Because of my background in computers and IT, I get asked a lot of “How do I…” questions regarding people’s PC’s. I’ve found one website in particular helpful with respect to these questions: HowToGeek.com

For the things I can’t remember off the top of my head or for the how to’s that are easier explained with visual aids, I search for the issue on this website and almost always find the answer. If you find yourself answering others’ How To PC questions all the time, or have those questions yourself, you should check it out.

For example, today I showed a coworker how to set the default Word 2007 save file type to .doc (instead of the original default which was .docx).

Came across this great article that discusses tips and tricks to save battery power on your smartphone. It has general tips and then tips broken down by phone type / OS type. Some of the tips include turning off extra services when you aren’t using them (like GPS, Wi-Fi, 3G), tweaking your back-light to be slightly dimmer or turn off quicker, and some apps that will put your phone into a deeper “sleep” mode or turn off signal searching when you’re in an area with no signal.

Check it out - Saving your smartphone’s battery life (via lifehacker)

Recently I was upgrading my computer and when restarting it took longer than usual I had a short panic attack that I may have corrupted my hard drive and lost everything on it (you know photos, papers, that nasty email I saved from my ex-bff…).  What was worse is that I realized that I hadn’t backed up my data in over 2 years!  My computer ended up booting up just fine but this quick scare was enough to get me to look into the best ways to back up my data.  Here is what I’ve found:

• There are two types of backups, File backups (backing up folders and files) and Full image backups (backs up your entire computer’s “image” meaning you can restore your computer exactly to the way it is now, settings and all).
• You can use the built-in windows backup utility for this (here is another guide for that)
• You can also use various software suites to do your backups (like syncback) and here are a few guides for that: guide 1, backup software guide 2. 

You can store your backups on DVD’s or an external hard drive.  I will be doing a little of each.

Inbetween work, school, working out, and spending time with friends/family I use my TV to its fullest extent.  If you don’t think having a TV is all that great, it just means you aren’t doing things right… Here is what you should be doing.

1.  Video Games – Thats right, use your TV for video games, even if you are an adult.  Games are a great way to unwind.  Personally I like the Wii for casual gaming, but the xbox 360 for more involved games and first person shooters.  If you get the Wii…. must get Mario Galaxy, and then the wii fit (see my post about it here).  This even doubles as your exercise, meaning less time at the gym, more time with your TV.
2. Tivo! – You must get a Tivo!  Tivo means you go to work and school and your shows effortlessly are recorded so when you DO have freetime you can watch exactly what you want, instead of that awful rerun of Mama’s Family.  [Obviously you need cable or satellite to take full advantage of this] [Also, here is a link where you can save up $350 on your Tivo purchase]
3. NetFlix – Tivo is great, and you get to watch a lot of what you want, but seasons 1-6 of Alias won’t be on, in order.  Get Netflix, setup your queue, watch the dvd’s as they come and enjoy life.  It is cheap and totally worth it.  Worth all $5 a month.

Then again, if you don’t have a TV, just go to Hulu.com and watch some free tv!

About two years ago I started attending Yoga classes.  It was a very small class so I got a lot of personal attention from the instructor but I just could not get the hang of it.  The positions didn’t feel right even though it looked like I had proper form, I couldn’t hold the positions, it was pretty much a twice-a-week disaster.

Recently, I bought the Wii Fit.  I was messing around on it and thought I’d give this yoga thing a try.  Wow! What a difference.   Basically the way it works is you mimic the “trainer”and follow his/her moves, but what makes it different from in person lessons is the center of balance guidance.  When you use the wii balance board in conjunction with the wii fit to practice yoga positions, not only do you have an example of how to stand and hold positions, but you can also see where your center of balance should be.  The balance information totally changed the yoga experience for me.  Now I totally understand how I should be holding myself when I am in the positions!!

Anyone who is a beginner having trouble with yoga should take a shot at it using the Wii Fit.  Its amazing.

I finally purchased my own roomba!   I bought the Roomba 550, pretty good deal.  It comes with 3 extra filters, brush cleaner, 2 virtual walls/lighthouses (it has a switch, can work as either one), self charging docking station, and the roomba (with scheduling built in).

