Socr2torials

25 Steps to a Faster PC

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:33:00 +0000

1. Have your PC health assessed for free at PC PitStop.

Pc PitStop will give you a wealth of information about whether you have enough disk space, how fragmented your drives, whether you have enough memory and many other things discussed below.

This is an unbelievable free service and can be done anonymously.

2. Make sure you have enough memory.

Choose Start Button -> Start Menu ->
Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> General Tab

Before You Buy Computer Memory Upgrades

Memory Manufacturers

You can find out how much you have by clicking on the System Icon in the Control Panel. The amount is on the first tab that comes up, the General Tab.

With Windows 2000 or XP, you really should have at least 256 MB of memory and 512 MB is a more comfortable amount.

3. Make sure you have a fast enough processor.

MyCPU

Only Windows XP will show you how fast your processor is, again see the image on the right. For other versions of Windows, try the free MyCPU from: http://www.seelhofer.ch/mad/. It will give the CPU speed.

500 MHz Processor is really the minimum these days. If you have less than this, spare yourself some frustration and buy a cheap new computer for $350-$400 from Dell, HP, Compaq, E-machines, or Gateway.

You'll be much happier.

4. In the BIOS (or "Setup") stop floppy seek, stop memory check (Fast Boot), and put the disk on best performance setting instead of silent if you have it.

For a faster boot up enter your Bios, by clicking the Delete, F2, or F12 key or whatever flashes on the screen when you turn on the computer. Next choose boot order, and remove all entries except the first one which you should set to your hard drive. This will stop the most of the time useless seeking of a floppy disk at boot time.

If you need to reinstall Windows or some other operation, you can always go back and change this entry to floppy or CD. Also there should be a setting in your BIOS to make the boot, quick. All this means is that your PC will not do the most of the time useless checking of your memory at boot time.

5. Patch your computer!

Microsoft Windows Update - http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

That is go to Windows update and download all the patches for your operating system.

Better yet, go into the Control Panel, choose Automatic Updates, Choose Automatic (your screen might look different with a different version of Windows). Make it Every Day at a time when you are not using your computer (say 2 AM).

Generally if you have cable or DSL, despite the risk of infection, computers should be kept on and attached to the Internet. This is to allow antivirus and security patches downloading at off-peak hours.

6. Bring your antivirus program up to date and do a full virus scan of your computer.

Alwil's Free avast! 4 Home Edition

Grissoft's AVG

H+BEDV's Antivr

Bring your antivirus program up to date and regularly do a full virus scan of your computer.

Check your antivirus program as it will tell you when the last full scan was done. You may be surprised to see it is not what you thought, but was last done months ago.

If you don't have an up to date antivirus program, and don't want to pay for a new one, there are several high quality free ones available to the private consumer. They are: Grissoft's AVG, H+BEDV's Antivr, Alwil's Free avast! 4 Home Edition.

WinHki Anti-Virus

Also try WinHki Anti-Virus, which acts as a supplement to normal Anti-virus program like above. WinHki calculates the checksums ( a mathematical calculation extremely difficult to fool) of your files on initialization. After that, whenever a virus changes a file it will be flagged by WinHki because the checksum will change.

7. Make sure you have no spyware.

Spybot

LavaSoft's Ad-Aware

Yahoo Toolbar with Anti-Spy 5.5.5

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner

Make sure you have no spyware, by running at least a couple different spyware programs.

The free ones are Spybot, LavaSoft's Ad-Aware, Yahoo Toolbar with Anti-Spy 5.5.5, and Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner.

The last program tests for trojan horses and key loggers that the others don't, but is weak in terms of the number of spywares detected.

Also it's a good idea to use the free spyware prevention tool, Spyware Blaster.

The commercial programs SpySweeper and especially PestPatrol are good too, the latter testing for key loggers, in memory spyware etc and may be the most comprehensive spyware checker of all and only $39.95.

8. Stop unneeded startup programs.

Startup Inspector for Windows

Codestuff Starter

Merijn Bellekom's Hijack This (Expert Level
Startup Programs and Add-Ons Ender)

Stop unneeded startup programs. New installation of software often adds unneeded startup entries in any of several different hidden locations. These programs will start when Windows starts and take up resources.

The best free program to deal with this problem, is in my opinion, Startup Inspector for Windows. If you use this program, be sure to select the "Consult" Button in the upper left of GUI. This will make the program search through its database of startup programs and tell you whether the software is necessary or can be safely removed from the bootup sequence.

Another good choice is Codestuff Starter. This free program has the additional advantage of having a sort of Power Task Manager which will tell you all the programs that are currently running and all their dll dependencies. You can also sometimes get info about the manufacturer of the running program.

Unfortunately you will manually have to look up your entries in other resources to see whether the software is necessary for normal functioning. The best databases for checking whether programs are necessary at start up are here (one page), here (searchable), and here (Info used by Startup Inspector).

For real expert list of Start- Up programs including browser helper objects try Hijack this. "This is an experts’ tool! — an awesome weapon in the fight against adware, spyware, and other parasites, Like other powerful weapons, wield it carefully! HJT displays legitimate and illegitimate programs without judgment, so don’t just remove everything it finds; but the comprehensive list it generates finds things no other detection tool will catch. (HJT is also useful in seeing what else your computer is running without your knowledge.) Save the log and post it to a new thread here. To learn more about what HJT shows you, read this excellent tutorial. By Merijn Bellekom"

source of last item - http://aumha.org/freeware/freeware.php

9. Defragment your hard drive regularly.

startdefrag
(turn off popup blocker to download)

MorphaSystem's autodefrag

Microsoft Article

Systernal's PageDefrag

Defragment your hard drive by choosing Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter. This should be done every week if possible and can take several hour, so again do it at night or while your at work. There are some free disk defragmenter scheduler solutions, so you can "set it and forget it." They are startdefrag (excellent little program), autodefrag (you need to use Windows Scheduler to start), Lexun Freeware Drivecare (Windows Scheduler needed again). There is a Microsoft article that tells you how to use Scheduler (Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Scheduled Tasks) to schedule defragmentation.

Also defragment your page file. This step is not done by the native Windows defragmenter nor any commercial defragmenter (I think -probably wrong though). the SysInternals one does it for free.

10. Clean your registry with a free registry cleaner (and optimize it with NTREGOPT).

TweakNow's RegCleaner

HoverDesk's RegSeeker

ToniArt's EasyCleaner

Lars Hederer's NTREOPT

Clean your registry with a free registry cleaner. Over time the registry gets filled with unneeded entries which slow the computer. Run the programs to find the entries, select them all and hit the delete key. These programs are in wide us and are safe. Good free ones are: TweakNow's RegCleaner, HoverDesk's RegSeeker (it has other functions too), and ToniArt's EasyCleaner.

Here are the notes on NTREOPT: "Similar to Windows 9x/Me, the registry files in an NT-based system can become fragmented over time, occupying more space on your hard disk than necessary and decreasing overall performance. You should use the NTREGOPT utility regularly, but especially after installing or uninstalling a program, to minimize the size of the registry files and optimize registry access.

The program works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch", thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously
modified or deleted keys.

Note that the program does NOT change the contents of the registry in any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive
(as the PageDefrag program from SysInternals does). The optimization done by NTREGOPT is simply compacting the registry hives to the
minimum size possible."

