Five Minute Computing Guides

Customise context menus

2009-07-13T09:00:00.001+01:00

Do you feel you could be getting more out of right clicking? Joe Cassels introduces FileMenu Tools

The context menu that you get when you right click anything in Windows Explorer can be very useful. It gives you the ability to cut, copy and paste files and folders as well as quickly sending them to numerous locations among many other options. When you install new programs that integrate with the Windows shell, like WinZip, you'll find different options added to the context menu. Many of these are useful, but some are unwanted and get in the way. If you're not careful your context menus can balloon out of control.

FileMenu Tools gives you ultimate control over what does and doesn't appear in the right click context menus. You can banish any unwanted options by simply launching the configuration program and clearing the relevant boxes, but this utility's got more tricks up its sleeve than just yet. It offers a number of very useful additional tools that you can just as easily add to the menu to speed up the way you work.

For example, if you use the command line quite often, you'll know what a pain it is to change directory manually using the cd command. There's a lot of typing involved if you need to navigate to sub folders with long filenames and one spelling mistake can send you back to square one. Thankfully, FileMenu Tools includes an option called Command Line From Here. If you enable it, you just need to navigate to the folder that you want to use in Windows Explorer, right click and choose that option to open a command line prompt in this very directory.

If you want to be able to change the context menu options on the fly, make sure that you enable the Configure FileMenu Tools option. This gives you right click access to the configuration program, so you can quickly enable or disable different options.

If there's one simple change that you can make that will improve your computing experience it's taking control of your context menu. Stop putting up with the options offered by default. Use FileMenu Tools and get the menus you deserve.

Manage your menu
Change what appears in Windows Explorer right click context menus with FileMenu Tools.

1
Once you've installed FileMenu Tools, launch the configuration program. This enables you to change the right click options. The Commands tab provides a list of additional commands that you can add to the right click menu.

2
Check each command that you want to add. Now move to the Send To... menu tab. Here you can clear any boxes next to options added to Send To by third party programs that you don't want to use. To add a new location, click Add command and provide the details.

3
Move to the tab marked Commands of other applications. This enables you to remove commands added to the context menu by other programs. Clear the boxes next to those you don't want to see, so that your menu becomes more manageable. Click the green tick to confirm.

Check what's hogging your hard drive

2009-07-06T09:00:00.001+01:00

Even the biggest hard drives can fill up quickly. Joe Cassels shows how you can find the space hogs.

Hard drives just keep getting bigger, but it seems that we’re able to fill whatever space we’re given. With large video files, ISO images and drive image backups it’s easy to fill even the biggest disk in very little time.

The trouble is that many of us tend to use hard drives in a similar manner to a cupboard that’s used to house all the stuff that we’ve got no other room for. Open the door, throw it in and forget it. This approach is fine until you either need to find something or you need some more cupboard space.

Indexing tools like Google Desktop and Windows Desktop Search have made the first problem easier to solve, but that of making more space can be difficult, especially if you’re unable to lay your hands on a virtual pitch fork to muck the drive out. Ideally you need to know what folders and files are taking up the most room and what file types are involved so you can archive or delete them to make more room.

Right clicking a file and choosing properties quickly enables you to find out its size, but it’s not practical to do this for all the hundreds of different files on your system. This is where a tool that enables you to visualise your hard drive space comes into its own. One such free tool is WinDirStat, which you can get at http://windirstat.info/.

The program interrogates your hard drives and gives you the result in a drive map. You can see at a glance the file types that are taking up most room. Depending on the type involved, you may be able to archive them for more space. It also helps to be able to quickly see how much room each folder takes up. You can reveal this information by expanding the drive in the top pane. Selecting a folder or file type results in the corresponding area on the drive map being highlighted. This treemap shows different file types in different colours and gives you an easy overview of the distribution of data on your drive.

Disk View
Find out exactly what’s taking up room on your disk and where it is.

1
Unzip WinDirStat to a convenient location on your hard drive and launch the executable file. Opt to examine all your disks. You’ll see some Pac man like animated characters moving backwards and forwards as your hard drives are examined.

2
Once complete, you’ll see a report on each disk, showing the percentage space used. On the right hand side, there is a break down according to file type, while at the bottom of the window is the treemap, which shows the position of the files on your disk.

3
Select a file type on the right to see it highlighted on the treemap. To include free space in the map choose Options, Show Free space. Select a folder to see the files inside it highlighted. This enables you to see which folders or file types are taking up most space.

Flowchart: When you can't browse the web

2009-07-03T19:57:00.004+01:00

If you can't connect to your favourite web page, try working through this flow chart. It covers the most common causes of web failure and shows you how to fix them. Click on the chart to see it full size.

Manage File Associations

2009-06-29T09:35:00.001+01:00

Joe Cassels shows you how to change which program opens a particular file type by default

A file association is simply the default program that opens a file type. When you double click a file in Windows Explorer, the association determines which program is launched. In a clean installation of Windows XP, you can expect most picture files to open in Paint for editing.

It’s possible to convert a file from one type to another if you open it in a program that supports both file types. For example, you could open a bitmap file in Paint and then resave it using Save As, changing the file type to JPEG. By doing this you have created two similar files of different type, but you haven’t altered the file association.

Things can get a bit more complicated when you have more than one program that could open a particular file type. A good example is if you install a photo editor like Paint Shop Pro. Photo file formats, such as JPEGs would now open in Paint Shop Pro instead of in Paint, as they would if that were your only picture editing program. The file association between JPEG and Paint was changed when you added the new software. When you install a new program, it often changes file associations in its favour. Well behaved applications ask what files you want to associate with them during their installation routines, but some sneaky programs don’t do this and just assume that you want them to take control of the relevant file types.

This can be a pain if you wanted to continue running your older program. However, you can edit the file association yourself to rectify the problem. In any Windows Explorer window click Tools, Folder Options and Switch to the File types tab. You may well be surprised by how many different file types your computer uses. In Vista, you can use the Preview option to view programs that could associate with the file type in question. Now click Change to alter its associated program. Select the program you want to use from the list and click OK. The walkthrough shows these steps in detail.

Different Association
Alter the default program that opens a particular file type in both Windows XP and Vista.

1
File associations are quite easy to alter in Windows XP or Vista. Right click a file of the type you want to alter and choose Properties. On the General tab, you’ll see the file type and the default application that it currently opens with. To alter this, click Change.

2
The resulting dialog in Vista shows a selection of programs. Choose the program that you want to use to open the file and click OK. You may need to click Browse and locate the program’s executable file. You can also get to this dialog by choosing Preview, Choose Default Program.

3
The dialog is slightly different in Windows XP, but it does the same job. Either select from the recommended programs or browse to the executable file as necessary. You can also get to this dialog in Windows Explorer by selecting Tools, Folder Options, File Types and clicking Change when you’ve highlighted the file type you want.

Partition Your Hard Drive

2009-06-26T15:42:00.001+01:00

Repartition your hard drive to make it more efficient and stable. Joe Cassels shows how to do this for free.

By dividing your hard drive into two or more partitions, you can almost have the benefit of two separate smaller drives in your system. This means you can separate the files that make up Windows from the data ones, preserving your valuable documents, images music and videos should the worst happen to Windows. You have to be careful when partitioning. It’s a good idea to have a full system backup before your go ahead.

GParted is a free, non destructive partitioning program and you can get it from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php. It’s an ISO image, which you’ll need to burn to CD using the disc burning program of your choice. You can then boot your computer from this disc and use the program to change your partition set up. You may need to enter the BIOS to enable booting from CD, if your computer doesn’t start from the disc. Just restart the computer pressing [del] repeatedly and then make a change to the boot sequence.

The walkthrough demonstrates how to use GParted to resize your existing partition and create a new one for data and backups. It’s as easy to use as its commercial rivals, but doesn’t cost a thing. It enables you to manage all major file systems, including the two most commonly used in Windows: FAT32 and NTFS. The former was used for Windows 9x and is less efficient and secure than NTFS. Some PC vendors still ship computers running Windows XP on FAT32 drives. You can improve performance and reduce the chances of a crash by converting your FAT32 partition to an NTFS one.

GParted enables you to format and resize both file systems, but you can’t convert between them without destroying your data. However, you can change a FAT32 partition into an NTFS one without damaging its data in Windows XP by using a command line tool. Open the command prompt by choosing Start, Run and typing cmd into the Open bar. Click OK. Now type convert d: /fs:ntfs, where d: is the drive letter of the partition you want to convert. You will need to provide the volume label and agree to dismounting the volume if necessary.

Add a new partition
Change a single partition system into one with two separate virtual drives using GParted

1 Once you’ve burnt the GParted ISO file to a CD and set your computer to boot from the CD drive, restart your PC with the disc in place and press enter at the Boot prompt. You will need to specify the language used, screen resolution and colour depth before the program launches.

2 Select your existing partition and choose Partition, Resize/Move. Click and drag the partition to the new size that you want, bearing in mind that yellow area denotes used space. You can’t make a partition smaller than the data it contains. Click Resize to return to the main screen.

3 Select the unpartitioned area and choose Partition, New. Opt to create an extended partition to include the rest of the disk space. Click Add. Now select this partition, choose Partition, New and opt for an NTFS logical partition to fill this space. Choose Edit, Apply to complete all your operations.

Fix AutoPlay menu problems

2009-05-25T09:00:00.000+01:00

Stop AutoPlay offering you options that no longer exist. Joe Cassels shows how to tame this menu.

AutoPlay is designed to save you time hunting for supported software whenever you insert a removable drive to your PC. In theory you should get a short list of actions that relate to the media that you connected, be it a flash drive, a pre-recorded CD/DVD or a rewritable disc. You can opt to set a default action that will run automatically or select one from the list. This is much quicker than sifting through the start menu to find the right program each time you want to use a disc.

You can edit the AutoPlay menu in Control Panel if you’re using Vista. Choose Start, Control Panel, Play CDs or other media automatically. For each media type you can then specify the action required from the drop down list. Choose Ask me every time if you want to see the AutoPlay menu when a disc is inserted, otherwise you can set a default action for the media type. In Windows XP, you’ll need to open My Computer and right click the device that you want to manage. Select the AutoPlay tab. You can now select the content type you want to edit and then select the action you want triggered by this kind of content. To display the AutoPlay menu, ensure that Prompt me each time to choose an action is selected. Click OK to confirm.

