressed first followed immediately by the second key listed.

Windows: Display the Start menu

Windows + D: Minimize or restore all windows
Windows + E: Display Windows Explorer
Windows + F: Display Search for files

Windows + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer
Windows + F1: Display Help and Support Center
Windows + R: Display Run dialog box
Windows + break: Display System Properties dialog box
Windows + shift + M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows + tab: move through taskbar buttons
Windows + L: Lock the workstation (or switch to the Logon screen w/Fast User Switching enabled)
Windows + U: Open Utility Manager

An additional thing we all like to do is to personalize our stuff. Why not our computer? On my PC I use a collection of photographs taken on a road trip around the country as a screensaver slideshow. Every time my computer is idle for five minutes, a slide show containing a few hundred photos starts and continues displaying a different photo every thirty seconds until I move the mouse or touch the keyboard. To set this up on your machine, right-click an empty spot on your desktop and a menu will open and from the menu click Properties (XP) or Personalize (Vista/Windows7). Now, click the Screen Saver tab. Next in the Screen saver list, click My Pictures Slideshow (XP) or Photos (Vista/Windows7). Almost done. Click Settings to make any adjustments, such as how often the pictures should change, what size they should be, and whether you'll use transition effects between pictures, and then click OK. Now your screen saver is a random display of the pictures taken from your My Pictures folder.

Finally, one last tip. Occasionally, the keyboard may stop functioning. If we are in the middle of something that we really want to finish, it can be helpful to utilize the on screen keyboard built into Windows XP. In order to reach this keyboard easily, right-click an empty spot on the desktop, and then click New – Shortcut. Now type OSK and click NEXT. On the next window give the shortcut a name like Keyboard and click finish. An icon will appear and when opened will present an on screen version of the keyboard that allows us to use the mouse to type in commands.

Try it, you’ll like it!

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how-to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. http://youtu.be/IeN8QfL0SUk

 

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Ivory and Ebony Redux

Pianist John Tesh, George Winston and Elton John all share a love for the piano. Under their administrations, a piano can amplify and express their souls like nothing else. As we trudge through the chaos that we call living, the sound of a piano at the hands of a master, can bring order with its rhythms. Melodies can calm the confusion of our thoughts. We appreciate the pianist, and craftsmen produce instruments of great quality to compliment their abilities. Separate the master from his piano and neither can fill the void.

Consider a baby Grand Piano. A black baby grand polished until the luster of the lacquer finish is such that you can almost fall into the reflection. Eighty-eight keys glisten from the sunlight pouring in the window. Ninety-three years of symbiosis with humans have left not a single ugly mark on its exterior, indicative of the admiration its owners felt for its inherent beauty. It stands as elegantly now as it did when this particular piano was lovingly crafted and propelled into the world in 1912. For many years after its creation, melodies and harmonies danced across the finely crafted soundboard.

But time marches on and the owners of this fine instrument shuffled off this mortal coil. The piano however, as with many items of value, found itself joining the next generation of its’ owners family. Sadly, no one in this family could make the keys sing. And so this beautiful instrument of ebony and ivory sat silent. From time to time it would be carefully moved from place to place around the country wherever the owners found a new place of residence. For forty-five years it sat unvoiced.

Meanwhile, 1945 saw the birth of a new technology. Eniac, the world’s first computer was the prototype for computers of today. Prototype may be a kind description, as Eniac contained 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors burning up almost 200 kilowatts of electrical power. And it certainly wasn’t portable, weighing in at just over thirty tons. (Martha, I don’t think that’s a laptop.) It was essentially a giant calculator.

Time passed and the computer grew smaller, more powerful and more versatile. Then in 1985 an artist named Andy Warhol made history by using an Apple computer to display brightly colored images on a computer screen. The link between imagination and machines was forged. Art forms never before seen flourished at the hands of computer/artists. Film soon followed with computers creating images that mimicked reality but surely didn’t exist in the real world. Music followed closely, with new computers able to take the very essence of music and distill it down to digital components. From there it was only a matter of time before computers would put the music back together again. New melodies constructed. Old melodies refined. Recordings from the Masters restored to their original clarity after decades of deterioration.

Still, as we listen to music coursing through speakers connected to our computers are we really hearing music the way the artist anticipated? We adjust the volume, the treble, the bass and even the balance. Some computers can even enhance or fade specific instruments within a song. Each playing of the recording is exactly the same. But is that what the artist intended? Where is the artist soul? Where are the almost imperceptible variations that occur because of the artist’s mood, the atmosphere or even the seasoning of the instrument?

