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Archive for the ‘Windows XP’ Category


Update Your Windows Installation Now

Posted by Rich On May - 12 - 2017

Some nasty ransomware—WannaCry—is making its way around vulnerable windows machines today.

If you’re reading this, update all of your Windows PCs now. If you have automatic updates turned on, you should be secure; however, Microsoft only recently patched this vulnerability so it doesn’t hurt to check.

How to update Windows

What you need to know about the WannaCry ransomware

When you store your data with a third party provider like Dropbox, you put trust in the storage provider’s security controls to protect your data. While all good storage providers encrypt their data locally and during transmission, you can add an additional layer of security to really lock down your data and keep prying eyes away.

In the past, we’ve shown you how to create a secure, encrypted volume on your PC or USB drive; however, you need to use a PC to access the data. In this guide, we share an application that encrypts your data while still providing access to your data from any Windows, Mac, or Linux PC as well as from an iOS, Android, or Windows RT device.

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Copy Error / Warning Dialog Box Text to Clipboard [Quick Tip]

Posted by Rich On December - 19 - 2012

Often we face errors on our PCs which, with a quick web search on the error text, are easily resolvable. Did you know you can copy the contents of an error message (or any dialog box) to your clipboard? When you’re faced with an error, press Ctrl+C to copy the error title and text to your clipboard.

This:

Becomes this:

—————————
Warning, grasshopper
—————————
You haven’t paid homage to Windows Guides today
—————————
OK
—————————

Simply paste the error message into the search field; I find this a lot quicker than transcribing the error message in to your favorite search engine yourself.

In this guide, you will learn what the Windows Registry is, how to access and configure it, and how to backup and restore it.

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CDBurnerXP Screenshot

If you store photos on your home PC and don’t back them up, I really recommend you do. Hard drives fail all the time yet I still get many emails and PMs asking for help with data recovery. Even if you use an online backup solution, I still recommend taking an inexpensive local backup on optical media periodically.

I have my photos synced on two hard drives at home, on a remote server (RAID 10), and with a third-party storage provider. I’m still paranoid about losing my life’s memories in photos so I like to take a snapshot of my photo data every two years. By making a biannual backup, you’ll always have 3-5 viable sets of discs (they don’t last forever) with your important files—should you ever lose or overwrite them. Hopefully this guide is helpful and gives you something to do with the remaining 88 of the 100 DVDs you purchased on sale three years ago…

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Get Your Computer to Say What You Type [How To] [Updated]

Posted by Rich On November - 15 - 2012

XP, Vista, 7, and Windows 8 come with a built in voice database, which you can access via the Microsoft SAPI (Speech Application Programming Interface); in this guide, you’ll learn how to get your computer to say what you type using one of three methods.

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