Normally how its done is you buy a printing package which has labels/covers and software containing templates or settings to enable printing onto the associated media. Sometimes these packages come with an applicator also, eg CD Stomper.

If you’ve none of this and just happen accross some covers and need to print to them then you will need to create a design in some software package that matches the size of the cover then on printing make sure your settings are correct to align the design with the cover.Some covers will be way to thick to go through your printer though.

Alternatively, you could just print your design to an A4 page and cut it out after printing with a guillotine. There are many free templates available online that can print to A4 for cutting along with free software to print them out.

Lightscribe CD/DVD drives can print directly onto cd faces with laser and they are pretty inexpensive to buy.

Heres a few things to try if you have this problem on either a laptop or desktop pc:

• Try a different blank cd, some are dodgy and if possible try a different make unless the ones you have are the ones you’ve been using all along.
• Make sure the drive can do other things like playing and reading cd’s and dvd’s.
• Have a look in your Device Manager to see if it reports any problems for your drive. ‘Right-click My Computer- Properties - Hardware - Device Manager - DVD/CDrom drives’. Also, while in the device manager, right-click the ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’ and make sure they are all ‘DMA if available’ under ‘Advanced settings’.
• Lenses sometimes get dirty so try using a cotton bud and some alcohol to clean the lens. This will be easier with a laptop! If you have a desktop, try one a cd lens cleaner product.
• Rather than use the xp drag and drop burning method try using dedicated cd/dvd burning software such as Nero (commercial) or CD Burner XP (Free).
• You could also try downloading the latest drivers from the manufacturers website.
• If all else fails, you may need a new drive but the good news is they are fairly cheap these days.

Restarting the PC and Modem/Route:

This should always be the first thing you try and is usually the cure for most problems!

ISP (Internet Service Provider:

If the above doesn’t work and you still can’t see ANY sites at all then give your ISP a quick call on their Tech Support line and see if there’s any problems with them that are out of your control. If not, check the following:

Router:

Unplug the main cable supplying your router with the internet signal and plug it straight into your laptop then check the web again, if it works it may be a problem with your Router Configuration so check the router manual.

Antivirus:

Certain Viruses and Spyware can block internet connection for everything but their own needs so install a good anti-virus program, update it and scan.

Network:

If you have a home network, check that its setup correctly by running the Network Setup Wizard on all? computers (Start - Control Panel - Network Setup Wizard)

Firewall:

As in Stephen’s case the problem was most likely caused by either a hardware or software firewall. A firewall program such as Norton Internet Security may be over zealous in blocking internet attacks and end up blocking everything! Check your firewall exemptions or turn it off altogether temporarily to see if you can get back online.

Wiping the system and re-installing windows xp is no big deal really but the most important aspect of the whole process is what you do before you wipe! First off, make sure you have a disc with the xp operating system on it, if you don’t you’ll have to buy one. You should have received one when you bought the pc.

Heres a list of things you must do before you format the hard drive to ensure you wont loose anything:

1. Backup all your personal files including everything in the ‘My Documents’ folder and elsewhere (desktop) to an external hard drive or some other media capable of holding lots of files.
2. Export and backup your emails, address book and email account settings.
3. Export and backup your Internet Browser Favorites/Bookmarks.
4. Backup your registry.
5. Export and backup settings form your favorite programs.
6. Locate driver discs for your pc and external hardware or download them from the web.
7. Make a note of xp and other software serials.

Next, restart your pc with the xp disc in and tap the F12 key to bring up the boot preference screen and choose ‘Boot from CD/DVD’. Let the pc boot from the xp disc and follow the prompts to install a fresh copy of xp on top of the existing one, making sure to format the C: drive when asked. The new installation will progress asking you some questions about your location, user accounts and xp keys.

When finished you will have a fresh, clean and fast copy of xp.

First thing to do is then is re-install your motherboard and external hardware drivers so everything connected to the pc works again. Next, re-install all your software either from disc or download, downloading both drivers and software is a good way of getting the latest versions of everything.