Now the 21^st century arrives and new generations of computers meet our expectant baby Grand Piano. A company called Qrsmusic (www.qrsmusic.com) manufactures a technology called Pianomation that mounts solenoids under each key of the piano and ties it wirelessly to your PC, laptop, tablet or even a smartphone. With the Pianomation connected to the Internet, music can be downloaded in MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format and then sent to the control system on the piano. The control system is small enough to mount under the keyboard and be nearly invisible. Every solenoid has the ability to play each key with up to 128 different velocities, forte, pianissimo, staccato or anywhere in between. No speakers, no mixing, no electronic amplification.

So there I stood, enraptured by this nearly 100-year-old instrument filling the house with music once again. Listen as hammers meet string, the carefully crafted wood with curves and shapes giving the sounds depth, richness and intensity. Watching the keys move up and down, I could almost see the maestro’s hands moving across the ivory. How glorious it was.

Pianomation is not inexpensive. But it is an amazing technology. It is akin to the old player pianos but with much more finesse. Tied to a computer and network, with its’ ability to download and process thousands of great pieces, it can bring life back to a magnificent piano. The neighbor may boast of his megawatt surround sound in-home media center. You can simply point to the piano, cup a hand to your ear and say, “Ahh, Bach!”

Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” I don’t think a computer would argue that point.

Don’t forget that Grumbles From The Keyboard, chock full of useful tips, tricks and how to’s is available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobles, www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com or The Bean on 41 in beautiful Punta Gorda, FL. Get yours today! And did I mention that Grumbles is Santa approved? See it here. http://youtu.be/IeN8QfL0SUk

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks!

Here’s To A Faster Internet

It’s early Friday morning and I am riding my bicycle over the Collier Bridge headed towards Veterans Blvd. I notice that the bridge bike lanes that are normally filled with broken glass, insulation, parts of coolers, chunks of wood etc from the thousands of vehicles that cross everyday are almost free of debris. I believe there is a schedule that the City has established to sweep the bridge clean every so often. It makes my passage over the bridge much easier and faster as I don’t have to bob and weave around the stuff that would puncture a tire or worse.

There is the same type of problem with the Internet. In the United States some have estimated there are 240 thousand terabytes of data moving across the Internet each month. A terabyte is equal to one million bytes. As they travel, bits and bytes fall by the wayside and can remain stuck in the Internet forever. Here are some statistics that lend support to that statement.

Mary Madden writing for Pew/Internet, reports their latest survey, fielded February 15 – April 6, 2006 shows that fully 73% of respondents (about 147 million adults in the US alone) are internet users.

The website About, reports there are 171 billion messages per day which means almost 2 million emails are sent every second. About 70% to 72% (or between 120 and 123 billion) of them are spam and viruses. The genuine emails are sent by around 1.1 billion email users.

An article posted by CNN says the Internet is littered with abandoned sites. There are even more dead sites that just display a 404 message. (Site not found). Don’t forget the millions of ads, pop ups and other visual and audio events that occur on the web every day.

A report produced by Deloitte is claiming that we will suffer noticeable Internet bottlenecks this year. This will be due to a lack of investment in the infrastructure coupled with an exponential growth in video traffic. Bottlenecks are likely to become apparent in some of the Internet's backbones, the terabit-capable pipes exchanging traffic between continents.

So what happens to all the email that doesn’t get delivered? How can abandoned websites be allowed to take up precious bandwidth, server time and space? Millions of files are uploaded and downloaded from the Web every day, what happens to video downloads or uploads that don’t finish? Where does all this flotsam and jetsam end up? As we attempt to maneuver the Internet, all these bits and bytes, stuck in Internet orbit around the world, work to slow down our valid Internet traffic.

Thanks to an arm of the United Nations, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) we will be seeing some relief and hopefully a general increase in the speed with which information flows on the World Wide Web.

The ITU commissioned brilliant programmer Lirpa Sloof to lead a team in the construction of seventeen massive cyber bots. Think of these as gigantic robots but instead of being constructed of metal and electronics, the cyber bots are essentially massive programs that consist of complicated mathematical algorithms, and AI. (Artificial intelligence) It will be the responsibility of these cyber bots to travel over the entire Internet in a twenty-four hour period, scrubbing dead websites, email, broken links, failed up and down loads etc. To enable these ‘bots” to effectively clean the Internet, the United Nations has divided the world into project areas assigned to specific groups so the cyber bots can be tracked and areas deemed cleansed before they move on to the next. Charlotte County where I live, falls under the Authorized Peace River Internet Laundering group.

