Support Details gathers important information about your web browsing and allows you to email it to whomever (me). Before I help someone with a web problem from now on I’m going to send them here.

.

.

.

There’s no simpler answer.  Whether you’re using Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome or Opera; newer = safer and better in almost every case.  When you computer asks you to upgrade your browser, say “Yes”.

If I’m online and available I’m at Your service!

A colleague had his laptop stolen from work this weekend; he stepped away during an event and came back to find it missing.  He had a backup drive so things should have been fine, but that got taken as well.  A year’s worth of music composition, photos and documents are gone.  But what could he have done differently?  It’s hard to say.  There is no simple answer.

I do know a few things that I’ve started doing:

• I don’t travel with my backup drive.  I leave that at home.  Right now it’s visible but I’m going to make it less so.
• I’m getting a second backup drive.  That’s going someplace else.
• I am organizing my files that I can’t live without and plan to store them online in my Drop Box (learn more)
• I’m looking into laptop anti-theft software.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

I can’t emphasize this enough: If you rely on your computer for your “life” – photos, music, work; Make sure you have a backup plan. You can do everything right and things can still go wrong.

…

That’s all I’ll say about that; except for a few pointers I gathered online while researching a solution.

• Remove power and batteries immediately. Power + liquid = short circut
• Stand the laptop on it’s side to drain.
• Open / remove every part you can.
• Use a fan for a LONG time – When you think things are dry, continue with the fan for a while.

This may or may not save your laptop, but it’ll give you the best shot.

Ok (deep breath)… I’m back.

I was at the hospital all day yesterday waiting for my new niece to be born (pause for cheers).  There were several of us with smart-phones and having nothing else to do, we spent the day playing games, posting updates, checking email and draining our batteries much faster than normal.

Thank goodness there were a few chargers in the group; when the good news came we could announce it to the world at full power.

Welcome to the world baby Slawson!

Hit Ctrl+F.  You should see a window open with a space to start searching.  In some programs like Firefox the window opens on the bottom of the screen; other programs give you a pop up window.

The behavior is exactly the same on the mac except you hit +F (command+F).  On both Mac and PC this works on most programs.

The F key is the Fastest way to Find what you’re looking for; Give it a try!

Yes.  But it’s a good idea to back it up anyway.

Like anything else; when I trust my (whatever) to someone else I run the risk that it’ll never come back to me.  The same is true for email; if something happened and my email was lost by google that would be that.  That’s why I have a backup.

The simplest way to have a “back up” is to use Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird or another “Email Client” to access mail.  Not all the time, but if I open Outlook once a day and it goes and gets my mail I then have a copy on my computer in case something happens.

Using web email like gmail, yahoo or hotmail is simple and convenient; using Outlook or Mail once in a while is smart.

• Here’s how to set up gmail with a mail client
• Here’s how to set up yahoo
• If you use another program, ask your network administrator for help

• If I accidentally delete, move or rename files I didn’t mean to
• If text moves or changes in an email or document that I want back
• if something seems different on my computer but I’m not sure what

“Undo” isn’t just for typing; it works on almost everything you do on your computer.  Here’s how.

If something happens on your computer you didn’t expect or want – anything really – hit CTRL+Z (that’s the control key and the Z key at the same time).

The same holds true on the Mac only hit Command+Z (that’s the “Apple” key and the Z key at the same time).

I know it seems strange but I’ve screwed a lot of things up on my computer that were repaired by hitting “Undo” – from little typos to deleted backups.  And if it didn’t help it really didn’t hurt anything either.  Give “Undo” a shot before you panic.