“New York City (has) the most infections–because New York has the most computers. But when the number of infections was factored in as a percentage of a city’s population, New York ended up near the bottom of the list and Atlanta, Georgia came out on top. Birmingham AL, Denver CO, Chesapeake VA, and Madison WI round out the top five worst cities. On the other end of the spectrum, Jersey City, NJ has the lowest per capita malware infection rate…”
Maybe this explains in part why we’re so busy!
Malware steals your passwords and personal information. If your PC is running slowly or exhibiting unwanted behavior (popups, lockups, fake anti-malware warnings and the like), stop ignoring the warning signs! We can help, plus we can show you how to keep these problems from reoccurring! Contact us today!
We recently found a freeware word processor called DevVicky Word 2010, and like it very much. It has some great features, especially when you consider that it is free!
The user interface and toolbars will be familiar to anyone who has ever used almost any modern word processor:
(click image below to open enlarged in a new tab or window)
DevVicky Word 2010 will create, edit and save files as .rtf, .htm, .docx, .doc, and .txt:
An ODF to Word and Word to ODF converter is included as well.
For web editing, HTML stylesheet options are configurable from the Menu Bar via Options… HTML…
DevVicky Word 2010 will also export created files as .pdf and as .css:
PDF settings are configurable from the Menu Bar via Options… PDF…
Another nice feature is the Doc Reader, which uses the Microsoft Text-to-Speech Engine to read your documents to you. The machine-read text can also be saved as a .wav file:
Click the green Play arrow below to hear Microsoft Mary talk about us:
As a free, standalone word processor, we think you’ll find this program hard to beat. Interested in finding out more? Details and a link to download the program are on the DevVicky website.
Sorry for our lack of blog updates of late, but we’ve been busy. Individuals and small businesses are repairing and upgrading PCs rather than replacing them. Given the state of the economy, this isn’t suprising. We’d like to think that our increased activity is a testament to our quality of service. Our customers seem to think so.
We’d like to thank all of our regular and new customers for their support. Thanks also to all who have contacted us, even if we haven’t yet done business.
If you’re having a computer issue, don’t hesitate to contact us - we’ll work you into our schedule quickly and do what it takes to get your PC up and running smoothly again!
Different kinds of malware have been infecting computers since 1988. Here’s a breakdown of the different kinds, what they do and where they come from, courtesy of the Intac web hosting blog.
(click the image below to open it enlarged in a new tab or window…)
So, how do Windows users avoid getting infected by malware? Here are a few basic steps:
Keep Windows and all installed sofware up-to-date.
Just over a year ago, we blogged about free website builders aimed at non-technical users. This is a subject that we get questions about all the time. Here are more resources:
What’s a portable app? A piece of software that can be run and used from a portable drive - typically a USB flash drive - without installation on a host computer. They can be handy if you use multiple computers or if you use public computers.
This list is aimed at college students, but the general public will find many of these useful as well.
Megan Jones (the author of the above-linked article) writes:
The following portable apps cover everything from documents to note-taking to organization to security to helpful tools and more, are all small enough to go anywhere, and cost absolutely nothing.
Mr. Ms. Chapman’s article gives tips and sites that, while they will not make you an immediate expert at research, will enable you to expand and practice your search technique. It is a definite keeper!
Here’s how to make SoftMaker Office 2008 save files in Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls, .ppt) formats automatically. You’ll need to do this in all three (TextMaker 2008, PlanMaker 2008, and Presentations 2008) programs.
After installation, click on Tools, Options… in the menu bar…
…and and then click on the Files tab at the top of the Options window.
The drop-down menu labeled Default file format (as shown above) allows the default file format to be set to your choice of Microsoft Office-compatible formats.
TextMaker documents will then be saved with a .doc file extension, PlanMaker spreadsheets will be saved with a .xls file extension, and Presentations will then be saved with a .ppt file extension automatically by default so they can be shared with Microsoft Office users.
Now there’s a portable version of this software, packaged to be run directly from a USB drive without installing anything nor leaving a footprint on the host PC.
It can be downloaded free of charge from the Keepod Store. This version will run from any USB storage device; ownership of a Keepod is not necessary. You will have to register and give a valid email address to get to the 188 MB file download.
Be advised that this version weighs in at a beefy 493 MB unzipped:
Like many portable applications, it doesn’t start up as quickly as the installed-to-the-hard-drive version. The portability factor is, in our view, a reasonable tradeoff for a slower-than-expected start up. Once the suite is open performance is on par with the installed version.
