How to block ads on Android

Folks, on Monday I told you the alarming (and revolting) news that Google has removed ad-blocking apps from the Google Play app store. Fortunately, Neil Rubenking at PC Magazine has just published a How To for installing AdBlock Plus on Android devices (aka “the workaround”).

I just did it on my Kindle Fire, and I did not have to do the “manually set a proxy” steps. It’s so nice to view ad-free webpages! (And it’s safer, too.)

Here’s the 4-1-1. How To Block Ads on Android

“Yesterday, the venerable adblocking company Adblock Plus (ABP) announced that Google had blocked their enormously popular app on the Google Play store. While Google can slam the door through their app store, Android’s open nature means that users can still “sideload” the app.“” Read more..

It really isn’t hard, and I think you’ll be glad you did it.

[Update: a reader has suggested an easier method in the Comments section, here (below).]

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Tip of the day: Advertising really works!! And is a GREAT!! investment!! See?

And unicorns are real.

Today’s quote: “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” ~ George Orwell

First Day of Spring (Yay!) I just heard. Today is the calendar’s equinox, or solstice, or sumsuch, and they say Spring is now playing in a theater near you. Yay!

Today’s Spring quote: “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Another Way To Install A Program On A Netbook

A Thumb Drive Can Be Used In Place Of An External Optical Drive

Light-weight and small size make netbooks very portable. But, to achieve their compact size, certain items are missing from netbooks — most notably perhaps, internal CD/DVD drives.

This “disc deficit” is usually overcome by the purchase of an external (USB cable-connected) optical drive.

Today I want to point out that should you not happen to have an external drive available, frequently you can substitute, and use a “thumb drive” (“memory stick”) instead.. such as using the following method to watch DVD movies — see, Tech Tip for Travelers – Make Your Movies More Portable!

Tip of the day: Use a thumb drive to install programs on to a netbook.
To install a program (you have a CD for) onto a netbook using a thumb drive, you will need two things; one, access to a computer that has a CD/DVD drive and; two, a thumb drive large enough to hold the contents of the Install disc. [note: CD’s are roughly 700 MB’s (.7 GB’s) and DVD’s are typically 4.7 GB’s]

1) Go to the PC with the optical drive and insert the thumb drive. Then insert the Install disc into the drive tray.
Cancel (stop) any setup/install process from starting, should it try to “autostart”.

2) If the AutoPlay window opens, select “Open folder to view files” (which should be the bottom choice).
If you have disabled AutoPlay: Click Start > Double-click Computer (My Computer in XP/older) > right-click on the optical drive (CD-ROM) and choose Explore.

3) Drag the entire contents (all the files) of the CD/DVD to the icon for “removable drive” that is the thumb drive. Take mental note of what the installer executable’s name is – typically, it is setup.exe.

4) Use “Safely remove” and remove the thumb drive, and then insert it into your netbook. If the AutoPlay window opens, select “Open folder to view files” (which should be the bottom choice), if you have disabled AutoPlay: Click Start > Double-click Computer (My Computer in XP/older) > right-click on the removable drive (your thumb drive) and choose Explore. Find and then double-click the setup.exe.

That will “launch” the set up process and install the program on to your netbook, just as if it had been run from a disc.

Bonus tip: When you’re all done, you can drag all those setup files to the Recycle bin.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Windows 7 Onboard

Yesterday my Windows 7 upgrade disc finally arrived from Amazon. (I’m not complaining. I had opted for the slow shipping method because I’m “frugal”.) 20 minutes later, I was running Windows 7 Home Premium on my HP Pavilion dual-core desktop.

I wrote in my earlier articles on the Win 7 betas that the install process was the fastest and easiest Windows installs I had ever experienced, so I was not surprised that the “official release” retained this wonderful ability.

