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Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly Issue #1008 Volume 20 Number 14 February 3, 2023 Dear Friends, Welcome to Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly Issue #1008. Thank you very much for subscribing and for being a part of our Cloudeight family. We appreciate your friendship and support very much! Please share our newsletters and our website with your friends and family. ![]() If you're not getting our InfoAve Daily newsletter, you're missing out on a lot of good stuff! It's free and it only takes a few seconds to sign up. We'd love to have you with us. Visit this page to sign up for our Cloudeight InfoAve Daily Newsletter.
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Irwin wants a new photo editor Our answer We have tested some excellent online photo editors. They have come a long way since the early days of online photo editing. Many of them can match or exceed the capabilities of installed photo editors. Here are three of them. All three can be used free of charge. Pixlr Editor: A web-based photo editor that offers a wide range of tools and filters for editing images. It has a user-friendly interface and supports layers, masks, and adjustments. https://pixlr.com/ Fotor: A web-based photo editor that offers basic and advanced editing tools, including cropping, resizing, and adjusting color and brightness. It also offers a range of filters and effects. https://www.fotor.com/ BeFunky: A web-based photo editor that offers a wide range of tools, including basic editing, effects, and frames. It also offers a collage maker and a design feature for creating social media graphics. https://www.befunky.com/ We hope this helps you find a photo editor that does what you need it to do!
Diane B. wants to know if Guardio is
good to use Our answer Nothing can automatically protect you from everything and anything that tells you it can isn't being honest. So, while Guardio may not be a scam, it makes promises it cannot possibly keep. Our advice? Steer clear of it. We hope this helps you make a good decision, Diane.
Eldad may have a corrupted Windows
user account Our answer The solution is to create a new user account and use File Explorer to manually move the contents of the User account folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos/Desktop) from the corrupted account to the new account and then delete the corrupted account. Some programs may need to be re-installed for the new account since you can't transfer programs...but you'll find that many programs are installed for all user accounts. Before you create a new user account to replace a possibly corrupted user account, try running SFC and DSIM scans (as described on this page) on the potentially damaged account to see if they can correct the crashing Explorer issue. We hope this helps you, Eldad.
Terry has problems opening MS Edge
from its taskbar shortcut C:AppDataRoamingMicrosoftInternetExplorerQuickLaunchUserPinnedTaskBarMicrosoftEdgeLink: The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the applications event log or use the command line XSXTRACE.EXE tool for more detail. I've tried to figure this out and have attempted a few times with no positive results. So, as usual, I require your help in restoring my MS Edge. Thank you again, Terry. Our answer Unpin the shortcut from your taskbar and create a new one. To unpin the shortcut, right-click on it and choose "Unpin from taskbar". Next, open File Explorer (Windows key + E) and navigate to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application". Find the file named msedge.exe and right-click on it. From the menu that opens, click "Show more options", then click "Pin to taskbar".
Now try opening Edge by clicking on the new taskbar shortcut (icon). We hope this solves the problem for you, Terry.
Our Winter Donation Drive is underway! This week we gladly helped more than 50 of you solve your computer problems by email. Make a small donation and help us help you!If you don't need any of our products or services right now, please help us with a donation. Even the smallest gift is appreciated. Every donation helps us to provide useful information that helps you with your computer as well as helps us to keep you safe on the Internet. We offer free help to thousands of people every year... and we offer an honest and inexpensive computer repair service too. We do everything we can to help you with your computer and keep you safe too.So if you don't need any of our products or services right now, please help us by making a donation right now. Interested in making a monthly gift? Visit this page. Help us keep helping you! Thank you so much for your support! ![]() Diane is looking for a free or
cheap MS Excel Replacement Our answer We hope this helps you, Diane.
Our answer First, don't try to move programs. It's possible but we do not recommend moving programs from one computer to another let alone moving programs from computers with different operating systems. There are programs like PC Mover that claim to move everything from one computer to another - but if you use it, you use it at your own risk. It can create a huge mess on the new PC. It is always best to reinstall the apps and programs you need on the new computer and avoid trying to move programs from one PC to another. You'll need an external hard drive. Using an external hard drive, it's easy to copy/move files from one computer to another even if one has Windows 10 and the other has Windows 11. You can easily move documents, pictures, music, videos, and other personal files from one computer to another by using an external hard drive to copy the C:\Users\your username folder from the old computer to the external drive and then plugging the external drive into the new computer. Then on the new computer open the Documents folder on the external drive and select everything in it and copy it to the Documents folder on the new computer. Do the same with the Pictures, Music, and the other user folders you copied to the external drive. But heed this warning! Never move entire folders from the old computer to the new one. For instance, don't just copy the entire documents folder to the new computer or you'll end up with Documents/Documents and have to open two folders to get to your files. Open the Documents folder on your old computer, select one of the files or folders inside, and use the CTRL + A shortcut to select all files and folders inside. Once they are all selected copy them to the Documents folder on the new computer. Do the same with the Pictures, Music, Video, and Favorites folders. Make it easy on yourself! Having Copy to / Move to on right-click menu on the old computer will make it a snap to copy files. If you don't see Copy to/Move to on your right-click menu, you can easily add it by following this Cloudeight guide. If you do not have an external hard drive, you can get a 1 TB external drive for around $50 at Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, etc. We hope this helps you, Tim.