I set up the dock last night, charged it up, set the schedule (for thursdays), and hit clean to watch it on its first exploration.  It did a pretty good job!  Picked up a lot of dust off the floor and carpets.  Better yet, I didn’t see it leave anything behind.  I have a medium carpet, tile floors, and some small rugs (bathroom/kitchen).  It did not have issues with any of those.  I also used one of my virtual walls to keep it away from my rotuer/modem and some wires, and that worked out great as well.

I will try to get some video of it later to show you how it explored and cleaned.  So far, its pretty amazing!  Everyone should get one so your place can stay clean while you do other things!

If you are a costco member, should probably get it there, they have a pretty good deal on them.

My tivo does a lot of wonderful things but the best thing it does is hidden until you unlock it!  Your tivo can display the clock and time passed in a video you are watching in the bottom right corner of your screen.  At first I thought this was useless, but after I turned it on I got addicted.

Here is how you do it, to turn on the clock, press the following buttons:

• Select
• Play
• Select
• 9
• Select

Tada!  Enjoy your new and improved tivo.

For those of you who read my post about how my tivo hates me, because it decides to update WHILE I’m watching and then takes “one hour, possibly longer” to install the updates…. I just wanted to let you know that it did not erase my settings or shows!  Small Victories.

So, I’m happily outlining for finals…ok, maybe not happily, but I’m doing it, and I have my TV on. Watching things on my tivo… Next thing I know it goes silent. What? Why? I look up and the screen says “Welcome! Powering up…”

I think to myself “well thats strange, its never powered up by itself BEFORE”

A few minutes later the next screen says something to the effect of “Just a few more minutes…”

Ok, you’ve totally interrupted my viewing experience, thanks Tivo.

I look up 5 minutes later and it says “Installing an important sevice update”

Ok, fine, this sounds legitimate…

A few minutes later, I get this AWESOME message “Preparing the service update. This may take up to an hour, possibly longer”

WHAT?!?!?!?! Wait a second, I never asked to install anything, why are you ruining the rest of my night? Couldn’t you prompt me for this?

Next thing you’re going to tell me you had to reformat and you’ve lost all my season pass info and my recorded programs…. I guess in an hour or “possibly longer” we’ll find out.

:shakes fist at tivo:

A lot of my friends always ask me what I think is the best setup for surfing the internet…

Obviously this depends on you preferences but I wanted to walk through what I think is one of the best setups.

1. Get Firefox! Either


or


Now that you have that setup, lets customize it.

2. StumbleUpon. Get the toolbar, set it up, enjoy it. Trust me when I say you will need this. StumbleUpon allows you to choose your favorite categories of pages and then “stumble” through them randomly whenever you want. When you like something (like this page) give it a thumbs up, when you don’t like it give it a thumbs down. You might think this is a useless toy, but I think of it as a way to take a quick break and discover something new.

3. Get the Alexa toolbar. This provides website owners with a lot of traffic information that is useful and important to us. Also you can take a look at how your favorite sites are doing.

4. Get and install forecastfox. You set it up with your zipcode and have updated weather info for today and tomorrow (or more, its customizable). Means you don’t need to take any extra time to look up the weather, its right there on your toolbar. I set mine up to display on the menu bar so it doesn’t take up any extra space. If you want more info on that days weather, just click on it and it goes to the accuweather.com detail page.

5. This may just be the BEST firefox addon ever. Foxmarks. This allows you to sync the bookmarks of all your firefox browsers, so your laptop, desktop, and work machine will always have all the same bookmarks! Means I don’t need to keep emailing myself links, I just favorite it on whichever machine I’m on and my other firefoxes will sync up and have it in their bookmarks as well.

6. Gmail Manager – this is for those of you that are as obsessed with your gmail as I am. A must have.

7. IE tab – every once in a while you will come across a page that just needs to be viewed in IE for one reason or another. This plugin lets you open a page using the IE engine on that tab in firefox!

There you go, now you have a killer firefox setup. Sure there are a million other things you can add and tweak, but this is a great base setup. Enjoy….. Now if I could only get my firefox to accomplish home automation. Firefox! Why can you not function as our own personal web browser run home automation systems!

If you would like more extension ideas I suggest you also look at this: Lifehackers top 10 must have firefox plugins.