Archive for computer tips
Google Tool Bar Auto-Fill
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle is good, Google is great, but I resist using every tool they come out with. One I’ve resisted is the Google Toolbar as it takes up real estate at the top of my screen and I wonder what all it will know about me.
However, I was on a training call last week and our instructor mentioned she uses the auto-fill feature from the Google tool bar for filling out web forms. Quickly and effortlessly, the form was filled out with no loss of time or having to stop and look up information.
The download and install took under a minute and I immediately filled out two profiles using the AutoFill function – very easy. You can choose which is the default. You can add a credit card and require a password to access that for web forms. I chose not to do that right now.
Need several ‘identities’ for your web forms – perhaps a business and a personal? No problemo, feel free to make as many profiles as you need.
Of course, the Google Toolbar has many more features. Check them out along with detailed explanations for their uses.
Google makes using the Auto-Fill function of their toolbar even easier by making this very short video.
What are your favorite toolbar features?
Microsoft has updated their tool bar, which I find more useful since I use more of their services. We’ll look at that next week, perhaps along with the Yahoo toolbar.
How To Track & Organize Tasks, Collaborate & Get Things Done
Posted by: | CommentsFinding the ultimate in how to manage and share tasks has occupied my thoughts, and I’ve spent some time doing research on ‘the best way’ to accomplish this.I thought I’d share my findings.
Web Based Task Systems
There are dozens of web-based tools to list our tasks. Here are a few to get you started: Jott, OmniFocus, Things, Remember the Milk and Reqall, I used Jott while it was free and it was pretty nifty. I just signed up for Remember The Milk and was looking through its features and benefits. But I really don’t know enough about either right now to recommend them or not.
Mail Based Task Systems
Yahoo – no task feature.
Live/Hotmail – no task feature.
Gmail – very rudimentary task feature. A box pops up and you can write things in it and check them off or forward to someone in an email. That’s about it – no date reminders, no color coding.
Outlook – the tasks are feature-rich with options to forward them as an email, a text, custom code, custom date reminder, option to make a task into a meeting request, prioritize them and more.
Outlook with Exchange – all the above plus you have the option to share your tasks with an assistant, so they can help manage your task list. The assistant can add to them, mark them as completed, change the due date, etc.
Paper Based Task Systems
Getting Things Done, by David Allen, is very popular with both the paper and electronic crowd. They have paper products if that is your preference.
Franklin Covey – they’ve been around for years and have a great paper-based system. I’ve not heard very good reviews on their digital system though.
Daytimer – another respected paper-based planning system that people have used successfully for years.
Notebook/Journal/Notepad – here we get down to the low-tech end of things.
The Winner Is…
Maybe you’ve stayed with me this far thinking that I’m going to reveal which method is best and what will solve your problems, make you super-efficient and never forget anything again. You’re right! The simple answer is…whatever works best for you. What a cop-out, you’re thinking!! Actually, people like David Allen of Getting Things Done, and Stever Robbins, from the Get-It-Done-Guy, have both said to do what works best. So the right answer is different for everyone.
Think about it – you have a certain way you arrange your desk, your supplies, your closet. There’s no right way to do it, you arrange things so you’ll know where they are and so its convenient for you. Why wouldn’t keeping track of your tasks be the same way? For me, using my trusty composition notebook works great. Although technically gifted and love to hear about and try different pieces of software, for my master to do list, it goes on paper. It’s not the only system I use. I use paper in conjunction with technology. For meetings, calls, webinars, those go on the calendar with a reminder set. For recurring items – those go on my Outlook calendar as well. That’s what works for me, so why change it?
I have a dear friend who is terribly disorganized and hasn’t submitted an expense report in years (can’t keep track of receipts), When I asked him how he keeps track of things, I still remember my jaw dropping when he pulled out a torn piece of paper from his shirt pocket and said, ‘here it is’. That torn piece of paper contained the information he needed for the day and it works for him (he’s still flourishing at his job).
The important thing is to get tasks from your head into a system where they can be captured and not forgotten. Perhaps you send an email or a text to yourself or an assistant, perhaps you jot it down in a notebook you carry with you. It’s important to collect them and then it’s important to review them on a regular basis in order to get them done. Have your list with you – my notebook is right by my monitor so I can see at a glance what is left to be done and what needs to be moved forward to the next day.
