How to Obtain Microsoft Windows Updates

Obtaining updates for your Windows OS at regular intervals from Microsoft is a must to keep your Windows computer up-to-date and running smoothly.

Microsoft updates for your Windows system in general includes updates for your operating system, software and hardware, third-party device drivers and also bug fixes to help protect your computer frommalicious software and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

There are two ways to obtain Microsoft Windows updates:

1. Directly from the Microsoft Download Center, where you can choose your desired updated versions from the list of new and popular downloads.

1. By using Automatic Update feature in Windows. This is the recommended option of the two because by turning ON the automatic updates feature, Windows automatically searches and delivers all the critical and security updates to your computer and you never need to visit update web site to scan for updates. All you have to do is keep a check on an icon that appears in the notification area at the far right of your taskbar every time new updates are available for your system.

Here is how to turn ON Automatic Updates and help protect your Windows PC

1. Click Start ► Run… then type control and click OK to open Control Panel.
   

1. If your are viewing Control Panel in Classic View, click System and head on to Automatic Updates tab under system Properties windows and change settings for automatic updates.
   

   » Instead, if you are under control panel category view, click Performance and Maintenance ► click System, and then click the Automatic Updates tab to choose the update option you want. Update option Automatic is recommended as it automatically downloads and installs updates at your chosen time.

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Tips on How to Speed Up Your Computer

Computers are the most used innovation that has come up so far. It connects the bridges on people and allows us to have communication with our loved ones that are far from us. However, using our computers often can cause problems and eventually slow them down when we don’t take action on fixing them.

Listed here are tips on how to speed up computer:

• Remember to free up your disk space using disk clean-up or disk defragmenters. Unnecessary files like temporary internet files can slow down your computer so get rid of them, empty your recycle bins frequently, and make sure that your important files are placed on the external hard drive.

• Scan for viruses and worms, spyware and adware. Always check for these nasty programs because they make your computer work slowly more than anything. You need to purchase PC fixer software that can remove these programs.

• Clean up your desktop. If your desktop is flooded with files your computer will eventually function slowly.

• Uninstall unused programs. Your computer might have lots of unused programs installed on it; uninstall them because once a program is installed, it makes a connection between the program and the operating system which also make your system run slower even if you do not use them.

• Do not start up programs automatically when turning on your computer. Make sure that you close programs you do not use that open when you start up your computer.

• Defragment your hard drive. Defragmenting your hard drive places all of your information for each file in one place which will result to a faster computer experience.

These tips on how to speed up my PC might be able to solve your problems on your slow running computers. Following these tips are a big help on your troublesome computer systems.

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How-to Remove System Tool 2011 Virus Easily

Aias: System Tool 2011
Damage Level: Medium
Systems Affected: Windows 9x, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7

Image Credit – Life StreamsYou may have tried for hours trying to remove this virus just like I did in vain but finally here I found a very simple method to remove this malicious software made to look like a legitimate anti-virus program.Screen Shot Image:

1. All you have to do is enter the serial key to register “System Tool” and follow the rest of the steps.
   The key is WNDS-S0DF5-GS5E0-FG14S-2DF8G

1. After inputting this key wait for little and you PC will restart automatically and all is okay again.

1. Then you can go ahead and delete icon from desktop and remove the software from program.

Share with all your friends. Its useful…!
Thank you.

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Windows Vista tweaks to speed up your system.

Default settings that Windows Vista comes with are more meant for hardware of future than hardware of today. If you are looking for your vista to run faster and perform better, it is essential that you optimize your Vista settings. Read on to find out 4 powerful Windows Vista tweaks to speed up your system.

• Tweak 1 ► Get Rid of Unnecessary Programs from System Start Up

One of the most powerful vista tweaks is to remove all unnecessary programs from the start up menu. Start up should only contain those bare minimum programs which are really necessary to be started up when your program boots. If there are some programs which are not that essential, but still need to be there in start-up, you can reschedule them to a lower priority & attach them to one of the multi-processes.

• Tweak 2 ► Turn off TCP Auto Tuning and Remote Differential Compression

Vista uses these to augment the gigabyte network. However, these end up being too much of an overhead for normal networking. The networking speed is enhanced by up to 30 percent when you disable these options.

