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If you're looking for a free way to transfer files to your website, give Filezilla a try. If you've ever had trouble using FTP, turn off your Windows Firewall. Another option is to list your program as an exception under the Firewall options. Free Web Page Designer NVU.com is a free web page designer if your budget is tight or you're just learning the basics about web page design. It even allows the use of templates which make changing web pages much easier. Another free antivirus software is Avast Home Edition. The interface seems a bit unusual, but the program gets a 5 start rating from CNET Download. When you wash your microfiber cloth, make sure you dont add a fabric softener sheet to the dryer. Another solution would be to hand wash the towel and let it air dry. Even though you may have a wireless router which will protect you from attacks from the internet, other infected computers on your network may be a source of infection. To keep those to a minimum make sure you turn "ON" the WinXP Firewall. You'll find it in the Control Panel under Security Center. While it's easy to click o nthe application bar at the bottom of the screen, there may be times when you'll need another way to do that. Hold down the Alt button and then click on the Tab button to move between applications. In XP open My Documents and drag the folder over to it's new location. Attach a large external hard drive. One free online option to find out if your computer is infected with a virus, malware etc , is to use HouseCall at TrendMicro.com. Besides your regular backup, you want want to consider an online backup service - There's only one website to get your free annual credit report. Here's the government site with more information. Note - all other sites are bogus - don't use them. If you own any of the Adobe products, here are some great free training videos. (click here) One way to take a DVD VOB file and convert it to AVI format(and many others) is to install Sreamclip from Squared5. You will have to buy and install the MPG encoder for Quicktime which costs $20. If you need to send or receive a fax, but don't have a land line, give MyFax.com a try. It's highly rated by PC Magazine and only costs $10/year. www.Support.com might be able to help you with your computer problems. If you don't already have a AntiVirus program running on your computer, you can run this program from online. http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/ If you use OpenDNS.com, it will help you block phishing sites, give you the power to filter out adult sites and proxies among more than 50 categories, and provide the precision to block individual domains. Go to Blackviper.com to learn which processes are good and which you can disable. He also shows you how to run with different profiles depending on what you need to do. User Account Controls Driver Detective software and service finds missing drivers on your Windows XP or Windows Vista computer. Drivers HeadQuarters is the first and only driver update service providing manufacturer specific drivers for your computer. Driver Detective is simple and easy to use and designed to make updating drivers fast. Drivers HeadQuarters has an experienced support staff available to help you, with integrated customer support tools built in. Send Smaller Pictures With Outlook While it's easy to send large pictures, in many cases it's not necessary and just wastes time and hard drive space. You can easily downsize the pictures by choosing "Attachment Options" after selecting your files. You can then choose from a number of smaller sizes. If you own Adobe Premiere CS3, then you can use Encore to create online DVDs. Here's how: Here's a good example: Here is where you can sign up for the coupons for the digital TV converters. (click here) This site includes, Color Control Panel Applet, RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer, ClearType Tuner, HTML Slide Show Wizard, Open Command Window Here, Alt-Tab Replacement,
Tweak UI, Power Calculator, Image Resizer, CD Slide Show Generator, Virtual Desktop Manager, Taskbar Magnifier, Webcam Timershot. Open Office 2007 documents with Office 2003 Sooner or later, you're going to get an Office 2007 document which you won't be able to open with Office 2003. Microsoft does offer a download to deal with this problem. Just click on the link, read, download and install. (Link) Command10 - 10% Keep your C: drive permanent and non-changing (click here) Move your Outlook PST file to a Different Drive http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011124801033.aspx Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data With this add-in you can permanently remove hidden data and collaboration data, such as change tracking and comments, from Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint files. (click here) EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. (click here) To see how your computer is performing, press <Ctrl><Alt><Del>. Another great way to check and see how your hard drive is being used as a Virtual Drive is to Start - Run - perfmon -ok. If you don't see % Disk Time, Right Click on "Counter" and Add Counter. Choose Physical disk under Performance object, then choose % Disk Time - Add - Close . Now you've got a good idea if you have enough memory for your computer tasks. If you're donating your computer to a charity, or even a friend, you may have files on the computer which are personal and you don't want to share. Deleting these files, doesn't actually erase the data and even formatting the hard drive is not a perfect solution, since there are ways to reconstruct the data. The best solution is to overwrite the entire hard drive. For that I use Darik's Book and Nuke from SourceForge.net Download the ISO file and double click on it to run it in Nero, or a similar program, to create a CD. Then make sure your computer will try to boot from the CD first and the hard drive 2nd. ALSO -- BACKUP ALL IMPORTANT DATA. - backup twice to different media is even better. Insert the CD and restart the computer. The program will start and will overwrite all information on your hard drive. When it's all done, you can reinstall Windows if desired. Spam-free contact form Print This Page
