It has been a liitle while since I have had a chance to write a new entry in my blog and quite a few things have happened in the intevening period.
We have all started to learn the really complicated name of an obscure volcano in Iceland, most of us who travel in Europe have experienced delays and cancelations to travel plans, missed events and even found some ingenious routes to and from various places, all caused by volcanic ash clouds in the wrong place. For me it meant missing my wife's birthday, as I had to stay in London, having worked out a route to get home in time for Franca's birthday I was then stood up by the car hire company, but at least they let me know before I travelled, so Avis are still my friends.
I was expecting to have to stay a second weekend in London, however the volcanic ash clouds miraculously parted, and we were flying again, so I flew back home on Friday as usual on an almost empty plane, as most people had already made alternative arrangements. I a not sure how things will pan out in the coming weeks,volcano wise, we will just have to play it by ear
.
The weather has been amazing for the last two weeks in France, with almost wall to wall sunshine, my wife and daughter are taking on their summer tanned colour already, and I have been sun burnt, even though I have been working inside this weekend.
We have managed to get the final letting room ready for guests again after our winter drain problems, it seems a long time ago now that I was digging holes in the garden in the snow, though the scars of the work can still be seen in the garden, that is the next job, to fill in all the holes.
Franca's birthday came and went, and somewhat passed me by, as I was in the UK, luckily Franca had her Mum down to stay to help celebrate, and they had a great meal in one of our favourite restaurants, complete with birthday cake.
The B&B is starting to get busy and next weekend we will be full for the first time this year, so things are looking up now that spring has arrived. It is hard to believe that it was still winter just over 3 or 4 weeks ago.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Basic PC maintenance
I have seen a number of folk recently complaining of downloads speeds gradually getting slower and slower on their broadband connections. This is not always down to your network provider getting overwhelmed or your neighbours all deciding to download movies at the same time. The source of the problem can be staring you in the face, or rather you may be staring at it, your computer.
First things first when doing work on your computer;
Please remember the most important thing regarding computers, ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACK UP before undertaking any work on your machine, you never know what may happen. If you are unsure get some who knows a thing or two to help you. Things do go wrong from time to time even when doing the simplest of jobs on a computer, so back it up. As the absolute bare minimum, make sure you have your precious data backed up, remember only doing this will mean a long time sat inform of your machine rebuilding your applications. There I think I have covered my self enough now if something does happen to go wrong, and as you can guess I am not taking responsibility if there is any data loss as a result of follow these instructions, sorry folks but you have to do this these days.
Down to Work
It could be that you have installed some new features or programs that have just tipped you over the edge in terms of available disk space or computer memory, in which case hardware upgrades are probably going to be your only answer.
However you could be having problems because you have not done any housekeeping on your machine for quite a while, or maybe you have never done any. Just a few simple tasks done once a month may keep your life line with the internet in great shape for a bit longer, so here are a few tips on basic computer housekeeping.
I must also warn you that these instructions will vary between the different versions of operating systems and will also depend on which web browser you use; (IT Pros - no haranguing emails please, I’m keeping this a simple as possible)
I will base the instructions on good old Microsoft Internet Explorer running under Microsoft XP,
Round 1 – Internet Explorer clean up
Open Internet Explorer and click on the Tools drop down and select Internet Options from the drop down list, this will open up a box with a number of tabs across the top.
You should see a box called Temporary Internet files with three buttons in it, click on the Delete Cookies button, this will bring up a box asking if it is OK to Delete all Cookies in the Temporary Internet Files folder, click on OK, it will be fine honest, this will take just a couple of seconds to clean out.
This next step, I have seen take up to an hour!! Click on the Delete Files button, this will come up with a scary box that says Delete all Files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, there will also be a tick box asking if you want to Delete Offline content, tick the box and then click OK, this will take time, how long will depend on all sorts of factors but it may take a while.
The final stage is optional and involves the Clear History button, if you want to keep your browsing history so that you can go back to previously visited web pages quickly don’t press it, I clean mine out weekly as web pages addresses and links change frequently.
Round 2 – General computer clean up
This covers a multitude of general file area clean ups… these little apps can be found if you click on your START button, then select Programs then Accessories, and then select System Tools. From the system tools menu select disk cleanup, a little box will appear with a number of tick boxes in it, the following are the main ones to be ticked so that your machine is clean and tidy;
Temporary Internet Files (which should be almost empty if you did the previous step)
Recycle Bin
Temporary Remote Desktop Files
Setup Log Files
Temporary Files
If you are running out of disk space you want to tick the Compress old files box as well
Once you have done this then click on OK, and click on Yes to say you are sure you want to do this, the machine will then go off and clean itself up in a few minutes.
