Tip #10
Clear Your Desktop
Your desktop is a great place to put your pictures and program icons. As soon as your PC boots up you have your shortcut icons before you within easy reach. Desktops can get pretty cluttered pretty quickly though. It's usually not too long before your desktop is more of a semi-chaotic eyesore than a convenient place to access your programs. Now, if you're like me you can only take this irritating jumble for so long. The answer, obviously, is to clear your desktop of the icons you use least. Narrow it down to a dozen or so tops. But some people don't (understandably) want anything on their desktops. So how do you clear your desktop without giving up the convenience of leaving those program icons on it? Simple. Drag - Move them - to your Taskbar. Merely put your cursor on one of the icons. Click on the icon and drag it down to the taskbar. If you have your taskbar locked a couple of tiny white arrows pointing to your right will appear. Click on those arrows and a menu of program icons you have dragged down to the taskbar will appear. If you want all your icons to be accessible on the taskbar, simply unlock your taskbar. Right click on an empty space on your taskbar. Somewhere near the bottom of the menu you will see a black checkmark beside Lock the Taskbar. Click on that checkmark and your task bar will be unlocked. An unlocked taskbar will allow you to put all the icons on the taskbar in a row. If the two little white arrows appear when you drag the icon to your taskbar, you now only have to move your cursor over the little line to the right of the arrows and "pull" the line to your right when the little black bi-directional arrows appear and space will open up for the icon on your taskbar. You will not have to click on the tiny white arrows now to get to your programs on the taskbar. All your icons of your favorite programs will be displayed now on your taskbar. Click on these icons just as you would if they were on your desktop and your program(s) will appear.
Tip #11
I don't know what it is about personal files but it seems the value of those files/data stored on your disk is surpassed only by the likelihood of losing that data altogether. Somehow, it manages to happen to all of us. I guess it's a PC ownership rite of passage.
There are many ways you can lose your data. For example, a virus or worm, a software conflict, a power surge or a mistake in the registry to name just a few.
The good news is membership in the Data Loss Club isn't mandatory. You can take some common sense steps right now and and spare yourself some serious anguish and hand wringing.
Backing up your data is really not that difficult. The procedure is the same for all versions of Windows - 95 thru XP Pro. Go to the file or folder you want to backup and right- click on it. Select Copy from the menu. Next, go to My Computer (Start>My Computer) and right-click on the storage media i.e. a floppy disc, a CD/DVD, a partition on your hard drive or external hard drive (which I think is the best option), to which you want to place the backup of the file. Click Paste and you're all done.
If you're on Windows XP Pro (& Home), you have another option- the Backup utility(Ntbackup.exe). If you're on XP Home you will probably have to install the Backup utility yourself. Here's how:
First, insert your Windows XP CD into your hard drive and double-click (if you have to) on the CD icon in My Computer. On the Welcome to .....screen, click Perform Additional Tasks. Select Browse this CD. Now, in Windows Explorer, look for the ValueAdd folder and double-click on it, then Msft, and then Ntbackup. Double-click Ntbackup.msi to install the Backup utility. You're all done.
The Backup utility is really handy. You can use it to make copies of just about anything, including your settings, on your disk. If you wish, you can even set it a schedule for backing up your data.
To use the Backup utility go to Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools> and select Backup. If it's your first time using the Backup utility, you will see a Backup or Restore Wizard welcome window. Click Next then Back up files and settings, then Next again. You should see this window:
You can choose All information on this computer and that will save everything on your drive and simplify your backup process but make sure you have enough disk space to do so. Short of All information on this computer, I recommend going with My Documents and Settings because My Documents and Settings includes some pretty core files. It includes My Documents and other important data such as Outlook Express emails, address books, Internet Explorer Favorites and cookies (the cookies you want, I hope!) not to mention your personal settings stored in the Windows Registry. I also recommend, for simplicity's sake moving your valuable files to My Documents. If you haven't moved your data to My Documents or have additional sensitive data outside Documents and Settings, select Let me choose what to back up. You will see this window:
Start with My Documents to back up everything in your personal profile, then look through the My Computer thread/hierarchy to find the rest of the files/folders you want to backup and put a check beside their folders. Make sure if you're on a shared network drive get any folders you have there. Open the My Network Places and select your folders.
Now choose where you want to store your file backups. On the Backup Type, Destination, and Name page you will see that the default storage media is your A Drive. Why it is still the A drive after all this time is beyond me. But anyway. Click Browse and select one of the more realistic options. I would like to say that you should select a CD but the Backup utility in Windows XP can not save files to a CD-RW drive. I suggest an external hard drive or, more conveniently, a separate partition on your hard drive. Once you have chosen a place to store your backup files, type in a name for the file. Click Next and, if you don't want to set a schedule for backing up your files, click Finish to begin the backup process.
I do think it's a good idea, though, to set a schedule unless you've got the discipline to do it manually once a week or so. To set a schedule, don't click Finish on the final page of the Backup Wizard. Instead, press Advanced then Next which will open the When to Back Up page. From there, select Later, click Set Schedule to open the Schedule Job dialog window shown here:
As you can see,the schedule here (above) is set for Friday afternoons. You can set any schedule you want, however. Take your pick of a number of options the Wizard will offer you. When you have set your schedule, click OK to save your schedule settings. Remember to leave your PC on at the time(s) you have scheduled your backup or the backup will not happen.
Sources: Microsoft Help and Support Article ID 302894
Ed Bott Argentuma
Internet Tech News
Tip #12
How to Reproduce Screenshots
Quite often an important image will appear on your desktop that can't be printed or saved to a place on your hard drive through the usual route of right-clicking or reaching for File on your browser and clicking Print. When I say "important image", I am referring, for example, to Microsoft error reports , Windows error messages, software error messages, scan results from any number of types of utilities such as virus scan or registry utility or even a great moment in a PC game you are playing. I used to think you had to frantically search for a pen and paper and jot down the data as fast as possible and then type it up in a message to a company's online support people or into a google search box or worse, somehow try to remember it until you could type it or jot it down on paper.
That, however, is not the case. There is a simple way to save this info. When you see the image you wish to save, reach for the Print Screen button on the upper right-hand area of your keyboard. Now, open up Word or Wordpad or an email you are typing or going to type in Outlook or Outlook Express. Right-click on the document and click Paste. You will see the screenshot appear on the document exactly as it looked when you copied it from your Desktop.
If you do not want any other images to appear behind the image you are copying, press Alt then press the Prt Scr button.
Alternately, you can save the image to Paint. Follow the steps I described above except don't open a document after you hit Prt Scr. Instead go to Start, All Programs, Accessories and down the menu to Paint. (Or better yet, drag the Paint icon down to your task bar. See above)Click on Paint. Go to Edit in the top right hand corner beside File. Select Paste from the Edit menu. Once you have pasted the image, you can resize it, send it as an email attachment and/or save it to your Desktop or another place on your disk.
To give you an example of what I mean, I ran CCleaner, resized and saved the results screen using Paint. As you can see here it's quite a nice reproduction.
By the way, there are a number of utilities that will reproduce screenshots for you but why spend the money when Paint and other Windows programs work so well?
Microsoft Windows Family
home page. This page is there to keep you informed about Microsoft's products and technologies. Some good info to be had here.
