iTunes 9 – From a caregivers’ perspective

If you haven’t already upgraded to iTunes 9, you might want to wait. As Sandwich Generation senior home care givers and grandparents, our time is often limited. Upgrading our software the minute it comes out can sometimes cause time-consuming problems, and this upgrade definitely seems to be doing that for many. In addition to major changes that might take you some time to learn, it also seems to have a bug or two, according to reports I’ve seen and what I’m experiencing. I’ve always been happy with their updates and upgrades but this time, even I am feeling a bit frustrated!

I love to use my iPod for educational podcasts and sermons. After upgrading to 9, many of them disappeared from my iPod and I haven’t been able to figure out how to add them back in. Eventually I probably will be able to, but I just don’t have the time to figure it out right now! I did come up with a “work-around” in case anyone else is dealing with this.

I had originally put the podcasts into a playlist. Many of those are what are missing, and I don’t know why. I tried remaking a new playlist and adding those in, but that didn’t work either. So I removed that playlist totally, and selected just my three favorite podcasts. Then went to Artists, and selected those same speakers there. Now I can find podcasts in other places, like Music-Artists, or Music-Podcasts. There’s probably a rhyme and reason to it all, I just don’t have the time to figure it out right now.

If you have solutions, we’d LOVE to hear them – including how to roll it back to 8!!! I LOVE Apple and their products, but do think this one needs a bit more work.

Free Apps are Great Ways to Save Money

One of my favorite ways to save money is FREE! Here are two free apps that many of you might find useful!

@BlogBoy2 made a great find this week! A free PDF creator!   This is definitely a must-have tech tool!

And, for all you iPhone enthusiasts, Mashable has a great article – Photoshop for iPhone is Free and Awesome. Two of my favorite iPhone users checked this app out for me and give it a mega thumbs up! Hope you like it as well.

Tech Time Reminders for the Sandwich Generation

HOT OFF THE PRESS: After I had already typed this, I discovered via @HomeEverAfter on Twitter that Microsoft released updates with patches for 34 security holes, many critical! Make sure you get all your updates ASAP, or if you are concerned about doing it quickly, monitor their site for the next week or so and then do the updates.

While I’m on the subject of tech, this is a great time to remind y’all to make monthly backups of all your important documents, data, etc. After you make sure all your Windows or Mac updates are current, do the same with any antivirus software, etc. Then be sure to run your defragmenting software, spyware software, and any other “computer clean up” software you may use, such as AdAware, Norton, PC Pitstop, Spybot, etc. You never know when a hard drive is going to totally die on you – whether due to software issues, hardware issues, or just plain old issues!

Taking the small amount of time to do all this now will save you LARGE amounts of time down the road in case of a crash, or other crisis like fire, theft, etc. As a Sandwich Generation caregiver and grandparent, saving time can often be more valuable than saving money! Trust me on this. I have lived through both a desktop and a laptop memory crash and it’s not a pretty picture!

Viruses, Backups, and More - Facebook got hit with a major case of the Koobface virus and it’s not the first virus to give them grief. Apparently many users assume that because you have to log in, you are somehow protected but that is not the case.

Not only that, I was listening to a podcast the other day and the speaker mentioned his computer was infected by a piece of spyware. It was only on his computer for a couple of days before Adaware caught it and removed it. But that was long enough for hackers to gain access to his bank account and siphon money out of it!

It’s vital in this day and age that any of us who are connected with the internet make sure that our antivirus and firewall protection is kept up-to-date, and that we check our computers regularly for spyware. It’s also very important that we back up our computers regularly, at least once a month if not more often. So today is your official reminder to:

1. Back up your computer – documents, photos, music, email, and anything else you don’t want to lose.

2. Make sure your antivirus and/or firewall software is updated. Then run a scan if it doesn’t do it automatically.

3. Make sure your spyware is updated. Then run a scan if it doesn’t do it automatically.

4. Defragment your computer, if it doesn’t do it automatically.

5. If you would like ideas on what software to use and what to do if you have a problem, take a peek at my post from September, http://www.sandwichink.com/computers-need-caregiving-too

Blogging Caregivers – For those of you who blog, personally or professionally, I wanted to share some information with you. If you are using WordPress – either .com or .org – you may have heard that there is a major upgrade coming soon. I’m personally looking forward to it (all Geeks enjoy upgrades ), but I’m also a bit leery of it as well. Will everything work smoothly on the blog after the upgrade? I will probably wait a week or three to do it, until I am sure that my theme, the wonderful Thesis which I totally love, is fully compatible with the WordPress.org upgrade. When I do upgrade, I will post a note with a warning that I am upgrading so you will, hopefully, have some idea of what is going on if there are “issues.” But I am happy to announce that if you gave Windows Live Writer a try, as I suggested in September, http://www.sandwichink.com/windows-live-writer-test-even-caregivers-like-to-experiment , it should work fine with the upgrade. I wrote Brandon Turner, who is on the Live Writer team, to verify that info. He wrote me back, right away:

It looks like everything is solid with WP 2.7, at least from our interaction with it.

There is going to be a new feature in our next version of Live Writer, which releases in a few weeks away, that is just for WP 2.7.

