Recently when my satellite Internet connection slowed to a crawl, I assumed it had something to do with the satellite. I called Wildblue. The technician ran a check, informed me that the signal was weak, and advised me to check for snow or ice on the dish. The dish was clear, so the technician assumed the dish fell out of alignment for some reason. This was Friday. We scheduled a service call for Monday.

Over the weekend, I did some heavy-duty maintenance on my computer. I uninstalled programs I no longer use, deleted a bunch of files I no longer needed, and disabled some programs that were running in the background. Instantly, my Internet connection speed rose from about 200kbps to 950kbps – where it should be. I called and canceled the service call saving me fifty bucks.

The moral of the story – don’t assume a slow Internet connection is due to your ISP. It could be something as simple as an errant program running in the background.

First, test your connection speed. A couple good tools to test your Internet connection speed are CNet’s Broadband Speed Meter and Toast’s Internet Speed Test.

If your Internet connection is slower than it should be, here are some things to check:

• Router: If your modem plugs into a router which plugs into your computer, try bypassing the router by connecting the modem directly to one of your computers. If your connection is as fast as it should be, you just narrowed the problem down to the router.
• Background programs: Unbeknownst to you, your computer may be running programs on startup that consume system resources, including Internet bandwidth. Try disabling startup programs you don’t use or can’t recognize as performing any useful task. See “Disabling Background Programs in Windows,” later in this post for details.
• Firewall: A firewall designed to protect your computer from Internet intruders can gum up the works. Running too many firewalls can also be a problem. Check Windows Firewall (Start, Control Panel, Security Center). Check any Internet Security programs installed on your computer (such as Norton or McAfee), and check your router settings (if a router is installed). Try disabling all but one firewall – the router’s hardware firewall, if you’re using a router. One firewall should be sufficient.
• Domain Name Servers: The DNS matches the site address you type into your browser with the ID number of the computer on the Internet. Try changing your DNS, as I explain in a previous post, “Slow Internet? Try Changing Your Domain Name Server (DNS) Addresses.”
• Wireless signal interference: If you have a wireless router, a wireless phone or a neighbor’s wireless router may be interfering with the signal. Try changing channels, as I explain in “Weak Connection on Wireless Router? Try Changing Channels.

Disabling Background Programs in Windows

Windows features a configuration tool that enables you to disable programs when Windows starts. You can disable most of the programs to prevent them from running and then enable each program to identify the one that’s causing problems. To prevent programs from running in the background, take the following steps:

1. Open the Start menu and click Run. The Run dialog box appears.
2. Type msconfig and press Enter or click OK. The System Configuration Utility appears.
3. Click the Services tab and click Hide All Microsoft Services to place a check in its box. By hiding Microsoft services you avoid accidentally disabling a service that’s critical for the operation of Windows.



4. Click the Disable All button. This disables all services that are not critical for Windows to function properly.
5. Click the Startup tab. A list of all the background programs that run on startup appears.



6. Click the Disable All button. This removes the checkmark next to each program.
7. Click OK. The System Configuration dialog box appears, prompting you to restart your computer.
8. Exit any programs that are currently running and then click the Restart button. Windows restarts and then displays a dialog box indicating that you’re running Windows with a selective startup configuration for troubleshooting.
9. Click OK. The System Configuration Utility appears.
10. Click Cancel.

Test your Internet speed again. If it’s as fast as it should be, you know that one of the programs or services that you disabled was causing the problem. Use the System Configuration Utility to re-enable the programs and services one at a time (or two or three at a time), restarting Windows after each change. If enabling a program or service slows down your Internet connection, you’ve just identified the culprit.

I’m not a big fan of touchpads, but I do use the touchpad on my Acer Aspire when I forget to bring a mouse along or am too lazy to plug it in. One thing that almost drove me mad about the touchpad on the Acer Aspire is the Tap and Drag (Click and Drag) feature that’s enabled by default. Tap the pad twice, and you’re in drag mode. Unfortunately, 99% of the time I was in drag mode was unintentional.

If you find Tap and Drag to be one big drag, disable it. Here’s how:

1. Head to the Windows Control Panel and click Printers and Other Hardware.
2. Click Mouse.
3. Click Device Settings.
4. Make sure Synaptic TouchPad is selected, and click Settings.
5. Click the plus sign next to Tapping.



6. Click Tap and Drag.
7. Click Tap again and hold to drag to remove the check from the box.
8. Click OK to save your changes and OK again too close the Mouse Settings dialog box.

