Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Backup is the overall most important thing you’ll ever do when working on your computer. There are literarely tons of software promising to do that for you in the easiest and safest way possible. Me, personally I am old school computer geek who likes to have total control, so I’m going to show you how you can get a complete backup of you Outlook emails and contacts in just a few minutes. In this guide I am referring to MS Outlook 2007, but this guide should also cover earlier versions like 2003 and 2000.

Here’s how to really do it in the fast and reliable way…

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To set up an email account in Outlook 2010 is very straight forward. You get started by clicking the orange File button. This will show the new file-menu system. Here you can add and edit accounts, cleanup your mailbox and create Rules and Alerts. All you’re existing accounts (if any) will show up in the top part of the window.

In this article we’ll be setting up two account types:

• POP3/SMTP account
• Windows Live/Hotmail account

[UPDATE] Added Pop3 Information for Hotmail accounts.

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Sometimes you may find that you  go to open a file you work with regularly and it opens unexpectedly with a different program than what it usually does.

This typically happens after installing new software and that software assuming you want it to do the job from now on.

Ever since back in the day at school, .bmp files for me, have always opened with MS Paint.  After installing Adobe CS4, the association changed, .bmp files now open with Photoshop.  This is something i always forget until it’s too late.  I double click the .bmp file and a nano second after I do it, I know I’ve forgotten to change the file association and have to wait for what seems like an eternity for PS to open, when all I ever wanted was to open it in trusty Paint.

This guide is going to show you how to change these associations or protocols to your liking.

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Recently ThePirateBay announced they will no longer run their torrent tracker and will be moving to magnet links. Magnet links are an older technology but many people have neither heard of them or use them. This guide goes into the basics of how to use a magnet link and provides information on what magnet links, DHT, and PEX is.
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Outlook 2010 (Beta)

It’s here !! – well not officially – but the Beta i. I’ve been using MS Office 2010 since the Beta hit the market. After running it for about 3 months I can definitively say: What are you waiting for ? Okay, I get it you want to wait for the final release – but the thing is you really don’t have to.

In this first part I’m going to show you how to get started with Outlook 2010 and show you some of the newest and coolest features which I’ve come to love. This article and the upcoming ones will be subject to change as the Final Release becomes public, so bookmark this article already!

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The most annoying part of using a PC, is surely booting it up in the morning for the days use.

After seeing this software reviewed by Lifehacker a while back, I realised I could start my PC in the morning in around 30 seconds as opposed to, in some cases, 10 minutes.

Now, I know the PC is not technically off whilst Boot Snooze is in use.  It’s in hibernation mode or Standby which puts the PC in a very low power state.  It barely even draws whilst it’s in Hibernation.

So the idea here, is to use Boot Snooze last thing in the day to reboot your PC. Once it’s been rebooted, Boot Snooze will automatically start a countdown timer (previously specified) to put your PC into a low power state.  During the countdown, we’ll set Windows to automatically start programs that we always find ourselves using.  I find the first 3 programs I always start are; Outlook, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so we’ll use those in this example.  Once they have opened, Boot Snooze will put your PC into the low power state.

When you start your PC out of standby or hibernation in the morning, it will take around 30 seconds to get to the desktop where your programs are already opened ready and waiting.  Much better than waiting a matter of minutes and then having to open the programs up one by one.

So, here’s a walk through guide on how to start your PC the smart way.

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