Once I had my Desktop, the first thing I did was visited Windows Update, even though Win7 goes out and looks for updates during the install process. There were 7 regular updates and 7 “optional” updates available for me.
These updates are important, and the sooner you get them onboard the better, so I recommend that everyone click Start > Windows Update as one of your first moves.

Doing so had the side-effect of launching IE 8 for the first time, and so it wanted to be “configured”. I almost clicked on the “quick configure” (as I had on the beta versions) but at the last moment I noticed that the “Default search provider” has been changed to Bing.
No thanks.

Next up was to get an antivirus onboard. Since I installed a 64-bit version, and since Windows 7 is so new, I though maybe my number of choices might not be too many.. but I clicked on the “Action Center” flag and saw I had two “notices”, one of which was “no antivirus detected”. So I clicked that, and then I clicked on “Help me find a solution“.
Pretty simple.

A page opened which showed the various vendors who had products compatible for my system. I was glad to see that pretty much all (all?) the reputable vendors were listed. As I plan to test several anti-Spywares in the near future, I simply installed Microsoft Security Essentials for now.
64-bit Windows 7 is inherently already quite secure. (And you may want it for that reason alone.)

So far (and I haven’t been running long.. mere hours) I haven’t seen any difference between this “official version” and the RC 64-bit. Which I have already described in prior articles. You can be assured will write more in the future.

Related links: to see my reviews of Windows 7, and other Win7-related writings, click here.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Getting The Best From Your HDTV

Bringing home your shiny new HDTV is just the beginning

A very smart man once told me, “Paul, don’t re-invent the wheel”. He wasn’t being derisive or mean, he was simply reminding me of a basic tenet that I sometimes forget. I was reminded of it today when considering how to write today’s HDTV article, and in my research came across a series written by Becky Waring for PC World magazine. It says it all, and does so far better than I could, so I am simply going to point you to it! She covers all the bases, and if you own (or are about to own) a HDTV, I’m sure you’ll find it well worth your time.

“Bringing home your shiny new HDTV is just the beginning of your home theater adventure. But don’t settle, as many HDTV buyers do, for just plugging your new set into your existing setup. The next steps you need to take after bringing your HDTV home are crucial to both your enjoyment of the set and getting the most out of your investment…”
Please see How to Install Your HDTV

Other titles in the series are:
How to Get the Best Video Signal for Your HDTV

How to Improve the Picture and Sound on Your HDTV

How to Connect Your New HDTV Properly

Stream HD Video From Your PC and Other Devices

[a brief aside: I seem to be coming across articles by Ms Waring more frequently of late, and I’m glad of it. She is top-drawer.]

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Troubleshooting Installing Programs On Win 7

How To Get Older Programs To Install In The New Windows 7

I have been using the various beta releases of Microsoft’s new OS since it was released to the public in January and I have reported it to be a remarkably smooth performer (to see all my Win 7 articles, click Windows 7 articles).

Currently I am putting Win7 x64 (64-bit) through its paces as I believe it will be Win7 that ushers us all into the age of 64-bit computing. And I wrote about my near-flawless transition (see, A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 64-bit).

Yesterday, my undreamed of smooth ride came up against the cold hard potholes of reality when I tried to install a Logitec QuickCam webcam. No matter what, I could not get my QC Express to function properly on Win7 x64. So i plugged in a different webcam. (btw, I had no such trouble on the 32-bit.)
Now, this is in no way a critique! Windows 7 is still a beta, and won’t be released to the manufacturer’s and public for weeks and weeks yet.

But it the experience did inspire me to tell you, Dear Reader, the steps you can take to get programs installed on Win 7, should they prove resistant and/or fail altogether.

1) The first thing to do is, you will need access to the setup.exe, so for downloads you want to Save — and not “Run” — the download.
(note: this is a good habit to get in. Download any executable and then scan it for viruses before telling it to run!)

2) Double-click the setup (aka “install”) and let it run. Usually it will install just fine. But if it doesn’t, don’t panic. Close out any windows and prepare to try again fresh.

