The latter happened to a client of mine and she called saying she was getting pop-ups (from Microsoft), letting her know her copy of Windows wasn’t valid.

If you get WAT (Windows activation tool) popups saying your copy of windows isn’t valid, the fastest and easiest thing to do is click on the popup and then you’ll be taken to a Microsoft site where you can purchase your ‘Get Genuine Windows’ kit. I tried to find a link to the site, but there’s not one that I can find. This may be because the price is less than buying a full version of Windows. (Of course use caution when you click on a pop-up as it could be a phishing scheme. Verify you are at the Microsoft site by looking at your URL.)

There’s a comprehensive site called Genuine Windows, that gives a lot of information on how to tell if your copy of Windows is genuine or not. From what I’m reading, you won’t be given a link to purchase the Windows Kit unless it’s determined your copy is not valid.

After you place your on-line order and pay, you’ll get an email from Microsoft with instructions and your product key – so keep that email!

Next Steps

1. You’ can update your existing product key (no DVD needed). This is the quickest way to get your computer going again-no waiting for a DVD in the mail. Keep in mind that you can only use the key to activate the same version of windows you currently have. For example, if you have Windows 7 Home Premium on your computer, and you pay for a Windows 7 Home Premium kit, then you can simply apply the key (again your instructions will be in your email, so keep it), and your computer will be legit. Microsoft states in the email that you must visit the URL they give you to apply the key from the same computer you purchased the kit from. This keeps people from trying to use the key on a different computer.

1. You can wait for your DVDs (one 32-bit & one 64-bit) to come in the mail – usually takes a week or so. Put it in and a setup screen will present. Now you can choose to either do a fresh and full install or you can choose to input the new product key.My client wanted a fresh install and I recommend this to blow away all the cruft and start fresh. Before doing this, be sure to transfer your documents and other data to an external drive before doing the fresh install. A complete reformat of your computer erases everything on the drive. If you are just going to activate, I’d still backup everything just to be on the safe side. My client had a bootleg copy of Windows Ultimate, but I easily installed Windows 7 Home Premium in about 30 minutes. Of course, the updates following made it take longer. It should be noted that if you have Windows Vista (or another Windows version), and want to ‘get genuine’ and purchase Windows 7, you must use the DVD to do a full install.

While I was going through the install process, I saw one of the screens said that the copy of Windows could not be transferred to another computer, sold or put on a new computer.

If you’d like more in-depth information, here’s a link to one of Microsoft’s support forums that gives more information on the process from a user who had problems.

If you happen to get a bootleg copy of Windows, I hope this helps prepare you for the process. Yes, it’ll cost some money, but not as much as buying a full version. Good luck and let me know your experience with the Get Genuine Kit.

Backup Windows Live Mail

If you’re using hotmail or livemail on the web only, you may want to consider getting the free desktop client to install on your desktop. This way, you’ll have off-line access to your mail account and the desktop client has a few features that the web doesn’t. You can get it here by itself, or as a suite of free downloads from Microsoft.

Here’s a quick 3” video that shows you how to export your Windows Live Mail into an .ini file that you can store on your computer or a backup drive. Of course, you’ll want to back up at regular intervals to be as up-to-date as possible.

Backup Windows Live Contacts

Contacts are also important, so there’s a section here on how to export your contacts into a .csv file. This file can be imported into Outlook or Gmail, if you wish.

Windows Live Calendar

Calendar items can’t be backed up at this time. But if you use the web-based calendar along with the desktop client of Windows Live Mail, your calendar items will be synced. If you lose your account though, this won’t help you, will it? There are third party programs (for pay) out there that will back up your Live Calendar if you have that need.

Do you use Windows Live Mail or Hotmail for your business or just personal use? If you are a business, I’d suggest Office 365 at $6/month from Microsoft. For $6/month, you get Exchange mail that’s backed up for you – peace of mind. Read here for other advantages of O365.

I’ve made a video that both shows a project I did while telling you how I did it. In our article today, I’ll go into a few more details. Here’s how I did it:

1. Take pictures or scan your pictures or documents. I chose to use my camera.
2. Import your pictures into your favorite picture-saving software (Windows Live Photo Gallery, Picasa, Flickr, etc.)
3. Then import your pictures into your favorite movie software (Windows Live Movie Maker or Picasa will work). You could also choose to import your pictures into PowerPoint 2010 and make a slide show from there.
4. Download & install Jing, a free screencapture software. There’s plenty of documentation at TechSmith regarding how to use Jing, so I won’t go into it here.
5. Start your movie or presentation and start Jing. You have 5” to speak about your slides – that’s the Jing time limit. I recommend paying $15 for Jing Pro. Your video can be easily uploaded to YouTube and put in a format ready for sharing either via a link, on Facebook or other social services.
6. Be sure to back up both your photos and your video to the clouds.
7. Now you’re ready to share your video with friends and family. If you use cloud storage, DropBox, SkyDrive and many other cloud storage choices make it easy to share with people.