To facilitate this Internet cleaning, the United Nations has issued a directive that will cause the Internet to be completely shut down from midnight March 31, 2012 to 12:01 a.m. April 2, 2012. Additionally, it is recommended that all computers with Internet access be shut off as well, to prevent the chance that cyber bots might enter a computer and wipe it clean if dead or unused material were found.

As each cyber bot completes an assigned project area, another group of scientist will undertake a verification and inspection of each cleaned area. This group, named the Final Overview of Operational Links and Systems will then certify the success of the cyber bots.

Since the Internet will be down during this period, I look forward to the traditional print media keeping us apprised of the progress and success of the cyber bots. I am sure that the two groups responsible for this massive undertaking, Authorized Peace River Internet Laundering (A.P.R.I.L) and Final Overview of Operational Links and Systems (F.O.O.L.S) will release regular progress reports.

Here’s to a faster Internet.

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Epicuria: An Adventure That Really Cooks!

It’s A Nightmare……

Let us discuss nightmares. I am not talking about the kind of nightmare that occurs in our sleep. I am talking about the kind, which after it occurs the thought runs through our head, I should have (fill in the blank). For example, several years ago I had a flat tire. I knew the tire was worn, and I knew it should be replaced, and even better, I had actually started pricing tires. I just hadn’t replaced it yet. So there I was, forced to buy a tire immediately, a tow charge and great inconvenience. I should have …

But I realize that all of you are well prepared for any catastrophe. You went out and bought extra flashlights and batteries, a couple of gallons of bottled water, some candles, blankets, a battery powered radio and even a generator. Stocked the pantry with a few weeks worth of non-perishable food and prepared a plan to evacuate if necessary. Of course, I did all this AFTER the hurricane. I should have …

With all this planning, let me ask a question. What would happen if your computer, or a program on it quit? What would you do? Call your eight-year-old child? Ask your neighbor for help? Do you know all your passwords? Do you know where all the disks are that came with the programs? Better yet, where are the product keys for all the software? (the little orange tags with numbers that fell off the plastic CD ROM jewel case) Are your files backed up? Do you have the number of a good computer tech. (strong hint, if you live in Port Charlotte or Punta Gorda, Florida e-mail me at adakeep@hotmail.www, just change the www to com) (Martha, did he change the e-mail address so e-mail harvesting robots couldn’t get it?)

In addition to the programs on the computer, there are also specific drivers (little programs that instruct a device how to react to commands) for the video, audio, printers, keyboard, network card, modem etc. Do you know which drivers will work with your computer? Sure, you can download new drivers from the Internet, but not if you don’t know which one is needed. How about the motherboard? Who manufactured it and which model. Do you know which version of the BIOS (Basic Input Output System) is required for that motherboard?

Bad things do happen to good computers. Rest assured though, that they will only happen at the most inopportune time. When a bad thing does happen, do you really want to say, “I should have…? A little bit of planning can save the day.

Passwords should be written down and stored in a safe place. Sure, we told Windows to remember all the passwords and it does a great job of it, until windows isn’t working anymore. Additionally, in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 we might consider activating the Guest account and giving our account a password. That way when your grandchild visits and tries to download and install all types of malicious software without telling anyone what it is, you can rest assured that the guest account will not allow them to install anything. I have one client that calls me every year after the grandchild leaves because they cannot logon to the computer. (Love those grandkids)

Program disks should be stored in the cases or wrappers. Do not use them as coasters or Frisbees. Make sure that the little stickers with the product keys are with them. Consider using a Sharpie marker to print the key on the disk itself. I am convinced that the software makers have a secret glue formula for those stickers so that they fall off after a certain period of time. Without the product key, the software cannot be reinstalled and you need to buy a new copy of it. Be sure to make the recovery disks for the computer, label one, two and so on. Put them in a zip lock bag or CD jewel case stored in a place that won’t be forgotten.

Now go to http://www.belarc.com and download Belarc Advisor. This is a free program that runs a complete inventory list of the entire computer’s hardware, along with the manufactures name and model number. This is important when it comes to loading the correct drivers for each item. Belarc also displays the make and model of the computer along with the motherboard and the version of the BIOS. As they say on TV, and that’s not all! Belarc will list all the programs on your computer, where they are installed and the license and product keys. As a bonus, it will show not only the operating system and service pack level, but also all the Windows Hotfixes and whether or not they need to be reinstalled.

