The Older Geek

Everybody wants a piece of the pie, I always say– your pie! Whenever you download a new music player, for example, that new music player may (and often does) take over ALL media files associations on your computer. For example, perhaps all your media files (mp3, wav, etc) had once played in Windows Media Player [...]

Your heart may skip a beat when you turn on your Windows computer and see an error dialog window informing you that your User Profile is corrupted, and, therefore, unavailable. Don’t worry– your files and other data is still intact on your hard drive. A corrupt file is preventing you from accessing them, but you [...]

If you download your Gmail into your Windows Live Mail (WLM), you may notice duplicate emails in the handy “Quick Views” folder in WLM. What is up with that? The problem lies with the IMAP settings for your Google account. The fix is amazingly easy, but there’s also a second step that you should not [...]

I’m a utility software junky. Ever since I got that first computer way back when, I delighted in word processors, calendars, personal management assistants, and more. Over the years (and through all the Windows operating systems), I’ve acquired some really terrific programs. I recently had to reformat my computer so all these programs are fresh [...]

I was driving along, listening to the radio yesterday, when a popular computer/technology show got a telephone call for some advice. The caller said that he is going to homeschool his child, and wondered what kind of computer would be best for this type of application. I was surprised with the radio host’s recommendation: a [...]

You may log on to your computer to see that your Windows sidebar calendar displays an orange block. What is up with that?! I had this problem on both my computers, a Windows 7 and a Vista machine. It’s a weird issue, but I isolated my problem to a bug with the latest Internet Explorer [...]

Until the early 2000′s, all personal computer were 32-bit. The term 32-bit or 64-bit describes a type of computer architecture, explaining in a simple way the amount of data the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) handles data simultaneously. Think of 32-bit and 64-bit as a juggler juggling balls. A 32-bit juggler can handle 4 balls [...]

I work at night sometimes, typing away into the late hours. When I’m ready for bed, I’m READY for bed. I want to kick off my womens boots, shut down the computer and relax. But then I accidentally hit that stupid little “Updates” Shut Down button. Gah! I have to sit in the dark and [...]

Windows Aero is beautiful. But what a resource hog! If you have a computer with a budget graphics card or simply want to squeeze out every bit of processing juice from your computer, ditch the Aero. I do a lot of photo editing and some video editing, and while Aero is pretty to look at, [...]

My blogging friend, Karen, recently asked me about a problem she’s had. Her computer was recently reformatted by a computer repair shop. They managed to reinstall her photos and documents and a few basic programs, but her beloved Kodak EasyShare software program was missing. Karen wants to know how to get it back. A reformat [...]

Computers are much more stable than they used to be, and it seems that operating systems are distributed less frequently now (thank God). You may be one of those folks who still works from a 5- or 10-year old computer. Over time, the computer system slows down. The hard drive becomes clogged with excessive files [...]

Windows 7 added a few special new features from Vista. One of them is the Desktop “Snap” feature. This feature allows you to drag an open program window to the top of the desktop, where Windows will automatically “snap” the window to fill half your screen. Doing the same to the other open window will [...]