Editing default actions is all well and good, but what about AutoPlay entries that point to programs that no longer exist? Not all applications clean up after themselves properly when you uninstall them and a common piece of litter left behind is an orphaned AutoPlay entry. You can’t remove these in Control Panel, which is why you’ll need to use CleanHandlers to tidy up for you. This is a standalone executable that supports both Windows XP and Vista. The program is designed to scan the AutoPlay menu and display the options that it contains. You can manually delete items if you wish or get it to find and remove orphaned ones automatically. It’s a great way to keep your menu tidy with minimum effort.

Tidy up AutoPlay
Find and fix orphaned AutoPlay handlers with CleanHandlers

1
When you insert a removable disk or drive, you’re presented with a list of AutoPlay options. What’s on the list will depend on the kind of media you’re using and the software that you have installed on your PC.

2
In some cases you may have entries that refer to software that has been uninstalled. To clean it up, download and unzip Clean Handlers from http://windowsxp.mvps.org/autoplayhandlers.htm. Run the executable file from its location to see the contents of your list.

3
Select an entry to see which kind of media it supports. Click Scan and Fix invalid entries to check each AutoPlay handler and remove any orphaned ones. This shouldn’t take long. Click refresh to see the updated list.

Secure Your mobile (2)

2009-03-23T09:11:00.004Z

More ways to keep your mobile device safe online.

Secure Wi-fi connections
If you want to use wireless connections at home, make sure they’re encrypted.

Wi-fi enabled phones and PDAs support encryption. If you want to use them at home, make sure that your access point is set up securely. Go to your wireless router’s setup page and choose Security. The location of the WPA settings may vary from router to router. Choose TKIP if the option is available and opt for Pre-shared key (PSK) as the Authentication method. Select passphrase as the pre-shared key type, and then enter your passphrase. If possible, opt to only allow connections from WPA clients.

Back at your phone select Data Connections under Settings and opt to modify your Wireless LAN connection. Check that the SSID of your network is displayed, select it and choose Modify. For Network Authentication, choose WPA-PSK and use TPIK for Data Encryption. Enter your passphrase when prompted and confirm the change. You can now connect to your encrypted network using your phone in the usual way.
Make sure that you use the strongest encryption that your mobile device and wireless router can support.

Essential steps
Six simple ways to boost your mobile device’s security.

1
Use secure passwords to protect accounts and don’t save them on your device. You can make use of the secure password generator at www.grc.com/passwords.htm. Keep a record of them, but not with the mobile.

2
Most phones and PDAs are Bluetooth enabled. If you don’t use any Bluetooth accessories, disable Bluetooth completely. Make sure that your Bluetooth devices use authentication if you have them and don’t leave your phone in Discoverable mode.

3
More and more phones and PDAs can connect to wireless networks, which works out cheaper than other kinds of connection. Make sure that you use WPA encryption where supported if you want your phone to connect to your wireless access point.

4
Remember that a mobile browser can fall prey to the same problems as a desktop one. Launch Internet Explorer from the Start Menu and choose Options, General. Opt to clear cookies every so often or block them if you’re not going to use your phone with online retailers.

5
Also in Internet Explorer Options choose Memory. Here you can clear the history and other temporary internet files. Clearing these will prevent anyone else who gets access to your phone from following your internet trail.

6
If your mail server supports a secure SSL connection, make sure that your phone or PDA makes use of it. In your messaging options, edit your email account settings and ensure that Require SSL connection is ticked.

Getting Started with Twitter

2009-02-01T21:51:00.002Z

Join the exciting micro-blogging site, along with the rest of the world.

Twitter's http://twitter.com been around for a while, but recent high profile endorsements have definitely kicked it up a gear. The micro-blogging service enables users to post short messages whenever they feel like it. These build up to produce a life picture that conventional blogging can't. It's popular with celebrities because they can communicate directly with fans while retaining some control over what's sent out. Dedicated users gather mutual bands of followers who they can bounce ideas off and discuss matters of great or little significance.

When you first use Twitter, however, you could be forgiven for not understanding what the fuss is all about. When you've signed up at https://twitter.com/signup, you're invited to search for other friends who may be using the service, then you're deposited at a blank page with a text entry bar at the top labelled “What are you doing?”. You can enter a brief message here to start your twittering or click Find Friends to follow more people. When you follow someone you see his or her updates on this page, alongside your own ones. This page shows your twitter feed plus those of anyone you're following.

Following

Things don't really get interesting until you're following a number of people and you've begun to pick up your own followers. If you've found anyone you already know, follow them and they'll probably follow you back. To ensure that you've got some stuff to read, try following some news services like Guardian News http://twitter.com/guardiannews, CNN breaking news https://twitter.com/cnnbrk or BBC Technology https://twitter.com/bbctech. Doing this will make sure that you've got some messages to follow, but none of these services is likely to follow you back. You could also try adding some celebrities for interest. Stephen Fry https://twitter.com/stephenfry has nearly a hundred thousand followers at the time of writing and it's rising all the time. Philip Schofield https://twitter.com/Schofe is a very enthusiastic twitterer, as is Jonathan Ross https://twitter.com/Wossy. To follow one of these, go to the page indicated after signing into twitter and click Follow underneath the display picture. Click Home and you'll see updates from the people you're following.

Replying

Now try replying to one of the messages. Rest the mouse pointer on a message to highlight it and to the right you'll see two icons appear. One is a star, which you can click to add this message to your list of favourites. This is just like browser bookmarks only you're placing the short message or Tweet into your favourite list to retrieve whenever you click Favorites (sic) in the right hand pane. The other icon is a curved arrow, indicating a reply. Click this and the cursor will jump to the message entry box at the top of your home page. At the beginning of the message you'll see an @ sign, followed by the twitter name of the person you're sending it to. e.g. if replying to something Philip Schofield said, it will display @Schofe. Enter your message and click Update. It will appear on your home page and that of the person you sent it to. If you're message was to someone you know, you're likely to get a response. Celebrities with thousands of followers tend to get so many incoming messages that responding isn't practical. Stephen Fry wrote a blog entry to try and explain some of the challenges having such a vast number of followers presents. It's at www.stephenfry.com/blog/2009/01/29/twitter/, and well worth a read once you've got to grips with the basics of twitter.

Direct Messages

Your replies to anyone are publicly available. They appear on your twitter page at www.twitter.com/username (assuming that your user name is “username”). If you want to send a private message, click Direct Messages in the right hand pane. You can then opt to send a message directly to someone who is following you. Select the recipient's name from the drop down list. You can only send direct messages to people who follow you. Twitter users often refer to a direct message by the abbreviation DM.

Retweeting

If you see a message that starts RT, followed by a username it means that the person posting it has forwarded the message on from the original sender. This is known as a retweet or RT for short. It's a lot like an email forward, although you have to copy and paste the original message if you want to pass one on. Adding RT @username is a courtesy to the original poster.

Your Feed

What you can see and what other people see on Twitter can be quite confusing at first. When you click Home, the messages that appear on your home page are those that you've sent, plus any from people you're following. You'll also see public replies from people who you are following to other people you're following. If anyone has sent a message to a person you're not following, you won't see it here, but you can see it by clicking that person's username, as it will be listed on his or her profile.

Profiles

To see someone's profile, click their username. You'll see their short bio, a picture and whatever design they chose for their profile. The most recent tweets (that's the name for each short message, remember) that they've sent appear on this page, including any public replies they've made. What you won't see is any messages they've received from other people; you can get to these by clicking the username of someone who's been replied to. This action shows the original sender's profile, which will include the message they sent to elicit that reply. Confusing? Yes, but it makes sense once you go back through some replies to see the rest of the conversation. Give it a try.

This should be enough to get you started. More to follow!

Secure your mobile (1)

2009-01-23T09:03:00.005Z

Make sure that your smart phone, laptop or PDA doesn’t get compromised. Joe Cassels provides essential advice.

As we lead more and more connected lives, we’ve come to expect to be able to get online pretty much anywhere. With the latest generation of web capable mobile phones and wireless PDAs, it’s possible to walk around with the internet in your pocket. Sadly, along with the benefits of getting access to information at your fingertips come the disadvantages associated with connectivity. As laptops and handheld devices enable us to have portable computing, we also get portable viruses, spyware and Trojans.

Any device that’s able to execute code is vulnerable to virus attack. If it’s also got the means to connect to the internet, it can be used to propagate viruses and other malware. Add in the fact that most people also carry sensitive information around on phones and PDAs and you have a security nightmare waiting to happen. Portable devices are easy to steal and if they provide access to information that could enable someone to steal your identity or access any of your accounts, they’re far more valuable than the cost of the devices themselves.

Any security risk that could threaten your desktop PC is just as likely to threaten a laptop. Phones and PDAs lag behind PCs in the number of attacks that they sustain, but while many people don’t think about security considerations relating to these devices, hackers are going to increasingly target them.

There are a good number of viruses that have been specifically written to exploit SmartPhones and palmtop computers. It’s therefore a good idea to invest in an antivirus for your device. On a laptop you can use the free AVG antivirus, which you can get at www.free.grisoft.com, but you’ll need something a little more specialised for smaller computers and phones. F-Secure produces a mobile version of its antivirus for SmartPhones and PDAs running Windows for Pocket PC or Windows CE. It costs £24.95 for a single licence including a year of updates. See http://www.f-secure.co.uk/home_user/buyonline/avmobile.html for more details and information on which devices are covered. The short walkthroughs demonstrate how to scan your phone for viruses and how to update the mobile Anti-Virus.

Viruses are just one part of mobile security. Bear in mind that Trojans, spyware and even diallers could be developed to take advantage of SmartPhones. Antispyware software for mobiles isn’t yet a mature technology, because security software is reactive by its nature. Therefore your best bet to avoid these emerging threats is to remain vigilant and be very careful what content you open on phones and PDAs and be wary about the software that you install. Avoid unnecessary applications and always buy games and other content from reputable suppliers.

If other devices can connect to your phone then it’s vulnerable to hackers. Even if there isn’t any juicy data stored on your device that might be of interest, its connectivity is desirable in itself. If connected to a wireless network, your mobile could be used as a relay to help disguise the location of the hacker. It could also be pressed into service as a zombie to forward spam or other data when it is connected to the net.

