skip to main (ir a principal) |
skip to sidebar (ir al sidebar)
Always Google One More Time!
All I can say is that I am really thankful my daughter has a computer and that that computer is online 24/7 because as much as I think I know computers, I find out that I really don't know them at all. When something goes wrong and I can't figure it out, I take it to Google. There is a lot of help out there on the internet, and once in awhile (after you have looked and looked and looked), something jumps out and saves you. Just when you can't go on ANY MORE, there it is. For me, this was one of those times.
You know what it's like (and if you don't, just wait, your turn is coming) to be going along, having a good old time organizing family photos or downloading music or typing a letter on your computer, when all of a sudden – out of nowhere – your mouse quits. Or a program closes out. Or your monitor all of a sudden goes red. Needless to say, when something goes wrong, it is never at an opportune time, and it can be very irritating, to say the very least. And lately it seems that I have had a lot of inopportune times.
My latest catastrophe started a few weeks ago. I was sitting there at my computer, happily typing away and my "u" key stopped working. I blew it out (using compressed air duster) and it worked.
The next day it went out again. I blew the key out again and this time it didn't work after the cleaning. I cleaned the whole keyboard thoroughly and when I went to use it, it still didn't work, only this time the "n" didn't work either. I blew it out again and all of the keys worked. I went about my business and totally forgot about it.
Now jump to the present.
I realized a few days ago that I hadn't updated my drivers in awhile. I then proceeded to run a program (I will not tell you what it is in case it works for you – no use in creating (more) paranoia in the computer world) that told me that my display drivers needed to be updated.
I go to install the drivers. Now, I am not a stupid person, but sometimes I get lazy. "No need to back up anything," I yawned. "It's just a few drivers and this program is "the best", so it's cool." I went to update the display drivers, rebooted, and yep, you guessed it. WHAM! Nothin'. A completely black screen.
I did everything my experience and common sense told me to do. Rebooted more times than I scratched my head. Used words that I forgot I knew and that other people in the house probably wished I had forgotten, too. Couldn't get into Safe Mode and finally had to do a repair reinstall.
I put in my disk and began the repair. I put in my language (well, what dialect I speak), the applicable time zone, and then went to put my product key in. I typed in 2 numbers and then the next key wouldn't come up. I tried typing in the rest of the key, but there were only a few characters that worked.
Hmmm. I hadn't updated any keyboard drivers, so that wasn't it. Naturally, the keyboard must be bad. Remembering the erratic keyboard behavior of a few weeks ago, I figured this had to be it.
It wasn't. I took three keyboards and they all stopped on those particular keys. Huh?
So - since my daughter has a computer and the internet is on 24/7 - I took to the forums. And I found…nothing. I spent a couple of hours going all over the internet, and there was no solution anywhere. I had done everything (and more) that was recommended online. And where I had been just irritated before, now I was getting downright angry. My daughter came in and asked (very timidly) if she could get on her computer. I guess my look said it all, because she backed out of the room pretty quickly and didn't come back.
I decided, "Okay, one more time", knowing it was ridiculous; how many times can you "google" something? Well, from now on, I am going to always "google" one more time, because fifteen minutes after I came across some very small type at the very bottom of a very small website, I had a working keyboard and my computer was up and running.
Check this out:
When I looked at my key, I found that the key was not a product key at all; it was a serial number from another piece of software. I found my real key and the rest is history.
When you think about it, I should have known. I should have known when I was putting in my product key that it was wrong. Rather than blame my keyboard, I should have known when I hit the first character key that didn't work that the key was intentionally disabled. I mean, isn't this the first thing they teach you in How-Do-I-Input-My-Product-Key 101?
Whatever. All I know is that – besides the solution to the product key problem - I did learn something from all of this.
Always "Google" one more time.
Recover your Gmail Password with a Secondary Email Address or an SMS message
Forgetting or losing your mail account password is a common problem with web users. Maybe you have a lot of email accounts and passwords to remember . Or may be you had created a Gmail account long ago and haven't used it for months.
In such situations, forgetting the password is normal, but you should also know the procedure to recover it, as well. Following are two ways to recover Gmail account password, in case you lose it
Using a Secondary Email Address
A secondary email address acts as a backdoor of your primary email account. Suppose you forgot the password of your primary email account and can't login. In that case, you can request a password reset of your primary email account using your secondary email address. The link to reset the password would be sent to your secondary email account.
