The Computer Tutor

Summer is almost here, time to do some traveling! When you’re on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, and taking hundreds (or thousands) of pictures, one of the worst things that could happen is for you to lose those pictures. How could this happen, and how can this be prevented?

Here are a few ways this could happen:

Of course there are other bad things that can happen to electronics while traveling, but you get the idea. A lot can happen, and the risk of loss is pretty high since these photographs are essentially irreplaceable.

But there’s a simple process you can use that will virtually guarantee the safety of your pictures.

First, you will need a few things:

1. A memory card for each day of your actual vacation. 10 day vacation, 8 memory cards (assuming the first and last days are spent in transit). If you use SD cards that are 8 GB in size, and your pictures are 10 mb each or less, that means you can take 800 pictures each day. Cost of 8 of these memory cards: around $50.

2. A laptop computer. I’m going to assume you already own one.

3. A portable USB drive. If you don’t already have one, this is something you can use at home even after you are done traveling. These are about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and the only cable is the one that plugs into the USB port of your laptop. If you get a 1 TB drive, that will provide more than enough storage space. Cost: about $55.

Here’s the strategy you use for taking pictures each day:

1. Spend the day having fun and taking as many pictures as you want.

2. At the end of the day, connect your camera to your laptop and COPY the pictures to a folder named “Day 1”. It’s important that you do not move the pictures, you just want to copy them. Now the pictures are still on the memory card in your camera, and they are also on your laptop. You would do the same thing the next day, using a folder called “Day 2”.

3. After you have copied the pictures to the “daily” folder on the laptop, connect the USB portable drive to your computer and copy the folder of pictures from the laptop to the portable drive. Then disconnect the portable drive and put it back in your suitcase or in the hotel room safe. At this point your pictures for that day are in 3 places: the memory card, your laptop, and the portable drive.

4. Take the memory card out of your camera and put it in a safe place, such as a small envelope inside a purse. Then put the next day’s memory card in the camera and you’re ready to get started the next morning, capturing a bunch of new memories for that day.

As you read through the steps detailed above, it might seem like this is a big hassle and too inconvenient. But in reality, it just takes a few minutes at the end of the day and after a couple of days it will be such an easy routine you won’t even think about it being a bother.

So if you accidentally leave your camera behind and never see it again, who cares. You have the pictures on your laptop and external drive.

If you lose your camera AND drop your laptop in the ocean, you still have the pictures on your external drive.

If you lose your camera, AND your laptop, AND your external drive, you still have all the originals on the individual memory cards.

That might seem like overkill or paranoia, but consider the alternative. You just get a 64 gb camera memory card and take a few hundred pictures each day, just adding them to that same card continually. This means all of your 800 pictures are all on that one card, in that one device. You take one last picture on the airplane flight as you head home, and stick the camera in the seatback pouch in front of you. As you are driving home from the airport, you remember it – but it’s never found. That’s when you would wish you had been a little more “paranoid”.

This is all based on the assumption that you are using a digital camera to take all these pictures. If you use your phone, you could actually use the same process and just pop a different memory card in your phone each day. But you can also set up a process so that whenever you take a picture on your phone, it’s automatically uploaded to Dropbox or Google Drive or some other online storage service. But uploading to the cloud assumes you have internet access, which may not be the case depending on how remote your vacation destination is.

In the past I’ve written about third-party services that will alert you to new Craigslist postings. One of the ones I have used over the years is Blogtrottr, and I have definitely gotten some good deals as a result. But now there’s an even better way – getting new ad alerts directly from Craigslist.

What’s the value in this? Let’s talk about an example situation.

In our example, I’m looking to buy a used car. I want to get a Honda Civic. My requirements are:

So I go to my local Craigslist site at Craigslist.org, and I do a search based on those preferences. In that search, 5 cars come up. I call about a couple of them but don’t end up buying any of them.

Of course, people are listing cars for sale all the time on Craigslist. Sometimes they are overpriced because the owner thinks it’s worth more than it really is. But some are actually amazing bargains. Of course, it’s the bargains that you are really looking for.