The key to securing a portable device like a SmartPhone is in thinking of it as a computer. Any threat that could exploit your PC could also be modified to work on a phone. You therefore need to take the same kinds of precautions to protect it. In addition to running an antivirus, consider installing a firewall, especially if your phone is used online a lot. Consider the ways that your phone can send and receive data. If it has an infrared connection make sure it’s disabled when not in use. Do the same for wireless and Bluetooth connections. Where you are using such connections, ensure that you apply whatever security features your device supports, be it encryption or password protection. Think about what might make your mobile attractive to hackers and head them off.

As most mobile browsers support full web page access, they’re just as vulnerable to being abused by unsafe sites and data harvesting methods. Consider blocking cookies if you don’t log into services and need to be remembered. These could be used to track your online activities. It’s also a good idea to avoid storing passwords for web services on your mobile. Should it go missing, you could be losing more than just the phone.

Other data harvesting techniques such as phishing are just as effective when applied to mobile devices as they are on computers. Treat emails appearing to come from financial organisations or other services requiring you to sign in with suspicion. Avoid following links in emails, use your favourites or enter the web page directly. This may be fiddly if you’re using a phone, but a little

Hotspot Security

Make sure that your security is highest when logging into a hot spot.

Hotspots are very convenient places that enable you to go online with minimum fuss using a laptop, PDA or mobile phone. You can find hotspots as open networks; the security is applied after you connect to the network, enabling the provider to charge you and limit internet access. However this means that your laptop or PDA may be vulnerable when connected because other hotspot users may be able to access your device.

To ensure that no one can take advantage of this vulnerability, make sure that you have a firewall installed that can set up your wireless adapter as an internet device and not one connected to the local network. On a laptop, your best bet is probably the free Comodo firewall, which we featured in last issue’s complete guide. You can get it from http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com.

It’s also a good idea to make sure that you have no shared resources on your laptop. If your firewall failed these would be visible to all as network places and, depending on your settings, your files could be read, modified or deleted. Shared folders have a little hand underneath the folder icon in Windows XP or earlier. This shows as a small icon depicting two users in Windows Vista. To unshared a shared folder in Windows XP, right click it and choose Sharing and Security and clear the box marked Share this folder on the network. Click OK to confirm In Vista, right click the folder and choose Share, Stop Sharing.

Comodo Firewall helps prevent other hotspot users connecting to your laptop.

Scanning a SmartPhone

Use F-Secure Mobile Antivirus to scan for viruses

To start the antivirus choose Start, Anti-Virus if you’re using a smartphone, otherwise opt for Start, Programs, Antivirus under Pocket PC. To start a manual scan, if you’re not already prompted to run one, choose Scan All

The program examines each file on your portable device. You can click Cancel at any time to stop the scan. If an infected file is found, you’ll see a message. Click Yes to see more detail about the infection.

If your phone of PDA has a virus infection, you’ll find it in the infections view. You can opt to quarantine or delete infected files. If you think the file has been flagged by mistake, you can opt to release it. Rescan to ensure that there are no more infections.

Secure Google Calendar

2009-01-18T21:27:00.003Z

Google calendar can unwittingly be used to send you spam. Joe Cassels closes this loop hole for you.

PC security and the fight against spam are ongoing battles. Just as new ways to improve your security are developed, crackers and virus writers look for other ways to compromise your computer. Spammers are no different and as antispam technology improves, they have to look for other ways to peddle their wares.

One loophole that’s become popular for spammers to exploit is the feature in Google Calendar that enables you to invite other people to events that you’re holding. It’s intended as an easy way to let colleagues know about a coming meeting or to invite friends to a drinks party without going through the rigmarole of contacting each one individually with details of date, time and place to find out who can and can’t attend. However, the default settings on Google Calendar make this an easy exploit for spammers because all they need to have is your Google Mail address.

The calendar is set by default to add invitations to your appointments automatically when you receive them. New appointments can also be set to automatically remind all guests by email a short time before the event starts. As the email comes from your calendar, it’s very unlikely to be filtered as spam because this is a trusted address that will probably be white listed. The result is that a spammer is able to pollute both your inbox and your calendar with appointments for get rich schemes, sexual enhancement seminars and all the usual rubbish that he or she is peddling.

It’s pretty easy to fix the problem. Just log into your calendar and change the default setting that automatically adds all invitations to your appointments to one that doesn’t. You might also want to turn off the utility that displays events that you’ve declined if you have started receiving this kind of spam. The walkthrough demonstrates how to use this simple tweak to secure your account.

As the problem becomes more widespread, it’s likely that Google will change the default setting so that spammers can’t just add you to their appointments. However, until this happens, you can protect yourself by tweaking your settings.

Stopping Google Calendar Spam

Spammers can add you as a guest to calendar events. Here’s how to stop them.

Out of the blue, you receive an email reminder from your calendar, telling you about an appointment. When you open your calendar, there it is, advertising a product peddling the usual sleaze that spam does so well.

The spammer was able to add it to your calendar by finding your Google mail address and adding you to an event set up on his calendar. Your calendar automatically accepted the event and reminded you of it.

To prevent this kind of spam, open your Google calendar and choose Settings. On the General tab, scroll down to ‘Automatically add invitations to my calendar’. Change the default setting to No, instead of Yes and save your settings.

Bumper Christmas Guides

2008-12-23T20:19:00.011Z

Joe Cassels demonstrates ways to include your computer in the festivities.

As the year draws to a close we find ourselves caught up in the inevitable festive season. With its heady mix of parties, traditions and excited children, you can be forgiven for finding Christmas a tad stressful. However, your PC may well be able to help out. Computers and Christmas may seem to be unlikely bedfellows, apart from being given as presents. But there are key ways that a PC can help out during the holidays to improve organization, keep you in touch with loved ones and make the season more fun.

We’ll demonstrate a number of festive uses that you can put your computer to over the long dark evenings of the solstice. You could start by making a list of everyone who’s sent you greetings this year. Put the names and addresses into an Excel Spreadsheet or a table in Word and you’ll be able to use it for your card list next year. You could even get word to print the envelopes for you.

There are other important ways to help stay in touch with friends and relatives at this time of year. Very few people have no email address at all, so you could make use of the speed of electronic communication and send Christmas greetings by email. We’ll show you how to put together some festive stationery to give your messages a little sparkle. If you’ve been disorganized and not managed to get your cards out, why not send out Christmassy emails with a little disclaimer on them saying that you haven’t sent out cards to save on trees? It’s becoming quite fashionable to send emails or e-cards instead of Christmas cards and then make a donation to charity of the money that would have been spent on cards.

Closer to the day, you can use the power of the internet and instant messaging programs to link family groups together that couldn’t travel to one another. Set up a webcam, microphone and messenger and you could even enjoy Christmas dinner together.

Television often dominates Christmas, with families gathering to watch old movies or specials of well loved programmes. Your PC can help make sure that you don’t miss your favourite shows by giving reminders or even recording them for viewing later on.

Photos of friends and relations having fun are great to share, but even more fun if you don’t have to wait a long time to see them. By uploading them to a photo sharing website, you can share them with everyone you know and even discuss them over instant messaging. Instead of a round robin Christmas letter, capture the moment in a family blog that others can read and comment on online. If you’re worried about the cost of Christmas, we’ll show you how to monitor your spending using a spreadsheet to help you budget properly for the season next year.

Before you get started, if you want your PC to look the part, why not put up some digital decorations? You’ll find screensavers, wall paper and games with a seasonal feel at CMB Software http://cmbsoftware.com/christmas.htm.

Festive Stationery

We’re used to sending Christmas cards at this time of year, but what about Christmas emails? Both Outlook Express and Windows Mail in Vista enable you to use customized stationery, giving your email a personal look and feel. If you get a card from someone who wasn’t on your list and you don’t have time to post one back, why not say thanks electronically, with a little festive cheer added for good measure?

The easiest way to apply different stationery is by selecting one of the readymade files that already exist in Outlook Express. Choose Tools, Options, Compose. Here is all you need for customising your email. The middle section of this tab is devoted to stationery. You can select different designs for mail and news postings. Check the box marked Mail and press Select. Choose from the various HTML files that contain the graphics for the notepaper. Put a tick next to Show preview and highlight one of the files to view a thumbnail. Try out several options until you find one you like. Click your choice, followed by OK twice. New email messages will now use that stationery.

Alternatively, you can select different stationery for each message you write. With your inbox selected, click the drop down arrow on the right hand side of the Create Mail button on the toolbar. Choose Select Stationery and make your choice. Press OK to open the new mail message using the design you chose.

Outlook Express stationery files are just standard HTML; the same basic format that web pages use. You’ll find plenty of these online, many of which are available to download for free. As long as the file is placed in the correct folder, Outlook Express will recognise it as stationery and provide it as an option to apply as above. The directory in question is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Stationery, where C is the hard drive used to store programs and Windows. Any image files referenced in the HTML need to be deposited here as well.

There are plenty of download sites that offer Outlook Express stationery. Just run a search for email stationery to turn some up. Alternatively, for a set of different Christmas designs, head to About.com:Email, which has quite a selection at http://email.about.com/od/freechristmasstationery/Free_Christmas_Stationery_for_Outlook_Express_and_Outlook.htm.

Design Your Own

Ready-made notepaper isn’t for everyone and you may decide to create your own. This isn’t difficult. The Stationery Setup Wizard steps you through the process neatly. You can select graphics files to use as a header or tiled behind the text as a continuous image. Bear in mind that a strong image repeated all over the page can make your text impossible to read, so exercise restraint.

The wizard is a bit limiting because the range of background colours available is small and several are bright colours, which make text hard to make out. However, there is an alternative. You can make your stationery by creating an HTML file using any web editing program. Word or FrontPage are ideal. Create your design as if you were making a web page and save it as HTML into your stationery folder to make it accessible by Outlook Express.

Assuming you use Word, here’s how to make some very simple stationery. Create a new document and insert a suitable picture or logo from your own collection or from clip art. Select Format > Background and choose a suitable colour or texture from those on show. Now choose File > Save As and browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Stationery. Give the design a name and change the file type to web page (*.htm; *.html). It’s now ready to use.