Copy your backed up files from your backup media to their original location in My Documents etc.. Import your program settings back to your programs to have them run just as before.

Took me about a day to do it recently but it depends how organized you are and how much stuff you’ve got to backup and restore but its worth it!

If you do as the program suggests you will actually be installing a virus so if you’ve done that or if you just want to get rid of the pop ups, follow the instructions below:

1. Go to ‘Start - Control Panel - Add or Remove Programs” and look for Antivirus 2009 in the list and click remove/uninstall.
2. If its not in the above list go to “C: - Programs and Files” and look for a program folder with a similar name and delete it.
3. If theres no program folder or it wont delete press”Ctrl-Alt-Delete” at the same time to bring up the “Task Manager”. Click the ‘Processes tab’ and look for anything related/similar to antivirus 2009.exe then right-click and ‘End Process’. Now try going back and deleting the Antivirus 2009 folder from Program Files.
4. You can also try “Start - Run - type in ‘msconfig’ and click ok. Click the ‘Startup’ tab and look for any line related to Antivirus 2009 and untick it to stop it from starting with the pc next time you boot up.
5. Finally, download Adaware 2008, install it, update it and run to scan the entire pc and make sure all traces of this and other viruses are removed.

More detailed/technical removal instructions can be found HERE.

Presuming that both the laptop and the TV have the right connections (DVI) and that they actually fit into one another properly, ie - one is male and the other is female then your problem is most likely software configuration. Try this (Windows XP):

• Right-click anywhere in blank space on the desktop.
• Select ‘Properties’ in the menu and you’ll get the ‘Display Properties’ window.
• Go to the ‘Settings’ tab and see if both the in-built laptop display and connected monitor are in the ‘Display’ drop down menu.
• If its not, click ‘Advanced’ bottom right and then the name of your Graphics Adapter to bring up the control panel of your video card. For Nvidia cards, if you click the ‘Tools’ option on the left theres an option to ‘Force TV Detection’.
• If you use Vista, look for the ‘Display Properties’ section in the control panel and look for a similar setting.
• You might also need to turn on either ‘Dualview’ or ‘Cloned’ displays from within the Graphics Card properties.
• On some laptops theres a function to turn on/off an external monitor by holding down the ‘Fn’ key and hitting ‘F8′ (in my case) to alternate between CRT and LCD displays.

My own Dell Laptop also has an ‘S-Video’ socket on the back which is primarily for connecting a television but does not contain Audio.

Heres my simplest explanation on what an RSS feed is:

For a Website Publisher:

For the person who writes website content whether its a web designer or site owner, RSS is simply a method/format for publishing news and articles. If you use a blogging technology like Wordpress, you’re RSS feed is produced automatically.

For a Website Reader:

‘Subscribing’ to an RSS feed using an RSS reading program allows a site visitor to read all new articles posted on the site without having to visit it. You can add multiple RSS feeds to the one program and keep up to date with several different sites from the one place.

My RSS reader program of choice is the FREE FeedReader (click to visit site) which allows you to add as many website RSS feeds as you want and then read them at your leisure. Everytime someone publishes a new article, post or blog, FeedReader grabs it for you.

Some modern internet browsers such as Firefox & Internet Explorer 7 have the ability to read RSS feeds but Internet Explorer 6 does not.

To add my RSS feed to FeedReader see below:

• Download and Install FeedReader
• On the left of this page right-click on the ‘RSS Feed’ link and select ‘Copy Shortcut’ or ‘Copy Link Location’
• Open FeedReader and go to ‘File - New - Feed’
• The ‘Add Feed’ field should be prefilled with the feed address from this site, eg - http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/feed If its not just press ‘CTRL V’ to paste.
• Click Ok
• The item ‘PC Solutions Ireland’ should now be in the list of feeds on the left hand side in FeedReader, click to view all posts made on this site!
• The process is the same for all feed additions.

