Skip to main content
search
Tag

Google Search

Essential Programs for a new Windows 10 PC or Laptop

By TechnologyNo Comments

I recently purchased this new Windows 10 laptop, which is brilliant:

new-AHP-laptop-May-18-0

My new HP laptop from HP’s Online Store (1).
new-HP-laptop-May-18-1

My new HP laptop features a massive 17 inch screen, 1TB hard drive, 8GB ram and Windows 10.

I didn’t realised quite how big the 17 inch screen would be, it’s massive, I’ve never had one so big, oh err!

But having been Apple-based at home for the past several years I needed to get to grips with what essential programs I needed for Windows 10. I did a bit of research, made some decisions and came up with a quick list of essential programs.

Here’s my quick list of essential programs for a new Windows 10 PC or Laptop, these are all programs that I’ve installed on my new laptop:

Internet Browser – Chrome
Chrome is quick, easy and simple to use. It’s quicker than the default Microsoft Edge. The only thing I don’t like is Google tracking my every search.

So I’ve set the search engine to Duck Duck Go. Duck Duck Go doesn’t save any personal information, has no advertisement tracking or anything like that. In my experience they also offer a more varied search result than Google. This is because Google uses your personal information to exclude websites from your results.

You can download Chrome here.

Antivirus – Avira
I read countless reviews of Antivirus software for Windows 10. Avira came top in every review.

You can download Avira here.

Maintenance – CCleaner
CCleaner gets rid of unnecessary files that ultimately slow down you computer. If you don’t keep on top of the file maintenance, your new PC or Laptop could become as slow as a half-dead snail.

You can download CCleaner here.

Office – Microsoft Office 2016
There are a few well known free alternatives to Microsoft Office (2016). There’s also cloud-based apps. But I decided to buy in Microsoft Office (2016), mainly for familiarity reasons.

You can buy Microsoft Office (2016) on Amazon here.

Video & DVD – VLC
VLC is my all-time favourite video player…it just works. An essential program for me on my iMac, iPad and now on my Windows 10 laptop.

You can download VLC here.

mental-health-wisdom-banner

Images and Photo Editing – GIMP and Paint 3D
GIMP is a program I’ve used many times on my Mac to edit images and create infographics. It’s similar to Adobe Paintshop Pro but without the expensive price tag.

I’ve never tried Paint 3D. But so many articles during my research recommended it, that I’ve downloaded it to give it a try.

To me GIMP is essential as Windows 10 still has Paint but not much else.

You can download GIMP here. You can download Paint 3D here.

Music – iTunes or MusicBee
iTunes is the first choice for a music management library. However I was concerned that having iTunes on two computers (my iMac and my new laptop) might mess up the library and syncing.

So I went for a free alternative called MusicBee. MusicBee is a good piece of software and is very flexible to different needs of different users.

You can download MusicBee here. You can download iTunes here.

Gaming – Steam and Origin
I’m a casual gamer, but in order to play any games I’ve previously purchased I needed to install both Steam and Origin (I have bought games on both platforms in the past).

You can download Steam here. You can download Origin here.

Getting files and folders from Mac Formatted Drive to Windows 10 – HSFExplorer
This last program isn’t essential for everyone. But it was for me, having previously being Apple exclusive.

HSFExplorer allows you to view files and folders saved on a Mac formatted pen drive or external hard drive and copy the files over to Windows. A fantastic program that does require Java installed.

You can download HSFExplorer here. You can download Java here.

Unless stated otherwise the programs above are free. Some have to option to purchase more features, purchase other supporting programs or buy other programs within them.

I hope you’ve found this blog post useful. Are there any programs I’m missing? If so, please let me know what they are by leaving a comment below.

Blog soon,

Antony

mental-health-wisdom-banner



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


Share on Social Media:
Thursday 31 May 2018

Did You Know? (Part 6 – Technology)

By Technology, The WebNo Comments
did-you-know

Did You Know?

 This is the sixth and final in a series of Did You Know? blog posts. Each blog post gives fascinating facts on a particular topic. In part 1 the topic was science. In part 2 the topic was history. In part 3 the topic was geography. In part 4 the topics were art & music. In part 5 the topic was animals.