11. Stop unneeded Windows services.

PC World and Tweakhound's Batch File for Turning off Unneeded Services

Another Guide to Unneeded Services at BlackViper.com

Another Nice Guide to Turning off Unneeded Services at ClanKiller.com

Stop unneeded Windows services. Services are again programs that Windows starts up automatically at startup. Many of these are not needed and stopping them can help speed up you considerably. To get to services, in WIndows 2000 and XP, right click on My Computer and choose Manage. Then choose services down at the bottom. Now, consult any one of these lists to see which services are needed: here, here (reference by many) or here (detailed explanations with references to Microsoft articles. Tweakhound (first link) also has a batch file which is posted on PC Worlds Site, which will stop a lot of unneeded services. It is here. Beware though it will turn off all fancy display elements of Windows XP and make it look like Windows 98.

12. Turn off fancy desktop backgrounds, and screensavers.

Turn off fancy desktop backgrounds, and screensavers. Elaborate background pictures and fancy screensavers can take up an enormous amount memory. These operations can be done by right clicking on a blank part of your Desktop and choosing "Properties." Go to the Desktop Tab and set the Background to "None." On the screensaver Tab, set the Screensaver to "None."

To turn off the Hibernation feature: Right Click on your Desktop -> choose Properties -> Click on the Screen Saver Tab -> Click on the Power Button in the lower right corner -> Click on the Hibernate Tab -> Uncheck "Enable hibernation".

13. Turn off Windows animations.

Turn off Windows animations. Turn off Animation - Go to Start> Run, type in regedit. Follow this path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics. Click on WindowMetrics once to open its contents in the right pane. Look for "MinAnimate", double-click it and set the string value to 0
to turn off animations. If MinAnimate does not exist, right click inside the right pane and choose New> String Value. Type MinAnimate then press enter. Now that the string value is created, double click it and set the string value to 0.

source - http://www.internetfixes.com/help_desk_nt4/winsNT_12.htm

14. Use the Disk Cleanup Utility.

Start Menu ->(choose) Programs ->
Accessories -> System Tools ->
Disk Cleanup

Pick a time just before you will not be needing your computer for a long stretch, and run the Disk Cleanup Utility. The process can go very fast or it can hang your computer for hours.

You can be aggressive about what to delete, although if Disk Cleanup finds Office Setup Files, its generally better to keep them. This is because if you ever update MS Office via the Microsoft Office Website (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx) its generally handier to use the files on your computer, rather than find and load the Office disks (although finding the setup files is difficult too).

Also keep setup logs as they are sometimes necessary for software uninstallation.

There are many freeware tools out there that can help you do the same thing as Disk Cleanup and more, but be careful not to delete uninstall launching executables themselves (as some programs do) as these are obviously necessary for software uninstallation, if you decide to do so later on down the line.

15. Delete unneeded programs.

Start Menu-> Settings ->
Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs

Delete unneeded programs. These clog up your disk, registry and slow the display of your Start Menu. You can do this by clicking on Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs.

16. Delete unneeded files.

Delete unneeded files. Apparently once your disk gets past the 50% full its performance degrades and as it gets near the full mark, it seriously degrades.

17. Disconnect unneeded or little used Network Drives.

-> right click on your mapped drive -> choose disconnect

If you have a network or home network and you have used the My Computer or Explorer option "Map Network Drive," you may have network mappings where the drive or folder no longer exists or is accessible from your PC.

Unfortunately, this greatly increases time before your Desktop appears after you log on (or a plain start your computer if you do this automatically and by pass the login screen). What happens is the PC will try a set number of times to contact this drive or folder before giving up, but this can be a minute or two. In fact according to one technician I know he has seen it delay boot up 30 minutes!

You can do this by right clicking on the drive and choose "Disconnect."

18. Use the Quick Launch Toolbar.

This is not displayed by default, so right click on a blank part of the toolbar and choose toolbars and then check Quick Launch, see below:

The Quick Launch Toolbar allows you to start frequently used programs without opening the Start Menu or going to the Desktop. You can drag shortcuts onto toolbar from the Start Menu (which will cause them to move off the Start Menu) or your Desktop (which causes them to be copied).

19. Use keyboard shortcuts.

Use keyboard shortcuts. Once you get in the habit of using these, they are such a boost to efficiency.

Ctrl - a - Selects all items on a page including	Ctrl - x - Cuts selected items	Ctrl - c - Copies selected items
Ctrl - v - paste the current item on the clipboard	Ctrl - p - prints your current document or Webpage	Ctrl - n - opens a new IE Window
Print Screen - places an image of your screen on the clipboard for pasting into Word or Paint or another image program	Alt-Print Screen - places an image of the current active window on your clipboard	Tab - moves from one blank (field) to the next in a form
Shift - Tab - moves to the previous blank (field) in a form	F1 - Opens the Help Menu for the active program	F2 - Allows renaming of a file
F5 - refreshes the display of your current Window	F11 - makes IE go to full screen	Home - brings cursor to beginning of a line
Ctrl- Home - brings cursor to beginning of document	End - brings cursor to the end of a line.	Ctrl - End - brings cursor to the end of a document.
Shift - [Left or Right] Arrow Key - highlights one character	Ctrl - Shift - [Left or Right] Arrow Key - highlights a whole word.	Ctrl - {Right or Left] Arrow Key - moves the cursor through the document one word at a time.
Ctrl - [Up or Down] Arrow Key - moves the cursor through the document one paragraph at a time.	Double Click on a Word - Highlights the word.	Triple Click on a Word - Highlights the whole paragraph.

20. Don't wait for Internet Downloads, start them and move onto something else.

Don't wait. You've visited a search engine and got a list of sites to check out. You click on the first link, and it's taking ages to load. Don't hang around waiting, just click on the Stop button.

Often the bulk of the page will appear immediately. If it doesn't, hit Reload to fetch the rest. An alternative approach is to work your way down the list of sites, right-clicking on the best links and choosing Open in New Window.

Once you have three or four windows open, switch between them, viewing whichever page is displayed first.

source - http://www.netmag.co.uk/features/default.asp?siteid=23&sectiontypeid=8&subsectionid=511&subsubsectionid
=220&pagetypeid=2&articleid=9938&page=2

21. Break folders up with large amounts files and few folders, to many folders containing manageable amount of files.

The effect of this is to cut down the amount of time WIndows takes to build views when traversing folders.

Windows may stop and build a view of each folder as you try to get deeper in a folder structure or find one file in a folder of a thousand documents.

This can take an annoying amount of time.

22. For the same reason as in step 20., if you have a large amount of programs on your Programs part of the Start Menu, break them up into categories. Put often used programs and folders on the initial Start Menu.

It's easiest to work with Explorer when you want to manipulate the Start Menu. In fact if you right click on the Start Menu and choose "Explore," it will open most likely open right to the Start Menu Folder in you you C:\ Drive File Tree.

23. Switch from the new XP Start Menu to the Classic View.

Choose the Start Button -> Settings ->
Taskbar and Settings -> Start Menu Tab
-> Classic Start menu

The Classic View packs information (actually program shortcuts) more efficiently.

24. Turn off personalized menus on your Start Menu and in all your MS Office Programs.

Choose the Start Button -> Settings ->
Taskbar and Settings -> Start Menu Tab
-> Classic Start menu -> Customize ->
Uncheck "Use Personalized Menus"

For MS Office Programs:

Right Click -> Choose Customize
-> Choose the Options Tab ->
Check "Always Show Full Menus"

This is a pet peeve of mine. That is I get annoyed at, not being sure something is on a menu because it is not immediately shown, or having to wait for less used item to appear.