First off, you need to employ some preventative measures to ensure against data loss whether the laptop itself goes missing or simply dies. I’ve written some articles in the PC Backup Solutions category which are equally relevant to laptops as well as desktops.

Secondly, you need to password proptect the laptop to avoid access to sensitive data. To do this under windows XP go to ‘Start - Control Panel - User Accounts’ click on the name of your main administrator account and choose ‘Create a password’. If there are any other accounts on the pc they should also be password protected and the account types should be changed to ‘Limited’. You should also turn off the ‘Guest’ account.

If the robbers are PC savvy they can get around this password limitation easy enough so you might need to look at some kind of remote security option which traces the whereabouts of the laptop when its stolen and has the ability to freeze the computer on command, blocking all access. www.absolute.com offers these kinds of services.

Another option is to use LogMeIn Remote Access software to connect to your laptop, if the ‘new owners’ go online with it, and delete data.

You should also consider a physical security lock that chains your pc to something immovable!

Screamer Radio is an internet radio player with hundreds of preset stations which can also be recorded to your hard drive. Designed not to be intrusive, Screamer Radio will not slow down your computer and will hide itself in the system tray.

The main pionts to know about this one -

# A small application that takes very little resources, perfect for running in the background and listening to the radio while doing something else.

# Supports hundreds of internet radio stations from all round the world.

# You can browse dozens of presets by genre, region or langauge…and also set your own favourite presets easily

download from -

www.screamer-radio.com

One workaround for this is to open Internet Explorer and go to ‘Tools - Internet Options - Probrams Tab’ and in the ‘E-mail’ field make sure the name of your email program, whether it be Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or some other, is listed.

Alternatively, if you use Outlook go to ‘Tools - Options - Mail Format Tab’ and make sure it says ‘HTML’ in the ‘Compose in this message format’ section.

Well, I think I may have a contender to fit the above criteria

It’s good {been using it on various machines for months now}, it’s extremely easy to use, and its free {which should cover affordability }

The software I speak of is K9 Web Protection - www1.k9webprotection.com

K9 Web Protection is a free service…I say ’service’ because the way it works is the sites you visit are filtered through their servers as opposed to being checked by something that’s installed on your computer…also, another good thing is that K9 doesn’t slow down your web surfing, which similar softwares sometimes suffer from.

You can manually enter sites into its settings to have them blocked or allowed, and if you happen to land on a site that is blocked but you don’t think it should be, you can override K9’s decision for 15 minutes by entering the administrator password or choose to override it permanently.

All-in-all I consider this an excellent piece of software, doing exactly what it says on the tin…for those in need of such software, grab it while its free, as it may not be free for too long.

.

K9 Web Protection is -

Free !

Easy to use

Blocks images from sites that are known for hosting offensive material but still allows a site using that service to be viewed {unless the site is offensive enough to be blocked completely}

Provides one set of internet filtering configurations to be set for all users {not individual profiles}

A web-based service with always up to date detection database

..

www1.k9webprotection.com

.

.

If you too want to use the powerful capabilities the modern pc has for recording and editing high quality audio then you’ll need the correct hardware. First off you need a pc with a decent CPU, RAM and hard drive as second to Video editing, Audio editing is the most intense thing you can do with a pc!

I would say a decent pentium 4 CPU and at least 1 GB of RAM would be enough for audio but obviously the more of each the better. Hard drive space will need to be biggish and ideally you will have 2 hard drives in the pc, one to install the audio software on and the other to record audio input too. Using 2 different hard drives for this just increases the audio efficiency over having the one hard drive both run the program and save the audio data.

Also your hard drive should be fast too, that is to say, capable of writing data fast. This may be referred to as ‘Spin Speed’ and is normally 5400rpm for older laptop drives and 7200rpm for desktops. You need at least 7200 but if you’ve loads of money get a new 10,000rpm!

