Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop is based a Microsoft service. Remote Desktop is a tool for remotely logging on to remote computers. This can be your home/work computer when you cannot physically sit in front of it.

Remote Desktop connects to a computer, with a new session every time it connects, remotely. A session is establish sessions with computers that have no interactive sessions running (no users logged on locally). The computer only needs to be turned on, and have an internet connection.

Click here to read about Remote Desktop.

Remote Assistance

Remote Assistance is a tool for helping users troubleshoot problems with their computers. To use Remote Assistance, both the User (also called the Novice) and the Helper must be present on their computers. Unlike Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance does not create a new session.

Instead, Remote Assistance allows the Helper to work in the existing session of the User. The User’s desktop gets remoted to the Helper, who can then view the User’s desktop and, with the User’s consent, share control of the desktop. At Microsoft.com is more details.

Virtual Memory

The main memory in your computer is the physical memory, or RAM (random access memory). This physical memory generally is not large enough to hold all of the running programs so Windows sets up some additional virtual memory as a file on the hard drive. It then swaps portions of the programs between the physical and virtual memories, always having the currently active portion of a program in the physical memory.

Windows sets virtual memory size from 1.5 to 3 times that of the RAM. Windows then manages the actual size, expanding and contracting it as needed within these limits – provided you have adequate space on the drive. You can override this and set the minimum and maximum limits of virtual memory yourself; however, I usually do not recommend this for most users.

The message that virtual memory is low means that the programs you are running need more space. Windows cannot find enough within its limits. If the message keeps popping up then it is time to add more RAM in the computer.

USB 1.1 and USB 2.0???

If you have a computer more than a few years old, and you plug in a memory stick or any USB device, you get prompted to upgrade to USB 2.0. What is the difference? The memory stick, printer, camera still work.







Well, it all boils down to speed. USB 2.0 is faster. How much faster? Look at the speed rating below;

• USB 1.1 has data transfer speed of 1 to 12 Mbps
• USB 2.0 leave USB 1 in the dust with 480 Mbps

EULA - End User Licencse Agreement

If you ever installed a program on your computer, you had to agree to an End User Licencse Agreement. Did you read it or did you just click through it. Maybe you should take some time and read through one. You may be shocked a what it has to say.

I have wrote and read about EULA's. No one really takes note as to the legal binding agreement they put themselves in just by clicking the YES box before starting a software installation.

Just for giggles read Coding Blog. He put a good overview of what you need to know.

Schedule Task

Go to Start button > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks.
Double left clicking on Add Scheduled Task.

Click Next and select the program that you want to start when your system wakes up. Click Next.

In the following three screens, select the Daily option, the time that you want your system to wake up, and then type a username and password with Administrative privileges.

On the last page, select the Open Advanced Properties check box and click Finish.
When you see the Properties dialog box for the scheduled task, choose the Setting tab and select the Wake The Computer To Run This Task check box.
Click OK.

Now, you're computer will be ready and waiting for you each morning.

Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Professional editions.

Google Advance Search - Colon

Search engines have gotten so good that I sometimes forget that they offer fantastically useful syntax for more specific results. I'll point these out from time to time, but here are my top three most useful Google search modifiers that use a colon:

1. site:URL and search term. As in, site:www.efcussins.com "media downloads." Insiders points out that this modifier is even stronger if you drop the www. You can also drop the domain name entirely and search, for example, only .gov sites.

2. define:word. This brings up definitions, related phrases, and offers to translate the word.

3. filetype:file extension and search term. It may be obvious, but this lets you search for files with a certain extension, such as PPT for a PowerPoint presentation on your topic.

Google Advance Search - Wild Card

The "*" symbol is a wild card. This is useful if you're trying to find the lyrics to a song, but can't remember the exact lyrics. Type in "Jeremiah was a *" will return the Clearwater song you were trying to remember.

This will help you find certain domains, such as government or educational organizations: "*.gov or *.edu].

Google Advance Search - Number Range

A little known feature is Google can search for a range of numbers. For example, US Presidents1800..1900 will return lists of President for the years from 1800 to 1900 (You will need the two periods between the two numbers).

Google Advance Search - Movies

Want to know at what theather a move is playing along with the times? Type in the movie title and your zip code. Google will give you where the movie is playing along with the times.

Google Advance Search - Similar

Use the "~" symbol to return similar terms. This can be better than a looking up similar word or term in a book I can't spell.