Everyone needs a system they can trust, fits their style and allows productivity. It’s not the same for everyone. If you have a system you’ve used that’s paper based but people are telling you to get digital, ignore them and use what works for you.
I’d like to hear your methods or of your journey to getting organized. Please leave a comment.
5 Reasons To Be In The Cloud
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone talks about the cloud – many of us are taking steps to transition there, some of us are already there. I’ve got a mix – I heavily use the cloud for collaboration, storage and personal satisfaction. I’m not quite ready to put everything there, but it is convenient and reassuring. Here are my top 5 reasons to be In The Cloud…
1. Anywhere Access
This is huge for most of us. How convenient is it to be able to log into all your email accounts, your files and folders, be able to share pictures, write a blog post, revise a document for work and send to a colleague? All of this and more is available right now. As soon as I offload pictures from my camera, I try to immediately publish them to my Microsoft Live Photo Gallery. Then I can access them from anywhere and send out a link.
2. Offsite Backup Included
We all need to backup our stuff. We constantly hear it from all the talk show hosts, don’t we? Do you do it? Most of us have our stash of stuff first on our local computers – right? When a decision is made to upload our data to the clouds, that means we now have 2 copies-less stress and we’ve got a backup. In addition to cloud storage, I also strongly urge everyone to use a backup service like Carbonite or Mozy. It’s also a good idea to have a copy of your most important things on an external drive. Redundancy is good.
3. The Mobile Employee/Entrepreneur – No Location Restrictions
Some companies are forward thinking enough to allow employees the freedom to work from various locations, maybe not even in the same city, maybe they are in the office a few days a week. The Entrepreneur with a small business can appear as if she’s in her office keeping up with work and tasks all the while doing so from some exotic location.
4. Not Tied to Software – Reduced Cost
Let’s face it, most of us need some kind of word processing, email and most likely spreadsheet and presentation software. There’s a flavor for everyone. I’m very excited about the new Microsoft Office Web Apps and how I can create, save, retrieve and share documents all from the cloud. Microsoft is also working on an Enterprise version for collaborating and exchange email in the cloud. If you like Google Docs (not as robust in my opinion), you can use that. There’s also OpenOffice, Zoho, and even IBM has its Lotus Notes software.
5. Collaboration
As a Virtual Assistant, my clients look to me to find the best ways to share information and work together efficiently and effectively. In the past 3 years, more and smarter ways have been developed and will continue to develop. Again, there are many choices/tools out there. You can look at my archives on calendar collaboration, using Microsoft Office Web Apps and go elsewhere to research other tools. With cloud services getting better, secure and easily accessible, being in the cloud is essential. Remember all the fuss about ‘The Wave’? Maybe there are lots of folks out there using it, but I just don’t hear about it much anymore.
Being in the cloud means, theoretically, we’re always available. Having balance between work and home/personal has been a hot topic for years now. But figuring all of that out is another column, probably more than one!
What are your top reasons for being in the cloud – sound off here!
Goog-411 Get Free Directory Listing
Posted by: | CommentsPreviously posted in 2007, a great and free service.
Google Voice Local Search was launched a few months ago. It is available only in the U.S. and is a free way to get information on local business listings.
Program 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) into both your home and cell phones for future reference. When you call, an automated voice will answer. Give him your city and state and then you can ask for either a specific business listing or a category, i.e. florists. He will give you the top eight results, asking you to either speak or punch in the number of the one you’re looking for. Then you’ll receive the address of the business and the option to either be connected to the business or have the info texted to your cell phone.
I tried it on a speaker phone and the system heard everything I said the first time. Don’t you find it frustrating to have to repeat yourself to a machine? Give it a go, I think you’ll find it convenient…and best of all – free!
Run Windows XP Virtually from Windows 7
Posted by: | CommentsThis week, I was finally able to install a virtual machine running XP inside my Windows 7 OS. I say finally because I had been trying to accomplish this for close to a year now. I first tried it when I was running Vista and using Microsoft’s free VM (virtual machine) software. 