Camcorder Recording to Computer I've discovered that I can record directly to my computer using a firewire connection. Power Point to Flash Try PPT2FLASH to convert your Power Point programs to a Flash movie. New Hard Drive and Windows Activation If you install a new larger hard drive, you may have trouble with Windows and it's recognition of your new setup. To help resolve problems call: 888-571-2048 and make sure you talk to a real person, not a machine. Page Breaks to Web Pages If you need a short temporary email is one easy answer. Guerrillamail.com Another new option is http://www.temporaryinbox.com/ Google has make Star Office available as a free download. http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?hl=en&gl=us Note - they also have a number of other free programs at the above location. Mimeo.com has been recommended as an online - print on demand - source. Go to https://my.mimeo.com/signUpNow.asp, If you think you might new a new cable modem - first call the cable company and have them reset your old cable modem. That may do the job. If they can't seem to get it working, then it's time to buy a new one. Installing it is a simple as unplugging the old one and plugging in the new one. Autoruns - Control Startup Programs Autoruns is a nice program from Microsoft which will help you control all the various programs which startup automatically when you turn on the computer. To be able to run different setups of Autoruns, the only way seems to be logging on as a different user and saving a different profile for that user. I.E., have a use "VideoBob" and setup Autoruns to shut down almost everything. FREE Screen Recorder Here's an interesting site which pulls together a lot of internet videos. If you go to most of the big box stores and try to buy a cable or small part you need for your system, you'll be in for sticker shock. They sell a small six foot cable for $29.95! Instead try one of these online stores: www.cyberguys.com Also try www.pricewatch.com or www.pricegrabber.com If you're looking for groups to join or people to talk to, here are few:
http://www.linkedin.com Space Monger 1.4 is a great FREE utility which will scan your drive and visually show you the large files on your hard drive. You can then right-click and delete the files and/or folder. when you start the program you need to OPEN a drive first, then click on Setup to check show full path and file name. You can also right-click to zoom in or zoom out. Here's a great site to create an unbreakable password. Note - you'll need to keep it a safe place, because if you lose it, If you'd like to create the HTML code for video, here's a site which creates it for you. (click here) I've had a couple of problems with it. The WMV version doesn't work with Firefox and the Quicktime player doesn't have controls, but other than that it works easily. If you add an extra hard drive and want to move "My Documents" over to the new drive, here's the procedure: Right-click on My Documents - Choose Properties. Outlook PST Files - Create or Remove If you need to remove or add an Outlook PST file, here's an easy way to do it. Instead of trying to send gigantic attachments, here are some options to put your files on the web.
VIDEO-Top Sites
If you're looking for a media player which will play almost everything VLC Media Player seems to fit the bill. It will even play ISO files. FREE. Here's a nice small program which will give you just about every bit of information about your system that you'll need. SIW - www.gtopala.com If you have a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long link which you need to put into an email, there's a good chance that the email will client will break it up and the receiver won't be able to just click on the link as usual. This is where TinyUrl.com comes in. If you're having trouble playing a particular video, you may not have the proper codec (compression scheme) on your computer. www.free-codecs.com has almost all the video codecs you might new in packs. Just download and install. When Will Your Hard Drive Die? I wish I knew the exact answer, but PCWorld.com June 2007, reports that if you run Scandisk (Chkdsk) and it finds error, then your drive is 39 times more likely to fail within 60 days than drives that don't show such errors. Here are some good tutorials on Chkdsk (1, 2) Note - I like to rune this from Win Explorer. To view results Here's an easy way to convert Youtube Video You can also try keepvid.com or videodownloader.com If you're interested in one particular topic use Google Alerts to send you emails when that topic is mentioned online. http://www.google.com/alerts Google Documents and Spreadsheets If you have a Gmail account, Google has a new service which allows you to create MS Word documents and spreadsheets online. (click here) Frequently when you copy large files to a USB drive, it may appear that the file copies over instantaneously. It doesn't. For large files it can takes minutes. Use Windows Explorer to look at the USB file and you'll discover that the file is being copied and how long