25. If your using dialup, turn off the download of graphics.

Internet Explorer -> Tools Menu
-> Options -> Advanced Tab ->
Scroll Down to Multimedia ->
Uncheck Show Pictures

ImageToggler for IE 5 (works with IE 6 too - it's
part of the Web Accessories for Internet
Explorer 5 - it installs a shortcut on the Links Toolbar in IE)

To Display the Enact the Image
Toggler After Installation:
Choose View Menu in IE -> Toolbars
-> Check Links-> Go to the Links
Toolbar. Select "Toggle Images.exe,"
which should be the last item

Resources for Opting Out from Telemarketers, Spam E-mail and Junk Mail and Some Notes on Security

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:16:00 +0000

Introduction

See this Web page as an excellent starting point. It is specific to the state of Minnesota but contains some excellent information applicable for everybody.

http://www.moea.state.mn.us/campaign/junkmail/index.html

Starting with the information above and using some other pages I found the information below.

Telemarketing

The National Do Not Call List came into effect as of Friday Oct. 10 at 8:00 AM. However this only affected those people who had registered before Sept. 1, 2003. Those registered on that day or afterwards will have to wait three months from the date of their registration before the partial ban on telemarketing calls to their number(s) goes into effect. You can find the national site here and more detailed information listed at the second address:

https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/index.html

Consumers can also call

1-888-382-1222

toll free to register for the list. The Direct Marketers Association is a legitimate association for telemarketers, junk mailers and spam E-mailers. They have an additional list which you can get on to opt out from all telemarketing done by companies in their association. It cost $5 for registering online but is free if you mail in a form by US Post. If you go to the address hit the “REGISTER BY MAIL (Takes Longer)” button, it will generate a form where you can enter your name and address with your computer keyboard. You can then print out this form and mail it.

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/offtelephonelist.html .

Credit Card Offers and Junk Mail Opt-Out

There is a phone number which you can call which will allow you to opt out of preapproved credit card offers. Most credit card companies check with one of the four major Credit Reporting Agencies (TransUnion, Experian, Equifax, and Innovis) before making a credit card solicitation. When you have a decent credit rating you qualify for “preapproved” offers. There are some credit card offers which are not preapproved, and calling the number below will not get you out of these. The four companies have got together and have the one phone number which you can dial to opt out of all the companies sharing your credit information.

1-888-567-8688

You can find out more information below.

http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/protect.htm

Experian is also a major broker of addresses for physical junk mail. Calling the phone number below will put you on Experian’s US Mailing Address List Opt-Out Registry.

1-800-228-4571 x4633

The Polk Company is another large vendor of addresses for physical junk mail. Calling this number will put you on The Polk Company’s US Mail Address List Opt-Out Registry.

1-800-464-7655 x6660

ADVO Inc. is the company which produces the little white advertising fliers with the missing children and their possible alleged abductors. They are the Mailbox Values, ShopWi$e fliers. You can call the number below before 4 PM East Coast time to opt out from them.

1-888-241-6760

Val-Pak Direct Marketing Systems is a coupon mailer. You can call: this number to opt out from them. They do not operate in all states.

1-800-661-0959

The address below will instruct you how to get on the opt-out list Direct Marketing Association again. Please note this is separate from the opt-out E-mail list below and the telemarketer list above. Again if you want to register online with this opt out list, it cost $5, but if you send in a physical letter, it is free.

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglistdave

Spam E-mail, Internet Pop-Up Ads and Cookies

The Direct Marketing Association also has a Web page which will allow you to register for free on the E-mail opt-out list for companies that are members of their association which advertise by spam E-mail. You can register up to three E-mail addresses on this list. This registration is free online unlike their junk mail and telemarketer lists.

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/opt-outform_emps.shtml

This site lets you opt-out of the cookies and also pop-up ads from the infamous DoubleClick (and also out of another one which I haven’t heard of Avenue A, Inc).

http://www.networkadvertising.org/

Here is the address to a page with convenient links to the specific opt-out pages for MSN.com, Wired.com, Yahoo, 24/7 Media, BeFree, CoreMetrics, MediaPlex, Amazon, American Express (e-mail), Any Birthday, AT&T, and eBay.

http://www.opt-out.cdt.org/online/.

Security, Free Firewalls and Spyware

If you are on the Internet you should be using a Firewall in addition to the Antivirus program you use. This will prevent hackers from coming in. Hackers are always scanning all the IP addresses that exist on the Internet, looking for weaknesses. When you log onto the Internet, whether it is through Dial-Up, DSL, or Cable, you are identified by a unique IP address. Cable users share an IP address with others in their neighborhood. When I started using a Firewall on my DSL line, I was surprised to find that users from all over the world were trying to get into my machine about once every 2 minutes (a different user each time). This was true even though Verizon changes my IP each time I log on. I use Zone Alarm Pro which has a free version. It may be a little hard to understand how to use these programs at first but just accept the default conditions to begin with and you will be fine. If the programs do get into your machine, the firewalls will prevent your PC from be used as a staging ground to launch Denial of Service Attacks against Amazon, E-bay, government Web sites etc. They can also prevent viruses or worms from using your E-mail program to send E-mails to all addresses in your address book. Antivirus programs should do the last function also. Firewalls are a good first line of defense with the antivirus programs being a second line of defense. You can write me if you have any questions (I’m still learning too).

An easy to understand introduction to PC security including firewalls by an excellent magazine PC Magazine:

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,3048,a=32564,00.asp.

You can start downloading Zone Alarm here free for personal use. It is the easiest for the novice to use. Note, answer the questions and hit the continue button at the bottom. On the subsequent page, the free version is all the way to the right (the third one).

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/zap_za_grid.jsp.

There is one other free Windows firewall that is more for those who have some computer security knowledge. Sygate Personal Firewall 5 is also free for personal use.

http://soho.sygate.com/products/shield_ov.htm

Norton Personal Firewall apparently is also good for the novice like Zone Alarm, but it costs money. The Pro version of Zone Alarm is comparable but cheaper:

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/nis_pr/features.html

On the subject of anti-spyware programs, there are four good ones.

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ - is free for non-commercial personal use. For use in a commercial/educational/governmental environment you need to pay and register the software. This is the pioneer of free ad and spyware removal. It is great stuff.

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html - amazing free suite of programs, the main serving the same function as above. Will find some spy/adware that the above won't find.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html - yet another free product that works well. Spybot recommends it as a supplement. Don't really understand how it works, but it prevents spyware from installing to begin with.

http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/ - Bazooka anti-spyware software. Again this is free. It is often overlooked but may also be helpful, although if you have the three above, Bazooka does not seem to be find anything in addition.

Keeping Windows Up to Date

Finally, it is important to keep up with all the security patches that are issued for Windows. This can be done fairly painlessly if you have broadband (DSL or Cable). Simply click on the Windows Update link which should be above your Programs button on the Start Menu. If you would like to do it right now, follow this link, which is the same one found in your Start Menu:

http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp

Just follow the directions once you’ve chosen the link. Windows will go to the appropriate Microsoft Web Page and ask you if it can analyze your computer and tell you which patches need to be downloaded and installed. If you so choose, Windows will do the downloading and installing for you. Note that for some updates Microsoft will download and install the updates separately from the others. This is particularly true for the Service Packs for Windows. You will have to restart your computer after the update is installed. To get the rest of the updates you will have to choose the Windows Update link on the Start Menu again and go through the process again.

Good luck!

Comments or questions can be sent socrtwo@s2services.com.

Last modified 10/02/2005

Convert an Access MDE to an MDB?

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:14:00 +0000

Free Method

1. The tables and queries are natively importable from mde's into a new database. Unfortunately if you only have the front end of a database or some of the table links are no longer valid, you will get an error with those tables and not be able to import them. If this is the case there is an alternative non-free method outlined below.

