We are seeing more and more people opt for less expensive alternatives to Microsoft Office, such as Lotus Symphony, OpenOffice, or even Google Docs. The problem comes when you go to send someone a document and they don’t have the same version that you are using. Sure they may be able to open and view the document in another program, but you aren’t guaranteed that the file will be formatted the same or even display the same on their screen. Just the other day I received a presentation created in Google Docs, which I ended up having to recreate because it wouldn’t display correctly.
Luckily there is a FREE way to send documents in a format that everyone can view no matter what. Years ago Adobe created the PDF (Portable Document Format). This format allows a document to be saved, emailed, etc… and just about all computers have the free PDF viewer pre-loaded. Now that we know this is the best format to send documents, how do we create a PDF? You can go out and spend the $249.95 for the full version of Adobe Acrobat and create/edit PDFs until your heart is content, but we have found an alternative that works great and is FREE. Cute PDF Writer is a small application that can be loaded on your computer and appears as a printer. Now whenever you want to create a PDF document, simply print to the CutePDF printer and your document will be converted to a PDF and you can save it to your computer. No more wondering how your document will display on the other end.
Internet Explorer version 9 has been out for a while now and those that have updated either love it or hate it. Those that haven’t updated and are running Windows 7 will actually soon be forced to go to the new version as Microsoft removes support for older versions. That being said we still receive quite a few calls about how to find things and how to use Internet Explorer 9, and one of the most common questions that we get asked is “Where did my Search bar go?”
In previous versions of internet explorer we were all used to the Google or Bing search bar in the upper-right corner, which has now disappeared in IE9. Many of our users thought the search feature was gone altogether, but luckily Microsoft has now introduced a slightly different an easier way to search. At the very top of the Internet Explorer Window where you type in the URL that you want to go to, you will now see a little magnify glass at the end. The entire URL bar is now your search bar. For instance if I wanted to find an excellent Technology Provider with Smart Solutions that are Simply Applied you can simply type in “Smart Solutions Simply Applied” and hit enter and the browser will automatically open your search provider with the results. In addition anything that you type in this space with a preceding question mark is automatically assumed to be a question and will search as well.
Providing internet access to kids is definitely a necessity nowadays. School work is now conducted online, and the computer is a great educational tool when used correctly. The only problem is that providing unfettered access to the internet can be harmful and in the end you never know for sure what sites and content your kids may be seeing.
Luckily there is an easy solution to help protect your kids and ultimately your PC. K9Web Protection is a piece of software that can be installed on your computer (both Mac and Windows). This software will allow you to select what categories and levels of content you want to block (i.e. pornography, drugs, violence, spyware, phishing, etc…). In addition you can set time restrictions and review reports to see where your children are going and what they are looking at. The best part is the software is provided for FREE, and it is an easy installation, only taking 15 minutes.
I recommend that all parents with children have some sort of content filtering in place to help protect their family, so head over to K9 Web Protection and download it today. Your kids may not like it, but at least they will be safe and secure.
Earlier we posted an article on how to setup parental controls for Windows 7, but we didn’t want to leave out those with Macs. Below is how you can setup parental controls on a MAC to limit access to content etc…
- Open the System Preferences Window and click on the Parental Controls Icon.
- You will need to click the lock in the bottom left-hand corner and provide your administrator user name and password.
- Next you want to select the account from the list on the left and then you can start adding/setting parental controls on the right. Here is a rundown of the parental control options:
- System: Under the System tab you can select what system capabilities a user has and also limit them to only certain applications.
- Content: Under the Content tab you can try to limit access to adult websites or only allow access to approved sites.
- Mail & Chat: In this window you can create an approved list of users that your child can email and chat with. You can also provide a mechanism for them to request permission from you.
- Time Limits: Allows you to limit time spent on the computer or limit when a computer can be used.
- Logs: This is where you can go in and see what sites they have been going to and applications based on date and time.
Your kids may not like it, but at least it will keep them safe on the net.
Those of you with kids knows that they are constantly texting, emailing, facebooking, etc… Rather than their face in a book their face is usually firmly planted in front of some electronic gadget. As a parent one of the things I always want to make sure is that my children aren’t opening programs and doing things they shouldn’t be, and also limit the amount of time they spend on the computer.
Windows 7 has built-in parental controls which will allow you to block programs on the computer and limit their computer time to specific dates/times. Here is how you would set this up.
- First thing to do is setup a specific user account for your child and/or children on the computer. To do this you want to go to Control Panel and User Accounts. Here you can set a new user and you want to make sure it is a “Standard User.”
To turn on Parental Controls for a standard user account
- Open Parental Controls by clicking the Start button
, clicking Control Panel, and then, under User Accounts and Family Safety, clicking Set up parental controls for any user. 
If you’re prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
- Click the standard user account that you want to set Parental Controls for. If the standard user account isn’t set up yet, click Create a new user account to set up a new account.