it may take. If you mistakingly disconnect the drive before it is fully copied, it can cause problems. I had to reformat the USB drive to get one to work again. Here's an easy way to see what files are taking up the most space on your hard drive. A free version is available at download.com. If you use Outlook and want to use the "Contacts" folder when you send an email rather than "Accounts," here's the procedure. If you'd like to put some movies on YouTube, but are put off by the poor quality of most of the videos, here's how to get some great video. First note that YouTube has a max of 100 MB and 10 minutes Before uploading, convert the file with QuickTime Pro to h.264, 480x360 pixels at 24fps, high quality, encoding-multi-pass, and a keyframe every 24 frames. Note - if your file is too large, cut down to 15 fps. Note - I also do key frame at 15 fps. Yes, your hard drive will die some day. Unfortunately, they don't give us the specifics. They say, - If you're collaborating on a speech or article with a comrade, it's a bit hard to be sending documents back and forth and keep track of all the changes. 1.Phrase your search as a statement, not a question. Leave a blank where you want the required information. 2. You can search a number range by using two periods. 3. Site:name.com textyourlookingfor To find site specific information. 4. Use a - to exclude certain words. 5. To find mp3 songs - just change song name to the name of your song.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net is a free partition manager. If people write to you indicating that you're send out spam, there's a way to prove them wrong. Have them forward one of the emails to you and in the headers is the IP address of the REAL sender. You can then lookup that IP address and find out the real culprit, although it probably won't do much good. Here's a good article about the subject. (article) There's a new PDF creator program - Foxitsoftware.com It only costs $35. Acrobat Standard costs $300. A FREE option is BullZip PDF Printer. Opening a PDF file using Acrobat 6 or 7 could cause a virus/malware to start up. The easy solution is to download and use version 8. If you'd like to take part of a DVD and edit it, here's an easy way to do it. If you've got lots of titles to create in Adobe Premiere, consider using this free alternative. Select a template, and your text file and it automatically creates your titles. http://www.2writers.com/download.htm If you'd like to tell Google to stop spying on you go to www.google.com/psearch, Sign in and then click on "Clear History" and "Do not collect any history until I choose to resume. Note they've changed this - click here. If you'd like to reduce the number of ads on pages and make it harder for companies to track you on the web, learn how to change your hosts file. 1. Wikipedia I normally don't like to send HTML email, but for certain occasions, I do permit myself an HTML email. The problem is how to insert a table inside an Outlook email as it doesn't have that function listed in the bars on top. Here's how you can do it. You can also do this with WordPerfect and Dreamweaver, but in Dreamweaver, you need to save the file and view in Firefox. Then copy from Firefox to Outlook.) To insert pictures: Insert Picture - Picture Source - and then type in the url where the graphic is located. Media Monkey seems to be a nice all in one program to manage your CD's ripping and burning. They do have a free version, although you'll have to add the free Lame MPG encoder if you don't have it already. The free versions also limits the CD burning speed. The Pro version is only $20.
If you've recently bought a new computer, you may find that the keyboard they sent with it is flimsy and is actually missing some features. My new Dell computer only has a USB keyboard which is lacking in some features which I like. Here's what you do to connect an old style PS/2 keyboard to a new type computer. You can spend lots of money on sound recorders/editors, but for most people it's not necessary. Audacity is a free, open source recorder which does a great job. You can find it at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ The only problem I've found is that if you're recording and you hit the blue Pause button, instead of the orange Stop button, then all the menus are grayed out. Also make sure you download the free Lame MP3 decoder. I recently tested out HotSpotVPN.com (version 1) on a recent Other options: If you keep customer credit card numbers on file, for their convenience, I have one word of advice - Don't. It's too easy for credit card information to be compromised. Laptops are frequently stolen and even if you have some sort of password system, most of those can be broken easily. If you'd like to control which programs automatically startup when the computer is turned on, try Autoruns from Microsoft. It's Free. Shopify seems to be a relatively easy to use and inexpensive shopping cart. Capturing and Play Flash Video To capture flash video try the Firefox plugin - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2390/ If you don’t use Firefox, or don’t want to install an extension, http://www.keepvid.com KeepVid.com is a Web site that does the same thing. Copy the link where the video is stored and follow the directions to download. To play the video use FLV Player. Video Tip 01- Recording a Two Hour Program Using One-Hour Tapes. The trick is to have two cameras and stagger their starting times. Start camera #1 at least 5 to 10 minutes before the program begins. Camera #2 starts recording at the end of the 10 minute period. This way when camera #1 runs out of tape, camera #2 will still be rolling.
