Effor.com

This is simply my experience from the past few days, but I’m pretty impressed with Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine.  For example, I’ve been looking for a hat rack, one of those that stand up in a hallway with a few hooks at the top to hang hats, coats, scarves, etc.

I Googled “Knoxville, TN, furniture, hat rack” and on the first page of results there’s only one entry that’s even remotely related to what I’m looking for – and it’s online only, not local in Knoxville.

When I did the same search on Bing, the first 3 results are exactly what I’m looking for – hat racks available locally.  And the next 2 results are for hat racks available online.   I found what I needed and picked it up the same day.   Bing found it for me when Google didn’t.

I don’t remember the other examples right now, but today was a concrete example of Bing delivering better search results than Google.  That’s the first time I’ve been able to say that someone beat Google in years – and I’ve been online since Compuserve and Genie in the late 80’s.  I may look back on this a year from now and say “what was I thinking!” but as of 10 minutes ago, Bing.com has replaced Google.com as my default search engine.

gk

Share on Facebook

Like many of you, I got myself a new PC for Christmas.  I’ve been using Windows XP for years, but the new PC came with Vista.  I haven’t had much experience with Vista, so I looked around on the web for suggestions on recommended settings and tweaks.  Here are a couple of good links I found:

PC Magazine – Make the most of your new PC

PC World – How to secure your Vista PC in 10 easy steps

I’m creating restore disks for my new HP as I type this post – something that EVERYONE SHOULD DO!!!!  Most new PC’s don’t come with a copy of the operating system and programs on disks, they’re normally just located on the hard drive.  Guess what happens if your drive fails or gets corrupted?  Yup, you can’t reinstall your stuff that you paid for.  So make your recovery disks!

Another thing to do right away is to update the software that came with your new PC.  Be sure to go to the update site multiple times because some updates will have updates….  Keep going back until there are no more critical (or high priority) updates found.  Be sure to get the updates for programs you use also – such as Microsoft Office.

No comes the fun part, making everything work properly.  You’ll probably need to download and install several programs just for web browsing.  Two programs that are mandatory for every PC are Adobe Reader (to read PDF files) and Adobe Flash Player (to enable online graphics such as radar images and animations).   These links should get you to the right page – if not, go to Adobe.com and click on the products link.

Another program that everyone must have is an anti-virus program.  Most new PC’s will come with a trial version of a popular (and expensive!) anti-virus suite, but do yourself a favor and download an excellent freeware anti-virus program called AVG.  I’ve been using it for years – you can set it up to automatically update and scan, and it works great.  Get it from AVG.com here.

Download and install FireFox from Mozilla.com.  Use it or Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer and you’ll be much safer online.  You’ll also be able to open web pages faster than with IE!

I’ll probably add more to this as I go along today, so check back as I think of other things you should do with your new PC.  Merry Christmas!

gk

Share on Facebook