Here are the steps to recover your email password using a secondary email account in Gmail:
1.Login to your primary email account and click the "Settings" link placed at the right corner of the screen.
2.Select the "Accounts and Import" tab and click the "Google account settings" link at the bottom of the page.
3.This will take you to the settings page of your Google account. Click "Change password recovery options".
4.For security reasons, you will be asked to sign in again. In the next page, add the email address of your secondary email account.
5.Click save and you are done.
Whenever you forget the password of your primary email account, you can request a password reset as described later in the article.
How to Recover Email Password using an SMS Message
Using a secondary email address for recovery options is good, but what if you lose the password of your secondary email account as well? How are you going to recover the password of your primary email account, if you do not have access to the secondary email account in the first place?
Hence, you should associate a phone number with your email account. Here are the detailed steps to achieve the same:
1.Visit the settings page of your email account as described in the above section of the article (refer to steps 1, 2 and 3).
2.In the page to change the password recovery options, you will see the option to add your mobile number with your email account. Select your country from the drop down menu and enter the phone number in the text box as shown below:
3.Click "Save changes" and you are done.
Test your Email Recovery Options
Now that you have added the secondary email address as well as a phone number, you should test the settings to see whether it works as planned. Here are the steps to follow:
1.On the Gmail login page, enter a wrong username and password combination and click "Can't access your account" link.
2.On the following page, select "I forgot my password" and click the "Reset your Password here" link
3.On the next page, enter your email user name once again and hit "Submit"
4.You will receive a password reset email in your secondary email address. Just click the link and you will be allowed to reset the email password of your primary email account. If you have added your mobile number, you will receive an SMS message on your mobile containing a 5 digit code. You need to enter the code in the password reset page to complete the password reset process.
Both of the methods mentioned in the article should be implemented to be on the safe side, in case you forget the password of your email account. Have you set up recovery options of your email account yet?
Prioritizing and Deleting Preferred Wireless Networks
You've brought your laptop home after a long trip. You turn it on, expecting to connect to your safe and secure wireless network and find instead that your computer is trying desperately to connect to the wireless network of the hotel you stayed in, now thousands of miles away.
If something like this has ever happened to you before, there is an answer: you can prioritize the wireless networks that your computer remembers.
To find your network connections, first left-click on the Start menu, go to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click on Network Connections in the Control Panel menu.
This will display your network connections. Locate your Wireless Network Connection and right-click on it. Left-click on Properties. 
This will open the Wireless Network Connection Properties Menu. Click on the Wireless Networks tab to view your preferred wireless networks.
This list of networks includes any wireless network you have connected to in the past. Sometimes, if two networks that you have connected to are present, Windows will connect to the network that is higher up on this list. Other times, it may not find any networks that it can connect to, and so it might search for the last network you used – which could be miles away.
This list can be prioritized and cleaned of old networks. If you see a wireless network that you won't use again or don't want in the list, click on it once and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. This will delete the network from this list. You can still reconnect to this network in the future – deleting it simply removes any preferences you had for connecting to that network.
Once you have deleted the networks you don't want, click once on the network that you want Windows to connect to first. Click the Move up button to move this network up on the list. Keep clicking until your most preferred network is at the top of the list. You can also use this function to set a second preference, a third preference, and so on.
That's it! Your computer should connect to the wireless networks you want more easily, especially when there is more than one that you connect to nearby.
Ctrl+Tab Preview Windows in Firefox 3.6
Any tip you read about shortcuts for Mozilla Firefox is sure to mention that you can easily switch between open tabs by pressing Ctrl+Tab on your keyboard. The resulting action is just a quick flip from tab to tab, which can be quite useful.
Today, however, I'm going to teach you how to spice it up a bit.
Note: Make sure you're running Firefox version 3.6 to ensure that this tip will work.
Open Mozilla Firefox, and in the address bar type about:config. I know, we've been here before, so you should know that you can just skip through the warning that comes up.
Once on the Firefox config page, scroll down until you see the entry: browser.ctrlTab.previews
It'll look like this:
Change the value to "True", and restart Firefox.
Now when you have multiple tabs open and you use the Ctrl+Tab shortcut, you'll see little windows with a preview of the tab!
Neat!
