The Help Desk Hotline

No, I'm not going to give you my phone number. That's weird.

But, you can e-mail me! 

Readers of The Help Desk,

If you enjoyed the style of my last post, helping a fellow reader sort out some formatting issues, this is your lucky day!

They say the best things in life are free, and so in that spirit I will be offering personalized tech assistance to you FREE OF CHARGE for a limited time. 

I know, this is amazing! No more listening to nerdy 12 year-olds on YouTube try to explain something in terms you don't even understand. No more bothering your tech inclined friends and family at odd hours in the morning. No more spending hours on the phone with an automated system. 

 I am here to help! 

All you have to do is use the contact form on the right side of this page to send me a description of the issue you're having with as much detail as possible, even if you don't think it's relevant. Also let me know the things you have all ready tried. (You better have already tried turning it off and back on again!) I'll get back to you with a personalized written response within 48 hours and post relevant details to this blog, taking care to protect your privacy, of course. 

All that I ask in return is that you tell your friends and post the links to your solution on whatever social media you use. Throw it in a couple of e-mail chains! If you refer a friend to the blog and they submit a problem, you'll receive another free solution when I inevitably start charging money. Hey, we all gotta eat! So, what are you waiting for?  I know you have problems. Send them to me!

"Give me your poor and confused grandparents, your naive Hotmail users, your awkward mom posts, and I will give you rest."

-The Help Desk

A Help Desk Request

Ahoy, Captain! Microsoft Word Formatting Ahead!

I received an email from a reader yesterday with some very good questions about Microsoft Word. First, I'd like to acknowledge the widely accepted fact that Microsoft Word is terrible for doing anything other than typing normal, everyday papers. The minute you try to do something special or move a picture a tiny bit to the left, your formatting explodes. (Not really. Calm down! Your computer can't explode.) 

That said, there are some ways to get around these issues. Let's dive in. 

This reader had 3 questions. For humor's sake, let's just read them as they were sent:

1. Typing along on single document and all of a sudden I have 2 pages on screen. The present one and the next one, both of which are now minute in size.....how?? why?? what did I accidentally touch?

2. If I want to write 2 columns of information how can I keep it from acting as one single line.?? when I delete something the whole line shifts and throws off the column. must be a way to make 2 columns in a written doc. 

3. Typing along and all of a sudden the letters jump into the middle of the writing..in a different area of the document????????

I'd like to take this time to assure my readers that one question mark is sufficient for implying the interrogative. 

Question 1

Here it sounds like you accidentally triggered Multi-Page view. I'm not going to try and diagnose how this happened, but rather just show you how to fix it when it does (and probably will) happen again. 

Step 1: Don't Panic. Also, contrary to my usual advice, DON'T TURN IT OFF AND BACK ON AGAIN! This could make you loose that recipe you keep insisting is original, but I mean we both know it's not. Let it go. 

Step 2: Go up to the toolbar and click the tab that says, "VIEW" then click the button to the left that says, "One Page".

Step 3: Tada...wait. Everything is so small! No one knows why this happens, but going back to one page makes everything 50% smaller. Chalk it up to the mysteries of the universe. Thankfully, it's also an easy fix. Move your mouse to the bottom right corner of your screen and you should see a zoom bar. Click the plus button until the number says 100% again. You can also go bigger if your eyes aren't what they used to be! Kids these days with their super vision...

Huzzah. It worked. Go bake a scone to celebrate. Moving on.

Question 2

First, this is a great question! There is probably some hidden setting buried somewhere that lets you type in two column mode, but what I am going to show you is useful for more situations, and also solves your problem.

It's called.....The Text Box!

Ohhhh, Ahhhh.

I know. Technology these days.

Step 1: Go to your Toolbar again, but this time go to the INSERT tab. Go over to the right where it says, "Text Box" and hover your mouse over it. Move down and click where it says, "Draw Text Box".

 Step 2: Now, click and hold down the button where you'd like the top left corner of your text area to be. Drag down and to the right to form a box. Release the mouse button to stop drawing. If you mess up, hit Control+Z on your keyboard. This will undo and you can try again. Draw two of these into column shaped boxes and now you can type in them!

Step 3 (Optional): When you're finished typing, if you'd like to remove the borders on the text boxes, right click on the border of the box, then click "Outline" then "No Outline". Voila.

Hope that helped. Let's address the final question.