Perhaps the most important piece of hardware though is the Sound Card, the physical connection between your mic or guitar and the pc. The default sound cards in a pc or laptop are just about ok for recording 1 stream of audio but if you want to come back and record a vocal over your existing rythm guitar track then a thing called ‘Latency’ will mess you around. Latency is basically a ‘Delay’ between what you hear and what you record and to avoid it you’ll need a Pro quality Sound Card from the likes of Creative Soundblaster which guarantees very low latency rates through the use of ‘Asio 2′ drivers. If a card doesn’t have these drivers don’t buy it.

I’ll cover audio software in a future post.

These days theres a web site for everything, you name it! Theres a term bandied about called SAAS which stands for Software as a Service which partly refers to modern hi-tech sites which offer the same kind of functionality as traditional Desktop programs such as Microsoft Word, Excel etc..

The ideas is you sign up with the site for free or a very small amount and you can create word documents online same as offline . The relevant point is that everything you create exists online so you can’t really loose it in the event of a computer failure. Backup is not necessary as the website will have its own backup policy. Theres also the added benefit of being able to access you documents wherever there is a browser and internet connection!

I personally use one or 2 of these websites including Google Docs for my word & Excel files and Zoho for my entire invoicing system. Theres sites out there to cover all areas though even including Photo Manipulation - see Photoshop Express!

Eventually I would hope to cut out the high cost of desktop software and not have anything to backup at all!

When to backup depends largely on what you use the pc for, how often you use it and how important your data is to you! For example, I use my pc for business almost solely so I’ve a lot of data on it relating to clients, invoices etc.. and loosing this would be bad! My data changes almost on a daily basis too so I really need to back up at the end of every day or as files actually change.

Backing up as you go is only really possible with advanced backup solutions such as Online backup using the likes of www.putplace.com which backs up your files to a secure online location immediately on save. You can’t get better than that! But if you can’t use online backup due to lack of broadband or whatever then you’ll have to do it manually.

The only real tip is, whenever you create or modify a file of any kind that you really couldn’t bare loosing then copy it to another location immediately. If theres data you’re not too pushed about or if you don’t use the pc for business then maybe once a week would be enough.

The first time I seen these it almost got me too but then you realize theres no way a website can know whats on my pc unless I tell it some way. These popups are actually viruses themselves and if you do as they say and click on them, they actually download and run a virus on your pc.

Sometimes even if you click close or the X button top right of the popup window you still initiate the download. What you need to do is close this window another, more complicated way! Heres how:

1. Press the ‘Control-Alt-Delete’ keys simultaneously to bring up the Task Manager.
2. In the ‘Applications’ tab, look for your browsers name, ie - Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.. highlight it and click the ‘End Task’ button at the bottom right. This will close all active browser windows including the virus so you might loose whatever site you were on but you should be able to click on the site window from behind the popup virus and save what you’re doing first. If not, its better to be safe than sorry.
3. When all browser windows and popups are closed, update and run any anti-virus software you have just to make sure you’re clean.

1. Make sure your anti-virus program is fully up to date before you scan, if you last updated your anti-virus program 7 days ago and a new virus was written yesterday then you wont be protected.
2. Run your anti-virus program in safe mode. Turn on your windows xp pc and tap F8 repeatedly untill you see a list of start options including ‘Start in Safe Mode’. Choose this and the pc will load up as normal but with none of the programs that normally start with the pc. This also stops the virus from loading as well hopefully!
3. Use the System Configuration utility to check and stop certain programs/viruses from starting with the pc. Access this from ‘Start - Run - (type) Msconfig’. Go to the ‘Startup’ tab and have a look down the list for anything that looks dodgy. You can have google open at the same time to search for the ‘Startup item’ names and see whether they are legitimate or not. If you find a dodgy one just untick it and it wont start next time.
4. You can also try to stop viruses that are currently running by pressing ‘Control-Alt-Delete’ together to bring up the Task Manager and in the ‘Processes’ tab right-click on any process that you think might be a virus (check google first!) and choose ‘End Process’. This might help if your anti-virus program is being blocked.
5. By all means try a different virus program if one doesn’t help, they are not all the same! You can download lots of free anti virus packages to try out but only have one installed at once.

