If you’re looking for scandisk in windows xp you won’t find it. Try using checkdisk instead. It’s the same thing renamed when XP was produced. You find checkdisk by:
To run CheckDisk perform the following instructions:
1.) Click on the [ Start Menu ].
2.) Click on [ Run ].
3.) Type in: CHKDSK into the run field and then click on [ OK ].
If you can’t access windows try using Bart PE and then use check disk from the Bart PE menu. Bart PE is an operating system that runs from a CD drive. This allows you to acess the harddrive without starting it up or booting into windows. Great tool for computers that won’t boot. Check Disk will scan the entire drive looking for bad clusters and repair them automatically.
Do you want to turn off your computer each night before you go to bed, Perhaps you have a laptop in your living room that you have to remember to turn off each night. Switchoff is a great program that does just that. Switch off is a easy to use tool to put your computer in the following modes at regular intervals.
- Shutdown
- Standby
- Reboot
- Lock
- Hangup
- Hibernate
It’s so simple to use, many other programs I’ve tried complicate the process. This one is simple and works everytime. Try switchoff here, it’s totally free.
Have you ever needed to change a pdf file to a Word document? Or have you wanted to caputure the text from a pdf file? freepdfconvert.com does that and more! Some of the features include:
- no installation
- access application anywhere
- FREE!
- email file to you or download
- fast
- accurate conversions
- pdf to Excel®
- web to pdf
- pdf to Word®
I have been using this service off and on over the years. It just works and does a great job. Try it out at freepdfconvert.com
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Xippee is a great search tool that I think I’ll be using more of in the near future. Watch the video below of how to use this browser add on. First you do a regular web search. Then highlight with your mouse the words that you want filtered. So if you’re searching for the word star as in shooting star, you don’t want rock star. With Xippee all you need to do is highlight the word rock, and a small window pops up asking to delete or show results with this word. It’s a great tool to quickly filter results, even faster than typing in the commands in Google. Sometime I add browser add ons and don’t ever use them, but Xippee is here to stay.
Xippee has developed add ons for Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Are you archiving your email? If not you’re missing out on a great opportunity to save all mail coming in. I like to have every bit of email especially at work when you can bring up email as support for a variety of reasons. Imagine if you could pull an email quickly and easily from your archive that was 5 years old. If you’re not archiving and still trying to save your email in folders or worse the inbox, your going to run into problems eventually. Microsoft outlook is designed to send and receive email in a moderate volume. Don’t turn it into a database of old emails, it will become slow and unresponsive.
Setting it up. There are several ways to do this, I am going to cover the easiest first and this is the one I recommend. There are many archive setting in outlook, please use only the ones I am mentioning here.
Go to the Tools menu…
Then options…
Then go to Other tab
select AutoArchive
Okay you’re going to see the menu screen below. Each piece of this is crucial so pay attention. I recieve so much email and large attachments that I need to archive every few days to stay with in my profiles limitations for outlook data file size. If you’re setting this up at home you won’t have a data limitation other than your hard drive size. Some companies will not allow your outlook data file to grow too large. If you’re like me make sure you and need to set a regular archive setting make sure you read my post on finding email very easily using microsofts desktop search.
Set autoarchive to run every 30, 60 or 90 days.
For you beginners I would select “prompt before…” this way you’ll know when it’s going to happen and you can keep your eye on it.
During AutoArchive
Delete expired items, (probably not unless you’re using this feature)
Select “Archive or delete old items”
Select “show archive folder in folder list”
Select the time frame that you would like your folders to be cleaned out by.
“clean out itmes older than x months” I recommend 3 months that’s the typical time frame we are all referencing emails from.
The next part is very important please pay close attention here. 90% of problems come from this step.
“Move old items to” Locate your default archive file, I can do a whole post on this step and probably will. But if you don’t know where your file is, here are some common locations.
c:\Windows\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\archive.pst
Select the location where you want your archive file. You can see below I have a different location.
If you have several archive folders that you have tried through trial and error, stay with me here, we’ll discuss shortly.
Lastely press the “apply these settings to all folders now”. Don’t worry if you don’t want your trash and infected email folder archived. We’ll deal with that in a minute. The problem is that each folder has a archive property. Most people set these steps up and don’t realize that each folder has it’s own settings. So for now we have set everything the same.