When Windows 7 came along in October 2009, I heard about the ability to install a virtual PC and run XP in it. I was disappointed to find out that it was available for those running Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate or Professional. When I got Professional, I was crushed again when I found out it had HAV (hardware-assisted virtualization) requirements that my machine could not meet.
Fast forward to this Spring when Microsoft made Hardware virtualization support (HAV) no longer a requirement. So that means if anyone is running Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate or Professional, it’s possible to get your computer configured with Virtual PC + XP Professional for free!
I think Microsoft realized the previous requirements left too many users unable to utilize XP Mode. That meant that there were users out there who would NOT upgrade to Windows 7 because they had some legacy software that was holding them back.
I was interested in XP Mode because I have client work that can only be completed by using Windows XP, but I didn’t know that before I upgraded to Windows 7. Luckily, I have a Dell netbook with XP on it, so I could continue with my client. But I’d rather do that work on my production machine.
Next, I want to walk through the steps to get Windows Virtual PC & XP Mode on your machine.
Steps To Install Windows Virtual PC & Windows XP Mode
- Have a PC running Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate or Professional edition.
- Download and install the three pieces of software in the order designated (below). This takes quite awhile – I’m talking about hours. This is because you’re installing a new operating system inside another operating system. Even though you get XP with SP 3 on it, there are still many more updates that will need to be installed. Don’t forget to install security software. Might as well use Microsoft Security Essentials – it’s free and lightweight.
Two steps, but budget a lot of time to do this. For me, it took probably 6 hours, but I wasn’t babysitting my computer – I’d come back every once in awhile and do the next thing and walk away again. I also shut down everything else and just put all my machine’s resources on the downloading and installing process.
When it finished with all the updates, I started it up and everything worked! I was able to do my tasks that I had been doing on the Dell netbook on my production machine, so I was very happy.
Here's my machine-I'm running XP inside of Windows 7-Cool!
The purpose of this article is really to let you know that the hardware requirements have been eliminated and now it’s much easier to use this software and have the ability to install and run your XP programs from within Windows 7.
USB Support & 1-Click Launch
Some really cool things they’ve added are the below. We’re not covering that here, but read about these improvements. I’ve heard more technical people talk about that perhaps with the USB support, it might mean that there will be hardware support for our old XP peripherals. That could help a lot of people who have printers that are in great condition, but can’t find a driver in Windows 7.
More Resources – check here for more comprehensive coverage of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP.
If you’ve tried this, let me know how your experience went.
System Image & Backup With Windows 7
Posted by: | CommentsWindows 7 has been a stable and aesthetically pleasing OS for many. The aesthetic features have been talked up so much, that the great utilities included don’t get enough attention. Today, I want to highlight the Windows 7 System Image and Backup features and how easy they are to utilize.
All Windows 7 versions from Home Premium and up have these features. However, saving your system image or backing up to a network device is available only with Professional and Ultimate.
System Image 
Windows 7 makes it easy to make an image of your hard drive. This means everything – from the OS to all your drivers, data and how everything is set up. Say you get a nasty Facebook virus or click on something by mistake or visit a malicious web page and get infected. Instead of spending hours trying to get rid of it, just restore the image you have backed up to DVDs or an external drive.
To get started, go to your start button>Control Panel>System and Security>Back up your computer. You’ll then see the screen below and you can get your backup started and running in just a few seconds. Of course, you’ll want to put your image on an external drive or network location in case your machine is compromised. In the event you need to restore, just go back to System and Security and follow the prompts to restore your system.
Remember that this is a snapshot in time, so it’s something you may want to schedule monthly or quarterly.
When I finished running my system image, it prompted me to make a repair/boot type disk. It’s good to do this in case your computer becomes unbootable for whatever reason.
Backup
Backing up files, pictures and music is something we all know we need to do, but how many of us only get the ‘backup religion’ after losing data? Don’t let it be you! I use Carbonite, but I like to have another form of backup as well.
Windows 7 makes it easy to click through several screens and tell it which folders you want to have backed up and to what location. You’ll need to remember to have an external drive attached, or if you’re using a network location, that it is available at the time the backup is scheduled to run (backing up to a network available with Ultimate and Professional versions of Windows 7).