If you still feel that Tap and Drag is on, you probably have Tap and Scroll enabled. With Tap and Scroll, if you tap twice in a scroll area on your screen – typically a narrow strip on the right or bottom inside the window you’re working in, this locks scrolling in place, so when you move your finger, what’s inside the window scrolls left or right or up or down.

To turn off Tap and Scroll, perform the same steps provided above, but this time, in Step 5, click Virtual Scrolling, and remove the check from any boxes that are checked.

If you received a Microsoft Word document from a colleague or friend and can’t open it, it’s probably because it’s a docx file — the default file format starting with the release of Microsoft Word 2007. If you try to open the file in an earlier version of Word, you probably get a dialog box that looks like this:

Fortunately, Microsoft offers a solution. If you’re running an earlier version of Microsoft Office on a Windows PC, install Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully and install critical updates for Microsoft Office prior to installing the Compatibility Pack.

If you’re running Office on a Mac, install Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0.2.

Acer Aspire One 10.1-inch model

Recently, I purchased an Acer Aspire One to accompany me on a trip to Europe. I needed a computer to keep up on my daily email, update my blogs, and do a little writing on the road, and I didn’t want to have to lug around a hefty laptop. About the length and width of a magazine, less than an inch thick, and a featherweight at less than 3 pounds, the 10.1-inch model was an almost perfect solution.

I say almost, because if I had it to do over, I would have shelled out some extra money for the 11.6-inch model with the longer lasting battery – 7 to 12 hours rather than 2 to 3 hours. The larger screen and keyboard would’ve been nice, too.

If you’re thinking of buying one of these puppies, the following sections provide a rundown of the pros and cons.

What I liked about the Acer Aspire One 10.1-inch model

• Affordable
• Compact
• Lightweight
• 160 GB hard drive… twice as much storage as I have on my desktop computer
• Fast enough
• Good display – clear, bright, not much glare
• 3 USB ports… perfect for connecting a full-size keyboard and mouse along with an external DVD drive or a wireless Internet adapter
• Great built-in Webcam
• Built-in microphone (pretty good quality, too)
• LAN port
• VGA port, so I can plug in a real monitor
• 54g Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g) – great for hotels and cafes that offer wireless Internet
• Compact adapter… sometimes the adapter can be as bulky as the computer, not this one

What I disliked about the Acer Aspire One 10.1-inch model

• No CD/DVD drive… perhaps the biggest drawback. I had a multi-user version of Microsoft Office and couldn’t install it without purchasing an external USB CD/DVD drive. Also, you can’t play audio CDs, watch movies on DVD, or burn a movie DVD of all those great photos you took on your trip.
• No modem for dial-up, but I probably wouldn’t use a dial-up modem anyway.
• No Bluetooth, although newer models have it… be sure to check.
• Trial version of Office 2007 is pre-installed, so you have to buy the license after 60 days. (Does include non-trial version of Microsoft Works.)
• Screen is small, especially if you’re using MS Office 2007 with that huge toolbar you can’t get rid of.
• Cramped keyboard, but you know that going in. Even so, it’s better than most comparable units of its size.
• Touchpad… I hate touchpads. Particularly annoying about this one is the tap-and-drag feature. I keep putting the thing in drag mode, and I’m not real sure how I do it. (In a future post, I’ll tell you how to disable this feature.)

If you own an Acer Aspire One, either the 10.1-inch or the 11.6-inch model, please share your opinions by posting a comment. And come back next week to find out about some accessories I recommend for your Acer Aspire One.

Recently, while visiting friends in Denmark, I had trouble connecting my new netbook PC through their wireless router to the Internet. My host informed me that lightning had wiped out their system and they had to buy a new router, which didn’t seem as powerful as the last one. The signal seemed weaker. When he tried to connect using his laptop two rooms away, the connection would go in and out.

Because this was a brand new router, I figured it was probably powerful enough. First, we moved the router to the desktop. (It had been below the desk, behind the system unit, and tangled up in a mess of cords.) That seemed to help a little, but my friend was still having trouble connecting from two rooms away.

Next, I changed channels. Wireless routers can send and receive signals over any of several channels or frequencies. Sometimes other devices in the vicinity (cordless phones, the neighbors’ wireless routers, etc.) can generate interference over one channel. Switching to a different channel or frequency can often solve the problem.

All routers are different, but they all have some way to switch channels. On this particular router, I ran my friend’s Web browser on the computer that had the most reliable connection to the router – the one that was connected to the router via a LAN cable.