But the key to getting a bargain on Craigslist is being the first (or one of the first) to see that ad. There are LOTS of people shopping on Craigslist for a good deal on a car. If someone posts their car for sale at a really good price, chances are someone looking for a car is going to just happen to search Craigslist a short time after the ad is posted, and go buy that car. They found it just because they were lucky enough to be searching right after the ad was listed, so hardly anyone else had a chance to even see that ad.

But if you check Craigslist each day at 8 am and 5 pm, what if the hugely-discounted car for sale gets listed at 9 am? That means it’s going to sit there all day, with tons of other people looking at it, before you even do your next check at 5 pm. That car would likely already be sold by then.

So you could just save that Craigslist search on your smartphone and keep checking it throughout the day, but your employer might not be too happy with that. Not to mention that it’s kind of a pain.

That’s why there have been some services that have popped up, to notify you about new Craigslist ads. That way you don’t have to keep checking it all the time. You just get an email when a new ad gets posted that meets your criteria. As I said, I have used Blogtrottr for a while. It was okay, but not perfect. The emails they send have third-party advertisements, and I can’t really fault them for that since they have to make money somehow.

But the real problem with Blogtrottr and others is the fact that it’s not really an “immediate” notification. Sometimes I would get an email and check the ad on Craigslist and see that it actually got posted several hours earlier. In some cases I didn’t get the email alert until the next day. That kind of defeats the purpose if you’re trying to know about a new listing right away in order to get there before anyone else can.

Well, I don’t use Blogtrottr any more, because Craigslist now offers this alert service directly. And of course it’s free.

Of course, I wanted to be sure that the notifications were immediate, so I checked it by creating a “test” alert request. Then I posted an ad on Craigslist that matched that alert. Within a few minutes, I was sent an email telling me about that new posting. Bingo!

One of the keys to this strategy is to make your search as specific as possible, based on as many criteria as you wish. In fact, it’s even better if you create multiple detailed searches and save them in your Craigslist account, and get an alert for each one. With a specific search like that, a bargain that matches that search might not show up in Craigslist very often – but when it does, you’ll be the first to know about it!

To set up an email alert, first you have to create the search and see the results of that search on your screen. Then look for the link at the top that says “email alert”:

That will show you your list of saved searches, and you can toggle the email alert on or off if you want. You can always see all of your saved searches by clicking on the “Searches” tab when you’re logged in to your Craigslist account:

As far as I know, there is no limit to the number of searches and alerts you can save in your Craigslist account.

For those people that are sort of “entrepreneurial” by nature, this alert service could present an opportunity to make some money. Do you have some type of specialized knowledge in a particular area? If you know about certain specialty items and their value, you could use that to your advantage. You could set up an alert for a particular item that you know is worth $500. But you only get notified if someone posts one of that item for sale for $300. So you go and buy it for $300, then sell it on Craigslist to someone else for $400. The person that bought it from you is still getting a bargain price, and you make $100. Sure, you might not be notified very often for something so underpriced, but when it happens you can take action. And it actually might surprise you how often things are posted on Craigslist at prices much lower than their real value.

There’s one thing that is widely hated by Windows 8 users everywhere – the Windows 8.1 Start Screen. I usually refer to it as the App Screen, since that’s what it’s filled with – each tile represents an app. Microsoft originally called it “Metro” but changed later to just “Start Screen”. And there are some people that refer to it out of frustration, using words that, in the interest of good taste, I won’t repeat here in my blog.

I think most people dislike it for a couple of primary reasons:

The Start screen is part of Windows 8.1, but you don’t have to use it. The problem is, with a lot of the Windows 8.1 computers I work on, I see that when the computer first boots up, it goes directly to that Start screen. Then you have to find the “Desktop” app to click on and get back to the more familiar environment of the Windows Desktop.

It would be much more convenient if the computer just booted up directly to the Desktop screen, right?

If that’s what you prefer (as most people do), you can set it to do that. After all, your computer is not the boss, you’re the boss! The computer has to do what you tell it to do! You just have to know how to tell it. Here’s what you do:

1. The taskbar is the bar that runs along the bottom edge of the screen. In an open area on that bar, do a RIGHT click and in the new menu that comes up, choose “Properties”.

