The Computer Tutor

Adobe’s database of users got hacked recently.  When this was first announced, Adobe stated that the estimated number of users whose information was leaked was around 2.9 million.  After the dust settled, it turned out that approximately 150 million people were affected.  It’s a good idea to check and see if you are affected by [...] Read more »

Did you know that prices on Amazon products fluctuate?  Sometimes certain product prices fluctuate a lot.  How do you know if you are buying a particular item at the lowest price?  By using 3 camels, of course. Don’t ask how they came up with this name because I don’t know.  I couldn’t find any [...] Read more »

Do you find yourself typing the same words or phrases over and over again?  Maybe you get business inquiries by email, which require the same reply each time.  Or perhaps you have the need to write the same paragraph repeatedly in a Word document.  Whatever the situation, you can save a good chunk of time [...] Read more »

The “automated line” is probably one of the most frustrating things that Microsoft ever built in to MS Word.  And when you see it suddenly appear, it seems like nothing you do can get rid of it.  But there is a way! If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, try this.  Open a [...] Read more »

One of the biggest complaints about YouTube is trying to watch a video that has to keep pausing while it buffers.  The video is playing faster than it can download to your computer.  So every so often it has to pause, download a little more, then play some more of the video until it has [...] Read more »

You may have noticed something new recently if you use Google Chrome as your web browser.  Whenever you open a new tab, that new tab page displays the Google search field.  And right below that, there are a bunch of icons representing the websites you have recently visited.  A lot of people don’t like that [...] Read more »

An important part of a comprehensive data backup strategy is having a reliable, consistent backup to an external drive.  Today I’ll show you how I recommend doing this.  I’m using a small program for Windows called Second Copy.   First, a quick recap: Last Monday I told you about CryptoLocker, a new ransomware virus [...] Read more »

There’s a new type of malicious software in town.  It’s called CryptoLocker.  It doesn’t fool around.   CryptoLocker falls into the category of “Ransomware”.  Ransomware programs take over part or all of your computer, and offers to return it to you when you pay money.  You have probably heard about the popular “FBI Virus”, which [...] Read more »

If you use Facebook (and most of you do), you know that Facebook likes to display their pages the way they want.  They don’t really care much what the users think.  How many times have you seen friends post something like “I HATE the new Facebook layout!”.  Well, I’m happy to tell you that you [...] Read more »

If you use the iGoogle service as your home page on Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome (or whatever web browser you prefer to use), you are probably aware that it will be discontinued on November 1, 2013 – less than 2 months from now.  Some people don’t care, and others are in a panic about [...] Read more »