He went on to explain that when we upgrade to WordPress 2.7, we need to reconfigure our blogs through Live Writer in order to turn on that feature. I’ll give it a shot when the time comes and let you all know how it goes. And I am counting on Brandon to help me if I don’t succeed the first time Then I’ll pass on his help to you. I have to tell you, the support for this product has been wonderful! In the computer world that doesn’t always happen. Mega Kudos to Brandon Turner and the whole Live Writer team!!!

Tantrums! They aren’t just for two year olds, that’s for sure. Eleven year olds can throw them. Teenagers can throw them. Grownups can throw them. Even computers can throw them! What’s a Sandwich Generation-er to do? Well, I’m afraid I’m still learning on the people tantrums, but I do have a few suggestions for the computer version.

Wondering why I bring this up? Because I am sitting between two computers who are both throwing tantrums at the same time. I’m not sure if a new update did it or a new software product (I’ve been experimenting with several things over the last couple of weeks.) I suspect it is just pure coincidence since the symptoms are quite different for each. But as I type on this computer while waiting on my iTunes backup on my older computer, I’m reflecting on some steps I did take and other steps I SHOULD have taken to hopefully avoid this.

When you add new software, you should always turn off any antivirus protection software you have running. I must confess, I’m really bad about that and usually I get away with it. I’m thinking that this time it is a possible cause for at least one of my problems.

Stay on top of regular good maintenance. You should defragment your software on a regular basis, regularly clean up temporary files, and keep your desktop free of too many icons (I really blow it there. I work best when I can see all my files on my desk, and that is true on my computer desktop too!). Make sure you have a good antivirus protection software or a complete firewall program and keep it updated. Use spyware software regularly as well. I use Norton Systemworks, Norton Internet Security, AdAware, Spybot, and PCPitstop’s Optimizer and Exterminator. My computer still throws its tantrums as it is doing today, but Praise God, I have never had a virus succeed at getting in my computer.

Regularly degunk your computer . One of my favorite computer books is called Degunking Windows, by Joli Ballew and Jeff Duntemann. I’ve used it many times, both for regular maintenance and for trying to troubleshoot a computer throwing a tantrum. It goes into great detail helping you clean, weed, and degunk your Windows computer in order to tame it into submission. The copyright on this book is 2005 but since it only covers computers up through XP that hasn’t been a problem for me. From the research I’ve done, Vista is supposed to have been built to fix all these regular maintenance issues on its own. How well it’s really doing at that I’m not so sure. I have one XP and one Vista and I’ll take my XP any day. Then again, it’s the one that’s really acting up so…

Reading the chapters in Degunking Windows gives you a good idea of where you’ll be going as you work through this book . Getting rid of files that shouldn’t be there, uninstalling programs you don’t need and tweaking those you do, organizing your remaining files and folders, tweaking your desktop and start menu, preventing spam gunk, cleaning up email gunk, cleaning and tweaking the registry (I personally leave that up to Norton SystemWorks), optimizing your hard drive and startup system, and  installing upgrades for your system. These are all things we should be doing at least a couple of times a year, more if you use the computer as much as I do. But in between elderly caregiving, grandchild caregiving, and life in general, it’s not that easy or feasible. This book helps me to know what to do and how to do it. It even has a great section at the very beginning showing what to do if you only have 10 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, three hours, or half a day. It follows that with 20 ways to degunk your computer in your spare moments. Hmmm, I wonder if the writers are caregivers. It sure sounds like it is made to order for us!

By the way, in researching for this posting, I discovered Joli Ballew has also written the book, Degunking Your Mac, for all you Macintosh owners. I’ll have to grab one of those for my Mac loved ones since I help them with their computers as well.

Practice safe computing. Be cautious when opening email. I never open attachments unless I know who sent them and even them I often won’t. They could have been infected without realizing it. I almost never open any attachment in a forwarded joke or fun email.

Backup, backup, backup! I have seen grown men cry when their hard drives failed and they lost vital information. I didn’t cry but I was sure mad at myself last year when my hard drive crashed and my last good backup was about ten months old! You can lose a lot of valuable things when you lose ten months worth of documents, emails, etc. I would suggest a minimum of monthly backups, and if you are in business, weekly or even daily backups are essential. Whether you do a computer backup to an external hard drive or online backups, just make sure you back up. It’s best to keep a copy on hand and another copy at another location in case of fire, theft, etc. That’s something I need to work on but I do email myself anything really vital. I send one copy to my second computer and one copy to my online email account where it sits in limbo until and unless I need it.

Nuke that baby! Even when you are really careful and do most of the right things, computers can get slower and slower with time and age. Sometimes, the easiest solution is to just do a complete reinstall of everything and take it back to the way it was when it was fresh from the store. REMEMBER, BE VERY CAREFUL THAT YOU HAVE MADE A COMPLETE COMPUTER BACKUP OF ALL DOCUMENTS! This will wipe out EVERYTHING! Also, be prepared to spend hours rebuilding your computer. Make sure if you do rebuild it that you not add back any software you haven’t been using. That will safe you space on your machine.

Well, hopefully you will learn from my mistakes and not have any problems with your computer. In the meantime, I’m going to go do some heavy nuking! If you have other regular maintenance tips or schedules you’d like to share, please leave a comment below or send an email to Kaye@SandwichINK.com .