- Under Parental Controls, click On, enforce current settings.
- Once you’ve turned on Parental Controls for your child’s standard user account, you can adjust the following individual settings that you want to control:
- Time limits. You can set time limits to control when children are allowed to log on to the computer. Time limits prevent children from logging on during the specified hours. You can set different logon hours for every day of the week. If they’re logged on when their allotted time ends, they’ll be automatically logged off. For more information, see Control when children can use the computer.
- Games. You can control access to games, choose an age-rating level, choose the types of content you want to block, and decide whether you want to allow or block unrated or specific games.
- Allow or block specific programs. You can prevent children from running programs that you don’t want them to run.
Here is a link to a video on how to do this as well:http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/videos/using-parental-controls
Just this week I had scheduled a conference call with a prospective client and was all set with my proposal, PowerPoint presentation, and anything else needed to wow them. So I dial-in to the conference line and nobody is there. I wait another 15 minutes and still nobody is there. I immediately think there must be something wrong with the conference line but everything checked out. It ends up I scheduled the meeting for 2pm, but didn’t take into the account that they were in Texas and weren’t expecting me for another 2 hours.
Frustrated with myself I thought that there must be a way to coordinate meetings across multiple time zones without running into these caveats. And of course I guess I am not the only idiot out there because Microsoft Outlook now has a “Time Zone” feature built-in. The next time you go to send out a meeting invitation click the “Time Zones” button at the top toolbar of Outlook and you can then select the time zone of your meeting participants. What is great is that this will send them the correct time setting for their zone, but will also set the correct time in your calendar for your zone.
Hopefully this will help everyone else alleviate the frustrations that I had, and actually make the meeting at the intended time.
If anyone has been up at 2am I am sure you have come across the Ronco© Showtime Rotisserie, where you just “Set it and Forget it!” Unfortunately we are seeing quite a lot of businesses taking the same approach to their backup. They setup and configure everything one day and then never touch it again hoping that everything works like it should. I have some bad news; backups are one thing that needs constant hand holding to make sure everything is getting done. Now the easiest way to do this is to have a knowledgeable individual or company (insert STS managed backup plug here) handle your backup for you, but just in case that isn’t in line with what you are looking for I thought I would provide information on what you need to look for on an ongoing basis with your backup jobs.
- The first is the easiest, but is the most often overlooked. You need to review the log files from your backup every day. Here is what you are looking for:
- Did the backup complete successfully?
- Are there any errors or warnings?
- Were any files skipped? If so, Why?
- Secondly you need to review what is actually being backed up at least on a monthly basis. You may need to adjust what gets backed up etc… to ensure that any new files or folders get successfully added to your backup jobs.
- Last but not least. On a quarterly basis you need to test your backups to make sure they can be restored and everything is working like it should.
Believe it or not there was a time when our computers didn’t have mice, and you were relegated to using key combinations to perform all tasks on the computer. We have all become accustomed to using the mouse to get around, but hot keys are often times faster, and can get the job done quicker. Today I am going to provide you with the most common Hot keys used in Windows and common apps.
- Windows Key (WIN) + D – Minimizes all windows (great when you want to quickly hide your screen)
- WIN + L – Locks your computer
- WIN + Tab – Cycles through open programs on taskbar
- ALT + Tab – Cycles through open windows (Great to jump between apps)
- ALT + Escape – Sends your current window to the Taskbar
- ALT + F4 – Closes the active window
- CTRL + P – Prints whatever screen you are on
- CTRL + S – Saves (Use this frequently so you don’t lose your work)
- CTRL + C – Copy
- CTRL + X – Cut
- CTRL + V – Paste
- SHIFT+DELETE – Deletes an item permanently without sending it to the recycle Bin
Rather than listing all the possible combinations, check out this article to see them all: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
We constantly advocate strong security, which includes passwords, and I am amazed by the plethora of inadequate passwords that we still see. Yahoo just posted an interesting article on the 25 worst passwords, and unfortunately I still see some of these today:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-worst-passwords-2011-revealed-202955980.html
We have all been in the position where we need to send a document to a colleague or client and it is just too big to send in an email. There are many solutions out there to this common problem; however, most of them require a user to have an account on the system and/or have a specific piece of software installed on their computer, which just won’t work for us. That being said we have come across a great application that doesn’t require an account on either end, doesn’t matter what operating system is used, is easy to use, and best of all, it is Free!
In steps www.wetransfer.com. This website has a sleek user interface and allows you to send files up to 2GB to any email address simply by typing in your email address and the recipient’s email address. It gets sent out and the user gets an email and is able to download the document(s), and you get a notification when they downloaded the document. Couldn’t be simpler. Wetransfer.com even has custom channels so you can have a page that is dedicated to your company, allowing you to customize the design, look, etc…
So the next time you are trying to cram 50 pictures into an email to send to friends and family try wetransfer.com and save you and your mail server the headache.