Google Advance Search - Exact Phrase

Do you know part of a phrase,but can not think of the who said or wrote it? In Google to search for an exact phrase, use quotes. "I can do all things". This will find that exact phrase.

Google Advance Search - NOT

If you are looking for greyhound dogs but don't want any results including bus. Then use the "-" symbol.

This hold true for any search you want to narrow. I recommend that you put a space the the minus sign, then type what you want to exclude. This seems to give more refining results.

Google Advance Search - either/or

Google normally searches for pages that contain all the words you type in the search box, but if you want pages that have one term or another (or both), use the OR operator -- or use the "|" symbol (pipe symbol) to save you a keystroke.

This is especially helpful if you are not sure how what you are looking of is worded. Below is an example.

WordPad - Note Pad

If you notice that in All Programs > Accessories is a program named Note Pad. Note Pad is a more basic version of WordPad. WordPad is more for letter writing. Note Pad is used of basic scratch pad type notes.

If you have a computer that is slow by today standards, these two program are great to use in place of Microsoft's Office Word. They don't have a lot of bells and whistles that most of us don't use anyway.

WordPad - Good Writing Tool

WordPad does not have all the bells and whistles that Microsoft Word. This makes WordPad a great tool if you have a older slower computer.

The toolbar looks a like Word 2003 and earlier. In fact it is a great beginners/low budget tool for writing.

WordPad

Part of the Windows XP is a a program called WordPad. You can find this program starting at the Start button. Left click on All Programs. Guide your cursor to Accerories. As it's sub menu opens, left click on WordPad.
Word Pad is a scaled down version of the Office Suite program. However, as you will learn in the next few days, it has a lot of unknown/unused features that is sitting there waiting to be used.

Outlook - Open The Easy Way

If you are constantly searching for way you can spend less time in front of the computer. We here is two tips to shave off a few seconds off you time in Outlook.

• If you are reading your email from you Inbox, then want to write a new email. Hold down the Ctrl and the N key. A new email dialog box will open up. This also works for being in Contacts, or Calendar to open a new contact or new appointment.
  
• If you are reading and want to add something to your calendar. Hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys, then press the A key. This will open an appointment dialog box.
  

Outlook - Restore Files

A backup of any files is not any good unless you can use it to restore the files that have been damaged. Ideally, a test of backup data should be done monthly, on a separate computer. This way if the back up is corrupted it won't damage what you have on your production computer.

The same steps for restoring damaged or corrupted files should be used in testing your back up files.

• Select File | Import and Export... from the menu in Outlook.
• Select Import from another program or file.
• Click Next.
• Highlight Personal Folder File (PST).
• Click Next again.
• Now use the Browse button to select the backup copy of the PST file you want to recover from your backup location.
• Make sure Replace duplicates with items imported is selected.
• Click Next.
• Finish the import process with Finish.

Outlook - Backing Up

Don't get caught without any back of your all important Outlook files. Below are the steps you need to take to create a copy of your mail, contacts, calendar and other data in Outlook for backup or copying:

1. Go to your Outlook folder in Windows Explorer.
2. Highlight all files ending in ".pst".
   • Make sure in particular your selection includes "outlook.pst" and "archive.pst".
3. Select Edit | Copy from the menu to copy them.
4. Open the folder where you want to put your backup copies in Windows Explorer.
   • Ideally, this will be on another computer, on a removable disk stored far away from your home, somewhere on the Internet, or at least on a different hard disk.
5. Select Edit | Paste from the menu to paste your .pst files to the backup location
• I strongly recomment the backup location be a memory stick or external hard drive.
• These back up should be done daily, or weekly.
  

RSS -The Quick and Easy Way

Getting updated information from a website or blog has been made easy. Websites that you want to read regularly have a button to help you to subscribe to their RSS feed.

All you have to click on the type of RSS reader button you want to use, and after a couple more clicks it is adds the feed to your reader. So when the web page is updated a summary of the new content is sent to your reader.

RSS - Google Style

Google has it's own type of home page. You can plug in and arrange your RSS feeds according your preferences. The first thing you will notice is that Google does not near the number of advertisement that Yahoo has with it's home page.

All you need to do is sign up for a Free Gmail account. As you can see above I have so many RSS feeds that I have to organize them with tabs. Note: these tabs are custom to the feeds I have going to my Google home page.