The final thing to do is to organise the files that remain on your hard disk, which you again reach by clicking on your START button, then select Programs then Accessories, and then select System Tools. From the system tools menu select Disk Defragmenter. The disk Defragmenter tool opens up and all you have to do is ensure that the C:> drive is highlighted then click on the defragment button and the machine does the rest for its self, if you have not done this for a long time it could also take up to an hour to run, especially if you are seeing loads of blues, greens and reds, and not much white space in those progress bars. Once you have done this you machine should be fit and ready to go again for a while.
Please remember the most important thing regarding computers ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACK UP before undertaking any work on your machine, you never know what may happen. Things do go wrong from time to time even when doing the simplest of jobs on a computer, so back it up, or at least as a minimum make sure you have your precious data backed up.
There are plenty of other things you can do to look after your machine but this will be a good start…
Good Luck...
First things first when doing work on your computer;
Please remember the most important thing regarding computers, ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACK UP before undertaking any work on your machine, you never know what may happen. If you are unsure get some who knows a thing or two to help you. Things do go wrong from time to time even when doing the simplest of jobs on a computer, so back it up. As the absolute bare minimum, make sure you have your precious data backed up, remember only doing this will mean a long time sat inform of your machine rebuilding your applications. There I think I have covered my self enough now if something does happen to go wrong, and as you can guess I am not taking responsibility if there is any data loss as a result of follow these instructions, sorry folks but you have to do this these days.
Down to Work
It could be that you have installed some new features or programs that have just tipped you over the edge in terms of available disk space or computer memory, in which case hardware upgrades are probably going to be your only answer.
However you could be having problems because you have not done any housekeeping on your machine for quite a while, or maybe you have never done any. Just a few simple tasks done once a month may keep your life line with the internet in great shape for a bit longer, so here are a few tips on basic computer housekeeping.
I must also warn you that these instructions will vary between the different versions of operating systems and will also depend on which web browser you use; (IT Pros - no haranguing emails please, I’m keeping this a simple as possible)
I will base the instructions on good old Microsoft Internet Explorer running under Microsoft XP,
Round 1 – Internet Explorer clean up
Open Internet Explorer and click on the Tools drop down and select Internet Options from the drop down list, this will open up a box with a number of tabs across the top.
You should see a box called Temporary Internet files with three buttons in it, click on the Delete Cookies button, this will bring up a box asking if it is OK to Delete all Cookies in the Temporary Internet Files folder, click on OK, it will be fine honest, this will take just a couple of seconds to clean out.
This next step, I have seen take up to an hour!! Click on the Delete Files button, this will come up with a scary box that says Delete all Files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, there will also be a tick box asking if you want to Delete Offline content, tick the box and then click OK, this will take time, how long will depend on all sorts of factors but it may take a while.
The final stage is optional and involves the Clear History button, if you want to keep your browsing history so that you can go back to previously visited web pages quickly don’t press it, I clean mine out weekly as web pages addresses and links change frequently.
Round 2 – General computer clean up
This covers a multitude of general file area clean ups… these little apps can be found if you click on your START button, then select Programs then Accessories, and then select System Tools. From the system tools menu select disk cleanup, a little box will appear with a number of tick boxes in it, the following are the main ones to be ticked so that your machine is clean and tidy;
Temporary Internet Files (which should be almost empty if you did the previous step)
Recycle Bin
Temporary Remote Desktop Files
Setup Log Files
Temporary Files
If you are running out of disk space you want to tick the Compress old files box as well
Once you have done this then click on OK, and click on Yes to say you are sure you want to do this, the machine will then go off and clean itself up in a few minutes.
The final thing to do is to organise the files that remain on your hard disk, which you again reach by clicking on your START button, then select Programs then Accessories, and then select System Tools. From the system tools menu select Disk Defragmenter. The disk Defragmenter tool opens up and all you have to do is ensure that the C:> drive is highlighted then click on the defragment button and the machine does the rest for its self, if you have not done this for a long time it could also take up to an hour to run, especially if you are seeing loads of blues, greens and reds, and not much white space in those progress bars. Once you have done this you machine should be fit and ready to go again for a while.
Please remember the most important thing regarding computers ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A BACK UP before undertaking any work on your machine, you never know what may happen. Things do go wrong from time to time even when doing the simplest of jobs on a computer, so back it up, or at least as a minimum make sure you have your precious data backed up.
There are plenty of other things you can do to look after your machine but this will be a good start…
Good Luck...
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Interview BBC Radio Essex
In case you have missed it, here's the link http://bit.ly/92gYkt?r=td of the interview I have given to BBC Radio Essex on 1st of April 2010 on the Dave Monk Show.
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