2. You can import all the forms and reports at one time using Serge Gavrilov's free tool "MDE forms/reports extractor v1.1". It's available here: http://accesstools.narod.ru/.

3. To import macros use Serge's "SaveAs/LoadFrom Text File v1.0" also free from the Website above. This allows you to export macros from mde files one at a time to text files. You can then use the same add-in in your new database and import the macros. If you have a large number of macros see the alternative non-free method below.

4. To regenerate some VBA code from the macros choose "Convert Macros to Visual Basic" from the Macros Menu on the Tools Menu in Access. This works in at least Access 2002. You may have to edit the VBA to get it to compile.

Apparently no one yet has been able to reverse engineer actual VBA code but it can be recreated by experienced Access Developers. Let me put in a plug for Serge Gavrilov. He has been most generous in providing the free tools above, and his rates are quite reasonable. If you need help recreating code Serge may be able to help. His E-mail address is on the Web page above. I am not affiliated with him.

There are other Access Developers another one is Peter Walker, see his site here: http://www.papwalker.com/links.html. He reports some success at reverse engineering. There are others that you can get to through his pages that might help you recreate code as well as any of the MVP's and developers in the forum here.

Non-Free Method
Finally here is the non-free method which will allow you import tables with bad links, and a large amount of macros.

1. Create an MDB replica of the MDE by using the Tools menu.

2. Make the MDB the Design Master, by choosing Recover Design Master.

3. Run AccessRecovery against the file (the program costs $399 and is available here: http://www.officerecovery.com/access/).

4. Everything is importable now from the recovered MDB file but the modules are gone.

5. Highlight each macro in the recovered database and choose “Convert Macros to Visual Basic” from the Macros menu on the

Tools menu. The VBA for the macros is now importable.

Free PDF Resources

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:12:00 +0000

Links to Free Methods and Freeware Applications
for Creating PDF Documents in Windows

There are many free ways to create PDF documents for free. The methods all involve some sort of drawback, which you won't get from paying for programs, but then again they're free. The drawbacks fall into several camps. There are the free Web services from Adobe and others that require you to send them the document which their automated programs convert and then send back. The drawbacks are: they are limited to the number of documents you can convert under one registration, or the number of document you can convert per day, or the output comes back with a watermarked advertising of their service on all the pages (you can remove this). Next are the actual freestanding application with their drawbacks too. These free applications are often limited by the type of document you can convert to PDF, such as simple text, or HTML or are limited to non-business use. Finally there are the "printer" PDF creators. Some of these are nagware in that you have to click through a screen asking you to register for a small fee, each time you use the program. There are however "printer" PDF creators which once they are set up, allow you to print from any program, producing a PDF document, even in full color. The drawback here is there is some difficulty in setting these up, but don't despair, there are fully documented instructions with screenshots on how to do this.. One final caveat, apparently PDF files can be very complex, with bookmarks, hyperlinks etc. There are many issues involved with PDF creation for professional use particularly in the Graphics and Printing Industries which I don't pretend to understand. The PDF files created with the methods below are for simple PDF files not for professional manuals and the like. You'll have to pay for the pro programs if you want to do anything fancy. I will in most cases be pasting in the blurbs from the Web sites for all the products, following that with my own comments in Italics.

Web Services

http://createpdf.adobe.com/index.pl/?BP=IE - Create Adobe® PDF Online is a Web-hosted service that lets you convert a variety of documents into Adobe PDF files that anyone can view using the free Adobe Acrobat® Reader?. Supported formats include Microsoft® Office files, graphics formats, Web pages, and other file types. Use Paper Capture to create searchable PDF files from scanned paper documents. You can create the first five copies for free.

http://www.gobcl.com/what_is.htm - goBCL® provides you with quick and free document conversion into PDF and HTML formats. As a web-based server solution, goBCL allows you to convert documents automatically - from your PC or your Mac, from your home or your office...from anywhere in the world! goBCL lets you submit documents from your web browser. goBCL then processes your document and, within minutes, generates and emails you an accurate PDF or HTML (complete with JPEG files) representation of your document. The maximum size that you can upload is 500K per file.. - Limits your documents to 500 KB.

http://www.neevia.com/solutions.htm#sol2 - Neevia Document Converter eXPress is a FREE web-based service that lets you convert your business documents into Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Adobe PDF solves many common file-sharing problems, from preserving the look-and-feel of the original document to allowing anyone, on any platform, to view, navigate, and print documents using the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®. Supported formats include Microsoft® Office files, graphics formats, and other document formats. - Limits your documents to 500 KB.

http://64.39.14.230/abcpdf/ - Using the links below you can add text, images and other graphics to your very own PDF document. You can choose to view the document in a browser window or download it to your computer for viewing. The actual document itself is dynamically generated and sent direct to your web browser - there are no files saved anywhere. In this example web site we limit the document to a single page to make it easy to see the changes you're making. However if you want to create multi-page documents it's only a few more lines of code!

http://www.fastpdf.com/receive.php - This site puts an advertising watermark on each page if you do it for free.

http://www.pdfconvert.ch/index.asp?lang=e - NetPower PDFconvert is the on-line solution to convert Microsoft® Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint®) documents, Web pages, images, ... into Adobe® PDF files.Notice: * This service is currently free of charge. Converted documents may include our watermark.* Adobe Acrobat Reader (available free of charge) enables one to read the documents thus produced.* The size of the file to convert shouldn't exceed 15 Mb or 5 minutes in processing time.- This site may put a watermark on the resulting file.

http://www.teamprinting.com/toolbox.asp - Convert your documents online to Adobe PDF files that anyone, anywhere can view and print. Supports more than 280 formats! - This site limits you to one conversion per day.

http://www.pdfhammer.com/help.html - great simple online file merger, page rearranger and page deleter of PDF files.

Actual Applications

http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator - the best free pdf printer in my book. Can also print any file to jpg and other standard image types including PS. It may install Ghost Script (see the next section).

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fricotin/index.htm - This is a French Tool called MiniPDF 2.03. It may come out in an English version soon. It probably has limited functionality.

http://www.easysw.com/htmldoc/ - Converts HTML files to PDF or PostScript. Generates a table-of-contents for books. Generates indexed HTML files. Generates files on-the-fly for web applications, from the command- line for batch jobs, or from a GUI for interactive work. Runs on most UNIX/Linux and Windows operating systems. Provides a command-line interface for batch and WWW applications. Provides a graphical interface for interactive work. - Limited version is for free.

http://www.e-press.com/easy_office_premium.html - Free extensive Office suite for personal use and is nagware. Can save its word processor and spreadsheet files to PDF. Commercial license and personal registration is very cheap.

http://www.fytek.com/text2pdf.html - FyTek's Text to PDF Converter does more than just convert plain text. You can include HTML-like tags to add in images, change font size or color, underline and highlight text, and more. If you want even more features, consider registering your copy which allows you to embed fonts, create bookmarks and use a wider variety of image types. - Free version is limited to 50 pages and only converts text.

http://www.visagesoft.com/easypdf/ - Easy PDF is a specialized WYSIWYG environment for quickly and easily creating Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) documents. Easy PDF provides all the power to create sophisticated PDF documents, and apply links/hypertext on the final document. - This is Word processor of sorts and though limited is more than a Notepad or WordPad replacement, pretty good.