2. In the new window that comes up, click on the “Navigation” tab.

3. Checkmark the box that says “Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in”:

4. Click OK. That’s it!

Now, whenever you sign in to your Windows 8.1 computer, it will just go straight to the desktop view – no more Start Screen. Of course, if for some reason you wanted to see the Start Screen again with all the apps, you can get there – just move the cursor to the top right corner of the screen, then in the “Charms bar” that slides out from the right, you can choose the Start screen icon from there.

One thing to note – the procedure described above will only work if you have the Windows 8.1 update. If your computer is still running just Windows 8, the procedure is different and a little more complicated. But you need to get the 8.1 update anyway, so just do that.

I think right now is the best time ever to be alive, because we are seeing so many amazing innovations in lots of different areas. I’ve just recently learned of something that I believe will change the way we think about location and mapping around the world. It’s called What3Words.

What3Words.com is where you can get the app, and you can play with the mapping concept it’s based on, right there on the website at what3words.com.

This innovative idea solves a big problem. The problem is trying to describe to someone where you are. This can be a problem in a variety of situations:

– You’re at the state fair. This is an event that covers hundreds of acres because there’s a lot there – all the animals, the midway with all the games, the entertainment area, the rides, the huge fields that are used for parking. Your wife might want to go and browse the 4H vegetable growing competition, and you want to take the kids to see the pig races. An hour later you are trying to find each other. You might be able to describe nearby landmarks, but it can be difficult to walk straight from where you are to where she is since the place she is standing doesn’t have an actual “address”.

– You’re in your car, driving on a long, desolate country road. Suddenly you have a flat tire, and you discover that your spare is also flat. You can call AAA to come out and change your tire, but you’re not even sure of the name of the road you’re on, much less what the address would be. How do you tell them where to come?

– You’re visiting your friend in Australia for a week. You go out for a walk, and end up walking farther than you originally planned, and now you’re out in the middle of nowhere without a sense of which direction to go. You could call or text message your friend to come and get you, but the only “landmarks” to describe are trees. How can your friend find easily find you?

What3Words has solved this problem. They have divided the entire planet into little 3 meter by 3 meter squares – 57 trillion of them in fact. And every one of those squares is designated by a unique set of just 3 words.

This is so much better than the “system” we have now:

– It’s more accurate. More specific.

– It’s universal worldwide. Currently, each country has its own system for addresses. You might know the system for the country where you live (for example, I know that each town in the US has its own 5-digit ZIP code) but if you travel somewhere else, such as Canada, that’s all different (I have no idea how the postal codes in Canada designate locations). And in third-world or developing countries they might not even have a workable system for every location. But they do now – every 3m by 3m square has an address.

– It’s MUCH easier to remember. It doesn’t even compare. For example, there’s a nearby hair salon with this mailing address: Hair Cuttery, Bayside Bridge Shopping Plaza, 1500 North McMullen-Booth Rd, Suite A15, Clearwater, Florida 33759. Instead of that long address, you could instead use these three words: weep.hilltop.myth. That would take you right to the front door of that business, and that location is the only location in the WORLD that has that 3-word address.

Of course you can pinpoint a location somewhere in the world with latitude and longitude coordinates, but words are much easier to remember.

All of the 3-word addresses for the entire world fits into an app small enough to run on your smart phone. So wherever you happen to be, it can figure out which 3-word address you’re in so that you can communicate that to AAA, your spouse, or your friend in Australia. And it even works offline, so you don’t need a data connection in order to use it.

The way this will change things is astounding. From the website:

They have also made this explanatory video that gives a good overview:

https://youtu.be/EW2PuGwYmjY

What would you do if you had a large file on your computer, and you needed to send it to someone by email? For example, you used your phone to take a video of your dog doing some tricks, and you want to email it to your friend who lives 500 miles away? To send an email by regular attachment, most email services have a strict limit on file size – and most video files are fairly big. But thanks to Google, there’s an easy way to do that now. You can use Google Drive.

