Gadget Guru June 2011
Q: On firing up my little
Samsung Netbook (with Windows 7 Starter Edition) this morning, the
connection icon in the system tray tells me that I am connected
wirelessly to my home WiFi network, with high signal strength, but
with no internet access. I haven't fiddled with anything since
a couple of days ago when I last used it to connect. The machine
I'm using now is connected via ethernet cable to the router;
the Samsung Network accesses the internet fine when connected via
cable, though won't give access to the internet via wireless,
even though it recognises the good signal.
A: The first thing to do is Repair the adapter/connection
(right-click the wireless adapter icon in the System Tray and
choose Repair. This may differ if you're using the wireless
management software Samsung installs rather than the Microsoft
wireless management. If this doesn't work, you can spend
several hours trying various things but frankly the simplest is the
'hammer to crack a nut method' i.e. rebooting both the
modem router (the box which connects you to the internet - either
there will be a reset button or you just turn it off and back on
again) and then the computer itself which generally fixes it.
Q: I'm trying to do some
research for a project online and wonder if you have any
suggestions on how to save web pages I find? I've tried
bookmarking them but end up with indecipherable lists of links all
called 'Home' or 'Index' and no idea what they
might refer to.
A: I use a website called Evernote, http://www.evernote.com for just this purpose. Once
you've registered it explains how to put a little icon on your
web browser menu bar. When you get to a page you'd like to
save, click the icon and a small dialogue box opens where you can
give the page a name you'll remember, plus a description. You
can also add pages to different 'Notebooks', so you can
have a number of different projects on the go at once. I keep one
for different work-related ideas, another for recipes I find online
and so on. As a bonus they have small 'apps' for many
different kind of Smartphones where you can read existing notes and
take new ones. This is a great way to, for example, take a photo of
a poster advertising an event and then be able to read it
immediately on your computer without having to upload any photos
from your phone.
Q: I read a lot about how important it is to have
'secure' passwords and not to use the same ones for
different websites and so on. Which sounds fine in principle but
how do I remember them all without writing them down?
A: One of the greatest security experts around,
Bruce Schneier, http://www.schneier.com/, recommends writing down your
passwords on a piece of paper which you keep in your wallet or
purse, on the basis that you guard that more closely than anything
else. Passwords should be easy for you to remember and hard for
others to guess. You can also develop a system for remembering
passwords based on the site's name and a phrase - a recommended
way to create a password is to use an easily remembered phrase,
take the initial letters, transform the letter I to the number 1
and o to 0, and capitalise, say, the second or third letter. Your
password for www.candis.co.uk
could be incorporated into the phrase My Favourite Magazine Website
Is www.candis.co.uk to become
MfmW1ccU, for example (don't use this one now though!)
Tips:
1. If you have a complicated journey involving taxis, trains, airplanes, hire cars and hotel reservations, booking them online yourself will save you money but leave you with a mess of printouts to carry around and juggle. Try Tripit, http://www.tripit.com - you simply forward to it via email the various itineraries and bookings you receive, and it organises them into a logical order for you which you can print out, consult online or read on one of their various Smartphone apps. It can also cope with mid-trip changes such as flight cancellations, warning you about clashes and even suggesting alternatives.
2. Get rid of at least some of the tangle of wires around your computer with a wireless keyboard - they're getting cheaper and cheaper now and, if your computer already uses Bluetooth, you don't need to buy any special adapters.
3. It can be difficult to stabilise your camera especially when taking a low-light photo without flash. So try using the camera's timer function - most have a two-second option, which is perfect. Either hold the camera yourself and use the two seconds to steady yourself, breathing out slowly and evenly, or put the camera on a wall or other handy support.
4. If the quality of your Sky TV picture seems to have become worse as summer progresses, check to see if any trees have sprouted higher in front of your satellite dish - even a new growth of leaves can block the reception.
5. If you use iTunes
to transfer music to your MP3 player or telephone and you'd
like to squeeze a few more tunes into the same space, go to the
Summary page - usually the first one you see - and check the
'Convert higher bitrate songs to 128 kbps AAC' box. This
will reduce the size of many songs so they take up less space on
your MP3 player.
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