Add a greeting to your signature

Why not spread a little Christmas cheer whenever you send an email, by adding a greeting to your signature? Signatures are basically blocks of text that you can set to appear at the bottom of your emails. They can be plain text or small HTML files. However the maximum size for a signature is 4KB, so if you plan to use HTML to make it look pretty, you’ll need to use a very efficient web design program or code it yourself. While Word is capable of generating web pages, it isn’t very efficient and won’t manage to create a small enough signature.

On the Signatures tab, press New and give it a suitable name. Now enter the text you want to use, which may be your contact details or just a general observation or quote. If you’re stumped for things to say, check out some Christmassy observations at Quote Garden www.quotegarden.com/christmas.html. Make sure you properly attribute any quotation that you use. Now check Add set to all outgoing messages.

As the day itself grows nearer, your thoughts may turn towards managing the holiday itself. It’s all too easy to forget items in the rush to get things sorted, so take a little of the strain off yourself and use a checklist to get things together? You’ll find some useful advice at WikiHow, which includes guides on how to make cakes, decorations and stockings. Browse to www.wikihow.com and search its archive of advice.

Managing the holiday viewing

Because of the shortage of daylight hours and the poor weather at this time of year, many people find that the Christmas season revolves around the TV. Unfortunately, it can be quite a source of conflict as family members squabble about what to watch. With all the added channels that digital television brings there are bound to be clashes. You may not always be able to resolve these, but better knowledge of the schedules will help, as most programmes are repeated within their first week of broadcast. The trick is to find out when. It helps to have a searchable electronic programme guide that you can check out without interrupting other people’s avid TV watching.

You can get just such a thing in the form of Digiguide. This is an offline programme guide that you can regularly update via the internet. It sorts the schedules according to your preferences and, if you keep it running all the time, it will provide you with pop up reminders and suggestions for things you might like to watch. You can get a free trial of Digiguide from www.digiguide.com. A full subscription costs £5.99 per year. You’ll need to provide a valid email address to get the download link.

Once downloaded and installed on your PC, you’re prompted to configure the guide. First provide your country details, followed by your TV region. You now need to supply details of your TV provider. If you use Freeview, Sky Digital or a cable operator, select the company name from the list. Otherwise, opt for Terrestrial only.

Manage your viewing with Digiguide

Let Digiguide manage your program choices so you don’t miss the best of the Christmas telly.

Head to www.digiguide.com and opt to download the free trial. First provide your country details, followed by your TV region. You now need to supply details of your TV provider. Use the sliders to indicate which type of shows you like. This information will help Digiguide make viewing suggestions and sort the schedules for you.

Depending on your choice of TV provider, you’ll now be presented with some options for additional channels Scroll down the list and tick each channel that you want to view. Click OK and you’re taken to the grid view of programmes currently showing. You can also search for programmes using the find facility.

Once you’ve completed the set up, Digiuide will go online to fetch the most recent listings. You can sort these in a number of ways. Choose Multi-channel grid to see a list of what’s on over the next couple of hours on all available channels. Programmes will be colored to help draw your attention to shows that you might like. Thumbs up symbols indicate suggested viewing. To find out more about a particular listing, right click it and choose Extra programme information. Now when you can see an argument brewing over what to watch at a certain time, open Digiguide and run a search for the programmes concerned. You’ll probably be able to find a suitable repeat to watch at another time or to set your recorder for.

One sure fire way to prevent clashes is to make sure that you can record TV for watching at another time. Windows Media Center in Vista Home Premium and above will handle this for you, as long as you have a TV capture device installed in your Computer. USB Freeview receivers cost as little as £25, which isn’t much to pay to pick up another source of TV recordings. Media Center has its own programme guide and you can set programmes to record well in advance of their transmission. You can also use Media Center to manage your family videos and recordings. The walkthrough demonstrates how to add a folder of video files to your library so you can easily select them for viewing.

If you don’t have Vista, you can still get media centre capabilities by installing a third party program like Media Portal or GB-PVR. These provide similar features to Windows Media Center.

Manage your Christmas recordings

Use Windows Media Center in Vista to catalogue your videos to watch over the season.

Launch Windows Media Center and on the start screen, use the mouse or your remote to scroll through the options until you get to Tasks. Now move across to Settings and scroll down to Library Setup and select it.

Choose Add folder to watch. This enables Media Center to include all the video files in the folder that you choose in the video library. Now you need to indicate where the new folder is. You can add folders from this PC or from the network.

Click Next and browse to the folder that you want to add. Use the buttons with plus signs to expand the folders that you see. To select a folder put a tick in the box next to it. Click Next and Finish.

Share your Christmas photos

Christmas and family holidays are the main times of the year when people take most photographs. Thanks to digital technology and the internet it’s now possible to share your photos with friends and family who are miles away within minutes of taking them. All you have to do is transfer them to your PC and upload them to a website.

The most common way of displaying photos online is as a collection of thumbnails or small versions of the images. When you click on a thumbnail, you get to see a larger version of the picture, although even this one is likely to have been resized from the original which are often hundreds of kilobytes or even megabytes in size, depending on the quality of the camera that took it and the format the pictures was saved in.

A big photo doesn’t look great on a web page, especially if your visitor’s browser is set to a low resolution. There’s also the problem of finite web space and bandwidth. While broadband is widespread, it’s still not a good idea to assume all your visitors are using it. Some web hosts limit the amount of data transferred to and from a web site, too. If your pictures are large, each time someone views one, it will erode away some of your bandwidth allowance. All in all it’s better to resize your images to a manageable size.

If you’re making an online album like this, you’ll need to make your photos a sensible size for the web. You may need to generate the little thumbnails to go with them too. Any photo editor program will enable you to resize pictures, although some provide special thumbnail features. Media Resizer Free is a good one. It enables you to change the size of pictures and add watermarks to claim your ownership. You can get it from www.mediaresizer.com. If you want to batch convert images, you’ll need to get the paid version, which costs £15.78.

Launch Media Resizer Free and click Load Image. Browse to the picture that you want to resize and click Open. Under Resize image, choose the size of the thumbnail that you want in pixels height and width. Also choose if you want to sharpen the image or to crop to an interesting area. Click Add Watermarks and select whether you want to use an image file or some text to watermark your thumbnail. In the case of text, enter the string you want to use, taking advantage of the date and copyright symbol buttons. Choose the position of your text and set the opacity. Click OK and Change Style. Here you can select a style for your thumbnail buttons or place a mask in front of the image to make stars or other interesting shapes. You can also choose to rotate the image in the thumbnail to a certain degree. When you’re happy with your changes, click OK, followed by Save Image.

Instead of making your own web page, you might like to try a photo album service like PBase (www.pbase.com). This provides you with 10MB space for pictures free; if you go beyond this you’ll need to pay. Numerous albums are available for you to browse through and you can leave comments for the photographers concerned. This is a natural progression from the kind

Browse to www.pbase.com. This is a huge collection of public photo galleries. Browse round a few to get a feel of how the place works and have a look at the most popular galleries. To make your own one, click Create your account. Provide your sign up information, including a valid email address, as this is where your confirmation and password will be sent. Your email won’t be displayed alongside your album, so don’t worry about this generating spam. Check out the privacy statement though. Click register. Once you’ve registered, you can sign in using your email address and password. Scroll down the welcome page and take this opportunity to customise your account settings. Add a copyright message and decide how your pictures will appear. You can also decide on who can leave comments on your photos.

Click Update. Now use Winzip or another archiving utility to make a zip archive of all the pictures that you want to upload. PBase handles multiple images in compressed format in Zip or Tar archives. Add the photos you want and save the archive to a safe place. Back at the PBase site, scroll down to Upload Photos to this Gallery. Click Browse and locate your zip file. Click Open, followed by Upload image. If your archive is large the upload may take some time, especially if you’re on a dial up connection. Once uploaded, the images are unzipped automatically. PBase will inform you when all your photos have been unzipped successfully. Browse to your gallery and examine the thumbnails. Click one to enlarge it. Click Edit this Gallery to add more images or to change the titles for each image. Once you’re happy, share the URL of your gallery with friends and family.

Yule Blog

Pictures may be worth thousands of words, but we still need to tell other people what we’ve been up to. Instead of the dreaded round robin letter that some people send out at Christmas, why not put your family news into a blog? It’s easily updated and you’ll save on postage. There are various blogging services available, including Blogger www.blogger.com, Wordpress http://wordpress.com/ and LiveJournal www.livejournal.com. They’re free to use and easy to sign up to. You can enter your posts online or write it using a word processor. A significant development in Word 2007 is the ability to upload blog postings directly. You could only achieve this before by either cutting and pasting into a web interface from Word or by sending your text to a compatible blog service by email. Now you can manage and publish posts directly from Word and you can even include images by defining a location to upload them to.

To create a blog posting click the Office button and choose New, New Blog Entry, Create. If this is your first blog post in Word, you’ll be invited to enter your blog provider details, including the username and password. All popular blog services are included, but you can also post to any service that uses Atom or MetaWebLog by entering the posting URL and your account details. Now all you need to do is enter the title and content of the post and click Publish when you’re done.

Monitoring Christmas Costs

Christmas is a time when you can easily lose track of spending with multiple office parties to visit, various family gatherings and friends to entertain and cater for, not to mention the perennial children’s presents. It seems all too easy to adopt a “pay now, worry about the credit card bill later” attitude, but that road leads to trouble and misery. This is why it helps to put together a spreadsheet to work out exactly what you spend on Christmas this year so that next year you’ll be able to budget for it and you won’t feel the pain the following January.

The spreadsheet that we’ll set up uses three different sheets. This enables us to keep some cells separate from the main data so it doesn’t matter how many transactions appear on the main sheet. The most notable example is where we use sheet 2 to store the totals instead of putting these at the bottom of the table on sheet 1. We don’t have to guess how many transactions we’ll use; we can spread out as much as we like and still see the totals by flicking to the second sheet. We also use sheet 3 to set up the different categories. This gives us room to add new categories later on without having to displace any cells.

Categories are a key part of this auditing approach to your Christmas spending. They enable you to track your finances according to what you’ve spent your money on. When you come back after inputting the data you can quickly see what’s been spent in each category and it doesn’t take much to come up with a total for each. This is a powerful technique which you can also apply to coming up with cost centre totals if you need to file your own taxes. Follow the six step walkthrough to begin putting your spreadsheet together. We’ve used Excel 2007, but you’ll find similar tools in earlier versions of Office.

