Here are four great inexpensive accessories that I’d recommend for your Laptop or Notebook that I have myself: a cordless mouse, screen cleaner, laptop cooling pad and portable speakers. Please don’t take this blog as an Infomercial as these are the only accessories I own for my laptop.

If you’re a computer beginner, I thought I would alert you to the fact if you’re not aware that every time you install a new program or there is a Windows Update to your computer or your Internet Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) updates, the registry on your computer changes. What this means in plain English is that unless you run your computer through a registry program to correct registry problems caused by these changes your computer may encounter problems it previously didn’t have.

For any of you who need to convert GIF Images to JPG in order to use a photo editor format or to place JPG pictures on a site that doesn’t accept GIF, here’s a great free program that lets you do it. I’ve also included a free program to convert color pictures to black and white or Sepia pictures.

A good friend of mine was not aware of the System Restore feature on his computer so I’m putting up this blog on System Restore in case there are others who aren’t aware of it either. Honestly, I thought everyone knew about System Restore, but I guess not everyone else does, so I decided to put up a post on it here.

I’m writing this because a friend of mine was recently burglarized of almost everything he had and didn’t have renters insurance and now is totally despondent and relying on loans for minimum subsistence items from his parents to get by. I’ve always lived in a nice apartment in a decent neighborhood but I seem to be one of the only people I know who rents and has Renters Insurance.

I know you all know about Ebay and selling Used Electronics Items there like, Camcorders, DVD players, receivers, CD players, computers, laptops, etc., but are you aware there is a market for broken electronics items to people who buy broken items for parts.

I’ve learned a lot of things over the years through trial and error as well as tech support on how to fix my computer for problems and here’s an easy guide for you that hopefully will save you time and money in the future when things go wrong with your computer.

Free software to convert color photos to black and white in one step

If your wireless laptop internet speed is not as fast as your like, here’s what could be the root of your problem that no one ever alerted you to: The combination of running Windows Firewall and your Wireless Router means you are going through 2 Firewalls for everything you click on the internet which slows speed down considerably. I was never aware of this till someone at the Wireless Department for my Cable Broadband Service told me this 5 years after I started wireless service with them. You’d think they would have let me know about this when I started my service with them. To anyone reading this post, what I’m writing here is strictly my opinion and feel free to disregard.

Here is a list of 15 Software Programs that I recommend you have to make better use of your computer, these programs are all relatively cheap (under $40) or free! This is an expansion and revision of an earlier post I did called Free Software and Applications I Love. I’ve divided this into 2 sections, Cheap and Free and listed the programs in alphabetical order

If you want to take 2 separate pictures or image files and combine them into 1 picture for say Ebay or what have you, the easiest software I’ve found that does this is Picture Merge Genius. By combine I don’t mean merge or superimpose, I mean make 1 master photo or image out of 2 pictures

Here are 10 Websites I Can’t Do Without that you might want to check out if you’re not aware of, listed in Alphabetical order by subject:

Computer

www.TestMy.Net This is an excellent testing device to find out your download and upload speed.

Dead Rock Stars

http://thedeadrockstarsclub.com/deadrock.html Your up to the minute source of practically any musician who has died, past or present. I was shocked to find out that some of my favorite musicians were dead as there was virtually no news about their deaths in the newspapers.

If you want to surf the web and download/upload faster, while this isn’t going to be a revelation to anyone, you need to have Broadband Internet Service (such as Cable, DSL or “T1 or T3″ connection). If you have telephone modem service, forget it Jack- you lose, you’ll never get get faster internet speed ever, you can’t squeeze blood out of a stone! I’ll now tell you what else you need to do that you might not be aware of to get faster internet speed and downloading.

This alphabetical list contains a lot of hard to find phone numbers of Computer and Internet Related companies. Use it as a rough guide which I’ll try to update periodically. It’s not perfect as I’m sure I’ve left companies out and all the phone numbers are US phone numbers with the exception of 2 companies in Canada. You may need to put a “1″ in front of the Toll Free numbers where applicable. I tried to give customer service contact numbers as much as possible and used the latest phone numbers I could find. Let me know if any phone numbers have changed or are out of date. Also let me know of companies you think I should add to this list.

Here’s some personal advice on how not to screw up your computer or laptop based on stupid things I’ve done over the years. This article should be of help to people who are brand new on the computer, people without much experience and possibly people with mid-level computer skills, who if nothing else can use this as a refresher. I’ve also included some other advice and pointers to help you avoid other potential computer pitfalls. I’m sure this is elementary advice to the more experienced computer user.

Be afraid, be very afraid of Firefox 3.0, that is if you value Internet Speed. I’ve used Firefox exclusively for the past 8 years or so and I’ve always been impressed by Firefox and the people behind it. For me, Firefox always ran faster then Internet Explorer and I loved its basic features. The thing is though, sometimes people with good intentions do stupid things and sometimes people with non-altruistic intentions do very good reliable things. I always said, if the Mafia ran the United States, we’d be better off!

There’s one reason and one reason only to buy a used computer online, lack of money which is a good reason. For the purpose of this article, the term computer shall include laptops. This article will tell you what to look for and what not to look for in a used computer, step by step.

After years of trials and tribulations, I’ve finally come up with a system to get my computer running very fast and efficiently. Here’s how I do it, feel free to follow, if you feel your computer and/or laptop (for the purpose of this article the term “Computer” stands for both) doesn’t work as fast as you think its capable of, given your RAM, CPU, Operating System, Hard Drive and Internet Connection.

This is an article on my 10 favorite free software or cheap software (under $40) that I find indispensable on my computer. I offer a brief summary of what each software program or application does.