I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

Maintenance Mode (WP Plugin)

Normally, when setting up a new blog or website I will use WampServer for testing new Themes and plugins. However, sometimes you need to do some type of maintenance or setup & testing on a Live Blog.

This tool lets you show visitors a Customized page instead of the normal error pages they get when visiting your site while you are doing something in the background.

As an added feature, you can still view your site while logged in while visitors get your customized message telling them when to return to see your updated page. 

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

Last week we featured WampServer for creating Blogs and Websites Offline, but how do you upload them to your server?

FileZilla is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to upload any type of Blog, Website, Shopping Cart or any kind of Web Presence you build offline to your WebHost.

It’s fairly easy to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Solution if you have a little knowledge of how Hosting works, but then again, if you can build your own site you already know enough to get it done uploading one file at a time.

FileZilla just makes it much easier by giving you the capacity to upload Everything at once.

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

WampServer is a Windows tool used to create and or tweak a Blog or Website offline.
You can build your site using all the tools you need such as Apache, PHP  and a MySQL datatbase, as well as PHPMyAdmin for managing your databases.

Once installed, it will respond and look exactly the same as your production (live) server so you can make any changes to your sites without anyone knowing the difference until you want them to see it.

Then you can simply upload your new and improved site to your server for the world to see.

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

 

If you take the advice of most computer experts, including myself, you backup your computer and any important files regularly. However, most system backups are just that… System Backups. Sure they may include your pictures, files, favorites and settings, but what about all the rest of the programs and services you added to your hard drive that you use all the time.

Things like Skype,  Crossloop, Filezilla and even your Camera Download Program, etc will all be missing.

The only way to recover EVERYTHING you use and need every day is to backup the WHOLE Drive.

Paragon Drive Backup is one way to do just that, Backup your whole Drive, including any partitions you may have. The program will compress all of the files by approximately 50%, but if you’re like me that is still a lot of information.

It is easy to use with the Wizard which is a major part of the feature. You can backup to any external drive, including CD’s and DVD’s. For larger files, you may need a little more capacity though.

I highly recommend Paragon for backing up your whole disk drive on a regular basis. Oh, and It’s FREE!

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

 MagicDisc is one of those tools you didn’t know you needed until you needed it.

When you download an .iso file from the internet, it is useless unless you can burn it to either a CD or DVD in order to open and use the files contained within the file.

I ran into just such a situation when I downloaded the Windows 7 .iso for testing purposes and it was too large to be contained on a CD and I don’t have a DVD burner. Now what?

Along comes MagicDisc. I’m not sure where I found it, but it was the answer to my problems.

With MagicDisc I could make a Virtual CD/DVD of the .iso image file and install it on a partition of my hard drive.

It is really easy to install MagicDisc and set up the Virtual drive, then installation of Windows 7 was as easy as using an actual Installation Disk from the Manufacturer.

Definition of an .ISO image file can be found here.

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

Are you tired of opening different windows and having to click back and forth just to get something done? Is it slowing your workflow down to a crawl?

Got a Monitor you’re not using?

Here is how I quadrupled my productivity by adding a second monitor to my laptop in a few easy steps…

Open your Control Panel and click on Personalization and you get the screen below

There you want to click on “Connect a projector or other external display”. That will bring you to the Windows Mobility Center

Window Mobility Center

At this point make sure your external monitor is connected to the Comm port of your computer, then click Connect Display which will give you the next Screen.

Choose Show different parts of my desktop on each dispaly and apply/Ok.

You should now be seeing the same Background on both screens but will only see the Icons on the “Main screen”. Open an application, then drag it to the other screen (be sure it is reduced in size, maximized won’t move).

Each application will work independently on the individual monitor you choose to work on. (ie Internet Explorer on the right screen and Outlook Express on the other screen) This way you can perform multiple tasks on each monitor independently.

Experiment with different applications you use simultainously using both screens and you will see a marked increase in your productivity too.

The above was done using Windows Vista but any good Operation System will be similar in principal to accomplish the same objective.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

If your like me, you can always use a little help organizing your day, week, month and remembering what to do when…

I found the KABE Desktop Calendar to help me with keeping things straight on a daily basis. It’s takes a little getting used to because the English documentation is a little weak (the author is from Japan). Setup is fairly simple and usage is pretty easy once you figure it out.

I picked the zip file download at first, but then you have to activate the exe file every time you want to use it. The easiest way is to download the Installer and it will launch automatically when you first boot up your computer.

Once installed, you can schedule individual events for a particular day(and time), weekly events and even monthly events such as billing clients. You can even add a memo for something specific you want to accomplish.

There is even a way to set up particular Tasks for a given number of days so you can follow your progress.

Choices of how it looks are Transparent (as mine is pictured above), Semi-transparent or Gray(ish).

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

Ok, your Password doesn’t work to log into your WordPress Blog.

You tried the e-mail password recovery from the Login Screen and you either didn’t get the mail or the password doesn’t work.

You tried going through the MySQL command line and making changes there and even tried Resetting your password through phpMyAdmin (both of which should only be tried by experienced users) to no avail.

You even tried to reinstall your WP installation from your Backup file (you Do have a backup right?) and still can’t get into your Administration page.

I know just how frustrating all those steps can be, I had to go through them myself and none of them worked for me either.

Then I found the emergency.php script on the village/idiot.org.

It was originally written for versions 2.2 and 2.3x of WordPress. Well, I’m here to tell you it works up to version 2.7x from my own experience.

Installation instructions

1. Dowload the zip file and unzip the file
2. Upload the emergency.php file to the root directory of your WordPress installation (where wp-config.php is)
3. Type http:// yourblogname.com/emergency.php into your favorite browser.You get a screen that looks like the one above.
4. After you are able to log into your WordPress blog, DELETE the emergency.php file from your server. You don’t want to risk someone else getting in there this way.

Last but not least, Change your password in the Users portion of the Administration page.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.
As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.
This is just such a find…

When you need to know the dimentions of an image or how many pixels there are in a particular section of the screen, how do you find out?

Well, you can always get out your trusty, real world ruler and convert from inches & centimeters to pixels or use this handy little tool.

A Ruler for Windows

A Ruler for Windows works on any version of Windows 2000, XP, Vista or 7 and is super easy to use.

Just Download the Application and install it. That simple.

It can be adjusted to various lengths, horizontally or vertically. As well as setting the “tics” on the top or bottom, left or right of the ruler for ease of use.

The Plastic Version

 And it’s Free!

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.

I come across quite a few programs, applications and features almost every day in the course of normal work-a-day research trying to find the right tools to use in the Computer Consulting Business.

As a result, I often find some little known Free Downloadable or Online Features that could be of use to almost anyone to make their computing experience a little bit better and more productive.

This is just such a find…

FastStone Capture is a nice, clean, Free, easy to use screen capture program that I have been using for quite some time.

As a matter of fact that little pic in this paragraph was captured using the program as was every picture in this past Wednesdays post.

So, if you use or want to use screen captures in your online publishing, I recommend downloading FastStone Capture.

I hope you find this tool to be something useful in your daily computing experience.

If you find something you think should be included, please use the comments below or use my Contact Form to let me know and I will be sure to check it out for inclusion in a future article.