Hot enough this summer?

Enjoying the incredible heat this summer?  Here in the east, it's been over 100 degrees more often than not.  Or so it seems.

Google Voice

Try Google voice.  It allows you to get a phone number, and direct a number of phones (home, cell, work, and more) ring.  It heads off the voicemail systems of those phones and provides one common voice mailbox.  And, IT'S FREE!!.  You can get transcribed voicemail messages sent to your email.  And A LOT more.  I am not even scratching the surface.  I am configuring it to replace my onebox account.  Onebox charges me $ 12.00/month for a business phone and mailbox.  I find that I am missing calls with onebox.  But with Google voice, I can have calls sent directly to my "business" cellfone.

I'll write more soon.  It's been a long hot summer so far.  Hope you are enjoying it.

Smartphone and More

Smartphone

My HTC Touch Pro 2 is working well.  No big surprises.  Some nice features.  Syncs well with both Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows XP Home

Summer Inspection

I am offering a reduced rate Summer Inspection for your PC.  I can do it on site for $ 25.00 or remote for $ 15.00.  It is an assessment of your PC's current capabilities, network safety, and recommendations for improvement or replacement.  Call me at 732-568-4943 and leave a message to arrange a Summer Inspection.

Peace,

Dave
http://www.davepickel.com/

New Smart Phone

I bought a new HTC Touch Pro 2 from Sprint a few days ago. I now have it sync'd up with my Outlook Calendar, have my email id's configured. It has a few bumps and grinds but overall I am pleased with it so far.

It's an adjustment from my Sanyo Katana DLX. The Katana is a small flip-phone whereas the Touch Pro 2 is a smart phone providing blackberry like functionality. It has Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system which has some iPhone like components.

Weather here in Central NJ has been great the last two days.  Bright sun, perhaps a bit chilly but pleasant.

Peace,

Dave

Your First Tip

You may have heard about an email program that is included with Windows XP called Outlook Express. In Vista, it is called Windows Mail. In Windows 7 it is called Windows Live Mail. They all do generally the same function but each has subtle and some not so subtle differences.

So don't look for Outlook Express in Windows Vista or Windows 7. You will spend a lot of time and not find Outlook Express.

Also, you can choose to use a "web mail client" such as yahoo mail, or hotmail, or similar.

Have a great day and enjoy the weather.

Dave

For Franklin in Technology Spring 2010 Alumni

Hello folks. I enjoyed my time assisting our instructor, Barbara. And you all were great students. I appreciate the opportunity to be of help to you all.

Should you want individualized instruction, please feel free to call me and leave a message at 888-282-4449. We can cover more skills in depth, and take a look at those social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. My rates are reasonable, and as always, seniors are welcome. Please note that my personalized instruction is independent of the Franklin in Technology group.

Again, thanks for a great Spring 2010. I look forward to helping you discover more about your PC. In the meantime, feel free to check this blog site often for more updates and tips. And you can also contact me with the yahoo email id we used during class.

Sincerely,

Dave

So What's New?

My sister in law wanted her HP all in one installed on the laptop I sent her. She lives on the west coast. Bottom line I was able to load drivers and have her" plug the USB cable into the laptop and we were successful in getting the printer installed on the laptop. Remote control really works well.

Other than that, all is pretty good. I am assist-teaching some computer courses given by the Franklin In Technology group, a part of the parks and recreation department of Franklin Twp, Somerset County, NJ. I have some more clients to assist, and potentially more to come. So right now, things are looking up.

Oh, I did install a Windows Home Server for a local business client here. The installation went pretty well. It's worth looking into (as I said previously) for small businesses and home networks. Well worth it.

Peace,

Dave

Laptop Re-born

So since I got my new laptop, I spoke with my wife and we decided to send the old laptop out to her sister on the west coast. And, of course, I decided to format the drive and reload the o/s since we have the original reinstall discs from Dell.

This started about a 4 day saga involving about 5 hours of phone calls with Dell (side note, any dells purchased prior to 2004 have lifetime free tech support, so don't recycle yours just yet). Well, today after 12 hours of being shut down, the old laptop decides to finish the install. And after an almost full day of research & using their drivers cd, I have the machine 99% functional.

Anyway, it's almost ready to ship.

Peace,

Dave

http://www.davepickel.com
http://www.seniorspchelp.com/