A Limitation of Jing

In order to use Jing, you must either start it up by clicking on the yellow ‘sun’ object, or start it from the system tray. It’s not possible to start up the movie you’ve made in full-screen mode and then start Jing. This is because when the movie is running, Jing isn’t available. The work-around for it I found was to make my movie large on my screen, then I started up Jing and ‘drew’ the rectangle above the start button for my movie. I could then start the movie and it would go through the transitions – just not in full screen mode. If anyone knows how to get around that, I’d love to hear it! (If you’re not familiar with Jing, let me explain the ‘draw the rectangle’ phrase I used above. When Jing is started, your computer screen will go dark and you’ll see a yellow outline on your screen. Then you select the part of your screen you want to highlight and show, this is the ‘rectangle’. Anything inside the rectangle means you can’t use your mouse to click inside while Jing is recording.)

The one way I did get it to work full-screen was in PowerPoint. I was able to ‘draw’ my rectangle in such a way that I was able to start my presentation and then I could start Jing.

Go Digital and Ditch the Paper

It does take some time to sift through thing and decide what’s worth keeping but once it’s done, you’ll have more space and you’ll have a better and long lasting way to archive your memories – both for you and your family. What are some things you do to save your memories?

If you’ve ‘Liked’ business and other informational-type pages and like to read great articles or learn tips to be more productive and you use Office software (of course, you can apply this to other software or gadgets you’re interested in), then try asking your Office questions right from within Facebook. Below you’ll see some of the Office products I like.

I just recently noticed while reading some wall postings that one of the moderators advised a writer with a question to use the ‘Support’  tab and that people were standing by to answer questions like hers.

Here’s what you get when you click on the ‘Support’ tab. At first, I thought it was going to be similar to posting to a wall, but looking at the interface and noticing the search for answers and the post a question, I noticed that the page is linked to the on-line Microsoft Answers site. This isn’t a bad thing at all. It saves time because you don’t have to go and search for this site on the web. You will need to authorize the Facebook app to have access to your basic information, including your email. This also saves time because you don’t have to set up an account or sign in with your Windows Live ID. So all in all, it’s pretty handy to be able to do this from Facebook.

Other Microsoft Resources With One Click

In addition to the Support tab, there’s also tabs for videos and blogs for instant consumption and learning. Everything plays or you read it from right within Facebook.

Just for fun, I went to the Facebook Google Apps Page and there were no specialized apps, just a wall. Open Office was the same—just a wall to post on but no apps. Both were pretty boring.

Do you use Facebook to learn or do you enjoy reading articles coming through your newsfeed from businesses you’ve subscribed to? That’s probably my favorite use for Facebook.

How To Use SkyDrive

All that’s needed to start is a Microsoft Live ID. If you have a Hotmail, Livemail, X-Box or Messenger account, you already have one, if not just use the above link to get signed up. Then you’re ready to start adding documents, pdfs, pictures, videos – even .exe files can be uploaded. When you first click on the ‘add files’, it will bring up a screen where you can choose to add your docs/photos or whatever to a new folder or an existing folder.

Before uploading, it will ask what ‘permission level’ should be on that particular folder. Don’t bypass this step. The default is Public, so if you don’t want family pictures publicly viewable, select a different option. There is the ‘Only Me’, then ‘Friends’ and a couple of others. Be careful of the ‘Friends’ option as it’s based on people you have in your Contacts list and/or Messenger List and I’m not quite sure how all that works. I usually select the ‘Only Me’ to be safe. Then later on, you can adjust it or get a link to send to someone to share.

You can open Windows Explorer and drag files onto the window. The only thing lacking here is the inability to upload entire folders. Instead, open up your folder, select all the documents and drag them over into the new folder you created in the step above. Uploads are quite fast. I uploaded 360+ pictures and it took under 5”. I selected all my photos from within Windows Live Photo Gallery and there were folders inside folders. Although all the pictures were uploaded, the folder structure didn’t make it. So if that’s important to you, you’ll need to remember to first make your folder and then upload all the photos for that one folder.

Why Use SkyDrive

• It’s secure with the best encryption available
• It’s FREE
• You get an automatic 25GB of free storage (I still haven’t run out)
• Ability to set up multiple Windows IDs and link them for easy access to any of your documents/media
• Convenience – access your documents or pictures from any internet-connected computer and show people your pictures, work on a document (with the free Microsoft Web Apps),  or download what you need
• Give someone a link to view photos, documents or videos and don’t mess around with trying to email them. Be sure to choose the option where the recipient doesn’t have to have a Live ID to see what you’re sharing

SkyDrive Future

Although SkyDrive’s come a long way, there are still big plans for the future when Windows 8 is released. AND – if you have a Windows Phone 7 (like I do), having your SkyDrive docs and photos instantly accessible will be a great experience.

