For most people, there have been times where you wish you had access to your computer, to pull up an address, phone number or picture on your computer. There’s an app for that… several actually! These apps that allow you to access your computer as if you were sitting right in front of them are called Remote Access apps.

GoToMyPC is probably the most well-known remote access application, but others exist that don’t charge. The main difference? The advertising budget.

Two remote access programs I like to use are TeamViewer and LogMeIn.

These days it seems like nobody answers their phone. As annoying as that is, it gets worse when you have to sit for 25 minutes listening to the slow computerized greeting message that explains your options. "To leave a numeric page ..." Really? That's used like once every 10 years. Or there is the person who has half a song as their voice mail... yeah. However this tech tip will help you avoid the annoyance and bypass the voice mail message.

...instead use one of the free email systems by Gmail, Hotmail, AOL or Yahoo.

One important piece of advice I give my customers when setting up new internet connections for them is to NOT use their provider’s mail system. Here are a couple reasons why…

It’s an epic battle that started when the first bits of email begun moving around the internet. Spam is an annoying but regular part of our cyber life. We will discuss some ways to prevent and deal with this monster.

Did you know?

Computers generally do not come with Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office comes in various forms including different products. Most typical version of Microsoft office are "Home and Student" and "Professional". For a short peroid of time, Microsoft was shipping some computers with "Office Starter" - a free Word and Excel (with ads), but that was short-lived.