For this example, I’m going to use my Gmail account. Google owns Gmail, and Google obviously owns Google Drive, so they all work together perfectly.

Google Drive is basically just data storage space that Google gives you as part of your Google account. You get 15 gb total, which is quite a bit of space. Keep in mind, however, that this 15 gb is used for your Gmail account (including any attachments such as pictures), Google Docs, Google Pictures and your Google Drive general storage. But to put things in perspective – I have had my Google account since Gmail first became available back in 2004, and I archive most of my emails. And even now after 11 years, I am using less than half of the 15 gb of space I am allowed.

And if for some reason you need more space, Google sells it cheap:

So the first step is to get your Google/Gmail account if you don’t already have one. If you want to, you can install Google Drive on your computer (you can get that free at drive.google.com). That just makes it easier if you want to put files or folders there on a regular basis, but having it on your computer is not necessary for sending a large file by email.

If you already have the large file stored in Google Drive, that’s fine. But for this example, we’ll assume you just have the file stored on your computer and not yet in Google Drive.

Here’s how you email the large file:

1. Go to gmail.com and log in to your email account.

2. Click on “Compose” in the top left, to create a new email. Put in your friend’s email address and the subject line, and any text you want to include in the message area.

3. Now you need to attach the video. Look in the bottom row, and you’ll see the Google Drive icon:

4. Click on the icon. That opens a new window, and one of the options is “Upload”.

5. When you click “Upload”, a new window opens. You want to click on “Select files from your computer”.

6. Now you need to find the dog tricks video, wherever that is stored on your computer. When you find it, double click on that file.

7. Now you will see your video file is listed as the file that will be inserted. It even shows the file size (in this case, 65 mb). If this is showing correctly, click the “upload” button at the bottom of the screen.

8. You will see the progress bar as the file uploads:

9. When it’s done (usually pretty quickly, depending on the file size) you should be back to your email “Compose” window with the file listed. If you want to, you can click to attach another file. When you are done adding files to this email, just click the “Send” button:

10. Since you just now uploaded that video file, you might get a window that comes up telling you that this particular file is not currently “Shared” with the person you are sending it to. That’s no problem. Just click “Share and send”:

And that’s it! Usually within a few minutes it will be waiting for your friend to check email and find it in their inbox, waiting to read.

But here’s the great thing – since it wasn’t actually sent as a traditional “attachment”, your friend doesn’t have to wait for it to load in his email inbox. All he sees is a link to click on. When he clicks that link, he will see your video, in your Google Drive folder. He can watch the video, or he can save it to his computer if he wants to.

So even though Gmail limits file attachments to 25 mb or smaller, you just sent your friend a 65 mb video file. And by using this method (sending via Google Drive) you can send up to TEN GIGABYTES of files (that’s 10,000 mb)! You might not need to do that, but it’s nice to know that you can if you run into that situation.

There are definitely other methods for transferring large files from one computer to another one over the internet. You can use Dropbox and share a file. You could upload the video to YouTube, and then send your friend the link to it. Using Google Drive is just one option, but it’s a very simple one. And simple is usually good.

Many of the things I cover here on my blog and on my podcast are products or services that I discover just in my routine daily work. Recently I came across a couple of handy things – one is an online service, the other is a product that’s sold online – and I know that a lot of people will find one or both of these useful.

I was recently involved in a transaction with a client out of state, and part of the process was that the client needed to send me some money via Paypal. I know there are a few people that don’t like Paypal, but I use them all the time and so far have not had any problems.

When someone pays you money through Paypal, Paypal takes a small percentage of the amount. That’s how they make their money. But in this case, I needed for the NET amount to be a certain dollar figure, so the client had to add on the amount of the Paypal fees to what he sent so that I would actually receive the right dollar amount.

That meant we needed to figure out what Paypal would charge for their fees. I know as a rough figure Paypal is usually around 5%, but that percentage gets adjusted based on the amount being sent. So I didn’t know exactly what percentage we would have deducted. And if you go on Paypal’s website, it’s not the easiest thing to find (although I know they do publish the information somewhere). I also could have called them, but going through the phone menu with a big company can sometimes be a hassle.

