It’s been an extremely busy week, and besides that there’s been a lot of e-mail. I really do read all my e-mail. If I haven’t answered your question yet, I’m working my way down to it! Here are some questions that I was able to answer in the last little while.

Create a link to a website

Although I am a strong advocate of a clean desktop, I have to live with the knowledge that lots of people don’t mind littering their desktop with shortcuts, documents, and icons of all types. Some folks like to click on a desktop shortcut and go directly to a website.

It's easy to create a desktop shortcut for any website.  Open the website, click and drag the icon from the browser address bar to the desktop, let go of the mouse button. It might be easier to get that if you take a look at this screencast: http://youtu.be/6ShJ0r_LUfY.

Run one antivirus program

Pick one antivirus program and have it running all the time. Don’t run more than one. If you have one and want a different one, uninstall the first antivirus program completely before you install another.

You should supplement your antivirus program, no matter which one it is, with scans from an antimalware program like SuperAntiSpyware (http://www.superantispyware.com/) or Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/). Antivirus programs deal with some types of problems while antimalware programs deal with other types. You should have an antivirus program running all the time and every so often run the antimalware program to catch anything your antivirus program might have missed.

Clear out your In Box

Whether you are using Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or Windows Live Mail, you should not have thousands of messages in your In Box. E-mail programs, when they first open, have to scan the In, Out, Sent, and Deleted Items folders before any activity like sending and receiving e-mail can take place. Keep these folders cleared out as much as possible. If you don’t, it will take awhile but eventually you will break your e-mail program.

When you want to save messages, create new folders, name them something informative, and drag and drop your e-mails into the appropriate folders. In Outlook Express and Windows Mail, create them under Local Folders. In Windows Live Mail, create the folders under Storage Folders. Do not create subfolders under the In Box! That does not count on moving messages out of the In Box.

Photo: Contributed

One Instant Message Programs handles many

Instant Messenger programs allow you to chat in real time by typing messages instantly available to your “buddies.” Examples of these programs are AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo!Messenger, Facebook Chat, and Windows Live Messenger.

While it can be convenient to chat this way, each of those messenger programs requires the person you chat with to have an account with the same program you’re using. And some of those programs are intrusive, starting up with Windows, running all the time, and littering your browser with unwanted toolbars. If you have friends who use different services, you can end up with several of these chat programs running at once.

A good alternative is Pidgin, which bills itself as “The Universal Chat Client.” You can use this one program to communicate with people on many well-known messenger service and some that even I have never heard of. Check it out here: http://pidgin.im/.

What it will not do is video. So if you are using Yahoo!Messenger or MSN Messenger with video, you will still need to run those programs. But if all you need to do is chat, this should help.

Do you need help with your computer? I'm here to help you and your home or business computer get along!

Cate Eales runs Computer Care Kelowna (http://computercarekelowna.com/) a mobile service helping home users and businesses get along with their computers. To arrange an appointment phone her at 250-764-7043. Cate also welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send email to help@computercarekelowna.com.

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