If you've got some very large files, like video & movies,or just a lot of files to transfer from one computer to another, consider using a file transfer cable. I'm using the Buslink USB Hi-Speed Data Transfer Cable for the first time and it worked great. It's easy to setup and is very quick. You install the software in both computers, plug in the cord and start the software. Then all you have to do is click and drag your files and folders. If your having trouble with a particular component on your computer, check and see if its driver might need to be updated. iBoss at iPhantom.com is a hardware device which sits between your computer and the internet to protect your kids.
I asked them what prevents kids from just unplugging the device and here's their answer. "The iBoss has several tamper-resistant features As well, the iBoss also maintains a non-erasable Tamper Log which logs One good rule to follow for security reasons is: Don't click on email attachments or links on the page. Be Safe - Don't Click! Here's a great NPR site with loads of podcasts to listen to.(click here) If you're upgrading to a new computer and want to donate your old computer to a charity, you need to remember that all your personal information is still on that old hard drive. At a minimum you need to format the hard drive and reinstall Windows. A better solution is to completely overwrite the hard drive with a program like Eraser. It's available at SourceForge.net. Adding a Google Search item to you web page is simple if you use the Web Assist extension for Dreamweaver. It's available at webassist.com and look under products. If you'd like to share a drive or folder with another networked computer, If you've got a large file to send, consider using www.dropload.com instead of sending the file via email. Very large files, over 5 or 10 MB, don't work at times with email. Load your file onto Dropload and it will send a notice to the recipient that the file is ready to be picked up. It has limits of 100 Mb and a seven day time limit. Other options are:
Depending on your desktop colors you may find it hard to read the names of your desktop icons. To put a small box behind the names follow this procedure. Right Click - My Computer
Browsing with Internet Explorer One tip which I've adopted lately is to set Internet Explorer to "High Security." This is the most secure way for you to surf the net. If there is a site which you know is safe and it has some features which are not enabled with High Security, you can list then in the "Trusted Sites" area. Like - There are two ways to extend Wi-Fi Background Video Music - $7.00 If you're looking for background music for your video, consider www.stock20.com. 1. Disable Remote login on your computer. 2. Check Windows Firewall I just heard a great idea for a family with kids. Instead of having just one router, have two. The kids computer is behind a wireless router, but is less secure and possibly more open because of the activities of the kids on the Net. The adult computer is daisy chained to router #2, which is plugged into router #1. The adult router is locked down tight with lots of security and won't get infected when the kids computer comes down with a rootkit, virus or spyware. Here's a good article from GRC which talks about the concept. Shields Up is a free program from GRC.com which will check your computers security. I found that I had an open port and immediately closed it off. It gets worse every year. Here are a couple of sites which might help. http://www.spywareguide.com/product_list_full.php http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html Spyware - http://www.grc.com/sn/notes-007.htm Rootkits http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-009.htm Consider creating your own rules for creating passwords. Combine the name of the site with numbers, dates, and names which are specific to you. Then intermix them all. Create one rule which will work for all sites. Write down the rule in some sort of code which only you can interpret. Check Your Web Hosting Account Once a Year I received an email from my web hosting service indicating that my plan was going to be automatically renewed - which was fine by me. I'd recommend that you do the same every year when your web hosting bill comes due. Prices are going down dramatically. There are two easy ways to find out information about your computer. Memory - Software - Hardware etc. 1. Start - Programs - Accessories - Systems Tools - System Information. 2. Belarc Advisor (free download). Go to - http://www.ipchicken.com/ Truecrypt - Encrypt Data on Your Computer One of the best encryption programs also happens to be FREE and Open Source. Opening Multiple Email Attachments Many times friends will send me multiple pictures as email attachments. It's aggravating to click on each pictures and wait for it to load. Here's a solution. When you open the email go to: FILE - SAVE ATTACHMENTS - OK You can then go to the folder and look at the thumbnails or use your favorite photo manager program to view all the pictures. I use "Microsoft Office Picture Manager." If you download Tweak UI from Microsoft - (click here) it allows you to hide a drive from My computer and Windows Explorer. It's a nice feature to have if you're backing up a hard drive and don't want other people