Setting up your spreadsheet

Produce an excel spreadsheet that will help to monitor your Christmas spending.

Launch Excel with a blank worksheet open. Move to the tab marked Sheet 2 and then label cells A1, A2 and A3 with Total Outgoings, Total Credits and Account Balance respectively. Switch to cell C1 and enter this formula =SUM(Sheet1!D2:D1000). In C2 enter = SUM(Sheet1!E2:E1000). In C3 type =C2-C1

Click the C button at the top of the column to highlight it. On the ribbon, select Home, Number, Currency. This will format all the numbers in this column as money. Highlight rows 1-3 and select the font and size you want to use from the Font section of the Home tab.

Select the Sheet1 tab. We now need to label cells A1 to F1 with suitable headings. We suggest Date, Paid to, Category, Paid out, Paid in, Balance. Make sure that the columns are sized to accommodate the headings and format them in a clear, bold font.

Christmas spending can be quite complex, so it will probably go on beyond one sheet. To make sure that the headings stay visible however far down the columns you move, click in cell A2 and select Freeze panes on the View tab of the Ribbon. Cells below this row will scroll underneath the headings.

Now we need to ensure that the monetary entries are formatted as money. Select columns D, E and F and then choose Home, Number, Currency. Now Highlight column A, and choose Number, and choose Long date from the drop down list.

Most money managing programs enable you to categorise payments so you can track them more easily. Move to Sheet3 to set up your list of categories. Type your first one into cell A1, the next into A2 and so on down the sheet until you’ve used all the categories that you want.

The walkthrough leaves off when you’ve put together a set of categories for your spending on sheet 3. You now need to make these work as a drop down list in sheet 1. Highlight column A which now holds your categories. Select Formulas, Define Name. Enter Category in the resulting dialog and click Add, followed by OK. Sort the categories alphabetically by choosing Data, Sort and selecting A to Z. Click OK. Move back to Sheet 1 and select column C. Choose Data, Data Validation, Settings. In the Allow box select List and enter =Category into the source box. Don’t forget the equals sign or this won’t work. Tick In cell drop down and click OK. If you’ve missed out a category, don’t worry. You can add a new one at any time, by moving to Sheet 3 and adding them to column A. If you want to keep them in alphabetical order, you’ll need to sort them again as we did before.

You’ve now got to enter each cost as it crops up. See how to do this in the box “logging your expenditure”. You now have a basic spreadsheet that will enable you to see how much you’ve spent on mistletoe and sherry which always shows you how much money you have left. You can now look at ways to improve it. Putting the totals on sheet 2 enabled us to sort the data easily, but what if you want to be able to see them while dealing with the main data entry? You can do this by opening a second window.

Select New Window from the View tab on the Ribbon. You may not yet notice a change because you’ll probably have the same view in the second window which has just opened on top of the original. However, choose Arrange All, Horizontal from the same tab and now you’ll see two identical windows, one on top of the other. In the top window, change to sheet 2 so that you can see the totals. You can resize this window so that only the totals show, giving you more room to work with the main data window.

It can be useful to arrange the spreadsheet data so that you see the same categories together. You can do this by sorting the sheet. Select all the columns that contain data; in this case it’s A to F. Now choose Data, Sort and select the column that you want to sort by. Make sure that “My data has headers” is selected. Click OK to sort. You can opt to sort in a hierarchical fashion so that you sort by category first and then by date. Click Add Level to add a second criterion to sort by.

When you’ve completed your spreadsheet and tracked all your spending you can use it to come up with a total cost of Christmas. You’ll see this as you r total outgoings on sheet 2. To spread the cost of next Christmas over the whole year, you need to divide this by 12, allow a little for inflation and put this amount away each month.

The key to a good Christmas is being organized, remaining calm and providing a number of fun diversions. Thankfully your PC can manage most of these tasks, leaving you with a little more time to enjoy food drink and making merry.

Stay in touch at Christmas

If you can’t be with family and friends get your PC to bring them to you.

As Eastenders constantly reminds us, Christmas is a time for family, but it’s not always possible to be with the ones you love on the big day itself. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t spend some time together. Thanks to voice over IP and videoconferencing you can talk and see each other from thousands of miles away.

Programs like Windows Live Messenger (http://uk.messenger.imagine-live.com) and Skype (www.skype.co.uk) mean it’s possible to call your family for little or no cost other than that of your internet connection. Calls to other instant messenger or Skype users are free but you can also stay in touch via their landlines or mobiles by buying Skype Out credits. Hook up a webcam and microphone to your PC and you can watch each other pulling the crackers and share the corny jokes together.

If you opt to keep in touch by email, why not jazz things up with a little festive stationery? It’s easy enough to make your own and you can help spread the spirit of the season. In Outlook Express or Windows Mail, select Tools, Options, Compose. To make your own letter paper, press the button marked Create New. This starts the Stationery Setup Wizard. Click Next to proceed. Select an image or browse to your own picture file. Choose the position of the graphic from the relevant options. Tiling enables you to repeat it to make a continuous image in a line or all over the page. Select a colour if required and click Next. Select a font, point size and colour before clicking Next again. Text appearing over strong graphics looks busy and is hard to read. Create top and left margins to ensure your writing isn’t superimposed over the pictures. Click Next, supply a filename and press finish to complete the creation of your stationery.

Give your emails a festive touch with some specially designed Christmas stationery.

Tuning up audio and video

Make sure that your relatives can see and hear you when you talk online at Christmas.

Plug in your microphone and/or camera. Install the drivers if necessary. Check that they have power. Choose Tools, Audio and video setup. This runs a wizard that checks your camera, speakers and microphone. Click next and select the soundcard or speaker set that you’re using.

Click Play Sound to check your speakers and adjust their volume. Click Next and talk into the microphone and watch the playback indicator. Change the volume and mic position until the indicator stays in the yellow zone when you speak. Click Next.

Select your camera from the drop down list. You should see the picture that your camera is recording. Adjust your position and that of the camera so that the image is what you’d like others to see. If you need to alter brightness or contrast settings click Options.

Logging your expenditure

Once you’ve set up your spreadsheet, here’s how to use it to track costs.

Having got the basic spreadsheet set up as in the walkthrough, you need to enter your Christmas costs. Start by entering an opening balance, which you can take from an arbitrary date before your Christmas spending begins. Put the date in cell A2 and enter Opening Balance in the Paid to column. Put any positive balance into the paid in column. If you’re overdrawn, put it into the paid out column. You can now start entering the transactions that you want to follow. Put the first one into the A3 to E3. Use the drop down list in column C to select a category for this payment.

Into cell F3 we need to put a formula to work out the balance. Enter =F2+E3-D3 and press enter. Type in the rest of your transactions as you make them. To keep the balance up to date, we can use the formula that we used before. Select F3 and choose Home, Copy. Now select the rest of column F below F3 and choose Home, Paste. The formula will be updated for each of the cells below.

Once you’ve logged a set of transactions in this way, you can get Excel to sort them according to the different headings on your spreadsheet. Sorting the sheet at this stage will mix up the opening balance into your transactions. To exclude it, select the second row by clicking the number 2 on the left hand side. Right click it and choose Hide.

Use the drop down list of categories that you created earlier to assign cost centres.

After the holidays

Christmas chores drag on long after the day itself, but your PC can come to the rescue here, too.

Come Boxing day and the long period after, you can find yourself in a house with restless kids, a glut of cold turkey and a stack of thank you letters to write. You can find out things to do with the leftover turkey by going to http://www.leftoverchef.com/ and you can manage the other two problems by helping your offspring write thank you letters mail merging them in Word. To mail merge, you need a data source and a document that contains place markers for the information that changes. The data can come from an Excel spreadsheet, a table in Word, a database or a contacts list.

In Excel create a simple sheet including the name, address and present given by each generous benefactor. Save this and open Word. Choose Tools, Letters and Mailings, Mail Merge in Word 2003 or select Mailings, Start Mail Merge, Step by step Mail Merge Wizard in Word 2007. This opens a Mail Merge pane on the right hand side of the window. Select letter and opt to use the existing document. Under Select Recipients choose Use existing list. Browse to find your Excel file. Open it and choose the first sheet available. You’ll now see the different records in your data source. If there are any recipients that you don’t want to use, clear the check boxes next to them. Click ok and Next: Write your letter.

Enter the text of the letter that you want to keep common to all documents. When you come to a piece of data that you’d like to vary, click More Items under Recipient Information and select the field that you want to use. Click Insert and Cancel to continue typing. Continue to type your letter, inserting different information in the same way. Merge fields that will change in the final document will appear marked by little curly brackets. Complete your writing and click Next: Preview your letters. This will enable you to see the data in place. Scroll through the different recipients to check that the final letters make sense. Once you’re happy that they do work, select Next: Complete the merge, Edit individual letters, All, OK. This merges the data to a new document, which you can further edit or print out for sending.

Make sure your thank you letters get done, by putting together a mail merge.

Share other people's iTunes libraries

2008-12-18T09:00:00.003Z

Sharing music just got easier! Joe Cassels uses Mojo to browse other iTunes libraries on a network.

It’s good to share and many people love to swap music on disc or simply by listening on an MP3 player with shared headphones. However, it’s also possible to share the tracks in your iTunes library with friends or family on the same network. You just need the free Mojo application which you can get from http://www.deusty.com/software/download_mojo.php.

It’s worth noting at this point that copying music covered by copyright is illegal and that copyright law is notoriously complex. In many cases simply copying music to your PC is viewed as an infraction of copyright, so consult a lawyer if you’re considering doing anything with copyright material.

Mojo for Windows works on the local network only, which provides a sensible limitation as you’re unlikely to share tunes beyond the scope of your own home. However, it is possible to get the program working across the internet if you set up a virtual private network (VPN). You can do this with the free Hamachi software, https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi/vpn.asp?lang=en if you want to expand the scope of your music sharing. This enables you to add other PCs on the internet to your local network, so it’s important to only use it with people you trust. If in doubt, just use Mojo locally.

To use Mojo, you’ll need to install it on two or more computers that also have iTunes installed. You’ll need the .NET framework installed too. When you install the software it also opts to install the Bonjour service to enable easy communication. You won’t be able to use Mojo without it, so agree to its installation.