Today, I give you ten facts about Technology:

1. The first mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper in 1973.

2. The first iPhone was released in the UK in 2007. Today there are more than 682m iPhones in the world.

3. Alan Turing is most well-known for being an excellent code-breaker in World War 2. He happened to be gay and was castrated by the UK state for his sexuality. But he also proposed founding theories about how to make computers work and computer science.

4. The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. Today £1.7trillion is spent online in a year, 3m emails are sent every second (mostly SPAM) and there is countless amounts of data on the internet.

5. The X-ray was invented by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. The idea for the CT (Computed Tomography) scanner was first imagined by Godfrey Hounsfield in 1969. Hounsfield presented his idea to Dr. James Ambrose and they worked together to make his idea a reality. The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was developed by a number of people. The X-ray, CT scanner and MRI scanner have all revolutionised medicine, by allowing doctors insight to what it going on in a patient’s body, without the need for invasive surgery.

6. Google deals with 1 billion searches a day.

7. Someone using a computer will blink 7 times a minute, rather than the normal 20 times a minute. This is because they are concentrating more on the screen.

8. Technology of Sci-Fi TV shows and films is now becoming a reality. For example, in Star Trek computers respond to verbal commands and its responses were relatively intelligent. Today we have Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), Contina (Windows) and Android Voice Commands (Google/Android).

9. The operating system Linux is huge across servers, computers, tablets and smartphones. The chances are you use it without even realising. Linux is on every Android device, along with being on most serves (computers that host websites) in the world. Facebook, Google and Pinterest all run on Linux servers.

10. The people at Wired.com were the first to come up with banner advertisements, which are now used on most commercial websites.

Write soon,

Antony

References
Know Your Mobile – The History of Mobile Phones From 1973 To 2008: The Handsets That Made It ALL Happen
BBC News – Apple iPhone debuts in UK stores
{Life} Buzz – 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Technology… Almost No One Knows About #7.
Alan Turing: The Enigma
The Daily Beast – The Castration of Alan Turing, Britain’s Code-Breaking WWII Hero
Computer Hope – When was the first computer invented?
World Wide Web Foundation – History of the Web
Sunday Express – Top ten facts about…the internet
How Stuff Works – Science – Who invented the X-ray?
Eureka – When Hounsfield Met Ambrose, The Invention of Computed Tomography
Thought Co. – Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI
Did you know? Technology fast facts
Techlila – 32 Computer Facts and Interesting Facts About Technology
The Guardian – Technology – Voice Recognition
WIRED – Linux Took Over The Web. Now, It’s Taking Over The World

mental-health-wisdom-banner



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


Share on Social Media:
Monday 21 August 2017

Hosting Switch: Transferring my WordPress Blog to 1&1 from Vidahost

By Technology, The WebNo Comments

My blog has been hosted on Vidahost for a number of years. But they recently emailed to inform me a price hike. So I decided to switch to another hosting provider, this blog post is about the process of transferring my WordPress blog from one server to another.

I should add that it wasn’t just the price hike that caused me to make this decision. Customer support is much poorer now than it has been in the past. For example: I got an email stating I was running out of disk space. I opened a ticket to see if I could increase disk space without upgrading package. The Customer Agent basically said no.

Then when I was transferring my files from Vidahost’s (old) server to 1&1’s (new) server (more details below) I noticed huge error logs (2.5GB one of them) and many .core files (100-200MB each). These files had eaten up my disk space (from the usual 2GB of 10GB used). At one time a Vidahost’s Customer Agent would have looked at my files on the server to see why I had run out of space all of a sudden, spotted the problem and resolved it.

1and1-hosting-screenshot

I recently switched hosting provider to 1&1’s.

 I asked my friends on Facebook if they could recommend a good, UK-based Hosting provider. One of my friend’s husband recommended 1&1’s.

I decided to transfer my hosting as 1&1 offered a better price, unlimited bandwidth (which I was always in the red on Vidahost), unlimited disk space and more up-to-date servers (I’d recently had a few problems updating WordPress plugins on Vidahost servers due to PHP version).

But the prospect of moving my WordPress blog from one server to another was daunting. How the hell do I do that? I thought to myself. So I Googled it and found this great Step by Step Guide by WPExplorer.

