Handy Nerd Tips

Tips to keep your computer clean:

Instead of keeping massive amounts of photos on your computer, move those to an external hard drive.

Any programs you do not use go ahead and uninstall those. To uninstall, you must use the uninstall command under Programs & Features in the control panel. Moving the application to the recycle bin will not uninstall it.

Remove any spyware.  Minimal internet use can fill your computer with junk that slows it down.

The New Twitter

New design

You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics.

View photos, videos, and other media content

See embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube.

To see more info regarding the new twitter click this link: New Twitter Info

Facebook changes the way you "friend" people.

It just became a lot harder to turn down a friend request on Facebook. Used to be you could click ACCEPT or IGNORE. Yes or no. But the company quietly changed those options this week to ACCEPT or NOT NOW. And it's a pretty big step.
If you choose Not Now, the prospective friend goes into a kind of limbo. They get an up to date feed of all your status updates, photos, anything you do on Facebook. That's if you leave your privacy settings in the "share with everyone" position, which is the default setting.


I copied a segment of this article from American Public Media's "Marketplace." Follow this link to the entire article.

Facebook Friending

Dell and Trend Micro get together on business security issues.

Businesses are more at risk for security threats than ever before. To combat cyber-crime, Dell and Trend Micro have come up with a plan.

Dell & Trend Micro Partnership

Did I TWEET that?

The "on mouse over" incident occurred on Twitter and has been completely fixed. To read more, follow this link.

Twitter Incident

"Here You Have" Virus comes in an Email. Watch out for it.

PC Magazine Article

Click the link and read the article on a NEW THREAT that comes in the form of an email. Be looking out for it and report it here if you get the email. DO NOT OPEN LINKS IN THAT EMAIL!

Computer Class for Seniors

Our customers have been inquiring about us teaching basic computer skills.  We are informing you of a computer class being offered now.

Jefferson State Community College will offer a basic computer class for SENIOR CITIZENS (ages 55+).  The class begins Sept. 27th and runs through October 14th. Class will be held on Wednesday from 9am til noon.  The deadline to register is September 20th. The cost is $50 for the 4 weeks. 

The class will cover basic tasks using Windows, file management, typing on a word processor, navigating the internet, and working with email. For more information call 205-280-8231

Directions to Jefferson State Community College-Clanton branch-Travel South on I-65 to exit 212 to the giant peach and take a right onto Lay Dam Road (Highway 145) and travel approximately one mile. The site is on the left across from the Pumpkin Patch.

NEW Business Hours at The Nerd Guy

We are changing our hours of business to better serve YOU.

Starting today, September 8, 2010, we will be open Monday - Friday from 9am - 6pm.

Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus + 2011 - review from PC Magazine

Read the following review from PC Magazine. Follow the link. 

PC Magazine's Review of Trend's 2011 Product.

Computer running slowly? Try these things:

Open your add/remove programs control panel and allow it to populate the list of programs your computer is running. Look at each program and evaluate your use of it. If you "rarely" use it, consider removing it from your system. If you eliminate several programs that you rarely use, it may free up your computer to run more smoothly.

Check your anti-virus software. Be SURE that you have a virus-protection software up-to-date and running at all times. If you aren't sure, check your anti-virus software and run a manual check.

You should only have ONE active anti-virus software running at all times. If you have more, than can conflict and slow you down. I have several tools for staying clean that I use on my computer, but only the Trend Antivirus is a constantly running program.

If your Outlook seems sluggish, here are a few suggestions from Monty.

* Inbox: Keep it cleaned out. Never have more than a couple hundred emails in there at a time. Just archive your old items and delete unimportant ones.

* Sent Items: Same policy - keep newer stuff and important things, delete unimportant ones, and archive the old ones.

* Junk Mail (spam): USE the junk mail tools to let Outlook know which items are junk - select "add to blocked sender" on those. Delete junk mail daily.

VIRUS ALERT: September 2, 2010

I just had an attempted attack online. A new tab opened in Mozilla FireFox that had a red shield with these words: WARNING: Errors were detected in your computer's registry.* The asterisk below all the bold type was tiny words that said this was a commercial advertisement!! SNEAKY!!

AND you canNOT close a tab in your browser with the task manager - you have to close the browser and restart it.

Also, I had an unrequested tab pop up for "moms working at home" - it happened twice today AFTER installing the newest version of FireFox. I have NEVER had weirdy stuff like this happen in FireFox. I've run all my tools on it and there were 27 malicious doo-hickies in my registry! WOW - but no viruses were found. Man, we gotta stay on our toes!

IMPORTANT NEWS:

Click on the links below to learn more!

Mozilla Security Update for Firefox

Windows XP Security Patch

PC Magazine - Best Antivirus . . . .

PC Magazine - Dangerous Places to Surf