This and many other useful tips and tricks are packed in my book, Grumbles From The Keyboard. Click on the buy now button to the right of the page and order yours from amazon.com or go to www.grumblesfromthekeyboard.com and order your very own autographed copy today.

Print out this information and put it in a safe place along with the program and computer installation disks. Do it now, while the computer is working well. Never utter the words, I should have ….

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

Free Credit Reports? Can It Be True?

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines FREE as: not united with, attached to, combined with, or mixed with something else. It may be time to review the meaning of the word FREE and add an additional usage something like; FREE as in: smoke and mirrors, con job or look out baby because here it comes. Some things are free, a sunset over Charlotte Harbor, a conversation with a burrowing owl or even an evening stroll during Gallery Walk. It seems that the word free is bandied about with little regard to its meaning.
This morning I received my monthly mortgage statement along with a full color flyer showing a happy couple embracing in magnitudes of joy. I presume their bliss was because they had taken advantage of the offer contained in the flyer. I read the flyer, at any moment expecting waves of ecstasy to wash over me, and was amazed that my mortgage company was going to give me a FREE copy of my credit report. I continued reading and there was the reason it was so important to have good credit and in addition to my FREE credit report, I would receive credit monitoring as well. This way I would know as soon as some nefarious character used my credit and good name for disreputable means. What a nice company they are, and imagine they used to make automobiles.
But wait, what is this? If I take my FREE credit report and the credit monitoring they will only add twelve dollars per month to my mortgage payment. $144 per year for my friends at the mortgage company to watch and tell me when my credit is used by someone else. No, I am not permitted to take just the credit report and forego the credit monitoring. So the question becomes, is the credit report really FREE?
Blood is boiling now. I fire up the computer, open a browser and type in the search window, “free credit report.” First site up is http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre34.shtm. This is the FTC site that gives us the particulars of a federal law entitling every citizen to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting companies. Surf over there and then click on the link to annualcreditreport.com. Order a credit report from one company, wait four months and order from the next company and repeat after four more months with the last company. Repeat next year. Beware that while the companies are required by law to provide a free credit report without strings, they are not prevented from trying to entice the purchase of useless credit monitoring services. Yes I said useless.  And don’t be confused, this is not our FICA score. We are talking Credit Report, who we owe, how much we owe and how we pay what we owe.

Let’s review what a credit monitoring service does. It will supposedly notify you if anything unusual or suspicious appears on your consumer credit report. Kind of like closing the barn door after the horses have run away. How tough is it for someone to steal your credit information? Apparently not too tough. April 20 MSNBC A few years ago, information giant LexisNexis revealed that hackers stole data on about 310,000 of its customers and Citibank sent nearly 4 million letters to consumers after a data backup tape was lost in transit to a credit bureau. C/NET February 18, 2005: ChoicePoint has confirmed that scammers culled the personal information of tens of thousands of Americans in a recent attack on its consumer database. Nov. 02, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) Thousands of Wells Fargo & Co. mortgage and student-loan customers may be at risk for identity theft after four computers were stolen last month…… According to Javelin Strategy and Research, in 2009 11.1 million adults were victims of identity theft in 2009, the total fraud amount was $54 billion, the average victim spent 21 hours and $373 out of pocket resolving the crime, 4.8% of the population was a victim of identity fraud in 2009 and 13% of identity fraud crimes were committed by someone the victim knew.

There is another much more effective method that is permitted in Florida and 46 other states by statute. Browse over to http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html and scroll down to Florida to read about how to put a “Security Freeze” on your credit information. A security freeze lets consumers stop thieves from getting credit in their names. A security freeze locks, or freezes, access to the consumer credit report and credit score. Without this information, a business will not issue new credit to a thief. When the consumer wants to get new credit, he or she uses a PIN (Personal Identification Number) to unlock access to the credit file. Florida gives consumers this important weapon to prevent identity theft. If you have been the victim of identity theft, or are over the age of sixty five, then this service is mandated to be FREE. Otherwise there is a $10 fee to place a security freeze on your credit reports. I wonder why credit monitoring is pushed so hard and security freeze not.
Maybe it’s time to go cash only!
This blog is from chapter 7 of Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer. Many very helpful, informational, money saving tips, tricks and fun stuff can be found throughout the book. Get your copy today by clicking on the Buy Now link to the right. (Martha, buy one for that relative that keeps calling asking for computer help.)

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer

I Feel The Need For Speed!