Now you have your email set up by default everything is running to your selections listed above. Good job we’re almosts done. Hang in there. Now you say but “I don’t want my trash can to be archived, or my virus folder.” Okay now we need to go back to your inbox and right click on folders you don’t want to archive. Select properties.
Select Auto Archive tab
Select “Do not archive items in this folder”
You can see that I have some custom settings for my trash can, you can go and set folders up as you wish. However, you need to go to your inbox folder and make sure that you’re not archiving that. Unless you want to, but for me, my inbox is where I keep all my current work.
Here is a great idea for keeping a password secure and unique in today’s world. Create a password algorithm. A password what? Hey, we all have dozens of applications and websites that require logons to access. What would happen if your password was compromised and you have been using it on everything since 1993? Here’s a great idea ensures a unique password that no one will be able to reproduce unless they can read your mind.
A password algorithm is applying a rule for creating passwords to new applications. For example let’s say you go to Yahoo, MSN and Youtube and you log into each site on a daily basis. Your password rule could be something like this.
- Numbers+ sitename=password
- So my Yahoo log on would be 8513yahoo.
- My youtube password would be 8513youtube.
- My MSN password would be 8513msn.
You get the point right? I kept this example very simple to show the idea here. Even if one of your passwords would get compromised that person would not necessarily know you use a algorithm when creating passwords. They would have to know your password rules to access other applications. Only you know the rules. Applying this idea creates a unique logon for each application.
Your rule must be easy to remember! Hello, don’t forget this, because next year when you need to change your subscription to garliclovers .com you’ll be able to quickly recall and apply your rule.
Now go out and start using this on your top 10 most used websites. You’ll slowly start to migrate all your passwords to a algorithm instead of your favorite pets name. Trust me Fluffy won’t mind, she would rather know your safe.
How to test your connection speed.
Have you wanted to know how to check you internet connection speed? Many times advertisers show ads like”50 times faster than dial up”. What speeds are you really getting?
There are now many great ways to see what kind of speed you’re getting for your money. One of the best ways to visualize the speed your are getting in a familiar console is located here. The speedometer is a recognizable utility that you are familiar with. The link takes you to a site that does a two part test.
First it does a download test. This is the same as you downloading let’s say a music file. It show’s you how fast you’re going to get that file. My connection is saying 600 kilobytes per second. Or about 15 seconds to download a one megabyte file. That’s okay, some people can get much higher like 1800 kilobytes.
Second part of the test is the upload test. This is how fast can you send a file. Think if you’re sending that folder of pictures from vacation to grandma and it seems to take forever to attach to the Yahoo web mail screen. That’s because typically upload speeds are slower than download speeds because that’s what consumers want.
Keep in mind that the more people on your block that have the same service as you the slower the connections. Try testing in the morning and once after you get home from work. You’ll notice a difference since school and work has let out and everyone is at home checking email.
Thinking of getting Vonage? Vonage is the phone service that uses your current internet connection as the “phone lines”. Then I recommend testing out your upload speed. Vonage says you need at least 90 kilobytes of upload speed. From my experience I recommend at least 300 kilobytes.
A few other great services include:
Setting up a few Google prefences may make your search experience a little better. I go over a few of the most common features you can start using now. Go to Google and click here to start setting up preferences.
I leave the top at the default settings. I don’t usually have a language problem any way. Google does a pretty good job only showing what you need. Occasionally I have searched and found what I need on other language sites.
Next is where is gets good. If you have kids in the house or even if you don’t you’ll want to think about increasing the results to strict filtering. I leave it at default and it works pretty well.
I like my search results to open in a new window. This is the little check box to select that option. Make sure you select “save preferences” at the bottom. Don’t want to miss that one.
The following new feature is called Subscribed links directory. I haven’t used this option but I am considering it. I did some searches on Google to learn more about this. Google definition of this feature says:
“Welcome to the Google Subscribed Links Developer Guide! The Subscribed Links API enables you to create custom search results and define search keywords for triggering the results. Web users who have signed into their Google account and subscribed to your Subscribed Links can use queries that you defined to see your custom search results appear at the top of the Google results page. Your Subscribed Links can answer questions, display links to your services, provide news and status information, and calculate quantities, among other things. To get an idea of what Subscribed Links are, you can see some existing ones in the Google Subscribed Links Directory.”
Let me know if you use this feature, I like to hear from you.