So I found an easier way – the online Paypal Fee Calculator. You can try it out at TheFeeCalculator.com.

To use it, the process really couldn’t be any simpler. Right there on the front page is the place for you to enter the dollar amount of the transaction. For example, if my client is going to send me $475.00 through Paypal, and I want to know how much Paypal is going to deduct for their fees:

You enter the amount, and hit “Calculate” and it immediately gives you this answer (with a little bit of editorializing):

In most cases that’s what you need to know, what amount you will net. But there’s another little bit of information that is also processed. If you know the amount that you NEED to net, what is the amount that the sender needs to send? That calculation is also offered on the same page:

The site is run by a guy named Derek. He tells about how it came about back in 2005:

So now, whenever I need to calculate a Paypal fee, I know where I can go to get it quickly and easily.

But while I was on the site, I noticed what appeared to be an advertisement, right below the place where you enter the dollar amount:

It’s talking about nametags, like the ones that people wear when they work in a service business. Normally I don’t even notice ads such as that, much less click on them. But for some reason I clicked on this one.

I do wear a name tag. It has my company logo and my name on it. There’s no real requirement for it, but there are some benefits. When I’m doing on onsite appointment in a client’s home (or business), and it’s the first time they have met with me, a name tag with the company logo adds a degree of credibility. And actually I even wear it when I’m working at home, because sometimes first-time clients drop off their computer at my home office.

And in addition to the credibility factor, if I happen to stop in a store to pick something up, or I stop to fill up with gas, there have been several instances where people notice the name tag and comment on it. When they see “The Computer Tutor” the most common remark is “Boy, I sure need someone like YOU!” and in a few cases it has resulted in a new client.

So I do definitely find value in wearing my name tag. But I’ve had this one for a few years, so it’s starting to look a little worn. The colors are fading a bit and it’s just not as sharp as it once was.

When I clicked on the text link advertisement, it took me to a different website – Nametag Ninja (NametagNinja.com).

What caught my eye were the 3 main features displayed on the first page:

At that point I knew that as long as the prices were reasonable, I was going to order a new nametag. When I checked into the pricing options, I saw that a new nametag was only going to cost me $8. I don’t remember what I paid for my current one but I know it was more than that, and that was from a local business that took a week to get it done.

Here’s the interesting part. In placing my order, there was a problem with the online ordering process. I was trying to customize the nametag to a particular size, and to have a magnetic attachment rather than a pin. But it wasn’t showing up that way in the final order. So before I completed the process, I sent an email to inquire about how to get this resolved.

Almost immediately I got a response back from a man named Derek, who said he was unaware of the problem but would look into it. In the meantime, he said I could just email him my requested order and he could manually invoice me, so that my order would not be delayed by the website order issue.

This is why I like dealing with small, “mom and pop” businesses.

I was planning to do the order via email the next day, but before I could even do that, Derek emailed me again to advise that the website problem had been fixed so I could order the regular way. He was also appreciative that I had let him know about the problem so that he could get it fixed.

In my communication with Derek, I came to find out that he is actually the one that created the Paypal Fees Calculator website as well. For the record, he did not ask me for this blog post or recommendation, and I don’t get any commission for sending him new customers. I did this because it’s unfortunately kind of unusual to come across a service that is reasonably priced and provides excellent attention to the customer. So when I find something like that, I like to pass it along. I know that a lot of my blog readers and podcast listeners either own a service business (like I do) or work for one, so this is a good source for employee name tags.

If you end up ordering some name tags from the site, tell Derek you heard about it here.

Today I’m going to show you a couple of things that you might find to be pretty handy. Nothing fancy really, but each of these could definitely be a solution for someone that’s in need of either one of them.

Tool #1: Simple countdown timer

It doesn’t get much easier than this. Just go to Google, and in the search box type:

timer 1 minute

and hit Enter on the keyboard. Right away you will see a countdown timer at the top of the Google search results. But you don’t have to click on it or do anything else – it is already running, counting down from one minute.

Right under the numbers you will see the link to Stop, if you want to pause the timer. Or you can reset it back to 1 minute. When the timer gets down to zero, it sounds a little beeping alarm that sounds like a digital alarm clock. Easy and free.