RSS - Yahoo Style

If you can look behind all the advertisement. Yahoo may have a simple way to all of your RSS feeds and news. Yahoo call it My Yahoo. All you knew to do is sign up for a free email account.

I mentioned that it has a lot of advertisement. And that it is free. Well, you pay for it by the advertisement you have to look at. Some people can just block the advertisements out of their mine.

Once you get your free email account you can start setting up your My Yahoo page. Here you have and RSS reader. Plus the extra of brining them all in one place. You can even arrange them however you want.

Outlook as Your RSS Reader

Very few people use Outlook Express for more than email. Below are steps and tips on setting up the Outlook Express Newsreader for viewing and posting to the Microsoft newsgroups.

1. Open Outlook Express or if you have Outlook configured, open Outlook.
2. From Tools menu, select Accounts.
3. Click the Add button and select News.
4. This will launch the Internet Connection Wizard.
5. Type the name you want to appear in the "From" column in the Display field.
6. Type your email address, this can be any email address, but I suggest creating an anonymous email account just for newsgroup posting.
7. Enter msnews.microsoft.com for the NNTP server. Since the Microsoft public newsgroups do not require a password, leave the checkbox "my newserver requires me to log on" unchecked.
8. In the Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog box, type microsoft.public.windowsxp. to display all Windows XP newsgroups. Click the newsgroups you're interested in, then click Subscribe.
9. When you have subscribed to the desired newsgroups, click OK
10. From OE Tools> Options> Read> Set the number of headers to retrieve to 1000. Uncheck the checkbox to download all the messages in a newsgroup. (recommended, but takes a considerable amount of time. OE Newsreader will give a much higher estimate of the posts to download. Estimate is over a million headers for the general group, but actual number is around 90 to 100 thousand.) The XP newsgroups have a very high volume and average posts in some groups exceed 1000 posts per day, using the default 300 headers to download would give only a fraction of the posts and replies to the newsgroups.
11. From View> Current View select Show All Messages.
12. From View> Sort By select Sent
13. Optionally From View> Layout> Preview Pane, select open preview pane, then 'below messages' or 'beside messages' and finally Show preview pane header. This option allows you to see messages as you select them.
14. Use Help for more tips on configuring OE for newsgroups.

RSS (part 3)

Once you have selected you wanted to get the RSS feed. In this case Cnet.com, you are taked to a web page with some of their feed articles. From this point you are given a link to add this RSS feed to you Internet Explorer Favorites.

RSS (part 2)

Internet Explorer 7 put the little RSS button in it's toolbar.

It is grayed out when Internet Explorer 7 does not recognize the view website as having a RSS feed.

When the RSS feed is available, it goes from gray to orange.


Left clicking on the down arrow to the right of the RSS will give you what RSS feeds that are available from that web page.

RSS (part 1)

To use RSS, you need a special news reader or aggregations that displays RSS content feeds from Web sites you select. You can choose to read your news feed from a web page or get them in your email.

There are many different news readers available, many of which are free of charge. Most are available as desktop software that you download and install on your computer. Several Web-based news readers are available as well.

A quick search will produce an extensive list. Yahoo RSS Readers and Google RSS Readers give you a lot to choose.

The first thing you need to decide if you want your news feed from you web browser or in your email.

RSS and News Feeds

Windows offer you multiple ways you can keep up with you favorite news source. RSS or Really Simple Syndication is the most powerful. However, Yahoo, Google, MSN, and many other have just buttons you can left click on to subscribe to a blog, or news website.


Pick the news source you want to read with your morning cup of coffee.

Email - Web Based / Server Based

There are two basic types of email. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages.

The most common type of email is web based. You find this kind of email from Yahoo, Hotmail, Hushmail, and many others. The big advantage of web based email is that you can access it from any computer that has internet connection. The downside is that you will have to put up with advertisements along with your email.

POP email, is more secure. You can only get this type of email from one computer with the setting to download email from a specific email server (post office). This is the type of email system used by most business.

I have a free web based email account for when I am on the road. I also have a POP based email for I am in the office or on the road.

Oulook - Out of the Office Reply

There is nothing better, in my opinion, you get an email that lets me know when I can get a response about a topic I emailed someone. Many business do this so they can keep their clients when they can expect a response.

The out-of-office-reply can be done with the auto responder for web based email. If you use Outlook can set up an out of office auto-reply can be pretty simple. However, you should not that it is better left click the HELP menu for your specific version of Outlook. Each version of Outlook is a little different.