Viruses, I’ll describe in another post but Spyware is possibly more dangerous and more prevalent. You contract a spyware in much the same way as a virus, ie - browsing the wrong sites, opening email attachments, usb sticks, etc.. They typically manifest themselves by popping up adverts automatically when you’re browsing the internet which is harmless but annoying and will slow down the pc if unchecked.

More worringly you can get hold of a spyware program that can set itself up to log whatever site you visit and whatever you type then send a report back to the writer giving him more info that you’d be comfortable with!

The good news is that like all of these spamss, viruses and spywares, you can prevent them easily and cheapily. Heres a couple of excellent free programs do deal with Spyware specifically:

1. Adaware
2. Spybot

Remember, no anti-virus or spyware program is any use unless you keep it updated.

I’ll start with a list of what Skype can do for you but I’ll also mention that you need a PC with Broadband, a Mic/Headset and Webcam for full effect:

1. Make phone calls to other skype users (FREE)
2. Make phone calls to Landlines and Mobiles in any country by buying pre-paid credit similar to a pay as you go mobile phone. Rates are way cheaper than any phone company.
3. Have Instant Messaging (IM) chats with people. This involves using your keyboard to chat in real time with any other skype user anywhere in the world.
4. Have Webcam chats. This involves ringing another skype user and both being able to see each other while you talk!
5. Send a file. Simple drag a file onto the chat window and you can send a file directly to whoever you are chatting to.
6. Place Skype buttons on your website so that when clicked a Chat or Call is immediately initiated. The button will reflect whether you are currently online or not.
7. Play games with a friend.
8. View your chat history.
9. Setup Voicemail.
10. Add Skype ID’s and regular phone numbers to your contact list.

For me, Skype has wrapped up a number of other communication tool in one handy, reliable package and its saved me a ton of money since I started using it! Did I mention its also FREE to download - www.skype.com

Check it out if you’re amazed at your latest gadget!

My own personal feelings at this stage are that spam is slowly but surely killing email. Email is almost unuseable due to the hassle of sifting through spam or the anguish of missing potential opportunities when a legitamate email is blocked by necessarily super efficient spam filters/blockers.

There exists nowadays better methods of communication than email. Instant Messaging clients such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype are capable of much faster communication than email and you can also send attachments, talk in real time via voice or text chat and even see who you’re talking to via webcam! These IM programs basically combine most of the forms of communication we have into one excellent method of information exchange.

Spam exists in the IM world too but not to such an extent as email. If you need to use email which I do then heres a few tips for reducing (you can never completely block it!) spam:

• Ask your ISP or Web Designer if theres any spam protection at the email source/server, this is the best place to block it.
• Get hold of a good spam filter for Outlook or Outlook Express, I use Bullguard.
• If a spam message comes in make sure to block it or add it to the black list so the same sender can’t send to you again.
• Add your contacts to your while list so you’re guaranteed to not miss their emails.

You can get LogMeIn at www.logmein.com and once you click the FREE download link and enter a few personal details you get to download the installer. If you run this installer on each PC you want to control then login to your account at logmein.com you can see the list of computers you’ve installed the software on and click on any one of them to be presented with a screen showing the desktop of the computer you are controlling!

You can do pretty much anything via the remote control window that you’d do if you were sitting at the remotely controlled pc including:

• Open remote files
• Search for documents
• Check your email
• Turn your PC off (but not on again!)
• Run programs
• Access files you forgot to bring to the office and send them to yourself!