• Tweak 3 ► Defrag Your Hard Disk

Over time, application and files become scattered in different places on your system’s hard disk, affecting the system’s performance greatly. When you defrag your disk, it brings all these scattered pieces together, thus, improving the Windows system’s speed. You can run the disk defragmenter from
Start ► Menu Programs ► Accessories ► System Tools ► Disk Defragmenter.

• Tweak 4 ► Disable the “System Restore” Feature

It was with Windows XP that this feature was first introduced. Windows Vista enhanced it further with introducing additional document versioning. Though it does sound very good and useful, it does have a great impact on the resources. If you think your system is already not running as it should be, you surely won’t want additional duplicates on your system further downgrading your system’s performance. Thus, another of effective vista tweaks would be to disable this feature.

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Collections of Dark Desktop Wallpapers

40 Collections of Dark Desktop Wallpapers are showcased below just for you… The wallpapers are themed around dark-colors. Feel free to download these cool wallpapers and make your desktop interesting and inspirational!

Black Cat Dark Room

Download Source

When Will It Stop?

Download Source

How to Create a Backup for Outlook Express Account Settings?

Your entire internet emails are now can be found in one single location – the Outlook Express. This desktop mail program retrieves and saves all your mail messages. After you have setup your email account and provided all the credentials, Outlook Express keeps checking your account periodically.

This program downloads your mail messages from your account and helps you to view them from the Outlook. What will you do if you plan to change your computer system? In that case it will be wise to keep a backup of the settings and your accounts. Email backupservice providers are the best guide to take the assistance from.

Setting up Outlook Express Information

Step 1 : First of all make one backup folder in your PC. Browse the location you wish to save your folder and choose New, then Folder and finally naming it as Outlook Backup.
Step 2: Go to the Outlook Express folder either from Start or any other type of shortcut you have for accessing this folder.
Step 3: Click on Tools > select Accounts.
Step 4: Click on Mail tab and you will get an entire list. Then choosing the account setup you wish to create a backup for, click on Export.
Step 5: Go to the box of Save In and after finding your created folder, click on Save.
Step 6: When you are done with the entire process, click on Close.

If there is any issue with any of the st

How can you configure Linksys router for a repeater?

Do you like to connect multiple computer systems to a single network? What can be a better option than using a wireless router? Linksys routers are the first choice of the PC users who wish to connect a number of PCs with the same internet connection. With Linksys routers you can share files among the computers under the same network.

Want to have further wireless signal across the room? If you desire to have wireless signal over different rooms, you have to configure your router with the repeater. Access point and Linksys routers have this feature of configuration in the setup menus. You can know about this router and its configuration from the Linksys support service providers.
Configuring the router with the repeater will extend the signal range farther. How to go about with this configuration? Here it is:

Step 1 : Get access to a computer connected with a Linksys device.
Step 2 : Open a browser and visit the setup page of Linksys device athttp://192.168.1.1
Step 3 : Type in the password and username for Linksys and select ‘Log in’.
Step 4 : Go to ‘Status’ tab and click on ‘Wireless’ link.
Step 5 : In the ‘MAC address’ type in 12 numbers and letters and browse to the Setup tab.
Step 6 : Click on ‘AP Mode’ under Setup heading.
Step 7 : Click on ‘Wireless Repeater’ and type in the MAC address you have previously inserted.
Step 8 : When you are done, click on Save Settings and the configuration of the device is completed.

Automatic Logon for Windows 7, Vista, XP, Server 2008

So this is a basic one and a quick one that comes up quiet often. Be it to improve the startup performance of your PC (avoiding the login portion) or if you have a machine that is dedicated to a task that needs to startup and login as a specific user automatically should it ever be reset/restarted/power cycled… It really is quiet simple! I remember I used to modify a few keys in the registry to make this happen however it seems this is no longer required. Enter, the control userpasswords2 menu!  .

• Start by holding the Windows Key (between ALT and CTRL) and pressing R
  This will open the RUN window.
• In the RUN window that opens type the following.

control userpasswords2

Then press OK or enter. see image below(screen shot from Server 2008).