I feel the need for speed. I recently spent a weekend at Old Town, in Kissimmee FL. Old Town is exactly that, an old section of the town that has been changed to a tourist area, complete with restaurants, bands, and most interesting to me, on Saturday night the town streets are only open to classic cars. But, Old Town also has some amusement rides one of which is two Mustangs on a track. You can drag race your friends to see who has the quicker reaction time off the starting line. The excitement comes though when they hand you your time ticket for the run. In my case, it was elapsed time, two seconds, speed clocked at 109 mph. Zero to 109 mph in two seconds. Unbelievable.

There was a time when computer connections to the Internet were made using a dial up phone line and a 300-baud modem. A baud is a measurement of the number of signaling elements (bits) that occur each second. The term is named after J.M.E. Baudot, the inventor of the Baudot telegraph code. A 300-baud modem transfers 300 bits per second or 300 bps. Different types of modems were developed that allowed multiple bits of information to be passed at the same time, which ultimately brought us where we are today with 56 kbps or 56000 bits per second. Remember, that this rating is the theoretical maximum of the modem. The actual speed is dependent on many things, not least of all being the condition of the phone line. Your modem is most assuredly going to pass data at some speed lower than 56 kbps.
Most dial up internet providers offer some type of “accelerator” sometimes asking a few dollars more per month, but if the theoretical maximum is 56 kbps how can they promote “Up to five times faster?” Can their programmers outsmart the laws of the phone company? The truth leans more towards magic. (Martha, he’s got something up his sleeve.) Magic is based, not on the supernatural, but on misdirection. And in a manner of speaking, that is what the “accelerator” does.

All accelerators use file compression. They take a file that is called for from the Internet and compress the file to a much smaller size. This means it takes less time to appear on your computer. It is still downloaded at 56kbps or less but since much smaller files are downloaded it didn’t take as much time. But even the “five times faster” is a bit like the theoretical limit. It would be nice but probably unreachable because not all files can be compressed. There are two types of compression used by the accelerators. Files such as text files or html files, which need to be identical to the original when they get to your PC use lossless compression. A typical text file can be compressed up to fifty percent and then reassembled when it is displayed on your PC. On the other hand, pictures use lossy compression. For example, take a picture that originally was made up of 2 million colors. After lossy compression it may only have 16 thousand. There may be a loss in quality but it will appear on your screen much faster because you didn’t receive the entire picture.

There are files out there that absolutely cannot be compressed. Things like streaming video, (certainly wouldn’t want to miss the good parts) MP3 music files, and any secure sites, such as banks, shopping carts etc. that use encryption. So these types of files are going to download to from the Internet at their normal pace.
I feel the need for speed. So how does dial up compare to DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and Cable Internet providers? Remember dial up transfers data at something less than 56 kbps. DSL on the other hand using traditional copper phone lines, but at different frequencies than voice communication can travel up to 1.5 mbps or million bits per second. Technology advances have some DSL providers offering up to 40 mbps. Once again these are theoretical speeds because DSL is distance limited. The further your computer is from the phone company’s central office the slower the connection will be.

I feel the need for more speed. A cable connection is by far the fastest connection available to the average homeowner. As I write this column, my cable connection is downloading data at 22 mbps. Again, technology has advanced to the point where my cable provider advertises download speeds up to 105 mbps (let’s see you top that) or over twice the theoretical limit of DSL and over, well many times the absolute best possible speed of a dial up connection. So just how fast is your Internet connection?

Go to http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and run the download and upload tests. This site gives you the speed of your Internet connection, compares it to the other forms of connection and weighs it against the average transfer rate for your Internet Service Provider. This site works for dial up, DSL, Cable, Satellite and ISDN connections. If using Comcast/Xfinity go to http://speedtest.comcast.net/ to check your speed and if using Centurylink’s DSL surf over to http://spdtst-dlls.tx.centurylink.net/ to check the download and upload speeds for the service you have. After checking the speed of the connection compare it to the speed advertised for the plan you are paying for. Check speeds at different times of the day for a week or so and if the numbers are way off call the provider. Slow speeds may have many different causes, a bad modem, problems with a router, line shorts, bad connectors, splitters etc. The provider can walk you through some tests that will pinpoint the cause.

Just call me Speedy.

As always, more topics of interest like this one are packed into my book Grumbles From The Keyboard or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer.  Just click on the Buy Now button to the right or go to amazon.com or barnes and noble.

Grumbles From The Keyboard: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Computer