You get to the backup area the same way you get to System Image – then select ‘Backup’ and go through a few screens to get it set up. Alternatively, you can let Windows manage what is backed up.The image below would probably capture all data, pictures and music for typical users as those items are stored in our ‘Libraries’. Simply expand to see what has been selected and select and un-select as needed.
The last step is to select the time and frequency of your backups and you’re finished.
Secunia – Scans Your Computer for Patch Needs
Posted by: | CommentsThe typical PC user will/should need to install a patch for some piece of software on their machine an average of every 5 days this year, says Brian Krebs, of Technology Review. This number was based on research done by Secunia, a security-focused company based in Denmark, who collected information on over 2 million PC users over several years.
Microsoft has made it pretty easy for users to select the option to automatically update our computers whenever an update is pushed out, but most typical users don’t think about updating the other software on their systems. For example, Adobe has been plagued the last couple of years with many flaws and vulnerabilities in their popular Reader, Flash, Shockwave and Air programs. Browsers need to be updated regularly as well as Java, Skype and a multitude of other software programs on our systems that we may not use regularly and don’t think about them needing updating.
So what’s a typical user to do? Go to Secunia.com and run their free and fast OSI–(OSI-on-line software inspector). It scans all the programs on your computer and then it’ll give you a list of all the programs needing updating or patches. The best part is Secunia provides a link to download all the patches you need to get your system up-to-date!
I’ve run it on all my computers – here’s a result of one of my scans – looks like I need to update my Adobe Flash Player. So I downloaded and installed it. I went back a day or so later and checked it again. They said I still needed
to update my flash player. This time, I went in the control panel and uninstalled the existing Adobe Flash player and plug in. Then I installed the freshly downloaded Flash Player–and got the same message. So I’ll have to keep working on that.
Or, you could try Secunia’s PSI (personal software inspector), a download to your computer and run your scans from there.
Secunia also publishes an advisory page which lists the newest vulnerabilities. This page looks like it’s updated hourly. The page also offers a searchable database if there’s something in particular you want to research, or you can scroll th
rough the extensive list of vendors to see what the newest threat is from using one of their products.
They make their living from selling their products to corporations, but they’ve made doing a scan or downloading their personal software free for individuals. So there’s no reason to not run their scanner and take a few minutes to fix/patch your system.
Screenpresso – Free Screen Capture Tools
Posted by: | CommentsScre
enpresso came cross my radar just a week or so ago. It seems they are pretty new to the web because when I went to follow them on Twitter, I was just the 84th follower.
Screenpresso is a screen capture/editing/effects/twitter tool. Oh, and it’s free! It’s a bit like Microsoft’s Snipping Tool—only more feature-rich. After it’s downloaded, it resides in your system tray (I know, another resource drain, but you can turn it off). When you’re ready to get a screen shot, just right click on the icon and you’ll get a menu of items. This is where you choose if you want an entire screenshot or a certain region of a screen. There’s a cool feature called ‘screenshot autoroll’ which stitches together more than one screen-full.
Above is a shot of their main features—let’s take a look at the more advanced features:
- screenshot history – if you don’t want to save your captures, just leave them in the history of Screenpresso. If it’s something you won’t use again, just delete it. If it’s something you’ll use over and over, there’s an option to save it to a folder on your hard drive. It looks like they are saved in a date order and with a .png extension. If you find yourself making a lot of captures, I’d suggest filing them in folders to keep things manageable.
- add effects – here’s where you can add borders, shadows, etc.
- capture scrolling part – this feature lets you capture more than one screen-full using a stitching mechanism. I didn’t try out this feature, but this is pretty cool!
- screenshot to email – this is very nice because all you have to do is have your history open and drag your capture over to your email task bar and it will put it in your email as a .png attachment.
- screenshots to Twitter – pull up your history and you’ll see the twitter bird icon at the bottom of the screen. Click it and you’ll get a popup to sign in to your Twitter account and send it to twitpic and add a message.
- edit/enhance your image – here’s where you can add explanatory text, arrows or other formatting features to highlight an item or feature. Also a nice feature is the blurring tool – great for blocking sensitive/identifying data
Conclusion
Since this is a start-up, they are still working out kinks and probably trying to make everything work. They are working on a Pro version, which will probably be a for-pay service. I see it looks like they will be offering video – but that service isn’t ready just yet.