3) Right-click on the installer, and select “Troubleshoot compatibility”.

Windows 7 will analyze why the install failed, and a window will open with a click-able option for trying again with new settings.
Just click that and the installer will go again — and usually this will do the trick!
(Often an install will fail simply because Windows 7 isn’t on the installer’s whitelist of approved OSes. How could it be? Win 7 wasn’t written yet!)

4) Should that second try fail – as in the case of my Logitec software/drivers – you can try again, this time being a little ‘commanding’. Again, right-click on the setup.exe but this time select “Properties”.

A new window will open. Click on the “Compatibility” tab, and place a check in the checkbox for “Run this program in compatibility mode”, and use the drop-down arrow to select which OS to trick the installer into thinking it’s working with. Make sure “Run as administrator” is checked.
(Programs of a rather recent vintage should accept Vista, and for older programs you might wish to try “Windows XP”.)

Now close the Properties window and double-click on the setup.exe and launch the install again. (As they say, third time’s the charm.)

Now the program should be installed and functioning properly. If not, you may have to do what I did and just try something else — in my case a LifeCam VX-1000.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 64-bit

As I promised in yesterday’s post, Windows 7 and the Era of 64-bit, I deleted the partition on my machine containing Win 7 beta and installed a 64-bit version of the Win 7 RC.

I have to say that my first and most immediate impression is — I am disappointed.

Why?

click on images = large

Because: the only thing that clued me that I was now “rolling with the 64” was — if I looked at my system properties — I could see a tiny, normal-sized line of text saying “64 bit Operating System”.

There was no banner — anywhere — that trumpeted, “Success: CONGRATULATIONS PAUL! You are now rolling with the big dogs!“

No balloons fell from the ceiling.

A marching band did not fill the room and play We Are The Champions.

There was, in fact, none of that.

There also wasn’t any glitches, snags, hang ups, curious error messages… and, when I clicked on Device Manager…

There was no yellow exclamation points, red X’s, etc., indicating that I needed to put on my safari outfit and go on a device driver hunt.

Huh.

So I tried plugging in a few USB devices — a camera, a multi-function printer, a joystick, and a storage device (I was, after all, all dressed for the hunt). All of them auto-installed with no action on my part — not even a click “Yes, search for drivers on the Internet”, or any of that.

Huh, again.

So I feel totally robbed. I was fully expecting to have to do some work… some troubleshooting… some driver hunting… feel some Installer’s Aggravation.

I was looking forward to it actually, as I thought it might make for some article fodder.. you know, Tech Paul Goes In Search Of The Elusive 64-bit Driver or What Size Hammer Made 64x Win 7 Fit My Machine.. or some such.

All I got was…

And, darned my luck, Windows Easy Transfer worked flawlessly too.

Huh.

Maybe (hopefully) I’ll run into trouble with networking… stay tuned.

[update: I did recently encounter a headache trying to install a device. See, Troubleshooting Installing Programs On Win 7]

Today’s free link: to see all my Win 7 articles, click Windows 7 articles.

Today’s free download: Click here to download Windows 7

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Video Tutorial — How To Dual Boot Win7

Want To Try Windows 7 RC? Don’t Delete Your Current OS — Dual Boot

Ever since I posted A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 RC, I have been asked questions about deleting the existing operating system to install Windows 7. So I want to be very, very clear — you do NOT want to delete your current, functioning Windows XP or Windows Vista installation, and then put Windows 7 on your machine.

Windows 7 is a beta. And it will “expire”. Those two facts preclude it from being your main operating system.

What you do want to do, is create a new partition and install Windows 7 there, and create a “dual boot” setup. This allows you to keep your old AND try the new. This brief tutorial from C/Net shows you just how to do this.. and how easy it is.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

If after watching this video, you want to do this, Click here to download Windows 7

more about “Video Tutorial — How To Dual Boot Win7“, posted with vodpod

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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