http://www.dreamscape.it/Eng/AcroPAD.htm - AcroPAD is a program very similar to Notepad; the main differences are: the toolbar with the buttons to open/save etc the files, the ability to open RTF files (e.g. from WinWord), and in particular the "Save as PDF" Menu! AcroPAD allows end users to copy text from their documents in MSWord or Excel and paste inside itself; then they can export everything in PDF, without the need for Adobe Acrobat (tm). There isn't an installation program; just copy the 600Kbytes executable and everything works! The program is completely Freeware and is just an experiment to let you see what can be done with the component PDFREPORT - exporting the entire text is a matter of just a single command: TEXTOUT(). - WordPad replacement that save in PDF.

http://www.websupergoo.com/abcpdf-1.htm - ABCpdf gets up close and personal! Because it doesn't use any print drivers and goes Direct to PDF? it's incredibly fast. Because it's Fully Both Threaded you can use it flexibly from within ASP, VB and under COM+, MTS or .NET. ABCpdf is simple yet powerful. It's designed so you can get up to speed and productive within ten minutes. Yet if you want fine low-level control you can have that too with ABCpdf. - This is free if put a link to their Website on yours, they approve and send you a license key. I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/59506.html - Software that converts text documents (.txt) to PDF Files, it also adds pages and allows you to enter information for the file like author, copyright etc.

Printer Methods

All these methods, except for the last, involve the use of Ghostscipt, and GSView and sometimes Redmon. All three programs use either the GNU public license or the Aladdin Free Public License. This means they are free to download and use even in business. There are strictures which I don't quite yet understand about selling the software or a derivative for money.
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ - this is the Gnu version of Ghostscript, and works well with all the methods outlined below. Ghostscript is a command line program that among other things, converts Postscript files to PDF files. If you install a "dummy" Postscript printer on your Windows machine, and tell it to print to file, it will produce a PostScript or PS file. If you put in the right commands into the command line of the program it will convert it to a PDF file. The commands however are very complicated. There is a solution though, and GSView provides. See the next link.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/index.htm - GSView is a PDF viewer like Acrobat Reader, but more. It is a Windows GUI interface for Ghostscript, and therefore, with a couple clicks, allows you to convert a PS file to a PDF file. The whole business of setting the two up and installing the PostScript printer, is explained in the next link.

http://student.umpi.maine.edu/~edwardp/documentation/pdf_create/pdf_create.html - Instructions for using a PostScript printer, Ghostscript and GSView to create a PDF file.

http://kenchiro.tripod.com/howtoPDF.html - a perhaps more accessible set of instructions of the above.

http://www.et.dtu.dk/Software/GhostWord/Index.html - GhostWord is an interface for the GhostScript package, which enables you to create PDF documents from Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents. GhostWord installs itself in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and you convert the documents by simply clicking an icon.GhostWord is freeware. You may freely copy and use it without any charge.

http://home.hccnet.nl/s.vd.palen/ - FreeDist is a freeware distiller (in combination with Ghostscript). It can convert postscript files that are placed in a "watched folder", automatically to PDF. It can also compose multiple postscript or PDF files to one PDF in the order you like. FreeDist can cope with clean postscript files with the extension eps, ps, plt and prn. - This involves slightly more automation. You needn't open GSView, all you have to do is move your newly created PostScript files to a predetermined folder.

Note:the next sets of printer methods involve the use of Redmon. These are a little difficult to set up, and I will provide a link later to a more general set of instructions for installing the first program. However, once these are set up, there is no intermediate step of opening up GSView to convert the PS document. You simply print to your PostScript dummy printer and the PDF files are created. Redmon produces a dummy printer port for the dummy printer, and then redirects the output into Ghostscript, with the right parameters, and voila, you have a PDF file. You can even rename your printer to "PDF Creator".

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/redmon/index.htm - Redmon can be downloaded here.

http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/freepdf.htm - Free PDF is a utility which allows you to create PDF's just by printing to a "Create PDF" printer, from any Windows 9x/ME application FOR FREE! Free PDF bridges between RedMon (owned by Ghostgum Software Pty Ltd) and Aladdin Ghostscript (owned by Aladdin Enterprises), thus simplifying the PDF creation process, providing useful options and making it easy to use them. Configuration of the programs requires comprehension and some effort on your part. - Don't be put off by the advertising and the complexity of setup, this is a good program. This is the program that I hope in the future to set up a more generalized set of instructions. Suffice it to say that despite what either set of instructions might seem to say here, you can use the GNU version of Ghostscript, just be sure to point the pdfConverter to the bin/gswin32c.exe, which under normal installation, should be located under the C:/gs/gs[your version number here]/ folder.

http://www.mast-webdesign.de/ - PDF Ghostscript tool is a powerful interface for RedMon and Ghostscript - the free Postscript and PDF interpreter. RedMon redirects the printer output to an external program and Ghostscript can convert PostScript files to PDF files. PDF Ghostscript tool is receives the printer data from RedMon and creates PDF files with Ghostscript. With PDF Ghostscript tool you can create PDF files easy and free! - This is a similar tool from Germany, and may be even better, and easier to set up. There are English instructions. Be sure to use a color PS printer driver like the Tektronix one mentioned in the instructions above. The Adobe printer driver here, should work in color too.

http://home.hccnet.nl/s.vd.palen/ - This is a third one, with a wild interface that is slightly difficult to figure out (the three white circles in the upper left hand corner are not decoration, but are the small buttons he is talking about). This program also lets you append several PS files (thus anything printed to your dummy PS printer from even different programs) to one PDF file.

http://site4.pdf995.com/download.html - Pdf995 is the fast, affordable way to create professional-quality documents in the popular PDF file format. Its easy-to-use interface allows you to create PDF files by simply selecting the "Print" command from any application, creating documents which can be viewed on any computer with a PDF viewer. Pdf995 supports advanced features such as bookmarks, links, and automatically attaching a PDF to an email message for sending. Pdf995 is free, fully featured software. It does not expire, and it does not limit or mark your PDF documents in any way. The download is free. Once on your computer, just double-click the install file and you're ready to start creating professional-quality PDF files the fast affordable way. - This is very nice and easy to use, except for the nagware element. It does not use Ghostscript, GSView or Redmon.

How to Fill Out a PDF Form With PowerPoint

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 07:10:00 +0000

Using the Free GhostScript, GSView Software and PowerPoint You
Can Fill Out Government, Tax, Rebate Etc. Forms With Your
Computer Instead of Printing Them Out and Filling Them By Hand

Download and install the free GhostScript 8.14 or higher version from here:

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/get814.htm
Download and install the free GSView 4.6 from:

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/index.htm
Open GSView and open your PDF file in it.
Choose "Convert" from the File Menu.
Scroll down and choose "jpeg" from the "Device" Option of the "Convert" Window. Select 300 for the resolution. and Page 1 only from the "Pages" list. Save the picture to somewhere convenient like your Desktop.
Repeat this process for each page of your PDF form that needs filling out, changing Page 1. to Page 2. etc. but keeping the other two choices in the "Convert" Window the same. [You have to do each page separately, because even if you select "All Pages," the program only save the first image. Only with a multi-page image like a tiff does this setting work.]
Open PowerPoint and choose "Page Setup" from the "File Menu". Change the slide width to 8.5" and the slide height to 11".
Choose the "View" Menu, the "Master" Choice on the Menu and the "Slide Master" on the "Master" Submenu.
If you have more than one page of PDF from images, right click on the white space under the one Master Slide initially displayed on the left hand slide pane. Choose "New Slide Master". Repeat this process for the total number of pages of the PDF form that will have fields that need to be filled out of which you now have jpg images.
Clear out all the text boxes on the Master slide(s) as you will not need them. Next, click on the first master slide in the slide list on the left and make the following Menu choices "Insert" Menu -> "Picture" Choice ->"From File" Choice from the "Picture" Sub-Menu and insert your first jpg image of the 1st page of the PDF form in your first Master Slide. If you have to, it's important to resize the image so that it takes up the whole slide. If you have more than one jpg/PDF page image, repeat this process for each master slide and each jpg image.

