Computers — Page 2 — You are in My World Now

I think my laptop needs more memory

February 27, 2009 by Tricia

Every Friday evening my Laptop slows to a crawl. Why? Well, that’s when my Norton Anti-virus runs it’s weekly system scan. I usually only have my Firefox browser and email program open while the virus scan is running but it’s still slow as molasses.

I think that I seriously have to look into getting more notebook memory, maybe that will help. The computer has 1 gig of memory, so maybe another gig would help? I’m also sure that if I didn’t have a nearly full hard-drive that would help make the scans faster and keep my computer running at a decent speed too.

Maybe I’ll spend some time this weekend deleting programs that I’m not using and getting rid of old files. I have a lot of zipped documents that I could probably dump.

Hmmm I wonder how you add more memory to a notebook? We used to upgrade our desktop computer- practically making new ones with new motherboards etc … but I’ve never tried upgrading a laptop before. Any tips?

Tired of unwanted email

January 28, 2009 by Tricia

I wish there was a decent way to ensure that you wouldn’t get unwanted email … I mean I can’t even stop my friends and relatives from sending chain letters and joke mail. LOL Why do I hope to get email advertisers to stop sending me junk?

I did discover something that helps me “quarantine” the unwanted email. I now run all my email through gmail and then have it forwarded to my main email accounts from there. Google is pretty good at picking out spam so a huge portion of my unwanted email stays in my spam folder at gmail now. Seriously it’s cut out about 80% of the email that I used to have to sort though daily. No more ads for get rich schemes, IT job search or strange health products! I just check my gmail spam box every few days to make sure no real mail is getting stuck there and then delete all the spam.

I still get too much mail though! Probably because I have so many websites – between approving comments and getting direct email through my contact forms … and that unwanted email from relatives I have enough email to keep me busy for at least two hours each day! Speaking of “spammy relatives” my husbands cousins have time to send at least four chain letters or joke emails each day, but no time to send an email to tell us that his uncle has been in the hospital since Saturday? Now that’s bad.

Do you get too much email too? Too much spam or stuff that you just don’t care about?

Laptop running slower and slower

December 26, 2008 by Tricia

My laptop is getting slower and slower. In a few hours when my weekly Norton antivirus system scan starts up the computer will run like molasses.

I think the problem is that the hard drive is about 65% full and even though I have 1 gig of RAM I think that It’s time that I start looking into getting some laptop memory. Perhaps another gig if I have an open slot for it.

Actually I’m wondering how I can tell if I have a slot open … barring opening the computer up and taking a look I mean.

At least this is the right time of year to get new memory for a computer isn’t it? Maybe I can get a good boxing day or New Years deal on new memory.

I have a portable hard drive that I store some of my files on as well … but when you take as many digital photos as I do you quickly begin to run out of space. I’ve already filled up our desktop computer with about as many digital photos and files as I can too.

I have my own tech store

September 18, 2008 by Tricia

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on My World yet, but I won some fantastic software a few weeks ago in a blog contest. The software is called StoreStacker and it allows you to easily build a store that carries products from Amazon, Ebay, and a few other big online stores.

I built my first store on a sub-domain of one of my Tech blogs and it only took minutes to set up! Well ok … setting up categories for the products etc took a little longer than that, but once it came down to filling the store with products that part only took minutes! It’s amazing! I now have an online store with maybe 5,000 products or perhaps even more than that. I know the sitemap is HUGE!

I set up the store to carry high tech items like computers, computer accessories, computer games, video games like xbox 360 vintage PC’s, HDTV’s, digital cameras and more.

I probably won’t make many sales until I start getting some traffic to the store, but it’s a neat concept and you can’t beat free software! When I have time I create a few more stores – one that fit with my particular sites niches. Those stores will probably do better than the first store that I just created.

Have any of you tried using Storestacker or any other type of software to build your own store almost automatically?

Using Gmail to filter out the spam

August 29, 2008 by Tricia

I’m declaring war on Spam, right now, right here.

Every single day I start up my email program and I’m bombarded with spam email after spam email … worse still, the spammers are hitting all of my blogs really hard too!

Other than using programs like Akismet and Bad Behavior to ward off spammers on my sites I’m pretty much at my wits end.

I did however figure out a way to deal with some of the email spam .. you know the stuff i mean – tons of Paris Hilton spam, or mesothelioma lawyers and so on .. and by tons I literally mean 1000 plus email a day. I run several websites, mailing lists and blogrolls so I get a lot of real mail, but at least half the mail I get or more is spam.

So how did I do it? Well, I finally set up a Gmail account.

I use my new Gmail account to route my email from my regular email addresses (you can add up to five non-Gmail email addresses) through Gmail. Gmail then filters pretty much all of the spam and sends the non spam email back to me where I collect it in my computer email program.

Every few days I go through my spam email on Gmail to check to make sure that no real email is being held back. I’ve found that Gmail is fairly accurate, much more so than the Eudora email program that I use on my computer! Yes I know, I should upgrade my home email program to something like Thunderbird. I’ve heard that Thunderbird is a good program and that it’s also very good at filtering spam. I guess I’ll get around to changing over from my outdated Eudora someday.

How do you handle email spam?