You can set the time for any number of minutes or hours up to 23 hours. I couldn’t get it to work when I tried putting in 24 hours, but I didn’t mess around with it for very long so maybe there’s a way to do that.

How would you use this? The possibilities are unlimited. For me, I try to take a break from working at my computer sometimes, but I don’t want to get sucked into Facebook or YouTube for so long that it becomes a big waste of time. So when I take a break, I just open up a new tab in my browser and start the countdown timer for 5 or 10 minutes, and when I hear the beep I get back to work. But really, anything you do that needs to be tracked for time is a potential use for it.

Tool #2: Video blocker

This is an extension that works with Chrome and Firefox. I love this little thing because it solves an annoying problem.

The problem has to do with YouTube. YouTube tries to be smart about what videos it offers you when you first go to the site. If you’re subscribed to any particular YouTube channels, it will often display new videos from those channels. It tries to display up front the videos it THINKS you want to see, based on what videos you’ve looked at previously. So if you watched some videos about football yesterday, then when you go to YouTube today, you’ll see that they’ll show you some links to some other football videos. They’re just trying to give you what you want, in order to keep you on the site and viewing videos as long as possible. That, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.

The problem arises when I might click to view a video that outside my typical areas of interest. For example, a friend might tell me, “Hey, you have to check out this video of this guy – he’s the best man at his brother’s wedding and for the Best Man Toast, he SINGS a song that he wrote himself!” And to be fair, it is a pretty amazing video that has recently gone viral. You can watch it on YouTube, and right below the video itself are the lyrics so you can follow along.

So if I watch that video today, then later today or tomorrow when I go back to YouTube, it’s likely that the front page is going to be offering me more wedding videos. Actual full weddings, dancing at wedding receptions, people falling down at weddings, wedding photography services, and on and on.

This might even continue for days and weeks – every time I go to YouTube I have to wade through all the wedding-related videos in order to see the things that I actually want to see.

Video Blocker solves that problem. When you have Video Blocker installed, you can go to YouTube and right-click on any video thumbnail, and you are given the option to block all the videos from that particular channel from being displayed.

It’s great! So now, with the help of this little tool, I can have some actual control over what gets displayed whenever I open up YouTube to see what’s new.

To get Video Blocker, do a Google search for video blocker. If you’re using Chrome, you would want the Chrome extension:

If you’re using Firefox, get the Firefox version:

When you click the link to get it, it will ask you to install it as a browser extension or add-on. Go ahead and do that, then restart Chrome or Firefox and go exploring YouTube and try it out.

If you buy a new computer, part of your purchase decision is what software you need to also purchase. If you have a lot of specialized needs, you could probably spend more on the additional programs than you did on the computer itself. But the fact is, you don’t necessarily NEED to do that – there are free alternatives to almost every program available today.

First a big word of warning – don’t go on Google and start searching for “free software”. If you do that, just about every website you find in the search results will almost certainly infect your computer with all kinds of malware and viruses. Searching Google for “free” anything (games, music, software, screensavers, etc.) is one of the most common ways to choke your computer with bad stuff. You need to know specifically what you’re looking for, which is what I’m going to tell you about here.

Expensive software: Microsoft Office  (shelf price $115 – $200 depending on version, or by subscription)

Expensive software: Adobe Photoshop ($1525 for an older version, or newer one by subscription)

Expensive software: Microsoft Outlook ($110 alone, or also available as part of certain versions of Microsoft Office)

Expensive software: Adobe Audition ($800, or by subscription)

Expensive software: Acronis True Image ($50)

Expensive software: Windows ($75 – $200 depending on version)

There’s one exception!

I recently got a phone call from a business client. I’ll call him Matt for this story. Several months ago, Matt had a hard drive crash on his business computer. For a lot of people, this would have been a disaster. But thankfully, Matt had allowed me to set up an automated online backup for him, so all of his important files were safely stored away from the computer. I replaced the hard drive and reinstalled Windows, and Matt said that he and his partner could download his backed-up files and get them back on the computer. So that was the last I heard of that situation, until this past week when Matt called me.

