The Computer Tutor

Sometimes I have a file on my computer, and it would be a lot more convenient if I could read it on my Kindle.  I like to read before going to sleep, and my Kindle Fire is perfect for that.  So I might download an e-book or some type of PDF file that is of [...] Read more »

Did you ever wish you could just click a button in Word, and your computer would read that Word document to you in a human voice?  For some people (both children and adults) with reading or writing difficulties, having the text read aloud can be a significant help as part of the studying and learning [...] Read more »

Hey, have you heard that the US Federal government regularly spies on us?  And by “us” I don’t just mean US citizens, since the government seems to be doing this all over the world.  But this blog is not a rant against the politicians trampling the Constitution (after all, they’re probably watching as I type [...] Read more »

Sometimes you might want to do a search, but you want to limit that search to a particular website.  For example, let’s say there is a blog about personal finance that you read regularly.  You remember reading an article one time that talked about the benefit of compound interest over time, but you don’t know [...] Read more »

Chances are you already own a Kindle.  If you don’t, what are you waiting for?  It gives you such easy access to books – roughly 2 million of them available to purchase from Amazon’s inventory.  If it’s 10 pm and you’re about to go to bed, and you wish you had something to read, just [...] Read more »

Back in the early days of personal computers (which was actually not that long ago), everyone was concerned about defragging.  “I have to defrag because my computer is so slow!” was commonly heard.  Thankfully, you don’t really have to think about that any more. First, a quick review – what is defragging? “Defrag” is [...] Read more »

Well, I have finally made the switch.  After using Firefox for quite a few years, I have now made Chrome my default web browser.  This wasn’t just a “cold-turkey” change – I have been using Chrome more and more recently anyway.  And overall I am happy with the switch.  But there was one thing that [...] Read more »

As you read this, you are looking at more than just the text on the screen.  What you are actually viewing are pixels.  Those are the extremely tiny dots that make up what is being displayed on your screen.  Depending on your screen, there could be many thousands of them or even more than a [...] Read more »

If you spend any time at all on Facebook, you know there are some things that are a regular feature: fake pictures and hoax stories.  Some of these things are the so outlandish, it’s amazing that anyone could actually believe them.  But people fall for them time after time.  And they re-post the same thing [...] Read more »

I turned off UAC (User Account Control) on my computer long ago, but I still see it pop up on client computers pretty regularly.  It’s only still there because people have gotten used to being forced to click on it, and they don’t know how to turn it off. Take a look at the [...] Read more »