• Following That you will be presented with the below menu. Uncheck the box shown below that says ‘Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer.’ and then click Apply
  
  
• After clicking Apply you will be given a login box, as seen below, where you can enter the login credentials that will be used upon startup to auto log the machine in.
  Select OK and OK out of the “userpasswords2″ User Accounts window and test your new configuration.

I’d like to point out that this is not a very secure function and I would recommend against it, however in some circumstances it is a requirement and for that reason I’ve done this short post.

Any questions, leave them in the comments. Cheers 

Chat for free: Use instant messaging and your webcam to stay in touch

These days, webcams are easy to buy, connect, and use. In fact, most new laptops come with built-in webcams, and when a webcam is paired with instant messaging or video call software or websites, almost anyone can communicate face to face (or webcam to webcam!) with friends and loved ones.

In this article, we discuss both of these options for staying in touch with family and friends.

Get the software and hardware

Here is what you need to get started:

Instant messaging software: Windows Live Messenger

There are lots of free programs that you can use to stay in touch, but my favorite software for instant messaging and video calls is Windows Live Messenger, which is a part of Windows Live Essentials. With Windows Live Essentials, you get Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, Writer, Family Safety, and Toolbar, plus Microsoft Office Outlook Connector, Office Live Add-in, and Microsoft Silverlight.

Here are five reasons I use Windows Live Messenger instead of other instant messaging software:

· It’s integrated with other Microsoft products and services, like Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Essentials, so I can see when my friends and family are online as I do other things.

· Most people I know use it (300 million people in 76 countries use Messenger every month), plus I can chat with people on Yahoo! too.

· Messenger offers video chat in HD while sharing your photos and watching videos.

· You can leave 30-second video messages if your friends aren’t around.

· Also, you can set your availability by group. For instance, you can be "Available" for friends but "Offline" for coworkers.

There are lots of other features, but these five are the ones that I use most often to stay in touch. Also, Windows Live Messenger is easy to set up, which makes it simple for me to use with other people who are less technically savvy.

To get it, download Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft. After you’re on the website, click Download, and, in the File Download dialog box, click Run and then follow the installation prompts.

Webcam

The next item you’ll need is a webcam. Choose something that will work with your computer and operating system. Ideally, you should get one with a built-in microphone. Laptops often have built-in webcams, by the way, but if you purchase one on your own, you’ll need to plug the webcam into a USB port on your computer and install the software that comes with it. Then, follow the instructions that come with your webcam to install it on your computer. An external webcam provides a lot of flexibility with camera angle and direction, better optics, increased field of view, and typically higher quality video. For a list of webcams that are optimized for Windows Live, visit the Windows Live marketplace.

Add friends to your Windows Live Messenger account

After you have the messaging software and your webcam is set up, you can start video chatting with friends and family. When you are signed in to your Windows Live Messenger account, it’s time to add friends that you’d like to chat or video chat with. Look for the Friends icon on your Messenger home screen , and on the drop-down menu, click Add a friend. All you need to do is add his or her email address and then click Next twice. The second time you click Next, you are asked whether you’d like to add the person as a favorite, which means that he or she will always appear at the top of your Messenger contacts and will be easy to find. Then, an invitation is sent.

You can easily add friends and contacts to your Windows Live Messenger account.

After your friend accepts the invitation, the two of you can begin chatting. When you’re ready to start an IM or video chat, just double-click the contact name and another window will open with options to IM or to Video call. To have an IM conversation, type your message in the text box provided, and, on your keyboard, press Enter. To have a video chat, click Video call. Note that the other person must be online and available to have an IM conversation or video chat.

Make a call with your webcam

Making a webcam call (or chat with video) is as easy as making a call from the telephone in your kitchen. The big difference is that you’re using your computer with a webcam to make the call. Here’s how it works: Your computer calls another computer using the IP (Internet Protocol) address associated with your contact’s email address. To read more about making a webcam call, go to Windows Live Help, and, in the Search for box, type webcam call. For more information about buying a webcam that is optimized for Windows Live, visit Windows Live marketplace.