Heres some of the options for connecting to the internet:

• Dialup-up - using a lead to connect your phone line to your pc, this was the first and most common method but is being replace by Broadband. You get charged per minute and its added to your phone bill. Price : expensive if you use the internet a lot. Companies: Eircom, BT, etc..
• DSL Broadband - this also comes down the phone line but doesn’t tie up your main number and is typically ‘always-on’ meaning that whenever you turn on the pc its online. Its also light years faster than dialup and is the most common type of broadband. Price: cheapest packages available. Companies: Eircom, BT, etc..
• Wireless Broadband - nothing to do with the phone here. Typically, you get a small alarm-sized box on the house exterior and a lead from it comes in to your pc. This is also always on but is dependant on a clear line of sight (not even a leaf in the way!) bewteen you and the transmitter. Price: Mid-range. Companies: Digiweb
• Wimax - a pretty new technology not fully available yet but very similar to wireless above except that theres a greater range and it doesnt require a clear line of sight. Price: Mid-range to expensive. Companies: unknown yet
• Satellite Broadband - this is available almost everywhere but is quite expensive and may be slowish. Some packages require that you dial a number and stay on a call while you are online. The ones that dont are usually way too expensive. Price: Expensive. Companies: Digiweb
• Mobile Broadband - this is also only a couple of years old and is the system I use here in the office. Its potentially better than all the rest in that its cheap and VERY easy to install, no dishes or boxes - you just plugin a memory stick sized yoke and away you go! It can be used with laptops on the move and in a good strenght signal area i
  ]]> http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/broadband-types-providers/feed/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/hardware-and-upgrades/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/hardware-and-upgrades/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:58:53 +0000 PC Dude http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/?p=53 Computer hardware includes any physical parts of the pc that you can touch including, monitor/screen, keyboard, mouse, sound card, speakers, etc..

  Usually when something goes wrong with a piece of hardware connected to your computer its time to say goodbye to that particular part or hello to a hefty repair bill! Hardware is not easily fixed and if its old you may be better off upgrading. Most parts of a modern pc can be upgraded if they are old, under performing or if you just need your pc to do something new like play music, edit videos and photos or play games. Heres some of the more popular and easy upgrades you can make:

  • RAM - the pc’s temporary memory. The more you have, the more you can do at once or the more programs you can have open at once.
  • Hard Drive - you can increase the physical space available on your pc for storage by purchasing a new main hard drive or a second one. They can be either internal or external.
  • Monitor - get a nice new flat panel monitor with extra screen space.
  • DVD Burner - install a new optical disc drive and copy CD’s and DVD’s with ease.
  • Card Reader - attach a usb photo card reader and copy images from your digital camera to your pc.
  • Webcam - view real time video of your friends and family when you’re on a skype or msn call.
  • Wireless Router - Extend your broadband connection house wide to other computers and wireless devices by installing a wireless router.
  • Speakers - invest in a set of quality surround sound speakers to make the most of your digital music collection and games.

  Hardware upgrades are one of the best things about computers, making them highly extensible and breathing new life into an old pc without you needing to fork out for a new one!

  ]]> http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/hardware-and-upgrades/feed/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/checking-multiple-email-accounts-at-once/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/checking-multiple-email-accounts-at-once/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:49:17 +0000 PC Dude http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/?p=29 Many computer users use webmail to check their emails, that is, they visit a website address, login and send and receive messages. Using this method you can check mail from anywhere with any pc and it wont be lost if you pc breaks down. But what if you have a few different email addresses as many do?

  Checking a few different email accounts can be a bit cumbersome, you have to visit different addresses, login each time, remember different passwords and this all takes time. With Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail for Vista you can add all your email accounts to one program and it will automatically go and get all your email at the same time.

  Heres how to add email addresses to Outlook Express. Instructions are similar for Windows Mail and Outlook:

  • Open Outlook Express and go to ‘Tools - Accounts - Add - Mail’.
  • Display Name is the name you wish to be identified by.
  • Email Address is the full email address we wish to add.
  • Incoming Mail & Outgoing Mail settings are usually the same and can be found from your internet service provider, eg - for eircom email addresses its mail1.eircom.net or webmail.eircom.net. For addresses linked to your website its usually in the form mail.yoursite.com.
  • Account Name is usually your email address again or the first part of it before the @.
  • Password is the password you used when signing up for the email account.
  • Finally click Finish and that should do the trick. Click Send/Receive to check for new messages.