Tip: If all of your computers are connected via wireless and you can’t get a reliable connection, buy or borrow a LAN cable to connect the computer to the router, so you can log into the router and change its settings.

After running the Web browser, I entered the address 192.168.1.1 and then entered admin as the username and admin as the password. On my computer at home, I go to 192.168.0.1 and enter admin as the username and password as the password. Check the documentation included with your router to obtain the login information or go online and search the manufacturer’s website for help on logging in.

I then pulled up the wireless settings, accessed the list of channels, and changed the channel from 11 to 3. This instantly corrected the problem. My friend could now use his laptop in any room in the house!

Experiment with different channels to find the channel/frequency that works best for you.

Tip: When you’re shopping for other wireless devices for your home (such as a cordless phone), try to steer clear of devices that use the 2.4GHz frequency. Instead, look for devices that use the 5.8GHz or 900MHz frequencies.

I’ve used several digital photo management programs over the years, including the ones included with my digital camera and my printer. All of these programs have functioned to some degree of mediocrity. Recently, I downloaded a copy of Picasa and took it for a test drive. I was pleasantly surprised.

After I installed Picasa, it searched my computer’s hard drive for photos and organized all the photos by year – something I never had the time, inclination, or foresight to do myself. This made it incredibly easy to browse my photo collection (see below).

Double-click a photo, and it appears by itself along with several very useful digital photo editing tools (see image below). Using these tools, you can quickly crop, straighten, and enhance the photo. The tool for repairing red-eye is outstanding. Most programs I’ve used in the past draw a box that’s too large around the area where the program identifies red-eye. Picasa targeted the red-eye areas precisely, and with a single click of approval, I was able to fix the problem immediately.

Below the photo viewing area are several buttons that provide quick access to uploading, emailing, or printing photos; buying prints or products from your favorite online provider; posting your photos to your Blogger blog; and creating a collage or movie with selected photos. Using an application on Facebook (Picasa Uploader), I was able to add a button that allows me to upload photos directly from my computer to my Facebook account.

What I like most about Picasa is that it combines power with simplicity. I think programs are often more complicated than they really need to be. With Picasa, digital photo editing is pretty easy. To find out more about Picasa and download your free copy, visit Google’s Picasa Page.

If you use Picasa or other programs or online services for managing and editing your photos, please share your experiences and insights with others by posting a comment.

If some of the keys on your keyboard are typing numbers instead of letters, check to make sure Num Lock is not on. This seems obvious, but it’s a common occurrence on laptop and notebook computers, and it’s not as easy as just pressing a NumLock key to turn it off.

On some Gateway notebook computers, for example, you toggle the NumLock function by pressing Fn+. In other words, you hold down the Fn key (lower left of the keyboard) while pressing and releasing the Scroll key. Toggle means the keystroke turns the function on it it’s off or off it it’s on.

On some Packard-Bell keyboards, you hold down the Fn key while pressing the Ins key.

The important thing to remember is that if your keyboard is typing numbers when you’re trying to type letters, it’s likely that Num Lock is on. Your next step is to read the manual or check the manufacturer’s website for instructions on how to toggle Num Lock off.

This post assumes you have an HP network-capable printer connected to a router with a LAN cable. Instructions for wireless connections may vary.

Some time ago, I did a post entitled “HP Network Printer Going Offline,” in which I provided instructions on how to locate the printer’s IP (Internet Protocol) address and reset it in Windows. Unfortunately, if the printer has a dynamic IP address – an address that is assigned to it by the local server automatically, its address can change later, sending the printer offline once again. You then have to repeat the steps to have the printer setup use the right IP address.

A better way to proceed is to assign a static IP address to your network printer. The static IP address remains fixed, unchanged when the network server is restarted, so the printer remains online.

Identify Your Printer’s Network Settings

Before assigning a static IP address to your printer, first make sure the printer is online, as I explain in “HP Network Printer Going Offline.” This ensures that you are assigning an IP address that actually works.

To identify which IP address is currently assigned to the printer, do the following:

1. On your HP printer, press the Setup button to display setup options for the printer.
2. Press the right arrow button until Network Setup appears in the LED window, and then press the OK button.
3. Press the right arrow button again until the Print Network Settings option is displayed, and then press the OK button. This prints the network settings, which include the IP address, Subnet mask, and Default Gateway (the address of your network’s router).

