Friday, June 18, 2010

Top All-Purpose Laptops

From PcWorld.com:

"These laptops can do it all and are a great choice for most notebook users. Ratings and rankings can change due to pricing and technology changes, so check back frequently for the latest info".


http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/1657/top_10_allpurpose_laptops.html?&tk=hp_fv

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Q & A: System Mechanic vs. Tune-Up Utilities

A customer writes:

"Hi tom thanks for the link to your blog re Tuneup Utilities. Guess I overlooked it - too quickly scanning the titles of the blogs.


Maybe I should switch to that program and stop the System Mechanic - are you familiar with that set of utilities, and the differences? I do have trouble being patient waiting for it to load - abysmally slow. Thanks for your input." 

Answer:

"xxxxx, there are so many options out there, so many people vying for our money, that as much as I might like to be familiar with them all, I am just one person and can't be. I know nothing about SM. I just went to their web site and would agree that it is probably the same as TuneUp Utilities. It also looks to be priced at about the same level.

If you have a newer version of SM I'd suggest you stick with it and learn about each of its components, find which ones seem important (registry cleaner and registry defrag are two) and get to be somewhat of an expert on a few of its components and use them regularly (once a month or so).

I suggest Googling "System Mechanic reviews" or other variations of that to do a little research. Here's one, but whenever you do this note the date of the review and realize these are sometimes out of date relative to a newer version.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/review-iolo-system-mechanic/826

Tom"

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

MSRT Follow-up

This post is a follow-up to my June 9 post about Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT). MSRT is a program distributed monthly, with updates, from Microsoft through their Automatic Updates.

I have long recommended that you should manually run a Full Scan each month with this tool because I had a suspicion that by default the program was run with a Quick Scan in the background as a part of the monthly distribution.

It turns out I was correct. Microsoft will have MSRT only run a Quick Scan, so my recommendation to manually run a full scan stands.

However, the method I recommended was the long way around the barn. After you run the monthly updates from Microsoft, you can start MSRT by simply clicking on START/RUN and enter MRT and click OKAY. Go ahead and try it now. MSRT will start up. Take note of the date up at the top of the MSRT window that opens up. It should say June 2010 at this point in time.Next month it should say July 2010, etc.

Then start a full scan. Do this each month for a little bit of extra and free security for your system.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

What You Need to Know about Office 2010 Starter

For those of you who just can't wait to learn more about the latest MS Office product, here is an article from maximumpc.com

Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet is pleading with readers to do their homework before jumping on the Office 2010 Starter bandwagon, and with good reason. Microsoft's Office 2010 productivity software goes on sale tomorrow and while it's true that the ad-supported Starter edition will be free, you might be getting less than you bargained for.

It's hard to argue with free, but it's worth noting that Microsoft gutted the Starter edition to only include basic document viewing and editing of Word and Excel. The goal is not to give Office away, but to entice users to upgrade, which some point out sounds a lot like trialware.
"Incorrect messaging of Office Starter 2010 may discourage your customers from purchasing a full Office suite and could also lead to customer dissatisfaction and confusion," Microsoft wrote in a note to its OEM partners. "Market research shows that many people confused Office Starter 2010 with a full Office suite, and were then dissatisfied because they believed they had received a full Office suite."

In other words, be weary of OEM system builders advertising Office Starter 2010 -- a practice Microsoft is discouraging -- and know exactly what it is you're getting (or not getting).

 

Monday, June 14, 2010

Q&A: How do I backup my My Documents folder?

A customer writes:

"Dear Tom,

When you worked on my computer (remotely) on March 15, I had you back up my "My Documents" from the "C" drive to my External "F" drive.

My "F" drive now has an entry entitled "My documents backed up on
3-15-2010". I need to do that periodically.

I'm embarrassed to say, I can't remember how you did that, and I can't figure it out by myself. Is that something you can briefly explain to me? Thanks."

Answer:

Not too briefly! :-)

Be sure your external drive is attached to your PC & powered on.

Click on Start and then My Computer (or just Computer in Windows 7).

Double click on the icon shown for your external drive.

Click on File, then New, then Folder

Immediately key in "My Documents backed up on 6-14-2010" and hit Enter

This should have created a new folder with that name. Look on the right half of the screen and you should see the new folder you just created. It is probably at the bottom of the list. Okay? Good, skip the next step. If not, do you see a folder named New Folder? If you do, be sure it is empty and then right click on it and select Delete.

Repeat the above two steps until you get it. Many users do not pay attention to the word "Immediately" above. All I am stressing is that you should key in the name of the new folder WITHOUT hitting your Enter key first!

Okay, you now have the new folder within which you will be backing up your My Documents folder.

Now, within the same window, scroll up to the top and on the left side of the screen you should see your My Documents folder. Yes? Good go to next step. No? Bad! Try again, restarting by closing the window and right-clicking on Start and select Explore.

Do you now see My Documents at the top of the left side of the screen? If not, I must have messed up. Please write me again and tell me where you are in the above steps.

Okay, when you see your My Documents folder displayed, click on it once and then on the right side of the screen you will see all of the contents of your My Documents folder. You will likely see many folders you should recognize and below them, perhaps, some stragglers - files that probably belong in one of your folders.

Click on Edit and then Select All, and all of the folders and files on display on the right side of the screen, the contents of My Documents, should be selected and highlighted (in dark blue on my PC).

Click on Edit again, and this time select COPY TO FOLDER.

In the next window that pops up, scroll down until you see your external drive, expand it if necessary (by clicking on the + sign to the left of the drive designation letter, and below it you will see (among others) the new folder you created. Select the new folder, clicking on it once, and click on OK down below.

This should start the copy of your My Documents to the new backup folder.

When done, compare the contents to make sure that everything was copied successfully.

As I write this I am on a W7 machine, so there may be some slight difference if you are on XP or Vista, but the general procedure is the same. Write me if any problems, pcdoc at brpcdoc dot com.

I received this e-mail the next day (6/15/2010)

"Dear Tom,

Thank you so much. I followed the instructions on the blog and
everything went very well. I am now in the
regular-backing-up-business. I had been getting so nervous because I
had not been backing up my C drive"