Richland County Solid Waste Department is hosting special electronic recycling and document shredding events in various areas throughout Richland County. The events will be open to all Richland County residents and the following items will be accepted: tires, computers, televisions, household electronics, microwave ovens, scrap metal and paper documents for shredding. Click here for locations and more info.

The Keep The Midlands Beautiful website has excellent information on ways to recycle. Their calendar has a listing of many shredding and recycling events throughout the Midlands. 

Update: 4/17/2011

South Carolina eCycles Day ~ Saturday, April 30, 2011: Click here for recycle locations and more info.

The holidays are here and it looks as though technology will be the gift of choice this year. Tablets, smart phones, HD televisions and laptops will be on the top of most wish lists as we rapidly approach Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. So that our members can have more time to search for that hi-tech bargain, we will not have a meeting in December. We’ll resume our regular monthly meetings starting January 13, 2011. For the January meeting we’ll take a look at several tax preparation computer programs.

Also, our PC Boot Camp SIG will be taking a break for the holidays. We’ll start back on January 29, 2011 with a comprehensive and ongoing look at Windows Live Essential 2011. This free software suite includes web, PC and mobile applications and communication tools for email, blogging, chat, social interacting, data storage and more.

The Palmetto PC Club wants to wish everyone a happy holiday and we hope to see you in 2011!

At our November meeting, Andre Johnson from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department gave an interesting and informative presentation on how you can fully utilize your computer without compromising your personal security and financial well-being. Much of what he discussed was in an MS Power Point presentation. If you missed this helpful meeting and would like to have this information, you can send me an email and I will forward you a copy of this presentation. You can email me here.

The beta version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer will be available for download on Wednesday, September 15th. If you're interested in test driving here's an article that may help you decide.

Internet Explorer 9

Over the years as the storage capacity of USB flash drives has increased, many of us now have an old USB flash drive around that we no longer use. Here are some tips to put these drives to good use and save you some time and aggravation in the future.

If you are using a wireless router, you know how important it is to use a strong password made up of random characters to secure your network. You also know how time-consuming and error-prone it can be to add an additional computer to your network. Once your wireless router is password protected with Windows 7 or Vista, you can easily configure a USB flash drive that will automatically copy your WIFI network’s settings to other Windows computers. Using a computer that is already set-up to use your wireless network, you’ll need to navigate to MANAGE WIRELESS NETWORKS. From the CONTROL PANEL click on NETWORK AND INTERNET, then click on NETWORK AND SHARING CENTER. Click on MANAGE WIRELESS NETWORKS which you will see on the left pane. You then right click on the wireless network you want to backup, select PROPERTIES and you will see ‘Copy this network profile to USB flash drive.’ Click on this and follow the simple instructions. Once this is done, just keep the USB flash drive in a safe and handy location. If you get a new laptop or need to repair an existing one, you’ll have an easy way to setup your wireless connection. Just insert the USB flash drive and the wizard will automatically guide you through the steps to copy your WIFI network’s setting to the computer.

What would you do if you suddenly forgot your Window’s login password? This tip can save you a lot of aggravation by using a USB flash drive to create a password reset disk. From the CONTROL PANEL click on USER ACCOUNTS AND FAMILY SAFTY and then click on USER ACCOUNTS. You will see ‘Create a password reset disk’ in the left pane. Click on this and follow the simple instructions. Now keep this flash drive in a safe and secure place - anyone can use it to reset your password. Also, you’ll only need to do this once. Even if you have changed your password, the password reset disk will still work! Should you ever forget your password, you'll receive a message that says your user name or password is incorrect. When this message appears, click OK. Click Reset password, and then follow the instructions to use your password reset disk to reset your password without losing your documents and personal settings.