A Windows computer can have one or more Windows Login ID’s. If you turn your computer on and you get a blue screen with different names you can click on to login to windows, then you have more than one Windows User. Some versions require you to press Control-Alt-Delete and enter a Windows User ID.

If you never see a screen like that, then you probably only have one Windows User ID. If you have more than one Windows User on your computer, there is a feature you need to be aware of. It’s called Fast User Switching.

Let’s say your name is John and you go to your computer to use it. You notice that your wife Sue is currently logged in under her Windows User. So you want to switch to your Windows User ID since that is where all of your stuff is. You have two options here. You can logoff Sue and login to John, or  you can switch users from Sue to John.

If you logoff Sue, Sue won’t be logged in anymore. Then you can login as John. Any programs Sue was running will no longer be running. Switch user, on the other hand, leaves Sue logged in. It leaves all of her programs running too. It allows you to login as John without logging Sue off.

This sounds like a really cool feature, and it is. The advantage to using Switch User is that you can login as a different user without messing up with the other was doing. When you are done, you can logoff or switch back to Sue and everything will be the way it was when  Sue was logged in. But Switch User has a very bad side effect. And it’s a big side effect for many computers. Every user that is logged in takes up a significant amount of computer resources. In a nutshell, it will slow your computer down. If you have the latest greatest fast running computer, it might not be too bad. But for most computers, especially older ones, using Switch User will really slow down your computer.

I went to an appointment once where a guy was complaining that his computer was dog slow. The computer had six Windows users and every single one of them was logged in because they always used Switch User. I logged all of the users off and the computer was fast again.

In order to avoid slowing down your computer, you should use logout instead of Switch User.

If you want, you can disable Switch User.
In XP:

1.       Click on Start and then Control Panel.

2.       Double-click on Users

3.       Click on “Change the way users log on or off”

4.       Now click to remove the checkmark next to “Use Fast User Switching”

5.       Click OK and exit the user settings.

In Vista and Windows 7 there really isn’t an easy way to disable it. To disable it, you have to use the Group Policy Editor or edit the Windows Registry which I don’t recommend most people try since you can really mess Windows up if you do the wrong thing there. We can do that for you or you can just make sure everyone always uses Logoff instead of Switch User. 

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Somehow the Christmas shopping season starts earlier and earlier every year. I saw several Christmas themed commercials on TV this year before Halloween. Each year, we send you information on safe online shopping. I’m also already seeing online advertisements and emails from online retailers with early black Friday sales. 

Shopping at your local store entails an element of is risk. Driving to the store is dangerous. There is the risk of being robbed in the parking lot and so forth. It’s not likely that any of these things will happen to you when shopping, but it is possible.  

Online shopping is generally safe, but like other types of shopping, it has an element of risk too. There isn’t much chance of physical harm coming to you when you shop online, but there is financial risk. However, if you know how to shop online, your risk goes way down and it’s actually safer to shop online than in person. 

The first thing to know is that you should never enter any identifying information or financial information on a web site unless that website is secure.  I’m not talking about the part of the website where you are looking at merchandise. I’m talking about the part where you check out and enter personal and financial information. That’s where it needs to be secure.

How do you tell if a website is secure? Each web browser has a different indicator, but the easiest way to tell on all of them is to look at the address for the website. When you get to the part where you have to enter personal or financial information, look up at the address of the website. Normally when a website is not secure, you will see something like http://www.amazon.com. When a website is secure, you will see https://www.amazon.com.

Did you catch the difference? Instead of http, a secure website’s address starts with https instead of just http. 

So anytime you are on a website and you are entering personal or financial information, glance up at the address bar and make sure it says https before the website address before you submit any information. This type of security encrypts the information between your computer and the online store so that nobody can intercept the information and read it. 

Once the information reaches the store, the security is up to that store. So make sure you purchase from an online store that is reputable. Sites like Bizrate.com, shopping.yahoo.com, and other similar sites will give you ratings of online retailers. 

When comparing the prices at online retailers, be sure to include tax and shipping charges in your comparison. Your pet rock may cost $20 at one store and $25 and a second store so you would think that it’s cheaper to purchase at the first store. But if the first store has to charge sales tax and charges $10 for shipping while the second store does not have to charge sales tax in Texas (or wherever you live) and has free shipping, it’s actually cheaper to purchase it at the second store even though the price of the product is higher. 

Here’s a special note about ebay. If you shop on ebay, make sure you check out the seller before you bid. In the item screen on ebay next to the seller’s ID, there is a number. The number is the number of transactions the seller has made. Look for sellers with a large number of transactions. Right under that there is line for feedback and it tells you the percentage of positive feedback. No large seller is going to have 100% positive feedback, but you want one that is 97% or higher in positive feedback. Sometimes I’ll go and read some of the negative feedback, just to see what type of things people are complaining about. 

Individuals selling something generally won’t have a large number of transactions. For those, you want 100% positive feedback. 

And don’t forget to place your online orders early so that you can get them before Christmas. Many online retailers offer free shipping. Remember that the closer you get to Christmas, the more you will have to pay for shipping to make sure you can get it by Christmas. 