Chat during video calls

When you are engaged in a video chat using Windows Live Messenger, you can still send instant messages back and forth, if, for example, your sound goes out or another small technical problem occurs. You can also send or share pictures or documents while you video chat.

You can even IM with other friends while you are video chatting—just open up a chat with anyone else on your contact list and multitask to your heart’s content. The person you’re chatting with will never know that you are also on a video call, but be careful: The person on the video call will see what you’re doing and where your eyes are.

Video and IM tips

With instant messaging, it’s easy to overdo it. Little messages pop up on your screen at the oddest times, and it’s difficult to resist them even when a work deadline or other important task needs to be completed. If you have a lot of people in your contacts list, you could spend half your day instant messaging. To help you stay on track and in touch, here are some instant messaging tips:

· Use the My Status feature to alert others to your availability. This feature tells others at a glance whether you can chat or whether it might not be a good time for you. Conversely, respect the status of those you want to chat with. If someone has the Busy icon on their name, for example, don’t bother sending a message until they become available. To set your status in Windows Live Messenger, go to the File menu, click Status, and then select the option that describes your current availability: Available, Busy, Away, or Appear Offline.

· Establish regular times for video calls. You can always be spontaneous, of course, but remember that some folks wear pajamas half the day and may not always want to pick up a video call!

· Regularly check the video settings for your webcam. First, check your video settings in Windows Live Messenger: Go to the Tools menu, and click Audio and Video Setup. When you click Next to get to the webcam settings, you should see yourself in the window. (If you don’t, in My Computer, check your webcam properties to make sure that you have set up your webcam properly.) Adjust the brightness, contrast, and other camera settings by using the sliding arrow.

Staying in touch with family and friends is actually a lot of fun when you use instant messaging and video. With the way people are scattered around the country—and even around the globe—these days, it’s also a very practical way to communicate.

Configure search indexing options for Windows Vista and 7

If you want to improve your searches, the best place to start is with the indexing feature itself. In Control Panel, open the Indexing Options window to show the folders in which Windows currently looks for files.

Here, you can choose each folder to include in the index; you can index an entire drive index only certain subfolders. By default, only your personal files are indexed. But if you plan on hacking up Vista as described elsewhere in this book, you may want to index your entire drive.

This will make it easier to find .exe files in the Windows folder, for instance, but doing so will increase the size of the index, which may slow down the rest of your searches. For privacy purposes, you may wish to exclude certain folders by removing them on this list. You can further speed up searches by also excluding folders
you don’t need to search.

Click OK when you’ve selected folders to index, but you’re not done yet. Next, click the Advanced button to open the Advanced Options window. Most of the options shown here are fairly self-explanatory, but what may not be obvious is that Windows won’t index many file types unless you select them by hand in the File Types tab:

Choose only the file types that you want to be indexed to speed up searches. Watch out for more Windows optimization tips!

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Change, Add and Remove Values for File Properties – Windows 7 | Digital Life – http://www.cubesquare.co.cc

When you select a file in Windows 7, properties (or details) about the selected file, such as the author of the file, the size of the file, any tags associated with the file, and the date of the file are displayed. The properties available for a file differ depending on the type of file. For example, the Rating property is available for image files and music files, but not for text files. File properties are displayed in a Details pane at the bottom of the Windows Explorer window.

File properties make it easier to find and organize files. You can search for a file by one of its properties. For example, you can find all image files from a specific author. Libraries allow you to arrange files by properties. If you are browsing the Documents library, you may want to see which files you have most recently changed. To do this, sort the files by the Date modified property by selecting Date modified from the Arrange by drop-down list.

The files are then grouped according to the date they were last modified.

If you don’t see the Details pane at the bottom of the Explorer window, click the Organize button and select Layout | Details pane from the drop-down menu.

NOTE: Any pane on that menu that has an icon to the left of the option name is not displayed on the Explorer window. A pane is visible when there is a check mark to the left of the option name instead of an icon.

The size of the window determines how many of a file’s properties are displayed. You will notice that when you make the Explorer window smaller, less properties are visible in the Details pane. You can adjust the size of the Details pane by moving your mouse over the top border of the pane until you see a double-sided arrow. Click and drag the border of the Details pane to make it bigger or smaller.