Setting a Static IP Address

Once you know your printer’s IP address, entering it is pretty easy. Here’s what you do:

1. Run your Web browser.
2. In the Web browser’s address bar, type the IP address of your printer and press Enter. Assuming you entered the right address, the HP printer control panel should appear.
3. Click the Networking tab.
4. Under Connections, click Wired.



5. Under IP Address Configuration, click Manual IP.
6. Enter the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway in the appropriate boxes.
7. Click Apply.

You may need to restart the networked computers, so they can reconnect with the printer.

Everyone knows you can drag over text to select it in Word, but employing a few other text-selection strategies can help you edit more efficiently. Following are my favorite text-selection tricks:

• Double-click a word to highlight it, including the space after it.
• Hold down the Ctrl key while selecting other chunks of text, so you can perform a single operation on all of the selected text. (I often use this technique to make a bunch of words bold or italic – I hold down the Ctrl key while double-clicking each word and then click the Bold button, for example.)
• Press Ctrl+A to select the entire document.
• Ctrl+click anywhere inside a sentence to select the entire sentence, along with the space after it.
• Triple-click anywhere inside a paragraph to select the entire paragraph.
• Click at the beginning of the section you want to highlight and then scroll down and hold down the Shift key while clicking at the end of the section you want to highlight.
• Hold down the Alt key while dragging over a column of text. This is very useful for selecting a column of text when the columns are separated by tabs. You can even use this technique to select a column of tabs.
• Position the insertion point at the beginning or end of the section you want to highlight, and then hold down the Shift key while using the arrow keys to extend the highlight over the section; you can use the left, right, up, down, PgUp, PgDn, Home, or End keys to extend the highlight.
• Move the mouse pointer to the left of a paragraph (so the pointer appears as an arrow pointing northeast). You can then…
  • Click to the left of a line of text to select it.
  • Click and drag down or up to select multiple lines of text.
  • Double-click to select the paragraph. (You can double-click, hold down on the second click, and drag down to select multiple paragraphs, but this is a tough move to master.)
  • Triple-click to select the entire document.

Behind every WordPress blog is a theme that controls the look and layout of the blog. As I explain in “Make a Website, Changing the Look and Layout with a WordPress Theme,” you can change the entire look and layout of your WordPress blog by installing and activating a different theme.

Every theme contains one or more CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Each stylesheet contains codes that tell Web browsers how to display particular elements on your blog, including text, images, sidebars, headers, and footers. CSS codes are structured something like this:

selector { property: value; }

The selector indicates the element that the style applies to (such as a heading, paragraph, or image), the property defines the aspect of the object that will be modified (such as its color or alignment), and the value defines the setting for the property (such as blue or center). Here’s an example:

h3 {color: #0033FF; font-size: 22px; font-family: Arial; padding-bottom: 20px; }

This “style” tells Web browsers to display any text formatted as a Heading 3 (using the HTML tag <h3>) as blue, 22 pixels, Arial followed by 20 pixels of blank space below it.

As you’re composing blog entries, any text you format as a Heading 3 will be formatted according to the CSS property values assigned to it. You can change the appearance of all Heading 3 items in your blog simply by editing the h3 entry in your blog’s stylesheet as explained later in this post.

Tip
For a list of CSS properties and values associated with each property, check out the W3 School’s CSS Reference.

Understanding CSS Selectors

A CSS selector indicates the type of object each property value is applied to. Common selectors include…

• p for paragraphs
• img for images
• h1, h2, h3, h4, h5… for headings
• ul for unnumbered (bulleted) lists
• ol for numbered lists
• li for items in a list

This is pretty simple stuff, but CSS complicates things by allowing for a couple different types of selectors, as described in the following sections.

Tip
You can group selectors to apply property values to two or more elements. For example, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {color:blue; } would make all headings numbered 1-5 blue.

Class Selectors

A class selector enables you to create multiple style rules for a given element. For example, you can create three paragraph classes – p.left {text-align: left}, p.center {text-align: center}, and p.right {text-align: right}. When composing your blog entry, you can add the class attribute to a paragraph’s opening tag to specify which class you want to apply, for example ><p class=”center”>.

You can also create a class that is not associated with any given element by omitting the element designation from the selector. For example, you can create a .center {text-align: center} class, which you can then apply to any text element, such as paragraphs, images, headings, addresses, and definitions. For example, <img class=”center” src=”http://www.mydomain.com/images/image.jpg” /> would center an image while <p class=”center”> would center a paragraph.