You can order as late as the morning of the 23rd and use next day shipping and usually get it before Christmas day, but I don’t recommend waiting until the last minute if you can help it. Sometimes it takes an online store 24 hours to process your order before it is shipped so if you purchased on the 23rd, it might not get shipped until the 24th and next day shipping won’t help you there. 

Sometimes shipments get delayed. Shippers like UPS and Fedex can also temporarily loose or mis-route packages. I had a package being shipped to me via UPS Ground once. The truck was disabled someone. I don’t know if it broke down or was in an accident, but the packages had to be offloaded to another truck and my package was delayed by one day. 

By the way, the day after Thanksgiving, also known as black Friday, is also a great shopping day online. Check it out!

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A zip file is a special kind of file that contains other files. The files contained within the zip file are compressed to save space. A zip file is good for transferring several files from one computer to another because you only have to transfer one file and the file is usually smaller than the normal size of all of the files put together when they are not in a zip file.

Many people do not realize that Windows can handle zip files. You don’t have to have a 3rd party application like WinZip to create or extract zip files. Although these 3rd party applications are usually much more powerful, Windows provides the basic functions that most people need. But Windows calls them compressed folders. But they are really just zip files.

To create a zip file, highlight the files you want included in the zip file, right click on one of the highlighted files, and choose “Send To” and then choose “Compressed (zipped) folder”. The zip file will be created right there in the same folder. You may want to change the name to something more meaningful to you. Now you have a zip file you can e-mail to someone if it’s not too big.

Have a zip file and you want to add additional files? Just drag and drop those files on top of the zip file. Or copy and paste them.

To access the contents of a zip file, simply double-click on the file and you will see the files contained in it. Want to extract those files out of the zip file? Highlight the files you want to extract (Control-A to select all of them), right-click on one of the files and choose copy. Now go to the location where you want to extract the files. Right-click and choose paste from the pop-up menu. Instead of using this copy and paste method, you can also highlight and drag the files to the place where you want to extract the files.

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Most home users and some small businesses use the email address provided to them by their internet service provider. For example, if you have roadrunner as your internet service, your email address might be something like johnsmith@austin.rr.com.

This is fine until you move or decide to switch to a different internet service provider? Now you have to change email addresses. What a pain that is. But there is a way around this problem.

We recommend that you use an email address that is independent of your internet service provider. There are several ways you can do this. Once is to sign up for one of the free email services like Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail. There are lots more, but those are the biggies. All of these can be accessed via your web browser, but if you prefer to get your email in an email program, then you’ll be better off with Gmail or Hotmail because Yahoo Mail charges a small annual fee for that type of access.

Getting one of these free email addresses is easy. Just go to hotmail.com, mail.yahoo.com, or gmail.com and sign up.

Another option is to get your own domain name. A domain is something like google.com, cnn.com, or ct-cp.com (our domain). Notice that this email is coming from service@ct-cp.com. Ct-cp.com is our domain and service is one of the email addresses on that domain.

The interesting part is that it’s easy and inexpensive to get your own domain. Let’s say you wanted a domain for your family to use. You could purchase smithfamily.net, for example. Then you could have email addresses like john@smithfamily.net, sally@smithfamily.net, and so forth.

Even more surprising is how inexpensive it is to do this. To register your own domain name with us is $15. You do have to renew that domain name each year. To host email addresses on your domain we charge $25/year. So for $40/year, you can have your own domain name and email on that domain name. If you are interested in doing this, email or call us.

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You’ve probably heard the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

In my experience, this old saying is true for many things. And one of these things is computers.

Basically, it’s better to spend a little bit of money to prevent problems than it is to spend a lot more money to fix a problem once it happens.

1.       Have good, unexpired, up-to-date security software and regularly check it to make sure it’s working correctly. We recommend Vipre and AVG (use one or the other, not both). Make sure you renew your security software BEFORE it expires. If your security software does not include website protection, go to siteadvisor.com and install the free version of siteadvisor.

2.       Set your system to automatically update Windows. When you see that updates are waiting to be installed, go ahead and let them install. Yes it’s true that an update can occasionally cause problems, but it’s more important to secure your system.

3.       Keep Adobe Flash, Adobe Reader, Adobe Shockwave, and Java up to date with the latest updates on your computer. If you aren’t sure, you can go to adobe.com to update the 3 adobe products and  you can go to java.com to update java.

4.       Never click on a link in an email unless you are absolutely sure that it’s from a trusted source. Be aware that an email may look like it’s from your bank or some other company you deal with, but it may be a fake. Instead, manually go to that company’s website

5.       When accessing websites, especially a website you have never been on before, be very careful. If a website tells you your computer is infected, don’t believe it. Don’t click on anything in that website. If a website wants to install something, make absolutely sure that you are on a trusted website. If not, don’t let it install. If a website is asking you a question and there seems to be no way out of it. Shutdown or restart your computer.

6.       Avoid using file sharing programs like limewire, bearshare, torrent, etc.
If you insist on using these programs, only download music, pictures, or video. Never download software. And if something you download says it needs a special player or a certain codec to work, do not download and install that player or codec.

If you follow the above rules, you will drastically reduce your chances of your computer becoming infected. But as we have said in the past, there is no 100% guaranteed way to prevent infection on a computer.

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