More properties display as you enlarge the Details pane.

You can also change the size of the Details pane using a popup menu. Right-click in any empty space on the Details pane (not on the image thumbnail) and select Size from the popup menu. The options Small, Medium, and Large are available on a submenu. The Small option resizes the Details pane to the default size.

NOTE: Selecting Remove properties displays the Remove Properties dialog box, which we discuss later in this post. This dialog box allows you to easily remove values for selected or all properties.

To change the values of a property, move your mouse over the values for the property and click in the edit box that displays. To add a value for the property, simply type the value. To remove a value, click on the value to select it. Press the Backspace key or the Delete key to remove the value. To remove all values for a property, select each value and delete it. To change a value, remove the value you want to change first, then add the new value to replace it.

Once you have changed, added, or removed all the desired values for the properties you want to modify, click Save to save your changes.

You can also change, add, and remove values for properties by right-clicking on the file for which you want to modify properties and selecting Properties from the popup menu.

The Properties dialog box displays. Click the Details tab. To change, add, or remove values for a property, move the cursor over the Value column for the Property you want to modify and click in the edit box.

NOTE: Some properties don’t have an edit box in which you can enter your changes. For example, to change the Rating property, simply click a star to indicate the rating level you want.

Change, add, and remove values for properties as desired and click OK when you have finished making changes.

The Details pane reflects the changes you made to properties on the Properties dialog box for the selected file.

You can also remove values from properties by clicking the Remove Properties and Personal Information link on the Properties dialog box (open the Properties dialog box as mentioned earlier in this post).

The Remove Properties dialog box displays. You can choose to remove all properties from a file or just selected properties. To create a copy of the selected file with all of the properties removed, select the Create a copy with all possible properties removed radio button. This is a safe way to remove all the values from all the properties for a file. The original file is preserved with the values of the properties intact.

To remove only selected properties, select the Remove the following properties from this file radio button. Select the check boxes next to the properties for which you want to clear the values.

Click OK once you have made your choices.

NOTE: The properties themselves are not actually removed. When you remove a property, the values for that property are cleared. The property is still available for the file, in case you want to add any values to it again in the future.

The values for the properties you chose to remove are cleared on the Properties dialog box. Click OK to close the dialog box.

There are some types of files for which you cannot change the file properties. For example, you cannot change the properties of .txt or .rtf files. Some file properties cannot be modified, such as the length of a music file, as is also the case for Windows 7 system files or program files. You must be the owner of a file to be able to modify the file properties of that file. See our post, Easily Take Ownership of Files and Folders in Windows 7, for an easy way to take ownership of files and folders.

by NYK

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Changing World Sunlight Map For Ubuntu Desktop | Digital Life – http://www.cubesquare.co.cc

Based on some cool php magic this site associates an earth static map with dynamic clouds extracted from official free sites. Now comes the interesting part : you have at your disposal an auto updatable picture link with the url : http://static.die.net/earth/mercator/1600.jpg.

The next obvious step would be to create a cool changing desktop with this interesting picture. Before I sink my teeth into it let me explain some of the shell commands to you.

We will use :
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule

Imagemagick is to crop/resize the picture and Gnome-schedule is to automate the update process so install them is they are not allready on your system.

How to crop and image : 640×440 is the crop size; 500/100 is the left corner pixels position.

convert -crop 640×440+500+100 picture.jpg new_picture.jpg

How to resize an image

convert -resize 150% -quality 100 picture.jpg new_picture.jpg

Next you can setup gnome-schedule to execute a command every 1 hour using the command

wget -r -N http://static.die.net/earth/mercator/1600.jpg

The file will be downloaded to your home directory in the folder /earth/mercator

My advice would be to run multiple commands at the same time so for exemple if you want to have only a picture with europe you can use :

wget -r -N http://static.die.net/earth/mercator/1600.jpg ; convert -crop 640×440+500+100 picture.jpg new_picture.jpg;convert -resize 150% -quality 100 new_picture.jpg picture.jpg

Now , you can setup the picture for your desktop by selecting this file. You are all set , every hour the picture will be downloaded and the background will change at the same time.