Here is a snapshot of major updates, courtesy of the WP 7.5 Insider. All these features are built in and part of the WP 7 OS and I’ve been busy checking out some of them and I’ll talk about a few I’ve been using, so keep reading…

People Hub

The people hub was pretty good before, but now it’s so comprehensive. I can pull up my husband’s tile and I can look at any updates he’s posted to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter (if he used all of these, I would see them, that is!). But I also have a history of all our phone calls, text messages and emails too. Anything we’ve done in the digital world is there as a reminder, review or just to catch up. I can pin his tile to my start screen for even easier access. The people hub is really the center for keeping in touch with family and friends—everything is in one place and always updated for me. I really like having pictures of my contacts show up beside their names—and I didn’t have to do the work to put them there. It was done for me by the phone.

One other handy thing to add here – when I go into the ‘What’s New’ section, I can choose to see updates from just Facebook, just LinkedIn, or just from one of my Windows Live accounts. I like having that choice.

Combined Email

I was looking forward to this feature because I had it on my Blackberry. But now that I’ve combined some of my mail accounts (work-related), I’m thinking I may go back to having them each separated because I can tell at a glance which account has new mail and if I need to check it. Click here to be taken to a quick tutorial on how to get your combined/unified mailbox set up.

Internet Explorer

This IE is version 9 and it is FAST! They say it has a hardware accelerator in it and they weren’t kidding. I’ve tried it out and it’s super fast. Another great feature is that I can push the windows button and just tell it what I’m looking for. It’s pretty accurate and faster than typing!

Voice To Text

This feature can be used for texting someone or for telling the phone to call someone. Here’s an article containing a video about how it’s done. I just got a text from my sister and it asked if it could read it to me, so I let it and them responded back by voice – how easy!

Ringtones

There are new ringtones and the ability to make my own. This is something on my to do list.

I like the new features and I think it’ll take me awhile to find and learn how to use them. I’m especially glad for the mango update because it fixed some problems I had. Before the update, I couldn’t upload my camera photos to anything but Flickr – yes strange. Well, I could upload to Facebook, but then that quit. Now I can upload to FB, SkyDrive or email. I can even auto-fix pics on the fly.

If you have a WP Mango tip – please leave me a comment – would love to hear it.

I’ve got a video (under 3”), that shows you step by step how to insert your pictures and then spiff them up a bit to make it look professional before saving and sharing.

Share your Photos

If you have a large photo album, you may want to send it via email. There is a compression feature you can utilize if you wish to do this.

There are several other options available to you below. Let’s go over them:

Save to Web – this will save it to your SkyDrive (free, just need a Windows Live ID)

Save to Sharepoint – this is a paid service (you can get it with Office 365)

Broadcast Slides – this looks really cool and easy, but when I tried it out, I found out that the presentation has to be seen by all viewers simultaneously. At least it seemed that way to me. Kind of strange.

Publish Slides – This was also a bit strange – it shows a list of all slides and there’s a check box by each slide and I can choose to ‘publish’ a single slide.

Photos Saved Another Way

There is also the ability to make your slides into a movie. I tried this option and it would convert the presentation into a .wmv movie file. I can add transition effects too. Nice.

You can save it into a .pdf for sharing/emailing to people who don’t have PowerPoint..

Microsoft is really coming along with some forward-looking features in PowerPoint. I hope you’ll check this one out and let me know your results.

This week, I decided to make a video showing you exactly how to do this. The part I couldn’t show was the actual uploading of my ppt file to YouTube. So I’ll explain that.

But first, here’s the video showing you how to insert pictures, audio and set up your transitions so your movie will run automatically within YouTube:

Next, I want to show the final result of the actual PowerPoint movie I made, so here’s the movie that I’ve embedded with the YouTube embed code so conveniently provided right below where your  YouTube video plays:

Nice result, isn’t it? You only need to have a little knowledge of PowerPoint to do this yourself.

Upload Your PowerPoint Video (wmv) file to YouTube

To do this, log into your YouTube account and click on your upload button and navigate to where your video is being stored and upload it. You’ll also notice the sharing possibilities built right into YouTube – nice!

Upload Your PPT movie to YouTube

Go out and try this – it’s not hard! What has your experience been with this feature? Have you already heard about this in PowerPoint 2010? This is so helpful and convenient.

1. Turn off File and Printer sharing.
2. Turn off Public Folder sharing
3. Encrypt folders (can do with Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise & Ultimate)
4. Use https with your mail services (Live/Hotmail, GMail) and Facebook & Twitter
5. Think about keeping your most sensitive data off your mobile computer – store on Windows SkyDrive, Amazon or somewhere secure, but where you have access.