Peter & Shirley ask about TotalAV Our answer TotalAV is a scam and while they may claim to be "Microsoft Certified" so have many other malware and scam programs over the years. Anyone can earn the "Certified Microsoft" seal if they pay the money. Certified Microsoft does not mean it's a Microsoft product - TotalAV certainly is not a Microsoft Product. The only antivirus that Microsoft makes comes free with Windows 10 and Windows 11 - it's called Microsoft Defender.
See our article here exposing Total AV for what it really is. Our Winter Donation Drive is underway! This week we gladly helped over 50 of you solve your computer problems by email! Make a small donation and help us help you!If you don't need any of our products or services right now, please help us with a donation. Even the smallest gift is appreciated. Every donation helps us to provide useful information that helps you with your computer as well as helps us to keep you safe on the Internet. We offer free help to thousands of people every year... and we offer an honest and inexpensive computer repair service too. We do everything we can to help you with your computer and keep you safe too.So if you don't need any of our products or services right now, please help us by making a donation right now. Interested in making a monthly gift? Visit this page. Help us keep helping you! Thank you so much for your support!
What to Do if Windows Features Stop
Working 1. Shut down your PC completely.If that does not work, here’s something you can try that has worked for us many times in getting Windows 10 and Windows 11 computers working correctly again and all Windows features functioning as they should. 1.) Type CMD in the taskbar search. 2.) When Command Prompt appears at the top, right-click it and select “Run as administrator”. ![]() Windows 10 (above) Windows 11 (below) ![]() 3.) Enter the following commands, one by one, and press Enter after each. DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth DISM.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth sfc /scannow Each command will take some time to run, so be patient. When all commands have completed, restart your computer. If all went well, you should your Windows problems should be resolved. If, after you’ve tried the above, you still have major problems, you have the option to perform a Windows 10 or Windows 11 Reset and keep your files.
Are You Getting the Internet Speed You’re Paying For? Here are Some Fast Ways to
Find Out! There are many reliable or fairly reliable ways to check your Internet connection speed. There are dozens of them. And you should check your Internet speed occasionally to make sure that you’re getting the speed that you’re paying good money for. And if you’re not, you should find out from your ISP (Internet Service Provider), why not. So let’s get started with some ways you can find out what your Internet download speeds are (as this is what you’ll want to know, not so much your upload speed. You can check your Internet download speed in many different ways. If you use Google Chrome or Firefox with Google as your default search engine, just type SPEEDTEST in the address bar and press Enter. You’ll see some information and a “Run Speed Test” button. Now, my ISP once told me that this particular test is not very accurate, but I think that’s because it didn’t say what my ISP wanted it to say at the time. They recommended Ookla Speed Test at https://speedtest.net/. And then we discovered another test that quick … FAST! It’s owned by Netflix. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We don’t know, but one thing is for sure, it’s a quick way to find your Internet download speed. If you want to check your Internet speed quickly and without any webpage clutter, you won’t find any cleaner, quicker way than by visiting Fast.com. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Anyway, we’ll show you: What can I say? I can certainly read that. While we are only showing my download speed, it’s what most of us want to see when we want to know how fast our connection is. But, if you want to see more details like your upload speed, no problem. Just click “Show more info”. You’ll see my download speed is 590 Mbps according to FAST.com. MBPS vs. Mbps And just for the record, Mbps is not the same as MBps. Mbps is “Megabits per second” not “Megabytes per second”. So, what’s the difference? We are thrilled you asked: A Megabit is 1/8 as big as a Megabyte. This means that to download a 1 MB file in 1 second you would need a download speed of 8 Mbps. Mbps means megabits per second – not megabytes per second. As you can see from the screenshots we’ve shown that you can use different speed testing sites and get vastly different results. Having fun? Then wait… there’s more! If you are having fun testing your internet speed (bless your heart) here are some other sites you can visit to check your speed or lack thereof… Xfinity Spectrum (looks suspiciously like Ookla’s Speedtest.net) Speakeasy (love the name!) Google Fiber And there are dozens more – if you’re really having fun with this, do a search for “SPEEDTEST SITES”. Wait, What is jitter? OK, now you’re wondering what the heck is jitter. You’d think, especially in Speakeasy it would be a dance like the Jitterbug, but you’d be wrong. According to Speedtest…”Jitter: Also called Packet Delay Variation (PDV), jitter frequency is a measure of the variability in ping over time. Jitter is not usually noticeable when reading text, but when streaming and gaming a high jitter can result in buffering and other interruptions…” So what is considered a high jitter? Well, we are so glad you asked because, not being gamers, we didn’t know but Dialpad does. “Jitter is measured in milliseconds (ms), and ideally, an acceptable jitter level should stay below 30 ms. Anything higher than 30, and you may start to see issues with audio or video quality.” Why it’s important you have an idea of what your download speed is. You can see, in all the screenshots we’ve shown you in this article, that my internet speed (generally my download speed), based on several different testing sites is somewhere between 421 Mbps and 590 Mbps. So I know that I am averaging close to the 500 Mbps internet speed that I’m paying for. Are you getting the internet download speed you’re paying for? If you’re not sure what speed you’re paying for, check with your Internet Service Provider to find out. In this article, we showed you several FAST ways you can make sure that you’re getting the speed you’re paying for.