Once you’re up and running the walkthrough demonstrates how easy it is to use Mojo to browse each other’s libraries. You can opt to listen to tracks streamed from your friend’s library or to download them to your own one so you can listen to it even if your friend’s PC is turned off. Any tunes you download to your library are added to a Mojo playlist for that friend so you can find them easily. You can share audio books and even video via Mojo and iTunes this way.

Share an iTunes library
Listen to whatever your friend has stored on his or her PC.

1
Download and install Mojo on both your computer and the one your friend is using. When you first run the program it polls the local network to find other PCs running iTunes and Mojo. Any it finds are displayed in the list.

2
Once you and your friend have set up the system correctly, you can browse their iTunes library. Just double click the username or select it and click Browse. You can navigate their version of iTunes using the categories in their library.

3
Tracks that you already have in your version of iTunes are displayed in grey. Those in red are protected by DRM. Select a black coloured track and click Play to listen to it or choose Download to download it to your own iTunes library.

Use ClipX

2008-12-11T09:00:00.003Z

Storing one item on the clipboard can be limiting. Joe Cassels shows how to broaden your horizon.

One of the most useful aspects of Windows that’s been around since the year dot is the clipboard. It enables you to select data in one application and cut, copy or paste it to a different one. Various versions of Office have provided the ability to save more than one item to the clipboard, but what if you want to use different applications? ClipX makes it possible to store a complete history of your clipboard activity, so you can quickly access any of a number of selections without having to open the parent application up and re-select it.

The walkthrough demonstrates how to manage the clipboard with ClipX. The Windows clipboard itself is unchanged; it can still only hold one item. However ClipX remembers every selection you make and stores it ready to transfer to the clipboard quickly and easily. When you have just a few items stored in ClipX, you can access them by clicking its icon and selecting the one you want to use. However, once you’ve stacked up a lot of entries, you may need to use the search facility to find the one you want. To do this, right click the system tray icon and choose Search. This opens a new window showing the different clipboard entries. Type your search term into the bar at the top of the window and the search utility quickly filters the entries as you type. When you can see the one you want to use, select it and click OK.

Even with the search function, you may find times when ClipX is unmanageably full, especially if you’re taking up a lot of Ram with it. Clearing its contents is as simple as right clicking the icon and choosing Clear Current. By default the program remembers the last 25 selections, but you can change this by choosing Configure from the right click menu. On the General tab you can set the number of selections to remember. You can also set keyboard shortcuts to manage ClipX in the Hotkeys tab. On the popup tab you can specify the maximum size of selection for text or graphics, too.

Manage your clipboard
Deal with multiple clipboard entries, search and manipulate them.

1
Install and launch ClipX. Select some text in a document and copy it. Repeat with a different selection. Click the ClipX icon in the system tray to select which item you want to use in the clipboard. You can now paste this selection.

2
You can save the clipboard history to access at a later time. Right click the ClipX icon in the system Tray and choose Clipboard History, Save History. Provide a filename and location. Repeat the action, choosing Load History to load a previously saved file.

3
You can edit existing selections by right clicking the system tray icon and choosing Manage. Select the clipboard entry you want to change and click Edit. Change the text however you like and click OK twice to confirm.

Encrypt files with images

2008-11-18T09:00:00.002Z

Say goodbye to passwords as Joe Cassels demonstrates how to use pictures as keys instead.

It seems that each week we hear news of another missing data disc and worry about the implications of its unencrypted contents falling into the wrong hands. Clearly the importance of encrypting sensitive data has never been felt so acutely. Thankfully there are numerous ways to encrypt data and secure it, many of which are free. Each relies upon an encryption algorithm as a lock and a password or security file as a key so that you can get at your secured data when you need to.

The problem with passwords is that far too many things in our lives are governed by them. Those that are easy to remember are also easy to guess or crack. If you invest in strong passwords, you’re very likely to need to have them written down or stored in a password manager, both of which create a different area of weakness for your security system. Key files are one way to get around this problem. By using a photograph buried in amongst hundreds of others, you can make your key very difficult to find and yet pretty easy for you to remember because a picture is worth a thousand words. The location of the key file is crucial though.

PixelCryptor provides a free and simple system for encrypting data using images as keys. If you’ve ever used an archive managing program like Winzip or 7zip, you’ll find it very easy to operate. You create an archive file in much the same way as in these familiar programs and then stuff the files and folders that you want to encrypt into it. Then, it’s simply a matter of linking the encrypted file to a photo on your system. You can then save the encrypted file wherever you like, perhaps putting it on a removable drive to transport it.

When you need to access the data again, you need to use PixelCryptor to decrypt it. Launch the program and browse to the file that you want to decrypt. You’re prompted to browse to the key image file to unlock the encryption and then you can access the data.

Make an encrypted file
Use your photos to digitally sign your encrypted files

1
Download PixelCryptor from http://www.codegazer.com/pixelcryptor/downloads/. Install and launch it. The initial screen provides you with several options. Choose Encode files, which is the second option from the left. Click this and then use the buttons marked add file or add folder to add extra contents by browsing for them on your PC.

2
Click Next and click the box in the centre of the window to choose a picture file. Browse through the images on your computer until you find one that you’ll be able to remember easily. Open it and click Next.

3
You now need to supply a filename and location for the destination file. Click the folder icon and browse to the place you want to save the encrypted file. Enter a file name and click Next. You’re shown a summary of the encrypted file and its image key. Click Finished.

Make Start Page widgets

2008-11-11T09:00:00.003Z

Add your favourite tool to your blog or start page. Joe Cassels gets web scraping.

The beauty of start pages like iGoogle and Windows live is that they enable you to customise the content that you see on your internet start page, providing you with instant news, stock quotes and even games. There’s a huge variety of gadgets that you can add and Google even provides you with the opportunity to create your own. However, there are still parts of the web that aren’t represented with their own start page gadgets and if you want to regularly refer to them; you have to repeatedly visit their pages. Thanks to the web application Alchemy Grid, you can now generate a widget out of pretty much any web content you like and then add it to your start page, blog or even your personal web site.

You can find the service at http://grid.orch8.net/clippings/grab and there’s a helpful screen cast that demonstrates it in action. The walkthrough below shows how you can create a widget using Alchemy Grid. Once you’ve signed up for an account and logged in, you can browse to the web page that you want to extract content from. This appears within the clipping web page. When you’ve found the item that you want to use, you need to turn on the clipping tool. You can then highlight sections of the page and select them to clip. Once you’ve grabbed the content it’s displayed in its own frame and you can opt to keep or discard the original site’s CSS and JavaScript content. When you’re happy that you’ve grabbed what you want, you can begin customising your widget.

You can provide a title for the gadget and select a colour scheme for it too. You can also specify the width and height in pixels of the gadget. For most popular start pages and blogs, simply click the one you want to use and log into it to automatically add the content. If you want to include it in a web page or your provider isn’t listed, click Other and copy the HTML code to paste into your website. Once published, your widget will appear just where you pasted it.

Scrape your own content
Make a start page or blog widget from any web content you like

1
Browse to http://grid.orch8.net/clippings/grab and log in or create an account. Choose Clippings and enter the URL for the web page that you want to grab content from. This loads into the clipping interface. Continue to browse until you find the content that you want.

2
Click to select some content and then move the mouse to the item that you want to use. Click and choose Grab it! You’ll see your content clipping displayed in a pane. You can turn off the original site’s CSS if you wish. Click Save it!

3
Provide your content clipping with a name and select the colour and size of the widget that you want to use. When you’ve got it looking the way you want, select the start page or blog service that you want to use it with and follow the prompts to add it.

Manage Drivers with DriverView

2008-10-18T09:00:00.002+01:00

Device drivers can be difficult to stay on top of. Joe Cassels shows a quick and easy way to catalogue them.

The majority of crashes and system freezes are caused by device driver errors. These may be due to using an out of date or inappropriate driver or because there’s a fault with the driver coding. It’s therefore a good idea to keep track of what drivers you have controlling your hardware, along with the companies that produced them and the file dates so you can easily check to see if you’re using the right ones.

You can find out this information for each driver by opening device manager, right clicking a device and choosing properties. To open Device Manager, click Start, Right click My Computer (or just Computer in Vista) and choose Properties. In Vista, you can select Device manager in the left hand pane of the resulting dialog. In XP, choose Hardware, Device Manager. The problem with this approach is that you have to find each device and look up its driver details separately. It’s not easy to get a one stop report of all the drivers that you have installed. This is where DriverView comes in.

You can download DriverView from www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html. It’s a simple zip file containing a standalone executable. Extract the contents and launch the EXE file to run the program. See the walkthrough to find out how to examine individual drivers or to produce a full report in HTML format to save or print.

You’ll notice that you have quite a lot of drivers installed. If you’re looking for a particular one, choose Edit, Find and enter the device that you want. This utility works in exactly the same way as Find in Notepad. Click Find Next to turn up the next instance of your keyword.

You can view the full driver properties as you’d see in Device manager by selecting an item, right clicking it and choosing File Properties. This gives you access to driver rollback and other management tools. If you need to compare driver details with those published on a manufacturer website, double click the device to see full information about that driver, including its version number and the date it was produced.

Examine Driver Information
Use DriverView to produce detailed driver details for your system

1
Download DriverView and extract the zip file to a suitable location. Launch DriverView.exe to start the application. It automatically scans your system and returns a full list of the drivers currently installed.

2
Select a driver from the list and click the Properties button on the toolbar or right click and choose Properties. This opens a dialog box showing all the file details of this driver. You can also right click and choose copy to add this information to the clipboard.

3
To produce a full report on all the system drivers that can be displayed in a web browser, choose View, HTML Report – All Items. This opens in your default browser. You can opt to save or print the page for a permanent record.

Synchronise folders with SyncToy

2008-10-11T09:00:00.003+01:00

Joe Cassels demonstrates how to make sure that the contents of two folders are identical and up to date

If you regularly switch between different PCs or carry work around on a thumb drive you’ll know the value of accurate synchronising. Much work nowadays involves dealing with multiple files that are regularly changed. If you move around a lot, it’s vital to ensure that you’ve always got the most up to date version of these files with you. If you change between a desktop, laptop and PDA or you work at home and in the office, a good synchronising tool can be a godsend.

