Tiplet expert tips & tech support

February 1, 2009

How Fast Is My Broadband Internet Connection and What Does Connection Speed Mean?

Filed under: computer performance,Internet,online computing — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 6:00 pm

by Gabe Goldberg

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like to brag about connection speeds offered and speak glowingly about the wonderful “experience” their services offer. But how honest are their claims and how does connection speed affect what we do online?

The two most important words in any ISPs advertisement or service contract are “up to.” As in, speeds promised are described as “up to X megabits per second.”

(Megabits means “millions of bits” and “megabits per second” is often abbreviated Mbps. A bit is the basic unit of information or data, a “binary digit,” a single unit that is either 0 or 1. Everything on the Internet and all information and software on your computer is composed of bits.)
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January 29, 2009

How to Back up and Restore a WordPress Blog

Filed under: blogging,data storage and recovery,Internet — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Whether you have a self-hosted WordPress blog or a free site hosted at WordPress.com, it’s a good idea to back up your blog’s content from time to time, in case an accident happens and your data is damaged or lost. You will also need a site backup if you want to transfer your blog to a new host. There is more than one way to go about the task of backing up and restoring your site, depending on your circumstances and hosting arrangements.

Fortunately, making a copy of your blog content is not difficult to do because WordPress software has automated the process of backing up your data.
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How to Speed Up Firefox

Filed under: Internet — Tags: , , — admin @ 1:59 am

by David Hakala

Speed up your Web surfing with these tricks that work with Mozilla Firefox! It’s actually easier to tweak Firefox than it is to soup up Internet Explorer. That’s because Firefox is a standalone program, not intimately dependent upon settings in other areas of Windows as Internet Explorer is. All the tools you need are right under Firefox’s hood.

Most of these tools are accessed through the “about:config” URL, which doesn’t look like a standard URL because it doesn’t begin with “http://”. But it is indeed a Universal Resource Locator that locates and displays a resource called “config” within the Firefox browser.
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January 28, 2009

How to Download Movies and TV Shows

Filed under: Internet — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

The television and movie-watching markets are expanding, right onto your computer desktop. It’s no longer necessary to even own a television or a DVD player to watch your favorite TV shows and movies, because online services such as the iTunes store, Netflix, and Hulu.com, as well as major networks such as CBS, NBC, and ABC, make entire episodes and full-length movies available online. It’s easy to access these programs and play them on your computer.
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January 27, 2009

What Is RSS and How Do I Use It?

Filed under: blogging,Internet — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

You may have heard a lot about RSS and “readers” lately. RSS is a term that describes a document, encoded with XML, that lists a news feed of frequently updated information, such as that coming from blogs, news Web sites, or even videos from a site like YouTube.com. By publishing an RSS feed, site owners make it possible for their audience to subscribe to these updates. Most blogs have a place where you can sign up to receive updates.

The idea is that by subscribing, the audience gets an email notification, along with an excerpt from the post or the entire post. Great idea, unless you subscribe to a lot of frequently updated blogs, because your email inbox can get flooded with these notifications, and instead of being convenient, RSS subscriptions start being an irritation.
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January 21, 2009

Deleting Your History on the Computer or Internet

Filed under: Internet,privacy & security,Windows — Tags: , , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by David Hakala

Say you don’t want your spouse or parents to know where you’ve been surfing because you’ve been shopping online for birthday presents. Or perhaps you work for the CIA and don’t even want your password-protected, biometrically accessed, triple-DES encrypted personal computer to know what you’ve been working on. You need to erase your tracks; delete the recorded history of your computer activity.

History is convenient. Windows, by default, keeps track of files you have opened. When you open the Start menu in Windows XP, you will find a list of them under My Recent Documents; just click on one to open it and start working again. Separately, Web browsers keep track of URLs you have visited so you can just type a few letters of one to pull it up and click to go there, instead of re-entering the whole thing. That’s great, but so can anyone who has access to your computer. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, here is how to minimize or eliminate your history.
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January 20, 2009

How To Set Up a Wireless Connection

Filed under: Internet,wireless computing — Tags: , , , — admin @ 6:00 pm

by David Hakala

Ah, the joy of WiFi freedom! Just open your laptop anywhere and that little computer icon lights up, telling you you’re connected to the Internet. Well, not at first. You have to do a little work to connect to most wireless networks for the first time; after that, very little or no work.
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How Do I Set Up an Online Store So I Can Sell My Stuff?

Filed under: Internet — Tags: , , , — admin @ 9:00 am

by Tina Gasperson

There is definitely money to be made on the Internet, even in slower economic times. Even if all you have to sell is your unwanted stuff, it’s easy to find a place to list those things where thousands of people can see and buy it. The most basic way to do that is to create a classified listing either at your local newspaper Web site, or on a national site like Craigslist. But if you want to kick it up a notch, you can set up shop in your own virtual store.
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January 18, 2009

How to Work Faster with Keyboard Shortcuts

Filed under: Internet,Windows — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:12 pm

by Gabe Goldberg

The Windows mouse is a mixed blessing. It does things – such as highlighting and dragging text — that would be tough to do with a keyboard. And yet moving one’s hand between mouse and keyboard is a major distraction and time waster; even accomplished touch typists lose keyboard focus when mousing.

So it’s worth exploring how Windows’ flexibility, providing multiple ways to do things, lets keyboard shortcuts replace many common mouse functions. First, remember that many tasks are standardized across Windows applications, so learning them once helps early and often. And while they’ll become second nature as you practice them, don’t be overwhelmed by their number — notice a few that will be most helpful and consciously use them instead of mouse clicks. When they’re automatic for your hands, pick a few more. You’ll soon amaze colleagues and friends with your dexterity.
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January 17, 2009

How Do I Get Traffic to My Blog?

Filed under: blogging,Internet,social networking — Tags: , , — admin @ 2:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

So you finally took the plunge and set up a blog. But where are the visitors? You have lots to say and it would help if there was an audience. Never fear, it’s out there – people just need to know you exist. There are many tried and true ways to get the word out on the Internet to build traffic to your blog – and you may even find that you can cultivate a devoted following over time.

First, it may help to determine the theme of your blog. Sounds obvious, but many blogs suffer from a lack of direction. If you can determine your niche right from the start, you’ll know better how to market yourself to potential visitors. Your blog may be all about plastic widgets, or it may be all about daily life with your family. Whatever the subject, make sure you know what it is so you can communicate it to your audience.
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January 16, 2009

How to Set Up a Blog

Filed under: blogging,Internet — Tags: , , , — admin @ 6:00 pm

by Tina Gasperson

Blogs and bloggers are all over the Internet these days. Anyone who wants to can have an online presence in the form of a blog – short for Web log, where daily posts can take the form of news articles, diary entries, or anything in between. “I’m blogging now,” you might have heard one or more of your friends and acquaintances say. If you want to get in on the blogging action, it’s easy and cheap to do once you know where to look.
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