I only have one image in my Belkin Rebate Form so I deleted the extra Master Slides.
Click with your Left Mouse Button on the "Normal" Choice under the "View" Menu to get back to the regular slide view.
If you have more than one page of PDF form you need to fill out, right click under the one slide listed in the left hand pane and choose "New Slide" here too.
If you have more than one slide, automatically all slides will use the first master for their background image. Right click on the second slide if you have one, and choose "Slide Design".

Select the white area next to the second Master Slide Design from the "Used in this Presentation" Section of the Task Pane that has appeared on the right. Select "Apply to Selected Slides". (In this image I loaded up a fictional second Master Slide with a sample second page of a PDF Form that I presumable converted to a jpg with GSView). Repeat this process for the third slide if you have one, except obviously choose the third Master Slide with the image of the third page of the PDF form.
You are now ready to fill out the fields of the forms. Click on the first slide and change the zoom on the image so the you can clearly see the field on the (former) PDF file.

Choose "Insert" Menu -> "Text Box" and draw out a text field so that it encompasses the image of the field you are trying to fill out

Type in your answer to the field. Obviously you can change the size and font style in your text box and move it around at will to place exactly between the lines. Do this for all your fields.\\
Print out your pages, sign them and send or fax them away.

Comments or questions can be sent socrtwo@s2services.com.

Steps to Recovering Corrupt Excel File

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:56:00 +0000

Preliminary Considerations

You would be well advised to take a look at Microsoft's articles on the subject first even if you find them confusing. If you have Excel 2002 and 2003, see the MS Office Assistant Article about recovering files:
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010346561033&CTT=6&Origin=EC010553071033.
The Microsoft Knowledge Base Articles (more advanced) are here including Excel 97 and 2000 articles. The information does not change much between versions.
1. For all of Microsoft's Excel 97official methods, including the complicated external file reference method is available here:
2. For all the Excel 2000 methods look here:
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx'scid=KB;en-us;Q179871.
3. For all the Excel 2002 and 2003 methods look here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx'scid=KB;en-us;Q291057.
This newsgroup post looks good too: http://preview.tinyurl.com/23zdbb.

Another Set of Procedures
Including Obvious Ones

Warning: Always work from a copy of your file so you don't make
things worse! See step 7. if you can't make a copy of the file.

Close down Excel, reopen it and try to open the file again.
If this doesn't work, restart the computer, open up Excel and try to open the file again.
If this doesn't work, delete the contents of your c:\ Windows\temp directory then reboot. Try again.
If this doesn't work, open Excel in Safe Mode. This will disable VBA and Add-ins. Click on Start then Run then enter (including the quotes and the /s extension): "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\excel.exe" /s ["C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\excel.exe" /s (for Excel 2002, Office XP, click cancel if the MS Office Installer starts, Excel in safe mode will still start)].Try to open the file.
If this doesn't work, be sure to scan the file for viruses. Make sure your macro heuristics scanning option is turned on. Ask your IT administrator how to do this.
If you don't find a virus, try to open the file in Word. Note after you do this, you will probably have to make another copy because Word sometimes destroys the binary structure of Excel (I think).
If this doesn't work, try to determine if the file is unrecoverable on the disk. Open the file in Explorer and try to copy it to another location. I know I told you to to work from a copy of the file so you have already done this. I apologize, the steps were written at different times. If you can copy the file to another location skip to step 9, if not the actual sectors on the disk may be corrupted. If the data is valuable enough to you, there are several labs that can recover files off damaged disks, you can find a lab here: http://www.disasterrecoverygroup.com/ (there are other such services too). Damaged hard disk file recovery is not for the faint at heart! If you would like to try there are some free tools here: http://www.s2services.com/diskimagingfreeware.htm. Try Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier and recoverdm. There are several programs you can buy, one for as little as 40$. A good list is here: http://www.snapfiles.com/shareware/system/swdatarecovery.html, the File Recovery program at the top of the list appears to be the best. For a bad floppy recovery is easy enough, download or use a program to recover the file from the floppy. For floppies an excellent free Windows based program can be found at: http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/60018.html.
Try to open any damaged disk recovered file immediately, miracles do happen.
If the recovered file won't open or you could copy the file to another location, try to open the file in a more recent version of Excel. As the version numbers increase, their ability to recover corrupt files increases. If this doesn't work or such a version of Excel is not available, see if some other spreadsheet application is and try to open the file in that program.

A hopefully exhaustive list of spreadsheets is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spreadsheets. Most of the spreadsheets here will have filters to allow the opening of Excel files. Most commercial spreadsheets will have a fully functional trial version.
If Microsoft can't help you and you've exhausted all the free methods above for damaged disk recovered or copy-able files there are a number of excellent commercial applications which will recover your files almost immediately. I have used most of the programs in the list and frankly don't like to say anything bad about any of them because somebody is making a living from them. However as they say in this business "Try before your buy!" Always try the free demos first.

Broadly speaking Excel Workbook Rebuilder, RecoverMyFiles, XLS Regenerator and FinalData Premium are more labor intensive and don't have the intuitive turnkey features.
The others four may do roughly equivalent jobs, although EasyRecovery File Repair at $299 is an investment for future corrupt documents of the Word, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook and Zip variety as it will recover all these if you need it.
ExcelFix and ExcelRecovery are solid. Advanced Excel Repair, Stellar Excel Recovery, R-Excel, Kernal Excel Recovery and Repair My Excel are newish but appear professional and are lower priced than the pioneers made by Cimaware (ExcelFix), Recoveronix (ExcelRecovery) and Ontrack (Easy Recovery File Repair).
1. I believe ExcelFIX is the best. A demo is available which will show your first 300 cells. For $89 you can recover data, and for $149 you can recover formats. It's available here: http://www.excelfix.com/.
2. Another excellent program, is ExcelRecovery. It also cost $149 (with a $30 discount available if you link to their site) and recovers formatting. The Demo version allows you to save 300 cells whereas ExcelFIX only displays them. The company that makes the product Recoveronix along with Ontrack and ExcelFix' Cimaware are the big names in corrupt file recovery. It is available here: http://www.officerecovery.com/.
3. Advanced Excel Repair (AER) - is relatively new (5 years old, yikes how long have I been doing this?). I have not used it as of yet, but the Web site is quite slick. It supports batch recovery and is relatively cheap for this kind of thing at $89. See : http://www.datanumen.com/products.htm.
4. Stellar Excel Recovery - "Excel Recovery Software is designed to recover and repair corrupted Microsoft Excel documents. This advanced Excel spreadsheet repair program restores damaged Excel xls files after instances of virus attacks, unexpected system shutdown, media read error, and so on." Newish too, I have not tried it. $69.
5. R-Excel - "R-Excel is a tool designed to recover corrupted Microsoft Excel Sheets. New improvements of file reconstruction technology IntelligentRebuild allow the users to reconstruct damaged *.xls files and to restore lost Excel sheets quickly and easily. R-Excel safely performs any operation, including Microsoft Excel sheet recovery and never deletes from disk, writes to, or modifies in any way, the original Excel files." $79. I think their other products are great, so this one should be too. Haven't tried it yet. Try the demo.
6. Kernel Excel Recovery - "Excel Fix software fix & repair excel file that gets corrupted or damaged. Kernel Excel Recovery is an excel fix tool to repair corrupt excel files created using MS Excel 2003, Excel XP, Excel 2000, Excel 97, Excel 95 that fails to open due to virus attacks, unexpected system shutdown etc." Starts at $49.
7. Repair My Excel - "Repair Excel files with Repair My Excel Microsoft Excel Recovery Software that will: Repair corrupted excel files Repair damaged excel files Repair Excel files from all versions of Microsoft Excel including 95, 97, 2000, XP, and 2003. Repair Excel errors like: "Unable to read file" "The document is corrupt and cannot be opened ..." Have not tried it. Slick advert - $69.
8. EasyRecovery FileRepair v6.0 - is an excellent program which repairs all Office files including Outlook (pst) and Outlook Express (dbx and mbx) files. It also repairs corrupt zip files. It is relatively cheap for a suite of recovery programs: $299 but expensive if you are just fixing Excel files. It's available here: http://www.ontrack.com/datarecovery/servicequote.asp. Hint: use the menu on the left to get to the programs Ontrack has available.
9. Excel workbook Rebuilder - this is the cheapest at about $30. I have not used it extensively but the new version has 4 different engines for recovering data, which is impressive. This program is really comprehensive with many expert features (VBA stuff), and maybe written for them. I can't tell you how good the program is because I haven't used it that much yet.
10. RecoverMyFiles - This program works differently then any of the others. It basically scours your hard drive for files and file fragments of a specified file type. Hopefully an uncorrupted previous file or file fragments still exists somewhere on your drive allowing you to recover or piece together your document.
11. XLS Regenerator - is similar to RecoverMyFiles, but cheaper program but is just for Excel.
12. FinalData Enterprise 2.0 (FinalData Premium 2.0) â€“ is a tour de force application, that really concentrates more on deleted file, formatted over files and corrupt disk recovery. There are functions that allow you to recover Corrupt Word, Excel, PowerPoint, MPEG1, MPEG2, and Oracle Export Files if you ask it, but they may not be mature at the moment.
  