Three Time-Saving Tips Tip #1: A tip for web forms Tip #2: A tip for browsing the web Tip #3: A trick for copying text ![]() Want more tips, tricks, and information? We have thousands of Windows tips, tricks, and more on our InfoAve website. Subscribe to our free InfoAve Daily newsletter.
We’re Getting Old and So Are You! You’re Getting Old – A Cloudeight Site Pick! No one over 40 likes to be reminded that they’re getting old. For instance, let’s take EB as an example of youth gone wrong. I happen to know that she’s taken (as of this second) 516 million breaths of air, her cold heart has beaten over 2.3 billion times, and she’s seen the moon circle the Earth more than 800 times! In short, she’s old. Let’s just call a spade, a spade. She’s OLD OLD OLD!
EB is so old in fact, that — April 26th,1986: A catastrophic nuclear accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine – she was already “middle-aged” back then! She was 17 when Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in a chess match in Reykjavík, Iceland. She was 20 when the war in Vietnam ended. She was 24 when then-president Jimmy Carter was attacked by a swamp rabbit while fishing in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. I mention this because EB is a Southern girl. You’re probably thinking I spent a great deal of time looking up all this stuff about EB. But it only took a few seconds to dig into the past and dredge up all kinds of fun goodies that just lets you know just how old that woman is! By now you’re probably puffing out your cheeks, getting ready to explode into a frenzy of expletives, and contemplating closing your browser in disgust because you think I’m ranting and raving just to tell you how really OLD EB is— but of course, you’d be wrong. Like I do at least half of the time, I do have a point, but you know how I love to build up suspense before I get to it. I like the hissing sounds you make while you read my wanderings wondering if I even have a point… and if I do, am I ever going to get to it? And don’t have a hissy-fit! I am only kidding about EB. She’s younger than me, I am loathed to say. OK, so you pressured me into it. I do have a point and here it is (really!). The point is that there is a really interesting site where you can type in your date of birth and get a list of interesting facts about your age – and more importantly – remind you just how old you really are. While it may make you wince to see how many days old you are, how many breaths you’ve taken, how many miles you’ve traveled, and how many times the moon has circled the earth since you took your first breath, you will also learn some of the historical events that have happened LONG lifetime, and much more.
Gleefully you’ll be able to run a report on your friends, especially those who are older than you — if there are any — and send them a link to their “age report” just to remind them how really old they are and don’t forget to point out that they are older than you. The site is called “You’re Getting Old” and you can learn some really interesting facts about your age and the events that have happened since you first gasped the air on this earth. And you will be reminded over and over and over again just how old you really are. So muster up some courage and come along with me – and be reminded that YOU’RE GETTING OLD! Don’t be afraid. Visit our site pick, “You’re Getting Old” right now.
Don't have a Cloudeight SeniorPass? It's a great deal. Learn more here. Our Cloudeight SeniorPass is a great deal. You get unlimited support for one full year from the date you first use your SeniorPass. We can help keep your computer running well, fix all kinds of computer problems, clean up malware, and a whole lot more. Our SeniorPass is like having insurance for your computer. And it's only $99 for an entire year.Get your SeniorPass today for just $99. It's just like having insurance for your computer - only better! To learn more about our SeniorPass, please see this page.
The Longest Month of the Year Read the rest of our essay here... ![]() ![]() Do You Check Your Spam Folder? Most mail services delete mail in the spam folder after 30 days. But many people are afraid to look in the spam/junk folder for fear they'll infect their computer. That's not true. Just looking in the spam/junk folder is not going to infect your computer - and even opening a mail in your spam/junk folder is not going cause problems. As long as you don't click any links in your spam email, you'll be fine. Why should you look in your spam/junk folder every week or so? Because the algorithms used by the most popular email services change frequently and what may have been going in your inbox yesterday, may go into your spam/junk folder today. So it's important that you look in your spam folder to make sure that no good email is in it. And if you find any good email(s) in your spam/junk folder, make sure you mark it as "Not spam" or "Not junk" so it doesn't end up in the spam / junk folder the next time. Remember, if you don't check your spam/junk folder every week or so, the mail provider will automatically delete emails that have been in the spam/junk folder for more than 30 days. And no spam/junk filter is perfect, there will always be some good email that will end up in your spam folder - and it's up to you to make sure you check your spam/junk folder every week or so, just to make sure that there's no good email there.
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