to mess with your backup. Another nice Power Toy from Microsoft is "Clear Type." It will give you better quality type on your monitor. It's on the same web page. (click here) Bad DVD? Get Out the Dish Detergent I recently had what appeared to me to be a defective DVD. It stopped, jumped and was generally almost impossible to watch. I then took the DVD to the kitchen and soaped it up with Dawn dish detergent and then rinsed it off well. After drying it, I popped it back in the DVD player and it was like a brand new disc. Wow ! What an easy fix. Here's a good program to download as an MP3 and listen to as you have time. http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm http://www.x1.com/products/platform_tour.html One of the tips I picked up recently was to not run your computer as administrator. An administrator has authority to change just about anything on your computer. If you get infected by a computer virus or worm, and you're the administrator, your computer is in big trouble. If on the other hand you are just logged in as a "Guest" with limited privileges, the odds are that the virus or worm won't have the authority to do much if any damage. If you don't have a "Guest" account set it up by running: Start - Control Panel - User Accounts - Create an account - Give it a Name and click on the "Limited" option. Then the next time you log into the 'Limited account", you should be safe. As hard drive prices plummet there's a good chance you'll add a new internal or external hard drive to your computer. In some cases it's as easy as plugging the drive in and going back to work, but in many situations your need to "setup" the hard drive to get it to work. Here's how to do it. After connecting the hard drive to the computer, According to a recent Harris poll, 35% of users don't backup their computer and the other 40% don't backup very often. If you need help backing up and setting up an automatic backup solution, I can show you how. FREE Microsoft Office Downloads Microsoft has a number of free downloads and tips which you can access through this site: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx http://www.gmapsmania.com (Google Maps Mania)
I was downloading Vidcasts (video broadcasts) to my computer, and I originally only could watch them on my computer screen which was upstairs. I would have liked to watch them on my big TV screen in the living room and I figured out how to do that. Most Vidcasts are in the QT h.264 format. Nero 7 can take those original files and create a DVD which will play the videos. Then it's just a matter of popping in the DVD and watching everything on TV - all it cost was 30 cents for the cost of the DVD. Note - Nero will also reduce the video to "Extended Play Quality" if your video is too long - Wow! FreeRip - Rip CD's and Convert Audio Files. Freerip- not only rips CD's which many other programs do, but it also has a nice audio conversion feature which is hard to match. I was looking for a WMA to Mp3 conversion program. Radio Shark only converts to WMA which won't play on my PDA. FreeRip converts multiple files at a time. They do have a Free version, although I do recommend supporting the authors if you use the program.
Radio Shark - records your favorite radio programs and saves them to your computer. You can then later listen to them at your leisure. Unfortunately, it only records file in a WMA format. Also, the "Preferences" are hidden away. You must "right click" to find the menu. It's like a Tivo for radio. See my suggestion above on how to convert WMA to MP3.
WinPatrol.com - What is Running in the Background? WinPatrol.com- is a new program I'm trying out to keep track of current programs running in the background. If you've only got 256 MB of memory you'll want to keep list of programs very lean. They have a Free version which may do the trick or an upgrade for only $25.
To straighten a slightly skewed picture - in Photoshop select the Measuring Tool (under the Eyedropper). Then find a straight line in your picture and use the measuring tool to draw a line using the picture as guide. Then select - Image - Rotate Canvas - Arbitrary and select the amount which has already been selected and your picture will rotate to perfectly horizontal and vertical. If you enjoy going to Starbucks and surfing the net, you may be putting your computer and yourself at risk. All of your wireless traffic is being sent unsecured and any passwords and personal information is open to the public. Leo LaPorte recommends HotSpotVPN.com or PublicVPN.com and I found out that T-Mobile offers a secure connection also at various spots. Here's another article about the topic. BE SAFE !
If you ever need to export a Power Point slide as a Jpg picture, you probably won't like the poor resolution of the picture. Here's an article from Microsoft on how to improve the default resolution:
If you don't keep your virus software up to date, then you're in big trouble. According to PCWorld magazine, virus software that was just one month old only caught new viruses with an 8% to 56% record. The moral of the story - keep you virus definition up to date. Use the "automatic" settings to update at least once a day. An easy way to open Windows Explorer is to hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and hit the "E" key. Magic!