Question 3

This sounds like you're accidentally hitting the track-pad of your laptop while you're typing. Someone has poor typing posture. Tsk Tsk. Arch your wrists!

There should be a fairly easy fix for this. I happen to know you have a USB external mouse, so you don't really need the track-pad while you're typing. On most laptops, there is a track-pad disabling button on the top F key row. (F1, F2, F3, etc) Try pressing the function key plus the number for disabling the track-pad. It's usually F6 or F7 and looks generally something like this.

Remember to press first the Fn key, then the right F key on the top row. If you can't find it, send me a picture of your keyboard and I can point it out for you. 

Hope this answered your questions! Happy formatting!

-The Help Desk

The Etiquette of Social Media

How to Not Embarrass Yourself and Others

So, you've made the brave step and entered into the world of social media. Or maybe you've had it awhile and think you're a pro. Either way, there are some basic rules to the usage of social media that everyone needs to understand. 

1. Don't Post Too Often

This is one of the most abused functions of Facebook. For a Facebook status, try to make it something that is relevant or meaningful to your life, and also something that you think others would enjoy. A great example is a big event like moving to a new state or going on an awesome vacation. Feel free to share pictures with your new meaningful status. And if you like to post every few minutes, try Twitter, it's much more accepted there.


2. Don't Have Annoyingly Long Posts

Why? Because people won't read it. Social media, as hard as it tries, is not the best place for long form writing. There is a saying on the internet, abbreviated: tl;dr. It stands for "Too long; didn't read." It is often used to preface a short summary that describes a longer post. People often scroll through their social media faster than a Baptist trying to get to brunch. The simple truth is that if people see a wall of text, they are going to climb right over it. Who knows, maybe you're scrolling past this right now. So be succinct!




3. Beware the Power of the Tag

This one is pretty important. When "tagging" someone, in other words, by pressing the @ symbol and typing in someone's name, you are effectively showing all of that person's friends what you're about to post. Yikes.

Let's think about that for a moment. Does it still seem like a great idea to tag your child in that old family photo where they're half naked on the beach? The main idea is that you're taking away a person's ability to control what is posted about them on social media. You can remove tags, but once the deed is done, everyone who is looking at their social media at that point will see whatever embarrassing memory you have dragged up.

Don't be that person. Ask before you tag!





4. Use Messenger

For those moments when you want to share something, but don't necessarily need the world seeing, there's Messenger. This handy icon, shown here with the red notification, allows you to send a message of whatever length to any member on Facebook. This is a powerful tool because it does not even require you to be "friends" with the person you are messaging. Great for pictures, movies, or funny cat videos, Facebook Messenger is faster than email and more convenient than a text message for certain content. Take advantage of this great tool!





Social media is a strange animal, but when used appropriately and in moderation, it can be a great tool to stay in contact with friends and family. However, when abused, it becomes a monster capable of causing much more emotional stress than is appropriate. But the question of why we let social media affect us so much is another problem entirely.

For now, post interesting, succinct content and be mindful of what you say to other people. Picture yourself speaking to a person in a loud voice in a room full of other people, because that's what it is. Want to share something personal? Use Messenger, or better yet, go talk to them in person!

Have fun pretending to socialize.

- The Help Desk

What is the Twitter?

How Do I Chirp?

This is a question that I've received a number of times from people wanting to learn more about the wide world of social media. I'm sure many of you are on Facebook, (If you're not, you should be. It's the most useful form of social media.) so I will use some terminology you are hopefully familiar with. Twitter is essentially just you posting your Facebook status, but you only have 140 characters to do it. (A character is any key on your keyboard.) This is called a tweet....not a chirp.

The most common interaction is "following" other people who post these statuses. As you follow more people or organizations, you create a list of information that interests you, and you can interact with these people by "favoriting" (liking) or replying to their tweet. You can also "re-tweet" which sends the other person's tweet to anyone who follows you.

The last and most important thing that you need to know about Twitter is the hashtag. It looks like this: "#".  I know, I know, it's a pound sign. Sorry, not anymore. Now it's also a hashtag. My arrogant generation of millennials have taken it upon themselves to redefine an entire symbol. This is used to link a certain trend or event to an easily searchable tag. An examble would be #taylorswift or #Hillary2016.

I know it's complicated. Take a deep breath. It's really nothing important. Social media has its benefits, but it has probably done more harm than good to our society. Look for a more in-depth post about this topic in the future.