There were a few hiccups. I successfully exported my WordPress database, but when I went to import it on the new server it timed out. I checked the database on the new server and found it was missing the last few fields. So I googled and found this site Exporting Your Database from Your Previous Host by WPEngine, which explains how to export specific fields. I exported the missing fields and then imported them. First problem solved.

Then I downloaded my files from the old server and uploaded them to the new server using ForkLift by Binarynights without any problems. I changed my wp-config.php and uploaded it. My second problem was an Error Establishing Database Connection. I googled the error and found How to Fix Error Establishing Database Connection by wpbeginner. This site helped me realise what I hadn’t updated in the wp-config.php.

My final step was to change the NameServers for my domain. I did this and my blog and emails went down for about 24 hours while NameSever propagation took place.

Once my blog and emails were back up, my final problem was that my blog wasn’t displaying right. Nothing I did fixed the problem. In the end I opened both the old server and new server’s File Explorers in Google Chrome.

It was then spotted the problem, all folders and files had different file permissions on the new server. So I changed them to match the settings on my current server, which solved the problem. Here is an article that explains more about file permissions: Ask Unbuntu – What is meaning of 755 permissions.

Another website I found extremely helpful in this transfer process was: WordPress Migration Problems and How to Fix Them by Nelio.

So there we have it. Job done.

Blog soon,

Antony

mental-health-wisdom-banner



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


Share on Social Media:
Sunday 16 July 2017

Book Review: Reasons To Stay Alive by Matt Haig

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Health, Inspiration, Reviews, ThinkingNo Comments
reasons-to-stay-alive-matt-haig After reading the unique and brilliant novel The Humans by Matt Haig, I decided to Google him to learn more about this extradorinaiy Author.

I discovered that he had suffered with poor mental health in the past and was releasing Reasons To Stay Alive on the topic of mental health. So I immediately ordered Reasons To Stay Alive to see what he had to say on the subject.

In Reasons To Stay Alive, Haig shares his own experience of anxiety and depression, starting with a note to the reader explaining that these are his experiences and that other people might experience anxiety and depression in differing ways.

His book is split into five sections. His first is Falling where he writes about symptoms, suicide (including some of the reasons why men are more at risk of suicide) and the facts about depression and anxiety.

Throughout Reasons To Stay Alive there are little gems of good advice. In Falling for example, Haig writes about The Bank of Bad Days (see below). I have found having a Bank of Bad Days extremely useful.

Bank of Bad Days

WHEN YOU ARE very depressed or anxious – unable to leave the house, or the sofa, or to think of anything but the depression – it can be unbearably hard. Bad days come in degrees. They are not all equally bad. And the really bad ones, though horrible to live through, are useful for later. You store them up. A bank of bad days. The day you had to run out of the supermarket. The day you were so depressed your tongue wouldn’t move. The day you made your parents cry. The day you nearly threw yourself off a cliff. So you are having another bad day you can say, Well, this feels bad, but there have been worse. And even when you can think of no worse day – when you are living in the very worst there has ever been – you at least know the bank exists and that you have made a deposit.

(From: Reasons To Stay Alive, by Matt Haig, p. 52, 2015. Copyright © Matt Haig 2015.)

The second section is Landing where he writes a lot about some of his key experiences, as well as the warning signs of depression and anxiety.

The third section is Rising where Haig covers panic attacks, the importance of love, how to be there for someone with depression or anxiety and famous people that have suffered from depression and anxiety. This entire section aims to tell someone experiencing poor mental health that they are not alone.

Living is the fourth section of the book and focuses on recovery from depression and anxiety. This section covers the importance of slowing down, lists reasons to live, lists things that make Haig’s mental health worse and sometimes better.

Being is the last section of the book and gives forty pieces of advice that Haig feels are helpful.

The presentation of the book is good. It’s a small white hardback book, with small chapters (some only a page long), which because of his writing style as easy-to-read and engaging.

Reasons To Stay Alive is one of the better books written about poor mental health on the market. It is a quick and easy-to-read book that is well worth a read.

Reasons To Stay Alive is available to buy on Amazon or at all good bookshops.

Review soon,

Antony

mental-health-wisdom-banner



I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


Share on Social Media:
Saturday 3 October 2015
×