Microsoft provides the excellent SyncToy to Windows users for free. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en. It’s designed to help you do away with the hassle of manually dragging and copying files about from folder to folder. In many cases you simply want to have exactly the same contents on a portable drive or device as you have on your PC. SyncToy enables you to specify two folders and then update the contents of both quickly so you can worry about your work rather than managing your data.

If you want to synchronise between a folders on two different computers like a laptop and a desktop, the easiest way is to ensure that there’s a network connection between them and that one has a shared folder that’s accessible from the other PC. You can then use SyncToy to set up a pair including a local folder and the network one on the remote computer. As long as both folders are accessible to the computer running SyncToy, you only need the program installed on one of them.

The walkthrough demonstrates how to set up a folder pair and run a synchronisation between them. You have several options for synchronising. The first, Synchronise, updates both folders with changes made on either side since the last sync. If the same file has been changed, the most recent change takes priority. Echo updates changes from left to right only. Subscribe does the same but in the opposite direction. Contribute copies updates and new files from left to right without deleting. Combine copies updated files in both directions but doesn’t delete anything.

Sync your data
Use SyncToy to reconcile the differences between two separate folders

1
Install and launch SyncToy. To set up a synchronisation, click Create New Folder Pair. Under Left Folder click Browse and select the first folder that you want to use. It can be on the local PC or a shared network resource.

2
Click Next and browse for the Right Folder. Once specified you have a folder pair that you can sync to make their contents identical. Click Next and specify the kind of synchronisation that you want. If in doubt choose Synchronize which applies the most recent change to both folders.

3
Click Next and provide a name for this folder pair. You’ll see a summary of the folder pair. Click Preview to see which files will be copied, deleted or changed. Click Run to fully synchronise the two folders.

Resize Any Window

2008-09-18T09:00:00.001+01:00

Some windows are locked and won’t let you resize them. Joe Cassels applies some gentle persuasion.

One of the most enduring features of Windows is the ability to minimize, maximise or resize each window. However, not every window will easily resize. Many dialog boxes and control panel applets aren’t resizable and some pop up web pages are locked. In most cases where the static windows are properly designed, this poses no problem, but a non-resizable window that’s been set to too small a size can be very frustrating. It’s also quite irritating if you use a very high screen resolution to deal with tiny windows. ResizeEnable is a simple program that hacks the Windows interface so that pretty much any window will resize.

The program works by running in the background and intercepting messages to and from windows displayed on the desktop. It uses three hooks or simple algorithms to help modify the way each window behaves. The first one is applied when new windows are created. As soon as a new window is formed, the program attempts to change its style so that it can be resized by clicking and dragging.

The second hook intervenes when a window sends or receives a message associated with resizing. If a window is resized, this hook determines if it is one of the windows that the program previously changed the style of to support resizing. If it is, then it scales the window contents including all buttons and edit boxes. As some parts may be generated from simple image files, this rescaling can result in blocky images, especially if the aspect ratio is changed.

The final hook examines the mouse pointer and determines if it has been placed in any of the usual resizing areas of the window. If it has and the mouse button is depressed, then the program takes care of resizing the window.

While ResizeEnable works fine with most static windows, there are some that misbehave. Some developers don’t follow established guidelines for generating windows. In these cases the window may not resize or might tantalizingly resize until you release the mouse button, then snap back to the original size. Nothing’s perfect, but ResizeEnable helps in most cases.

Enable Resizing
ResizeEnable is a clever shell hack that runs quietly in the system tray.

1
Browse to http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/downloads.html and opt to download ResizeEnable. Save it to an easily accessed location. Extract the contents of the zip file to a suitable place and opt to browse through the extracted contents.

2
Launch ResizeEnableRunner.exe by double clicking it. You’ll see the ResizeEnable icon appear in the system tray. It’s a standalone application so it doesn’t need to be installed. Once it’s running you’ll be able to click and drag the edges of any window.

3
Some windows can look quite odd when resized because their contents weren’t designed to stretch. To return to the original size, close and reopen the window. To shut down ResizeEnable, right click its system tray icon and choose Quit.

Resize Taskbar Thumbnails

2008-09-11T09:00:00.003+01:00

Have you ever wished that Vista taskbar thumbnails were bigger? Joe Cassels shows how to make it so.

Vista’s Aero interface boasts the handy feature of thumbnail previews of each of the windows that you have open. As you hover the mouse pointer over each program’s taskbar button, the preview opens. These are real time images showing the contents of the window, including any video or animation. They may serve to remind you of what program is open, but the thumbnail is usually too small for you to be able to make out the window’s contents. Thumbnail Sizer enables you to change the size of the previews to however big you want.

The program is a standalone executable file provided in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. You don’t need to install the program, but you do need to launch it from within a folder that contains the rest of the contents of the downloaded zip file. You can opt to run the program whenever Windows starts by creating a shortcut to the executable file. Right click AveThumbnailSizer.exe, hold down the right hand mouse button and drag it to the desktop. Release the mouse button and choose Create Shortcut here. Drag this shortcut into the startup group of the start menu. The program does include an option to start it with Windows, but if you use the startup menu like this, you can more easily remove it by simply deleting the shortcut.

If you don’t have Vista, you can still enjoy taskbar thumbnails in Windows Xp by using Visual Tooltip, which is available from http://www.chrisnsoft.com/visual-tooltip/. Download to an accessible location and extract the zip file. Launch VisualToolTip.exe and select the language that you want to use. Click OK and hover your mouse over your taskbar buttons to see the thumbnails. You can resize these as well by clicking the VisualToolTip icon in the system tray and choosing Options. Move to the Thumbnails tab and adjust the sliders to produce the thumbnail size that you want. You can use VisalToolTip in Vista as well. The Display tab enables you to change the animation effect as a thumbnail appears and disappears. In the Dock tab you can enable an Apple OS style dock on top of the taskbar.

Use Thumbnail Sizer
Change the dimensions of the taskbar thumbnails with this clever utility

1
Browse to http://mpj.tomaatnet.nl/vista/ and download Thumbnail Sizer. You’ll need to extract the zip file to a suitable location on your hard drive. The file contains 32 and 64 bit versions of the program, select the one that you need and double click AveThumbnailSizer.

2
If you want to have the program constantly running in the background whenever you’re running Windows, choose Start AveVistaThumbnailSizer with Windows and follow the prompts. Use the sliders to alter the height and width of taskbar thumbnails.

3
Hover your mouse pointer over a taskbar button to see the preview thumbnail. Alter the sliders to change the size if necessary. Tick the box marked Add fade-in animation and use the third slider to set the fade duration.

Spot a Phishing Email

2008-08-29T09:00:00.002+01:00

Online fraud is on the rise. Joe Cassels points out the main things to look out for if you think an email is a phishing attack.

Phishing is a confidence trick. It involves sending a fraudulent email, supposedly from an organisation that might have access to your financial details. The email asks for confirmation of account details, often forwarding you to a convincing looking web site to harvest your details. It’s very easy to copy logos and design from an original site, making the fake look very convincing indeed.

Phishing attempts generally come as a variation on this theme, but they have evolved over time so that the fake sites and emails look more and more genuine. Some phish sites even include the antiphishing information that you’d expect to find in the genuine article. Remember that the URL displayed for a hyperlink may not be the actual resource that it points to. It’s even possible to mask the address displayed in a browser address bar, although many fraudsters simply use a very similar domain name to the one they want to copy.

It’s very easy to fall prey to a phishing attempt and personal vigilance is your only real protection. Some internet security suites include antiphishing components, which often work by referring to a list of known fraudulent emails. This is a similar approach to that used to detect viruses, spyware and spam, but it does have its limitations. Be wary of lulling yourself into a false sense of security if you use this kind of protection. There’s no substitute for good old human scepticism.

Avoid emails that include forms in the body of the message, as it’s difficult to verify where the data will be sent to. It helps to avoid HTML email completely or make use of the picture blocking feature in the latest versions of Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail. To turn off HTML email in Outlook Express or Windows Mail, choose Tools, Options, Read and put a tick in the box marked Read all messages in plain text. To do the same in Outlook, select Tools, Options, Preferences, Email Options, and tick Read all standard mail in plain text.

There are dishonest people about. It’s much easier to lie convincingly by email when you don’t have to look someone else in the eye. Keep a healthy distrust of correspondence received this way.

Is my mail genuine?
Few financial organisations send email. Here’s how to spot a fraudulent one.

1
When you receive an email, remember that the sender information may be fake, as could any URLs quoted in the mail. Be particularly suspicious if there is a note of urgency in the email or a threat to close your account. Never follow links in commercial email that you suspect.

2
Head to www.millersmiles.co.uk. This is a site that indexes recent phishing scams. You can look for your mail here or subscribe to the RSS feeds to stay up to date with the latest warnings. You can also report suspected phishing attempts here.

3
Some commercial sites provide information and help for people who have received phishing emails. eBay provides a tutorial at http://pages.ebay.co.uk/education/spooftutorial/ and it provides a service for reporting phishing attempts. Other companies have similar services. Type the URL for the site you want to check directly into the address bar.

Use Google Mail for Storage

2008-08-25T09:00:00.003+01:00

With around six gigabytes of space available, Joe Cassels demonstrates how Google Mail can become handy online storage.

We store more and more data at home, but nothing beats the security of an off site backup. If you use an online storage facility, you have the convenience of being able to access your data from any PC connected to the internet. Most operators charge for online storage by the gigabyte yet there is a way to use over 6GB storage online absolutely free. If you have a Google Mail account, you’re given a gargantuan inbox, which is easy to turn to your advantage.

By installing a shell extension called the GMail drive, you can turn your mail account into a storage system. There are some limitations. The drive behaves much like any other drive on your system, but files are stored by sending emails with attachments to your Google Mail account. As there is a 10MB attachment limit for Google Mail, files larger than this will be split into multiple messages.

Your GMail drive shows its contents in My Computer as if it were any other disk. However, when you log into Google Mail, you will see the messages used to store your files in the inbox. If you also use your account regularly for mail, you may like to create a filter to store these messages in archived items so that they don’t mess up the inbox. Log into your Google Mail account in the usual way and then choose Settings, Filters, Create a new filter. In the Subject field, enter GMAILFS and click Next Step. Now tick Skip the Inbox (archive it) and create the filter.