If you'd like to make an account and try it out, follow the link below. Pop in your name, email address and chosen username which will appear "@(yourusername)" and start searching for things you like. Try your favorite news source, politician, or celebrity to start. You can also find your friends by searching for their name.

Sign up here!

Happy Tweeting!

Is The Government Spying on You?

Who Cares? Should You?

I know that this has become a concern for many of you, especially with the recent stories in the news about NSA leaks, hacking from foreign governments, and the Patriot Act. The invasion of our privacy in a post 9/11 world is a price that has been determined to be worth paying in order to ensure our safety.  Many Americans have expressed outrage at the government having as much power as they do. And make no mistake, if any government agencies wants to see your email or phone communications, they can do so within seconds. Anyone who tells you differently is a fool. 

However, what we don't often hear about are the success stories that accompany this high level of snooping. Government officials will claim that the Patriot Act has stopped many potential terrorist threats, but for obvious security reasons, the general public can't know the specifics of these. This brings a understandable amount of skepticism to the table. 

But what I really want to ask is why you care so much? If you're a law abiding citizen, you should have nothing to hide. Do you really care if the government sees those old family pictures you posted last week? Isn't even the potential of saving human lives worth the cost of sacrificing some privacy?

The fear of government spying should not prevent you from taking advantage of all the great technology that exists today. If anything, you should worry more about scammers trying to steal your money, but there are some simple tips to avoid having this happen. 

• Use different passwords. A good tip is to vary the uppercase/lowercase structure of a well remembered phrase. (Write them down, though!)
• Only provide credit card details to big, recognizable companies. (Amazon, Ebay, Walmart etc.)
• Never send financial information or things like social security numbers in electronic communication. 

If after reading this you're still scared, admit it. You're just paranoid. Or you have something to hide and should get off this blog before you drag me into it!

Embrace big brother; he watches out for you. 

-The Help Desk

My Computer is Slow. I Should Get a Mac. 

Wrong Wrong Wrong! 

This is a common misconception that I'd like to address before moving on to the main point of this post, which is how to speed up the performance of your computer.

People seem to think that Macs are inherently faster than PC's based on their experiences. However, there are several factors that go in to determining how a computer functions. The first is price. It all boils down to the well known phrase:

You get what you pay for. 

The cheapest Mac computer starts at a cool $999. Comparatively, the cheapest PC can be had for around $250. This price gap makes an enormous difference when it comes to performance. The individual components that go into a Mac are going to be much higher quality than those that go into the $250 PC. If you were to compare a $1000 PC to a $1000 Mac, you would find that you can often get much greater value and performance from a PC. You get what you pay for.

So you bought a cheap PC and now it's slow. What are you going to do about it? Well first, don't make the same mistake twice, ya cheapskate. It's wise to invest in something you're going to use everyday.

Thankfully, there are some things that you can do to speed up your current computer and prevent it from getting that way again. The first thing you'll need to do is install some virus protection software. I recommend AVG. First, download the software from the link below. Wait 5 seconds, click the "Skip Ad" button, and then click the big green download button.

Click Me!

After clicking the big green button, a file should start to download. Double click it when it says it's finished.

Double click where it says avg_free. This starts the install process. When this screen appears, click "Downgrade" where it says "Switch to Free Protection".

After this installs, it will prompt you to restart your computer. Don't worry we're almost done! After it restarts, go to your taskbar and click the icon for AVG.

It's the four-colored square. Double click that icon. Once the program launches, just click "Scan Now" and wait for the program to scan your computer for errors. This should take about 15 minutes. Go have a cup of tea!

All Done! Your computer should now be rid of many nasty programs, and now has virus protection for the future. However, let's remember 3 NEVERs to protect our computers from viruses and malware in the future.

1. NEVER open email attachments from people you don't know.

     2.  NEVER download a program or a game from a site you don't recognize.

     3.  NEVER panic and just buy a Mac.

As always, if you have any specific questions, don't hesitate to leave a comment or send me an email!

-The Help Desk

Understanding the Internet

As magical as the internet may seem to us, it's actually a very real and tangible technology that most people just don't fully understand. So what do you need to know about the internet?

First, the internet is made out of a vast network of computers that are all connected to each other. When you visit a website, you're essentially visiting another computer that has the content of that website stored on its hard drive. When you connect your computer to the internet, you become a part of it! You can stay in contact with family and share funny cat videos.

Now isn't that nice?