ID Selectors

ID selectors are similar to class selectors, but they use a pound sign (#) instead of a period and apply formatting to only a single occurrence of a specific element. For example, you can apply p#footer {font-size: small; font-style: italic} to a paragraph at the bottom of a page to display the paragraph as a footer in small, italic text.

Some theme designers use the ID selector to apply different formatting for different sections of the blog; for example, #content li to control the appearance of list items in the content area and #l_sidebar li to control the appearance of list items in the left sidebar.

CSS Comments

Most WordPress stylesheets include comments that serve no other purpose than to provide information to anyone who may want to edit the file, including you. Comment text is marked with a forward slash followed by an asterisk, like this:

/* This is a comment. */

Comments usually designate groups of CSS formatting codes. For example, the designer may include a comment before each group of codes that apply to the header, footer, and content area. You can learn a great deal about how a designer formatted particular elements by reading the comments.

Tip
It’s a good idea to insert a comment describing any changes you make to your blog’s stylesheet, so you can easily change the setting back if something goes wrong. At least make a note of any changes.

Editing Styles in WordPress

You can edit your blog’s stylesheet and other files that comprise the theme you’re using from within WordPress. Here’s what you do:

• Log in to WordPress as you normally do. The WordPress Dashboard appears.
• Click Appearance and then Editor. The contents of your blog’s stylesheet should appear. If it doesn’t, click the Stylesheet link under Styles.
• Edit the styles as desired. (Editing styles is like editing any text document.)
• Click the Update File button to save your changes.

Editing Styles in Thesis

If you’re using the Thesis theme (which I use on this blog as well as most of the blogs I manage), editing styles is a little more complicated at first, but after you learn the basics, managing your styles with Thesis is actually easier. The difference is that Thesis discourages users from editing the stylesheet directly. Instead, you leave the stylesheet as is and enter any changes in a separate Thesis custom stylesheet. This way, if you make a mistake, you know exactly where to find it – in the custom stylesheet.

Tip
The Thesis how-to manual tells you to download the file you want to edit, open it in a text editor, make your changes, and then upload the file. A better way is to install the Thesis OpenHook plugin.

With Thesis OpenHook, you can edit the custom stylesheet from WordPress rather than having to open the custom.css file in a separate editor. After installing and activating OpenHook, click Appearance in the WordPress Dashboard, click Thesis OpenHook, and then scroll down to the Custom Stylesheet box to view or edit the contents of custom.css.

If you don’t like that idea, consider using your hosting service’s file manager. In Bluehost (the hosting service I use), you can login, click File Manager, and use it to navigate to the folder that contains the custom.css file: /wp-content/themes/thesis-15/custom. You can then click the custom.css file and click the Edit button in the toolbar at the top to open the file in the Bluehost Text Editor and make your changes online. I’ve used GoDaddy, and it has its own editor, too. Other tools are available that simplify the process of editing files online.

Using the Custom Stylesheet

To use the custom stylesheet, log into WordPress and then click Appearance, Thesis Options, Custom Stylesheet, and make sure Use custom stylesheet is checked. With the custom stylesheet enabled, you can use the “custom” class selector to override any existing style for any selector.

Tip
Before editing custom.css, check the Thesis Options and Design Options settings to determine whether you can make your adjustments using the Thesis built-in control panels. You can make dozens of adjustments without having to edit the custom.css file.

Sample Edits

Here are some of the easy changes I made to my custom.css file for my personal blog at joekraynak.com/blog (above each is a comment explaining what the new CSS declaration does):

/*Remove padding above and to left of header*/
.custom #header { padding-top: 0; padding-left: 0; }

/*Indent the tagline in the header 130px*/
.custom #tagline { position: absolute; left: 130px; }

/*When images are left-aligned add no extra space to the left, top, or bottom but 1em space to the right*/
.custom img.alignleft { margin: 0 1em 0 0; }

/*Separate list items by 10px space in the content area – does not affect list items in sidebars*/
.custom #content li { padding-bottom: 10px; }

/*Reduce the space between widgets in the sidebars*/
.custom li.widget { margin-bottom: 10px; }

Tip
Before you can change the property of a selector, you need to know what the selector is, and finding out can be a real challenge. One of the best tools to use to identify selectors is an add-on program for Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser called Firebug.

You can download a free copy of Firefox and then download and install Firebug using the Firefox browser. Kristarella.com has posted an excellent video called “How to Use Firebug for CSS,” demonstrating how to use the Firefox/Firebug combo to examine and experiment with CSS selectors, properties, and values on your own blog as well as other people’s blogs.