The Show Desktop shortcut found in the Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar can also be easily deleted by mistake. This handy button toggles between minimizing and restoring all your open windows. Notepad can help you replace this icon, too. Open Notepad as described above. [Shell] When you're finished, your Notepad window will match FIGURE 2. Choose File, Save As and navigate down to
I have never like the way that MS Word handled graphics. You had to insert the graphic and then manually change the format of the picture so that the text would wrap around correctly. Here's a way to handle this automatically in the future. Tools - Options - Edit - Insert/paste pictures as - then choose Square as your default from the drop down menu.
Having one gigantic 250 gigabyte C:, makes it almost impossible to back up easily. I divide my hard drive into two sections - a 50 GB C: for programs and a 200 GB data drive for all "My Documents." I use Partition Magic to accomplish this task. Once I've got my hard drive partitioned into two sections, I move the "My Documents" folder to the data section of the hard drive. Here's how to do it. Right-click on My Documents and click on Properties. Click on Find Target to select the new location, and click on OK. In the Move Documents box, click on Yes to move the documents. It could be that everything you write, send and receive is being watched by one of the bad guys next door or at your local Starbucks. Here's a good article about the problem - Click Here
If you'd like to add Flash video to your website, it's been an expensive process in the past. The Flash program costs around $400, so I've stayed away from that format. A new program seems to be just what I need. Flash Video Studio. It does a great job at conversion and gives you the code for easy setup on your web page. Give it a try.
Vonage - VOIP - Phone Service over the Internet.
I'm always looking for ways to save a few dollars, so I'm trying out Vonage, which is an internet phone service. Unlike other services like Skype, you use your old phones in exactly the same way you've always used them. You don't even need to have your computer on. All you need is DSL/Cable service. I was paying $70/month on my regular land -line and thought I'd give Vonage a try. So far it's been a success, but there's been a few road bumps. I'm trying the $14.99/mo. plan. It offers 500 anytime minutes within the US and extra minutes are 3.9 cents. It also has reasonable International rates. Vonage has 99% of the features on my old phone, plus it's very easy to manage, once you get it going. I set it up right out of the box - followed the instructions, but couldn't get it to work. One call to tech-support and about ten minutes of my time, got everything working. I also opted for the Wireless-Router Option. This was an extra $30, but was worth it. It contains the phone adaptor and wireless router all in one box. The quality is not quite as good as a land-line, but is certainly acceptable. I've only had two times in the last month where my connection was so bad and I had to use my cell phone. We've even made a call to England and the quality was great. Only 4cents/minute. Transferring your home phone to Vonage was and still is a pain. They sent me a Letter of Authorization which got filtered out as SPAM so my number after a month was still not transferred. Watch your SPAM filters for that email when you signup for the transfer. One feature which they don't mention is the ability to connect the Vonage adaptor to your old phone lines - that way you can still use all your old phones. I also transferred my old phone number and it does take a while - twenty or more days. Your old phone still works while the transfer is being made. Don't cancel your old phone service until the switch is made. One small problem I've encountered is that Vonage is really only setup for voice communication - not data. I got a new Tivo for Christmas and was unable to download all the necessary information over the Vonage connection. Luckily I still had one land line available at the time. Tivo will download small amounts of information over Vonage but not the large downloads you need during an initial setup. The big disadvantage is that during a power outage or if your cable connection is down, then you've also lost your phone service. Since we have two cell phones always available, that's not a big problem for us. I would not suggest only having Vonage as your only way of communication during an emergency. Jan 19, 2006 - I've had more problems with Vonage. Unless you're a techie, I don't recommend this for most people until they work out the bugs. To hide your email address on your website, use this easy encoder. It will keep your email address safe from at least a few people who are looking for new email addresses to spam. Just enter your email address and it will send you the code to use. http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html If you use Dreamweaver, there's a free extension which does the same thing. "Insert- Mail Spam Blocker." It even encrypts the mailto:. Cell Phone Reminders via Email If you're busy like most people these days, it's hard to remember every important birthday, anniversary and meeting, so it helps to have as many reminders as possible. You can use the traditional Post-It Notes taped to the door or possibly you carry your calendar around with you all the time, but here's an almost FREE solution which works great - use Outlook to send TEXT Messages to your cell phone. In Outlook start a short email message to your cell phone number @ yourcarrier.com - here's an example: You also need to make sure that Outlook is scheduled to check for email on a regular basis. To do that follow these