So how does the internet get into your home, and how do we fix it if it breaks? It starts by coming in through your cable modem or satellite dish. This is the same thing that lets you watch cable television. From there it generally goes to what's called a wireless router. Think of this as a hose being attached to a sprinkler. The hose is the internet and the sprinkler is what distributes the internet to the devices in your home without the need for wires. If you've heard the term Wi-Fi, this is what it is.

Here's a diagram that should help to explain it and help you identify your devices:

A wireless router- characterized by its antenna










A modem- look for the blinky lights!






If you're having trouble accessing the internet, a quick fix can be to unplug the power cords from both of the devices above. Wait 60 seconds, and plug them back in. Give it a few minutes to reset and then try accessing the internet again. If you think this sounds familiar to my previous post, you'd be right. That's because these things are all connected!

Daily Challenge:

If you can't get to the internet, try plugging your computer directly in to your cable modem. If it seems to fix the problem, that means the problem is with your wireless router. The cable will look like this:

If it doesn't work, it most likely is the fault of your cable provider and you should call and complain.

Fun fact: By threatening to cancel your cable internet service, you can often get big discounts on your monthly rate!

The Art of Troubleshooting

Let's see if this sounds familiar. You're trying to do something you do everyday, checking email or reading the news, when all of a sudden, everything stops working. Something freezes, or the dreaded "can't connect to the internet" error appears and you feel like your world is ending.

Remain calm. It's going to be okay. Resist the urge to pick up the phone and call the tech-savy person in your life because most likely they are going to tell you the same thing I am. 

Turn it off and turn it back on again. 

These nine magic words have been spoken across telephone lines since the beginning of the computer age for a reason. It works. That black box in front of you works through a series of smaller processes, sort of like a to-do list, but a list that must be done in a very specific order. If one thing fails, it can cause a chain reaction that results in the error messages that you dread so much. Thankfully, most of the time, these problems can be fixed by resetting everything. 

If you don't know how to do this, it's very simple. On mobile devices, (pretty much any piece of technology that isn't your computer) hold down the power button until something happens. On an Apple product this will appear: 

You guessed it. Just slide to turn it off. Hold the same button to bring it back from the dead. 

Now for a Windows PC, there is a recommended way to shut down, and an emergency method. For the recommended method, right click on the start button, and click shut down or restart. 

If your computer freezes and you can't interact with it in any way, hold down the power button until it shuts off. Press and hold the same button to bring it back to life. 

 <----------- Universal Power Symbol

These tried and true troubleshooting techniques are the first step to finding out what the problem is. In the next post, we'll work through a few more specific issues. If your problem continues, you can at least proudly and defiantly tell the tech support people "I ALREADY TRIED THAT" when they ask you to:

Turn it off and turn it back on again.

Happy Troubleshooting!

The Fear of Technology

"Hello, Dave."

Technology is all around us. It has penetrated all levels of society and has become virtually impossible to escape from. Technology changes and adapts so quickly these days that if you do not keep up with it, you become lost in a sea of innovations that all claim to improve your life.

However, we fear what we do not understand. 

Like cavemen discovering fire, we are in awe of the power of technology. If we do not take the time to understand it, that awe can quickly turn to fear. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to yelling at Verizon customer service reps over the phone (or the dark side of the force). Either should be avoided. 

My goal is to not only teach you how to use technology, but to help you understand why it works. According to Moore's law, we live in an amazing age where the power of computers doubles every two years. This is not something to fear, but to embrace with discernment. It is important to understand that how you use technology is more important than the technology itself. 

As we begin this process of learning, I hope that this blog will open your mind to the possibilities, both good and bad, that technology brings to our lives.  

"Give me your poor and confused grandparents, your naive Hotmail users, your awkward mom posts, and I will give you rest"

                                                           
Welcome to The Help Desk!

My name is Jacob and I'm what you might call tech-savvy. What is a tech-savvy person? Good question. If you can't fix something in this wild world of technology, and a friend or family member fixes it instantly like a wizard, they are probably tech-savvy. My goal for this blog is to teach you or those in your life that call their friends or children in a panic when an advertisement pops up. If this sounds like you or someone you know, you're in the right place.

I want to help you. But I also want to help your poor friends. Follow this blog as we discover the merits of computers, tablets, smartphones, social media, media creation tools, and digital entertainment. Don't panic. We'll take it one step at a time.

This is The Help Desk. I'm here to help.