techingolder

 Every keyboard you've touched has had these keys across the top: F1-F12, known as Function keys. What do they do? Well, they do a lot and they do a little. Usually they do nothing at all and you can go your entire life without ever knowing what any of them do and live perfectly well. If you were wondering what they do here is an answer. Not the answer but an answer. 

 This week I've helped three people who told me they couldn't print and needed new printers. Now it's no coincidence our area also lost power for a while. Whenever we lose power I know the printer questions are coming.

Very often I find myself helping people who have issues with stability, tremors , skin elasticity and conductivity  or vision difficulties that impair their ability to use touchscreen devices leading to mistouches , phantom touches , accidental swipes and more. If any of that sounds familiar to you give a stylus a try. A stylus is a little pen type tool with a squishy rubbery point on it. With a stylus you'll find you have better control and more precision. A stylus can be picked up just about anywhere and are very often given away for free as promotional items. You may already have one or two pens with stylus tips in the junk drawer. Give it a shot. You may find using your tablet or phone much more enjoyable with one.

Nearly every digital lock has two keys you need to open it: Username (usually an email address) and Password

I like saving money. I like convincing others to save their money.  So here's a tip: stop subscribing to antivirus software. You don't need it. The threats you're most likely worried about won't be caught by it regardless of how expensive it is or how flashy its advertising is. If you own a current, up-to-date Windows PC, MacOS computer, iPhone or Android phone your device is already loaded with antivirus protection that is running non-stop and updating itself when it needs to. Chances are good that your Windows PC came already loaded with Norton or McAfee antivirus. Uninstall it. If you've already subscribed to it cancel then uninstall it. You don not need it and it won't protect you from what you're worried about anyway. Windows includes Defender antivirus. Defender consistently scores as high if not higher than products like McAfee, Norton or Kaspersky. It is free now and always. It keeps itself updated. It is entirely hands-off and it just works. Here is...

 People love their instruction manuals. They love having something to reference. Something to return to and rely on when trouble or confusion pop up. You may have noticed they're gone. Almost nothing you buy today come with an instruction manual. There are two primary reasons for this: 1) It saves money to not include an instruction manual. You can make yourself feel a little better by also saying it saves trees but really, from a business perspective, trees are just money. 2) Software updates to your device will soon make a printed manual obsolete. These reasons also carry over to why the once plentiful market of "dummies" style books is shrinking. You, the end-user, the customer, are meant to use online resources for your instruction be they videos, blogs, messaging forums or the manufacturers own website. Trouble is you need to know specific terms and what they mean to get any helpful results in your search. If you're patient you can learn a lot even by searching t...

 Most of you may remember Windows 95 or 98 as your first exposure to Windows. Thirty years have passed since then. 30 years! The baby you were holding then is probably holding your grandchild today. Windows has changed so much and you're absolutely certain it used to be better and easier, right? Sorry to tell you not that much has changed for the end user. Sure, under the hood and behind the scenes there have been an enormous amount of technical changes but barely any of those affect your experience as the end user. Windows 95/98 (30 years ago): Here we have:  a "Start" button bottom left shortcut icons on the Desktop the Taskbar across the bottom the clock bottom right a Window running a program (Welcome to Windows 95) an "X" in the upper right corner of that Window to close the program Windows XP (25 years ago): Notice anything familiar? a "Start" button bottom left shortcut icons on the Desktop the Taskbar across the bottom the clock bottom right a ...