  For instance individual elements in PowerPoint (e.g. slides, picture, textboxes etc.) each get a separate file. Each worksheet in an Excel workbook may get the same treatment, I am not sure. If you have other needs and just want your data back in some rough form this may be the program for you. FinalData Enterprise 2.0 is cheap for a suite: $199. The modules are not separable. In addition to the corrupt file recovery abilities and the deleted file recovery it allows the recovery of individually deleted Outlook Express, Outlook Express 4.x, Netscape Mail and Eudora Mail E-mails.
If these programs don't work to your satisfaction then your file is certainly corrupt, but don't despair there are professional Excel file recovery services or labs. They generally cost $49 and up per incident. Here are some:

a. http://www.exapp.com/services/excel/ - $99 flat fee with a 2-4 day turnaround time.

b. http://www.excelwordrecovery.com/ - $50 -$800.

c. http://www.repair-excel.com/ - Australian firm looks good. Don't know prices.

d. http://www.excel-rescue.com/ - Cimadevilla Electronica S.L. - Cimaware's parent company has an automatic cheap service costing $50 per file.

e. http://www.repairfiles.com/index.php - cheap service at $25 - 40. This guy seems to know what he is doing. He is the only one who explains his methods. Impressive explanation of Excel file structure.

f. http://www.ontrack.com - Ontrack has a service too. Click on the link on the left or on the button to start the easy quote process.

g. http://www.s2services.com/ - this my service. I do this for $22.
If you don't want to pay the money and you are adventurous, go into Explorer locate the file again, rename the file with a .txt extension instead of an .xls extension. Try openiIf you don't want to pay the money and you are adventurous, go into Explorer locate the file again, rename the file with a .txt extension instead of an .xls extension. Try opening the file, and if Windows says it can't open it Notepad but will open it in WordPad, agree. Be sure to turn on word wrapping in either program, in Notepad it's under the Format menu; in WordPad it's under the View menu, choose Options, choose the Text Tab, and choose Wrap to window. Next look for where your data stops, and is followed by a bunch of spacer characters they are little squares. These actually begin to tell Excel where cells, columns and rows are. When you find your last bit of data, delete the rest of the file. After this rename it back to an .xls extension, try opening the file in the oldest version of a spreadsheet you can find, or one of the freeware spreadsheets programs mentioned in Step 9. You may be able to recover your data in some semblance of a spreadsheet.
Finally if all else has failed, and you don't want to spend the money, you can use a freeware program to recover your text strings and figures (the figure recovery is theoretical) using a Text Extractor.

a. BinText is definitely free but powerful. .

b. TextExtract is another one.

c. Readtext is a third.

Checklist for Rehabilitating Donated PCs

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:53:00 +0000

A Step by Step Procedure for
Processing and Rehabilitating Donated PCs

Revised 3-1-04

Note: First Time Computers accepts donations of computers and computer components. We put them together into usable systems for kids from lower income families in the DC area who couldn't otherwise afford to have computers at home.

We accept PCs & Macs, keyboards, mice, speakers, printers, modems, NICs, and other cards, software, and monitors. We can't use pre-Windows 95 PCs or really old [pre-1995 or pre-PowerPC] Macs. Computers should have a CD Rom drive. So far [as of mid-February 2004] we have taken in 48 computers and placed 32. Most of our computers have gone to students and their families in Northeast and Southeast DC [including Deanwood and the Congress Heights/Ballou HS area of Anacostia], PGC, and to Maryland non-profits using Macs.

Comments on this checklist are welcome. Email to firsttimecmptrs@aol.com. If anyone has a comparable list for Macs they are willing to share, please let me know. –Lowell Dodge, 1st Time Computers

Hardware Checklist (Do First)

Check start-up and shutdown. Need hard drive? Corrupt OS? If machine runs, but significant problems are apparent, run Scandisk on “Thorough”, set to “fix errors automatically.”
Test all drives; remove/replace obsolete drives --e.g., remove 5 ¼” floppy drives, replace with CD-Rom drives [if machines will take them], etc.
Modem/NIC -- check/install as appropriate. Ideally each machine should end up with both.
Replace any missing case parts; clean case, monitor, mouse, keyboard as needed.
Open case; carefully blow dust out of inside.

Software Checklist (Do Next)