I liked using it, the features were pretty intuitive and didn’t take too long to catch on. I think Jing is a competitor of theirs (you can read my article on that), and has an advantage because you can video and record what’s on your screen and share it. I’ll still use Microsoft’s Snipping Tool most because I usually don’t have a need to put effects on my snips or save them. Screenpresso is great for full screenshots and being able to point out with text or arrows what you want your reader to see.
Jing-Make a Video, Take A Screenshot
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I was wanting to do an instructional video for a friend who needed to perform edits of her website and I remembered how I had used Jing a year or so ago. If you’ve never used the program, you may find it helpful to download the guidebook (pdf), as it quickly steps
you through how to do a screenshot and how to make a narrated video.
I previously posted about Jing from TechSmith. Back then, I had compatibility problems with the program and had to uninstall it. Now, it’s rediscovered – at least by me. I installed it and didn’t have any problems using it with Windows 7.
I use the Snipping Tool to capture illustrations, (ships with Windows Vista & 7), but one thing it can’t do is get a capture of a drop down menu. Jing has the ‘capture hotkey’ feature. With this feature you can click to get to your drop down menu, initiate your capture key combination (I chose Crtl + J), and then the Jing interface appears and you can get your capture—slick.
Here are some of the newer features
- ability to add up to 8 additional customizable buttons to have Jing do different things
- Send your screencast to twitter to share
- updated help section with videos showing you how to do just about any Jing task
- Get an embed code and post your content to a blog or website
Other Jing Features:
- Takes a snapshot of your whole screen or a small portion of your screen
- Option to save your output (.jpg) to either a free screencast account, your computer, or if you’re really geeky, you can save output at your FTP site or YouTube (Pro Version).
- Ability to capture a video running on your computer to share with someone
- Ability to make your own video – be it instructional or just fun in nature. Videos can then be instantly shared via IM, web or email.
- If you have a microphone, you can record your comments or instructions while capturing what you want to share. Nice feature and really allows for personalization.
- Output your jpgs to your Flickr account
- There is a 5” time limit for videos.
- A Pro version is available that will allow direct import to YouTube and the ability to save your videos as MPEG4s instead of the default SWF Flash Video. Other advantages to Pro as well. See them here
The Pro version is only $15/year. If you are one who likes to make instructional videos – for fun or for business, you’ll want to upgrade. With the Pro Version, you’ll be able to use a webcam and get smoothly transitioned shots of yourself, along with what is on your screen. Then post to your YouTube account with one click.
Jing is a free product by TechSmith (who also brings you SnagIt (like Jing, only not free), and Camtasia Studio (a high-end video producing software, also paid). Jing also integrates well with both of these products.
Sync Outlook and Google Contacts
Posted by: | CommentsThere is the handy Google calendar sync download that will do a 1 or 2-way calendar sync, but it doesn’t handle syncing contacts. I thought Google or Microsoft would address this limitation, but I’ve found that WebGear has stepped in to offer the free GO Contact Sync that does the job very nicely with many options from which to choose.
This open source program is hosted at Sourceforge, a reliable source for innovative and free software. GO Contact Sync supports categories, so if you have set up groups of categories, it will find and keep them categorized. If you use contact photos, it will sync those too. However, if you have different photos for the same contact, it will not do a sync.
The best thing are the number of sync options available.
Sync options from the website…
- Merge Prompt: This will ask you which contact to overwrite if both have been updated.
- Merge Outlook Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Google contact will be overwritten.
- Merge Google Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Outlook contact will be overwritten.
- Outlook To Google Only: Only updates Google contacts based on Outlook contacts.
- Google To Outlook Only: Only updates Outlook contacts based on Google contacts.
Once the program is installed, you’ll have an icon in the system tray. Here you can click to sync your contacts on the fly. However, you can choose during the setup process how often to sync, or to sync upon startup.
I just found this program and haven’t decided if I’ll use it yet since I have different sets of contacts in my Outlook and Google contacts and I’m not sure if I want to merge them or not. The program is in beta, so they do say to use at your own risk! It’s always good to do a backup before trying something new.