As soon as he asked me the question, I knew what had happened.

He said, “Back when we had the new hard drive put back in the computer, we downloaded all the documents from the online backup and they were all there, no problem. Now we want to go back and download the pictures, but we can’t find them. Do you know how we can get them from the backup account?”

Not good. Those pictures are now gone.

Here’s what happened:

1. Matt’s computer crashed.

2. Replacement hard drive was installed, and Windows was reinstalled on the new drive. At this point, it’s a functioning computer but all of the backed-up files are still not back on the computer.

3. Matt logs into the online backup account and downloads the Documents folder to his computer. These are the important files that he needs for his business, so he gets those documents and decides to just come back and get the rest of the files (pictures) later.

4. Now the computer starts doing the online backup again. But what does it back up? The important files that are on the computer (as it’s supposed to do). But at this point, the only important files on the computer are the Documents. So the pictures are not getting backed up.

5. Online backup services typically only save backups for 30 days. So when you do a backup today, the backup you did 30 days ago gets bumped off (deleted). So 30 days after the crash, the backup that had ALL the original files got deleted and now the only thing to be found in the online backup account is the Documents folder.

So today’s lesson is this:

When you are recovering your files

Or, if you aren’t sure what to do, just call me.

I got this question from one of my clients, Jim, recently: “Scott, whenever I move the mouse to wake up my laptop from Sleep Mode, I can’t access any website. I open Internet Explorer and it just says “Page cannot be found”. If I close Internet Explorer and wait a minute or two, I’m always able to connect to a website on the second try. Why is it doing this?” This probably happens to a lot of people, but they don’t bother trying to figure it out because they know after a couple of minutes it will start working properly anyway. But there’s actually a pretty easy fix for it.

To know how to fix this issue, we have to first know why it’s happening. If you have seen this happen with your computer, it’s just because it’s configured to save power.

You read that correctly. If you want to wake up your laptop and access a website, you might have to wait 1 or 2 minutes, but overall it’s worth it because you are saving multiple pennies off your electric bill each month. (Yes, that was me being sarcastic.)

What’s happening is that your wifi adapter – the thing that connects your computer to your wireless router in order to access the internet – gets shut off when the computer goes into sleep mode. In a way, this sort of makes sense, because obviously if the computer is in sleep mode you won’t be using it to view websites, get your email, or anything else really. So there’s no reason to be connected to the internet either.

But when you “wake up” your computer, it isn’t online immediately. It has to find the wifi signal and go through the process of connecting to the internet. In some computers that happens quickly, and in others it can take a minute or so.

For Jim, it seemed like the connection was successful just because he tried a second time. But that’s kind of misleading. The reason it always works on the second try is simply because enough time has passed so that the wifi adapter has had time to connect to the router again. It really has nothing to do with how many times he tries.

It’s kind of the same idea that drinking coffee can help you sober up after you’ve had too much to drink. In reality, coffee does not speed up the process. But it does give you something to do while time passes – and really it’s only the passage of time that gets the alcohol out of your system.

So you could just wake up the computer, wait a minute, then go about the tasks that require an internet connection. But if you’re like me, that wait is just wasted time – and that time is far more valuable to me than the extremely tiny amount I’m saving in electricity each month or each year. If that’s you, then you’ll probably want to turn off this “feature”.

How to turn off wifi power-saving mode:

1. Go to Control Panel, set the view in the top right corner to “Small icons”, and double click on the “Device Manager” icon.

2. In the list, look for the “Network Adapters” section, and click on the little triangle next to it to expand the items under that section. Then you want to look for any item in the list that includes the words “wifi” or “wireless”:

3. Now, for each of the wifi or wireless entries, do a right click on the name and choose “Properties”. This will open a new window where you will click on the “Power Management” tab, and UN-check the box that says “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power”:

4. Click OK, close the open windows, and you’re done. You just need to make sure you do this for each wifi or wireless device in the list.

Now, whenever your laptop goes into sleep mode, it will stay connected to the internet. And when you wake it up, you can immediately start getting your work done because you have access to the internet right away.