By using another utility, the GMail Loader, you can store old email in your Google Mail account. Get it from www.marklyon.org/gmail/. You’ll need to unzip the files to as convenient location and launch gmlw.exe. You can use this program to upload mail from Mozilla Thunderbird. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, you’ll need to import the messages into Thunderbird first. This is because the Outlook storage format is protected. Browse to the mail box file and enter your Google Mail address. Now click Send to GMail to upload the messages.

Set up the GMail Drive
Change a GMail account into an additional disk drive

1
Browse to www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm and download and install the GMail drive software. This installs the interface and shell extension to provide an additional drive in My Computer. To access it for the first time, double click the GMail drive icon.

2
You’ll need to log into Google Mail to use the new drive. Provide your Google Mail username and password and tick Auto Login if you want the drive to be permanently available. Click More and opt to preserve filenames. You can also use Secure HTTP for encrypted access.

3
With the GMail Drive open, browse to the files that you want to store online. Drag these onto the open drive. These will be sent to you as email messages, but seen by Windows as stored files. If you use the GMail notifier, you’ll be told that you have new mail.

Connect to a Hotspot

2008-08-22T09:00:00.002+01:00

When you’re away from home and itching to check your email, a hotspot may be the answer. Joe Cassels shows how to use one.

Summer is a time to be out and about so even if you don’t have a wireless network at home, it’s well worth getting a wireless adaptor for your laptop. In fact most modern models come with wireless capabilities built in. This enables you to connect to the internet wherever an open wireless network is available. Commercial services providing wireless internet access at airports, stations or cafes, are known as hot spots.

Many cafes and pubs offer hotspots, enabling you to sip a drink while using your notebook. The principle is simple. Any computer within range can connect to the network if it’s suitably equipped. Only those that provide valid authentication details can access the internet via the hotspot though. When you launch a browser window on a connected computer, you’re invited to log in or provide payment details.

The connection is unencrypted, which means that anyone could access data that your computer is sending or receiving, which is much the same as the security on a domestic internet connection. Using a hotspot without an adequate software firewall running on your laptop could mean that someone else within range may be able to access shared files. It’s also worth checking that your firewall settings don’t provide access to the local network. You may have set this up at home from the safety of a wired or encrypted network sitting behind a firewall, but it’s risky using the same settings for an open access hotspot. Most internet security suites and software firewalls provide a quick way to switch between home and away settings for precisely this reason.

Hotspots are relatively expensive compared to domestic broadband, but you’re paying for the convenience of access. You can either pay for casual access or opt to subscribe. In the case of T Mobile, casual access costs £5.00 for one hour, but the price comes down for a three hour block, which costs £7.50. Payment via SMS text costs 75p for ten minutes, charged to your mobile bill. You can sign up for an unlimited subscription for £23.50 per month. BT Openzone offers similar deals. One hour costs £6, with a day costing £10. A month’s subscription costs £25.

Get internet access in a café
Armed with a laptop and wireless adaptor, you can get online instantly in a hotspot.

1
Find a comfortable place to work and turn on your laptop, connecting your wireless adapter if necessary. Windows should detect the wireless network and tell you with a balloon alert. Click the balloon and select the network if more than one is available.

2
Once connected, launch your web browser. This should open at a welcome page which encourages you to log in or register. Its overall look and branding will depend on the company running the hotspot. Opt to register and provide your payment details and select a username and password. Some hotspots enable you to pay by SMS text, in which case authentication details are texted back.

3
Log in and use the internet as if you were connected at home. You should be able to check email and browse the web without any modifications. There may be an additional floating window displaying the amount of credit that you have left and including a disconnect option.

Mojopac Freedom

2008-08-18T09:00:00.002+01:00

Carry your desktop around in your pocket. Joe Cassels reveals the true meaning of Pocket PC.

If you want portable computing you need to buy a laptop, palmtop or smart phone, right?Public computers are all very well, but you can't access your own desktop with your favourite applications and settings tweaked just the way you like them can you? Thanks to Mojopac Freedom, all you need is a USB drive like a flash drive or iPod to do precisely that. You can carry your desktop, including important files and your familiar programs around with you and it will all fit neatly in your pocket. When you get access to a PC or laptop, all you have to do is plug it in and opt to launch MojoPac. Once you've logged in, you get your own personal desktop run from the portable drive and you can get to work without touching the settings on the host computer.

This very ingenious set up is ideal for students, travellers or anyone else with limited funds and a need to move around a lot. MojoPac is available for download from www.mojopac.com and it comes in free or deluxe editions. The free one is more than adequate for personal use. The walkthrough demonstrates how to get started with it. You need to launch the set up program on a Windows XP computer with your USB drive connected. You can then install the program to work from this drive.

Once you've installed MojoPac, you can plug your portable drive into any Windows XP computer and get your own dedicated desktop that runs directly from the removable drive. It doesn't affect the host computer at all. Once you've logged in, you can access your files and install what programs you want to use to the C: drive. This is the MojoPac drive on your USB device and not the local hard drive on the computer. When you've shut down your desktop in the usual way, you can disconnect your drive and go and use it on a different PC.

The desktop is identical to a Windows XP one, complete with taskbar and start menu. however, the default wallpaper is different and you'll see a MojoPac bar to the top of the screen.

Pack up your desktop
Install MojoPac on a portable drive and start using the desktop

1
Connect your USB drive to your PC and download and launch MojoPacInstaller.exe. Opt to install it to your USB drive. Select your removable drive from the drop down list and wait for the drive to be scanned. If all's well click Next to install.

2
Once all the files have been copied over, you need to set a username and password for MojoPac. Opt to install MojoPac Freedom, which is free for personal use and provide another username and password along with an email address to register with MojoPac.

3
Select the files, folders and settings that you want to copy to your MojoPac installation and click Finish. Start MojoPac from your USB drive and log in. You now have a windows XP desktop running directly from your USB drive.

Make your own CD and DVD labels

2008-08-15T09:00:00.002+01:00

Joe Cassels makes your home burned discs look better with properly printed labels.

Burning your own home CDs and DVDs is probably second nature to you by now, but how can you make sure that they look good? Professional discs have labels or print directly on the disc face. You can achieve a similar effect at home.

Some discs have printable faces, designed for inkjet printers to transfer designs onto them. You’ll need a printer that includes a disc caddy and you’ll have to invest in discs with matt white tops, but this system works well. Alternatively, you might be interested in LightScribe, the technology that uses the laser in a DVD rewriter to transfer a design onto the top of a disc. Once you’ve burnt the data onto the disc, you turn the DVD over, put it back into the drive and the laser etches your chosen design onto it. Both the drive and the discs need to support LightScribe.

If you don’t have the necessary hardware to print or etch onto discs, all is not lost. You can simply use labels. CD labels are available from most office and stationery stores. It’s best to go for a brand name if you can. It’s more costly, but you won’t have to waste labels with trial and error because most software supports popular branded disc labels.

CD and DVD labels generally come in self adhesive A4 sheets that feed into standard inkjet or laser printers. By using a template that matches the label, you can set up the design and print it without any hassle. Most good label suppliers either offer Word templates with the labels or provide some on their websites for download.

If you’re using a jewel case for your CD, you can buy perforated, scored card from the same sources as the labels themselves. However, you may prefer to print onto ordinary paper or thing card and trim it to match the case yourself. Word includes a number of templates for jewel cases and there are also plenty available for download from Microsoft Office online www.office.microsoft.com. With a little practice your discs could rival anything available on the high street.

Design a label
By aligning a template with CD labels your humble printer can do the hard work

1
Launch Microsoft Word and press [F1] to launch the Help pane. Enter CD labels into the search bar and press Enter. You’ll be provided with a number of CD label templates. Alternatively browse to http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/default.aspx and search for CD Templates. Select one to see a preview. Click Download to open this template in Word.

2
Now you can alter the text and images in the template to match the content of your disc. Once you’re happy with the design, print a draft copy on light paper and hold it against your labels to ensure the design lines up. If it doesn’t, alter its positioning and repeat. You can now print your label.

3
Carefully align the label on your disc and return to Word. Now use Tools, Letters and Mailings, Envelopes and Labels, Options to select a pattern for the CD casing. Once you’re happy with the dimensions, select New Document and enter your design before printing the sleeve.

Control all your passwords

2008-08-11T09:00:00.003+01:00

More and more items are password protected. Joe Cassels removes the headache of having to remember them all.

With the wonders of Chip and PIN, plus numerous online accounts with usernames and passwords for security, our memories are being tested more than ever before. The shortcomings of password protection are well known, with many people resorting to using the same password for everything or writing passwords down close to where they are needed. We seem to be torn between risking lower security and the virtual equivalent of locking the keys in the car. Until reliable, trustworthy and cost effective biometrics becomes widespread, we have to deal with the problem of passwords.

One simple solution is to store passwords in text files on your PC. As long as no one else can access your computer physically or hack it via the internet, you should be OK, but it’s little better than sticking a Post-It note on the monitor. By using a password protected zip file you can improve security a little, but there’s still the problem of remembering what authentication details go with what account. It would make much more sense if you could store your passwords alongside access information in a secure environment. This is what Password Agent Lite enables you to do.

The program is available from Moon Software at www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp. It combines a secure password generator with a simple database that stores account information for different web sites. The file containing all your passwords is password protected, so you’re left with the problem of remembering this particular password, but it’s less onerous than trying to recall dozens of them. No security system is perfect, but this provides a much better option than using the same details for every account. If you need to take your passwords on the road with you, choose File, Take with me and follow the wizard to copy your data and the program itself to a removable flash drive.

Password Agent Lite is free to use. You’re limited to 25 passwords per password file. If you need to store more than this, you’ll need to buy the full version of the program, which costs $24.95 (around £14.50). Alternatively, you could just create two or more password files.

Password Agent Lite Use this helpful utility to manage all your most important passwords.

1
Once you’ve launched Password Agent Lite, choose Create a new file. Enter a filename and browse to a location. Click Save. This is where your passwords will be stored. You must enter a master password to lock this file. Ensure this is a secure password.

2
Now you can set up other passwords. Select Entry, New Account. A secure password is automatically generated for you. Enter the username, site URL and any notes. Remember that you’ll have to change your existing account password to this new one.

3
To sign into the site associated with this password, select the account and choose Entry, Open Link. Your browser opens at the web page for this account. Select Entry, Copy User ID or Copy Password. You can paste these into the web site’s authentication dialog.