Windows Tools, Help & Guides

If you would like to assist a friend remotely or present from your machine and have others look in, TeamViewer is for you. Learn, in this guide, what team viewer is and where to download it.

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Microsoft Office 2010 really is starting to look a very good upgrade from the 2007 version.

One particular feature I’ve found extremely handy is the ability to save documents straight to Windows Live SkyDrive.

You’ll of course need a Windows Live account.  Go here for an account if you haven’t already got one.  Also see here for another guide involving Windows Live SkyDrive.

You can currently do this with new Word, Powerpoint & Excel documents that haven’t been saved yet or you can upload a previously saved document.

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Windows Guides’ Rating	User Rating	Compatible with
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PROS: Search function to find your favorite app. Works on most thumb drives. Effortless, though slow, installation. Convenience on the go. CONS: While necessary, installation can take over an hour. Difficult to customize which programs you want to see on the list. VERDICT: LiberKey is a great program that can be used as a toolkit on the go. If you help friends with their computer’s, this will take you a long way. Just like any Thumb drive program bundle, you get a lot of what you don’t need and are sometimes left without your favorite programs, which you’ll have to install separately. PRICE: Free DOWNLOAD: LiberKey Ultimate

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Microsoft Word 2010

Now, as I am sure you have heard, Office 2010 has been released to developers as a technical preview. I have managed to secure a copy, so I will review it now for all those who weren’t lucky enough to acquire it. So, what can you expect from this revolutionary new software suite, planned to be seamlessly integrated with Microsoft’s Web-Apps?

Now web-apps have only been released to a select few, randomly chosen, to have their skydrive upgraded to include web-apps. I was not a member of the lucky few, so I won’t be posting screenshots off of the internet on here. If you want these, or you want to read a review of them, you can Google the subject.

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Windows Guides reader, TheManRetired, offers two guides to help users who are new to Windows. The first guide covers installation of Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free. This second guide covers setting up your first backup to CD or DVD. If you’d like to provide help (simple, advanced etc., let me know.)

Hopefully you have the program installed but if you don’t I have written up an installation document that shows how to install it and where to get the program with a link to site that I know has it, so here we are going to start using the program. The screen shot here are made using the FastStone Capture program. With Burning Studio you can backup just about anything that is on your hard drive but I suggest only backing up what you have created as you can never get all the files and registry setting for programs and it is safer and better to reinstall the programs anyway so they set right and work and you don’t have to try and find out why they are not working like before. Here I am backing some music files that I ripped from my cd’s but the principles apply to all your files, you will just have to change the location of where you get the files to places on your hard drive and sorry this document will not go into all the places on your hard drive that the files are, most of them on a windows system will be in my documents(or just documents depending on your version) and most of them are located under your user account in either Documents and Settings or under Users depending on your version of windows, I am not going into any Linux or Mac systems as I don’t have them but if you want to give me one I would be happy to write up a document like this for those systems.

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Windows Guides reader, TheManRetired, offers two guides to help users who are new to Windows. This first guide covers installation of Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free. The second guide covers setting up your first backup to CD or DVD. If you’d like to provide help (simple, advanced etc., let me know.)

Here is how to backup just about anything you want to a recordable CD or DVD. These instructions where made using Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free with the FastStone Capture program.

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If you use Google Calendar, you’ll know how useful and simple it is. In this guide, you’ll learn about a tool, which brings your Google Calendar entries to your desktop.

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The TaskSwitch Powertoy replaces the standard Alt-tab view in Windows XP. See below for screenshots.

Alt-tab in XP Before

Alt-tab in XP After

Download TaskSwitch Powertoy

This is an excerpt from the Windows Guides PC Security Handbook. To learn more or find out other security-related tips, download the PC Security Handbook now.

Data backup is essential. If you’d like to explore local backup options, download my Windows pocket guides. I strongly recommend using online (off-site) backups. Backing up your data online prevents data loss if your computer is damaged or stolen—or if your data is wiped by malware.

Online Data Backup

By far my favorite solution for online backup is Mozy. Mozy offers free online storage (up to 2GB with paid options too.) I’ve had Mozy installed on my laptop for over two years and it has saved me on more than a handful of occasions.

Setup is simple and after downloading Mozy, you can specify what you want to back up and when. Mozy will automate your backups and let you decide when it backs up (specific times), what causes it to back up (low CPU usage), and how often (one, two, three etc. times a day.)

I just let Mozy run and it alerts me after a successful backup:

You can specify what types of files to backup or specify folders— it’s up to you:

Mozy even integrates into My Computer so you can browse and restore your backed up files (even ones you’ve deleted from your computer):

MozyHome Features

• Open/locked file support: Mozy will back up your documents whether they’re open or closed.
• 128-bit SSL encryption: The same technology used by banks secures your data during the backup process.
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption: Secures your files while in storage, providing peace of mind that your private data is safe from hackers.
• Automatic: Schedule the times to back up and MozyHome does the rest.
• New and changed file detection: MozyHome finds and saves the smallest changes.
• Backs up Outlook files: Disaster-proof email protection.
• Block-level incremental backup: After the initial backup, MozyHome only backs up files that have been added or changed, making subsequent backups lightning fast.

Download Mozy for Free

Download MozyHome Free

If you like to write or if you are compelled to write by work, school etc, you know how distracting it can be to use your computer. If I am not focused, I can take hours writing a paper because I take time to check my email, browse websites, play with my computer etc. In this guide, you’ll learn about Write Monkey and I’ll run you over the best features.

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