Over the last few months I have been helping more and more of my clients deal with spyware and viruses that infected their computers.  Many of my clients are like you - professionals who work from home.  Although not in every case, many of them let their kids or teens use their computer after hours.  Not that you shouldn't trust your kids, but it may not be a good idea to get a separate computer for the kids.

No matter your intentions, your kids may end up infecting your computer with a spyware or virus (or to an equal extent spill a food or drink in it).  This could result in a slew of pop-up ads, fake spyware programs installing themselves, losing the ability to connect to the Internet, inability to send or receive email, or even worse.

If you are thinking that a new computer isn't in the cards for your kids consider getting a new one for yourself and give the old one to your kids.

If this isn't viable, then consider getting your kids a used one.  Goodwill's Computer Works (in Austin) http://www.austincomputerworks.org/store.html and DiscountElectronics (in Austin) http://www.discountelectronics.com/ are excellent sources of refurbished computers that are ready-to-use.

Be sure to install protection software on the kid's computer (Perhaps AVG AntiVirus 8.0 Free http://www.avg.com/product-avg-anti-virus-free-edition).  For the kiddos, install some parental control software so you can make sure they don't visit sites they shouldn't (http://www.consumersearch.com/parental-control-software).

As an extra measure, set a password for your computer.  (In Windows XP: Start > Control Panel > User Accounts > Click your Account Name > Change my password.  Be sure to set your computer to turn-on the screen saver and the password when it kicks in (Start > control Panel > Display > Click the Screen Saver-tab > Check 'On resume, password protect', Click Apply, Click OK.)

A few hundred bucks now to purchase your kids a computer will be much cheaper in time and money it would take to recover your computer to get your operations up & running.  Something to think about.

That's it!

Last week I goofed up and deleted the Recycle bin icon from my customer's Vista Desktop.  Fortunately, getting the icon back is easy.  Here's what you need to do.

In Vista

1. Right Click anywhere on the Desktop
2. Select 'Personalize' from the short-cut menu
   
   
    
3. Click the 'Change Desktop Icons' link in the upper left hand margin
   
    
4. Check 'Recycle Bin'
   

While you re there, you can even add the icons for My Computer, the Control Panel, and more

That's it!

Originally Posted November 9 2003

If you are using ACT! you may have wondered why your contacts are sorted the way they are.  Usually when you are browsing through your contacts one-at-a-time and they don't appear to be in a consistent order.  Here's what you can do to change the way your contacts are sorted in the order you want.

In all versions of ACT!:

1. Edit > Sort ...
   
    
2. Select the first criteria in the 'Sort by:' field (perhaps Last Name)
3. Select the sort order
4. Select the first criteria in the 'Sort by:' field (perhaps First Name)
5. Select the sort order
6. Select the first criteria in the 'Sort by:' field (perhaps Company)
   
    
7. Click OK
   -This will sort All your Contacts according to Last Name, First Name, and Company
   -You can also sort by: Company, Last Name, First Name which will group your Contacts according to their Company then in Alphabetical Order by Last Name

Note: When you change the sort order it affects only your view of the ACT! database.  In otherwords, if you are using an ACT! database that is networked (where other people can access the same database), it only affects your view of the database.