How to do the Above

For numbers 1 & 2, go to your start button>Control Panel>Network & Internet>Network & Sharing Center>Change Advanced Sharing Settings. Then you’ll see the below where you can turn off the 2 components.

File/Folder Encryption

If you have Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate, you have this available to you, but if you have Home Premium, which is the standard, you won’t have this functionality. Here are steps from Microsoft:

To encrypt a folder or file

1. Right-click the folder or file you want to encrypt, and then click Properties.
2. Click the General tab, and then click Advanced.
3. Select the Encrypt contents to secure data check box, click OK, and then click OK again.

To unencrypt, go through the same steps, except select Clear the Encrypt contents to secure data check box, click OK, and then click OK.

Below are a series of illustrations that makes things more visual!

get here by right-clicking on the folder in win explorer

Click the encrypt check-box

Click OK and then apply to start the encyption process

Encrypted folders will be green

How Does Encryption Protect me?

When your folders are encrypted, they’ll be in green (see illustration above). You’ll be able to access your files without having to unencrypt them while you’re logged into your computer. So this means if someone gets control of your computer while you’re logged into it, they’ll be able to open your encrypted files (as well as take your computer). What the encryption does is protect you if someone steals your computer and they are able to boot it bypassing your login credentials (you DO have those set, don’t you), then they won’t be able to open encrypted files. Same thing if they remove your hard drive and try to access files – they can transfer your files over, but they shouldn’t be able to open them. If you’re at a hotspot and someone manages to get into your folders, they won’t be able to open encrypted folders/files.

Perhaps you’ve heard about laptop searches at airports and at our borders. It is possible that the contents of your laptop or smart phone could be searched by law enforcement officials. I’ve read that if you have a password protecting access to your phone or laptop, they can not legally make you enter in your password, but these laws may be changing. So that’s where step#5 might be one you’d want to implement. If it’s not on there, it won’t be found.

Don’t Forget Your EFS Certificate

The first time you use encryption, a certificate with your private key is created. If this key is lost or damaged, you may lose access to your encrypted files (say, if you moved them to another computer). So here are steps to Back up Encrypting File System (EFS) certificate. There are quite a few steps, but take your time and follow them and then put your cert in a safe place (away from your computer).

Following these guidelines should make your mobile experience safer. If you have questions or would like to implement some encryption on your mobile or desktop computer, please use my contact form to be in touch or email me at lynn(at)extremevirtualsupport.com.

New Microsoft SkyDrive Features

• 25GB of free storage (not new, but worth highlighting)
• no annoying ads anymore – thanks, Microsoft, this is much appreciated
• All your stuff in one place in an explorer-like presentation with folders listed alphabetically
• Sort through your SkyDrive stuff by clicking on ‘Documents’ on the left-hand navigation section and you’ll have a neat list of folders containing only documents
• Same thing for Pictures – click on ‘Pictures’, and instead of file folders, get ready for a really beautiful presentation of all your picture folders (I have illustrations below)
• The explorer-like interface also shows how large each folder is, the last time it was modified and who it’s shared with
• Now included on your main SkyDrive page are the Microsoft Office icons – just click one of them to start creating a Word, Excel, OneNote or PowerPoint document…don’t have Office, no worries, you can use the free Microsoft Web Apps to create, email or share your on-line documents
• Easily upload or create a new folder right on your main SkyDrive page
• If you have more than one Live ID, you can easily switch between or among your IDs by going to the upper right and clicking on your name and you’ll see a drop down menu, easily switch to another Live ID (not new, but useful)
• No more Silverlight – Microsoft has programmed this site all in html5 – this is a very big thing, although I couldn’t really tell you why

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox (observation)

Even with all these great features, I still have and regularly use a Dropbox account – why? It’s much easier to get to, open up and I can save any type of document from anywhere on my computer right into my Dropbox.

It’s so useful having the little Dropbox icon in my system tray and I don’t have to sign into it every time I want to use it. It’s also easier to send someone a share invite from Dropbox. When I’ve tried to share folders or documents from SkyDrive, with people, there always seems to be a glitch and they have problems. I can ‘pin’ my SkyDrive to my start menu (using IE9 only), but I still have to sign in—tiresome, but it is so much more secure.

I find I use SkyDrive more for storage and backup than for frequent  document retrieval. Perhaps Microsoft will some day make SkyDrive as easily accessible as Dropbox. I use Dropbox for non-sensitive documents.

The benefits of SkyDrive outweigh the inconveniences. I’ve been using it for several years now and I like the easier uploading and I especially like how easy it is to get my photos from my Live Photo Gallery on my computer into the clouds.