  For people with a Hotmail account, it can’t be used with Outlook Express so you’ll have to stick with webmail for that. People with Gmail or Yahoo accounts may have to login to their webmail and go to the settings/options section to allow email to be downloaded.

  ]]> http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/checking-multiple-email-accounts-at-once/feed/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/backup-your-pc/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/backup-your-pc/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:29:26 +0000 PC Dude http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/?p=26 Backing up your PC is rather important if you run a business and keep your records on computer but even if you don’t you’ll likely have photos, music, CV’s or at least a few emails that you’d prefer not to loose.

  It always amazes me how few people backup any data on their pc whether they use it for business purposes or not. Everyone looses everything on their pc at least once in the pc’s life, its happened me a few times and the feeling is NOT good! Heres a few tips on how to do it in case not knowing how is the reason for the lack of backing up!

  What to Backup?

  • The My Documents folder - this should cover all your photos, music and documents.
  • Browser Bookmarks/Favorites - Open Internet Explorer and go to ‘File - Import & Export’ and export your favorites to a file (save it to the my documents folder).
  • Email and Email Accounts - Open Outlook Express and go to ‘File - Export’ then go to ‘Tools - Accounts’ and highlight each email account and click ‘Export’ on the right. Again, save any exported files to the my documents folder.
  • Email Messages - In Outlook Express go to ‘Tools - Options - Maintenence - Store Folder’ and make a note of the location in the popup box. Go there and copy all contents of that folder to a new folder in your my documents.
  • If you have any files on the desktop or anywhere else on the pc, move them to the my documents folder just to keep things tidy, then you only have to back up one place.
  • Registry - Click ‘Start - Run’ and type ‘Regedit’ in the box then ‘OK’. In the Registry editor click ‘File - Export’ and save the backup in the (you guessed it!) my documents folder.

  How to Backup?

  • You need a device to backup to first off and if theres not a lot of data to backup you might get away with a blank CD or DVD. If theres a ton of data then you’ll need a second hard drive, either inside the PC or easier, an external hard drive which are available pretty cheaply these days. Make sure you buy one bigger than the size of your main PC drive so it can fit everything in.
  • Once you sort out a backup device you simply drag the whole my documents folder to it and you’re done. Make sure to backup everything mentioned above first though.
  • FREE software exists to automatically manage your backup onto an external device for you, my favorite is Karen’s Replicator. You simply tell it what to copy, where to copy to and how often and it handles everything.
  • You might also like to try the new trend of backing up online which is the simplest and most secure method. Choose one of the many online backup services such as Putplace and all you have to do is tell it what you want to backup and it does it all automatically for you.
  ]]> http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/backup-your-pc/feed/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/how-to-tackle-viruses/ http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/how-to-tackle-viruses/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:59:26 +0000 PC Dude http://www.pcsolutionsireland.com/?p=24 Many people are very scared of viruses and the mere mention of the word strikes fear into computer users everywhere and causes irrational panic!

  When I was on callouts I’d ask people exactly what happened and what they done right before their pc got into the state I found it in and I had some funny responses ranging from turning off the pc immediately to pulling out the phone lead and being afraid to turn the pc back on.

  In reality most viruses focus on doing what they do in a stealthy way, they don’t really want you to know they’re there so they run in the background. They only manifest themselves by slowing down your pc or making it act a little funny. Occassionally, they might be a little more sinister and cause your pc to not restart or steal your valuable info but I’ve never experienced this - perhaps because I keep myself well protected!

  Heres how you can too. Heres a list of the best anti-virus packages out there. Installing one of them should keep you protected but only if you keep the program updated. I use Bullguard:

  Paid for:

  McAffee
  Norton Anti-virus
  Bullguard

  FREE:

  AVG Antivirus
  Avast Antivirus

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