steps: Tools - Options - Mail Setup - Send/Receive - Send and automatic Send/Receive every (10) minutes. The only caveat is that you must keep Outlook running in the background all the time- don't turn it off. Important - Each carrier is slightly different, so you'll have to call them to find out the exact details. I found out that my carrier uses a different name.com for text messages. If you've ever wanted to save an email, but wanted to change the Subject line to something that would jog your memory in the future, here's how to do it. Just open the message and then you can change the subject line. To change the message, go to the top of your screen and click - Edit - Edit Message and then add your comments to the email. It's that easy. Today I bought an external hard drive - 250 GB for only $99 - what I deal - I couldn't pass it up. The only problem was that when I connected it to My Computer, it was automatically give the drive letter of E: I didn't want to use that letter so I changed it to X: - here's how I did it. 1. Right-click My Computer and select Manage. If you need to know the local IP address of your computer do this: Start -- Run -- CMD -- Ipconfig (Enter) First you need to find the IP address of both computers. See the tip above. Start -- my network places -- right-click "search for computers" -- put in the IP address under the computer name, and then click "search." When the computer is found, drag the icon to your desktop. To create a shortcut. There are times when you need to either print a folder directory or copy the list to some sort of document and Windows XP doesn't seem to have any easy solution. Luckily Karenware.com does. Their program Directory Printer does the job easily, quickly and it's free, although I encourage people to make donations to these kind of sites. You'll need to download two programs the Visual Basic Runtime v6.0 and the Directory Printer Program. Acronis True Image & Second Copy Acronis True Image is the program I use to backup my main hard drive. It also does incremental and differential backups, clones hard drives, and will back up "My Documents" files etc. Now, there's no excuse for lost files when your computer dies. It will restore your computer to a previous SAFE state, before you got that last virus. I run this at least once a month. I use Second Copy to make daily copies of my changed files. It runs automatically and you don't have to think about it. I backup to an attached external hard drive.
If fonts on a web page cause your eyes to bug out trying to read them, try this easy trick. You can actually spend a lot of money trying to record a decent phone conversation.Here's a website with a number of options. Here's specifically what I use to get good results. I connect it directly to my laptop and record the conversation. Since your voice is louder than your callers, you may have to do some adjustment later on. For $39 you can't lose. The only caveat is that you have to use a regular - old-fashioned phone. I actually had to buy one - for around $12 I think - but the setup works great. Google - Show 100 Results/Search To force Google to show you more than 10 results per page, go to their main home page, www.google.com - click on preferences and then on the "Number of Results" line, change the figure from 10 to 100. If you get email bounced back to you, especially early in the morning, from the "System administrator," make these changes to Outlook. If you’re looking for a way to reduce the size of your digital video files, you can use the FREE Window Movie Maker 2 included with Windows XP. Although the editing capabilities of this program are limited, it has some easy-to-use conversion settings when you save your file. Your file size will reduce a minimum 90% or more depending on the original file format. Another more direct way to encode avi files is to use the Windows Media Encoder installed with Version 9. It has lots of settings so you can fine-tune your video to your audience. If you don't have the encoder installed on your computer you can download it from Microsoft.com at this link. Found at: If you've ever wanted to know exactly what hardware and software is installed on your computer this free download will tell you. The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server. PestPatrol.com is rated the best spyware removal tool, but it will only find 75% after 3 passes. The best solution is a good offense. Don't get spyware on your computer in the first place. I use the free Microsoft Spyware program, although it looks like they are going to charge for it in the future. I also use Spybot Search and Destroy to keep spyware at bay. The highest rated programs as of August 2006 are Webroot Spy Sweeper or PC Tools Spyware Doctor When you browse a web page, if there are ads, there's a good chance they are tracking you via 3rd party cookies. They can gather personal information that you enter, so I recommend that you turn them off in your browser. In Internet Explorer -- Tools - Internet Options - Privacy - Advanced - check "Override automatic cookie handling" and check "Block 3rd party cookies." First party cookies are usually ok and generally helpful, but 3rd party cookies only gather information about you and your surfing habits. At least once a year, run the defrag program to make it easier on your hard drive to find files. It should also speed up your computer. Details: My Computer - Right click C: - Properties - Tools - Defrag. - If you'd like three tabs to open when you start Firefox, open those three tabs then: Bookmarks - Bookmark All Tabs- Name the folder. - To open a new tab - Ctrl T. - To open a link in a new tab - click on Scroll button. - Add ons I like:
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