Privacy – if any personal files created by previous users remain, email him/her/them to inform them, and to get guidance [return computer to him/her to delete files? Email files to them, then delete the files? Wipe hard drive?]. For all: delete Temp Internet Files, Cookies. Run Search on names of person/org donating computer, and delete as appropriate. Delete any porn.
Clean up desktop; re-set background, screensaver, energy savers, etc., as needed; uninstall/disable bizarre pointers and icon customizing.
Remove unneeded programs, using the application’s own Uninstall if provided, or Add/Remove if not. Click on “No to all” if asked about deleting shared files. Run search on name[s] of removed program[s] to locate deletable litter left after the uninstall.
Run Disk Cleanup or Norton CleanSweep, and then run Disk Defragmenter.
Upgrade Operating System as appropriate – shoot for Win98SE as minimum.
Install new programs, including an anti-virus program, as needed. Consider Avast, Zonelabs as alternatives to Norton, McAfee. Don’t heavy up older machines: e.g., don’t install Norton Internet Security or equivalent on Windows 95 or 98; don’t install Norton SystemWorks on less than a Pent II. Don’t install all of Office – custom install selected applications… consider Open Office [www.openoffice.org], 602 Office and EasyOffice [on the wild side]. If installing AOL, pick an earlier version of AOL such as 5.0 or 6.0 on resource-poor machines [these older versions are on all AOL discs; access by going into “view” when in “Explore” for the disc, put a bullet in the “show all files” circle.]
Check Device Manager for yellow question marks. Deal with any driver issues.
Test internet connections [modem and NIC]; configure as necessary; set Google as IE home page. Under consideration: enable new Google tool bar [may serve well as an accessible pop-up blocker, among other things].
Using high speed internet connection if at all possible, update virus definitions; in Norton, repeat “Live Update” until no more are available.
Do Full Virus Scan; deal with any viruses.
Using high speed internet connection if at all possible, run Windows Update repeatedly, until all available Critical Updates are installed.
Run Scandisk on Standard [except on Windows 2000/NT—has no Scandisk].
Run Defrag again. If Norton SystemWorks is installed, the run “Optimize Registry” option in Norton Utilities --Running Optimize Registry will also cause Speed Disk [Norton’s version of Defrag] to run, after restart, if needed.
If Norton SystemWorks is installed, run One Button Check; run fixes.
Run msconfig, or WSI [Windows Startup Inspector – tells you more about what programs on the startup list actually do], or Codestuff Starter, or Startup Mechanic; drop as many programs from startup list as possible.
Run spyware program such as SpyBot or AdAware.
Deal with any remaining error messages, warnings, functional problems with software and hardware [e.g., “expand registry”]; email s2services for help if need be.

Administrative Checklist (Last)

Test each system -- fully assembled with all components, peripherals.
Disassemble; box up loose components, peripherals. Include surge protector, mouse pad if non-optical mouse, and ream of paper [free from Office Depot] with each printer.
Type up Guidance to Recipients
Deliver to recipient. Set up the computer in its new location, do any necessary troubleshooting.
Thank you [s]; inform donors where their computers ended up.
Record transactions]

How to Do a Clean XP Install

noreply@blogger.com (socrtwo) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:36:00 +0000

An Illustrated Step By Step Instruction
for Doing a Clean XP Install

I basically copied the content including the images from another site for this page. I no longer know where the content came from. When first published I asked the author for permission to use the material, but received no reply. If you know who created this. Please let me know at socrtwo@s2services.com.

It is probably easier to do an installation if you print out these directions before
starting or do an installation next to a computer with the instructions displayed.

If you can do this separately from turning on your computer, turn on your monitor (if you don't do this first it might not warm up fast enough for you to see the next message).
Start your computer and look for a little message that says "Press [keyboard key - usually F2, F8 or the Delete Key] to Enter Setup". This message may only appear for a second.
Quickly press this key. If you aren't able to move fast enough (most computers are set up this way) wait until Windows completely loads then press Ctl-Alt-Delete to restart Windows. This time as soon as the screen goes black for the start of the restart press and hold down the key on your keyboard that you saw in Step. 2. You should now see something like the screen below and are now in the BIOS. We want to change the settings of the computer so that it boots from the CD rather than from the floppy and hard drive first.
In some Bios you'll want to select "Advanced Setup" by moving the down arrow on your keyboard and then hitting the Enter key when you arrive on the Entry. You should see something like below:

In other BIOSes all you have is to hit the right arrow on your keyboard until the screen lands on "Boot" as below:

Try to follow the directions on the screen until the "CDROM" or "ATAPI CD ROM" is the 1st Boot Device or appears on top of the order. This might take some experimentation to figure out, but this is the hardest part of the XP installation and once you get the rest of the installation is pretty easy. After you set up the CDROM for booting, you want to save your settings and exit the BIOS. Probably in all BIOS this is done by hitting F10 on your keyboard. Before you do this, be sure to put your CDROM in the player.
The PC will now Boot from the XP CD. If it boots into your old version of Windows, be patient and let it load all the way up and then restart your PC again. If it boots into Windows again, the boot order is not right and you'll have to go back into the BIOS again and try to get the settings right. Look for message "booting from CD" usually located at the bottom of the screen. If you have a factory splash screen, press ESC to unload it.
Press any Key when you see the prompt to 'Press Any Key".
Setup will start copying files, if you need to install any third-party or RAID drivers press F6 at this time. the copying of files can take awhile.
Next you will get the option to repair or enter setup, choose to enter setup. Press ENTER.
Press F8 if you agree to the license.
Setup will scan for previous Windows installations.
If you are using the upgrade version of XP on a computer without any version of Windows currently installed, this is where you will replace the XP CD with your qualifying CD, XP setup will scan the qualifying CD and instruct you to replace it with the XP CD to continue XP setup; otherwise, you will not see this screen. Clean install qualifying media can be any of the following Win NT3.51, 4.0, 2000, Win 95, 98, Me.
Choose the location to install. If the hard drive or partition has a previous installation of XP you want to remove, choose to delete the partition by pressing "D". You will then be prompted to create a new partition in the empty space. This will remove all data from the deleted space.
Choose the file system from this screen. If dual booting and you created the small 100 meg partition, make it a fat partition. NTFS is configured at the optimal file size during the initial setup. See this link for more on NTFS.
If you have more that one partition or hard drive on your system, make sure you are formatting the correct partition/drive.
Select F to continue.
Setup will show a progress box and reboot when copying files is complete.
When you see the "Press any Key to Reboot" do not Press any Key. If CD boots anyway, remove CD and reboot.
From this point, you will follow the on screen prompts.
If you live outside the US, you will probably need to modify the default settings.
Personalize your XP Enter your Name and Organization.
Enter the CD Key. The Key is located on the back of the CD folder in the Retail versions, and on a holographic label with the OEM versions purchased with a piece of hardware. Write this key down and secure it in a safe place in case the original is misplaced destroyed through natural causes or stupidity.
Choose a name for the computer, this should be a unique name for the computer, especially if it is to be connected to a network. In Pro, you are given the option of creating a password or leaving it blank.
Set your Time Zone and Time and Date.
Setup will scan for network.
If detected you will have the choice to choose a typical configuration or custom. Choose typical if you are unsure.
For home you will choose your workgroup, if a network is already established and you intend to connect to it, use the existing workgroup name, otherwise, I suggest using the default.
For Pro, the same goes for Pro as suggested for Home, but you will have the choice to join a Domain, if you do not have a Domain or do not know leave blank.
Setup will continue and reboot when completed ignore the "Press Any Key".
The loading XP window will now display after reboot.
You will see a change display settings, say yes, and accept the setting if you can see the screen after accepting.
You will see a welcome screen, press next and unfortunately you have to wait for the dialog to finish.
Set up you internet or network connection.
This is the Activate, Register screen. You must activate within 30 days of installing XP, but you do not ever have to register, Registration is completely optional and if you do not register, no personal information will be transmitted during activation. If you register, then activation will transmit that information along with the activation. The first Activation is usually done over the internet if the computer is connected to the internet, otherwise, it can be accomplished by copying the alphanumeric string from the activation screen and make a phone call to the on screen supplied phone number. The activation center will then give you a slightly longer number to input into for activation. I suggest you do not activate immediately in case you need to make hard ware changes, or install to a different system within the thirty days, and you will be reminded on boot up until you do.
Setup users screen. Set at least one user for yourself or the person that will be using the computer.
Thank You.
Logon to XP and apply Service Pack and Critical updates from Windows Update before installing any software or hardware. Very important to avoid worms!
Install your anti-virus software.
Install all applications and setup your email.
Restore from Files and Settings transfer after reinstalling all applications.

Comments or questions can be sent
socrtwo@s2services.com.