Windows Vista has Loads of features, but not all work as they should. Here’s how to tweak, modify, or work around the operating system’s biggest blunders.

The developers of Windows Vista had some great design ideas, but poor implementation turned many fine concepts into lousy, annoying features. To be fair, Vista inherited most of these well-intentioned flaws from earlier Windows versions but it either failed to correct them or didn’t even try.

Here are eight of Vista’s most irritating flops, with quick fixes and workarounds.

User Account Control
People do some things in Windows-such as install destructive apps or edit the Registry that merit a stern “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” warning. Such situations may even warrant asking users to prove they’re administrators before letting them continue.

But Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) often fails to tell users why a given act is considered dangerous. Worse, Vista’s designers went overboard, forcing people to click through a UAC prompt to set the clock or start a manual backup. As a result, people get annoyed and start ignoring UAC, effectively removing any protection it might provide.

Here are three imperfect ways to stop UAC annoyances. One minor problem they share is that every so often, when you boot, Vista will announce that UAC is off. You can ignore the warnings, much as you’ve already learned to ignore UAC itself.

1. Just turn it off: This easy fix works well in an administrator account, but it renders standard accounts almost unusable. Select Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts, and click Turn User Account Control on or off. Select Continue at the UAC prompt, and on the next screen, uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protecty our computer. Click OK and reboot.

2. UseTweakUAC: This free utility can turn UAC off for administrator accounts while leaving it on for everyone else. Simply run the program, select Switch UACto the quiet mode, and click OK.

3. Fine-tune the UAC settings: This tactic works in Vista Business or Ultimate. Select Start, type secpoLmsc, and press . In the left pane, navigate to the Security Settingsçy\cf0 Security Options folder. In the right pane, scroll to the bottom for nine ways to control UACs behavior.

The One-Way Firewall
Windows’ built-in firewall has always suffered from the same flaw: Though it blocks suspicious stuff that comes in, it does nothing about what your system sends out. Since an infected PC can mass-mail spam and forward your credit card numbers to someone without your better interest in mind, that’s an important shortcoming.

Vista supposedly fixed this problem with the addition of a firewall that is capable of watching and blocking outbound traffic. But that capability is turned off by default. And Vista’s designers neglected to put the controls that turn it on in a place where users are likely to look for them: the Windows Firewall Settings dialog box.

Here are two possible ways to deal with to the situation.

1. Turn on outgoing protection: Click Start, type firewall, and select Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. Click Windows Firewall Properties, in the dialog box, the first three tabs have an Outbound Connections drop-down menu. In all three, select Block.

2. Get another, better firewall: Even with its two-way protection enabled, Windows’ firewall is a feeble guardian. On the other hand, the free Comodo Firewall Pro came out tops in independent testing, ahead of products such as Norton Internet Security.

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Tags: Application

Blogging has become an important way for people to share experiences with friends or the world at large. Web sites that host blogs provide word processing capabilities, but they are often simplistic. That’s where Microsoft Word 2007 can come in.

It may seem like a strange idea to use Word to write your blog posts, but there are a few reasons to consider it. If you are new to blogging and familiar with Word, you can stay with the application you know. Also, Word offers many more formatting features than are normally available in an online editor. Finally, Word lets you focus on what you want to say with a minimum of coding concerns.

How To Create A Post
Click the Office button, click New, and double-click New Blog Post. A blank document appears. If you haven’t already registered Word with a blog account, then the Register A Blog Account dialog box will open. You can choose Register Now or Register Later, but for now, click the Office Online link to see how the supported blog providers work with Word 2007.

Microsoft Word 2007 explicitly supports: WordPress, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, Community Server and TypePad.

If your blog provider isn’t listed, it still may work with Microsoft Word 2007. Word supports most sites that use either the Atom or MetaWeblog API. Return to Word and click Register Later.

A blank page appears with the field Enter Post Title Here at the top. Notice that the Ribbon contains Blog Post and Insert tabs. The Blog area of the Blog Post tab contains the functions needed to publish a blog post created in Word and to create and manage your blog provider accounts.

The Insert tab contains a few areas, the largest of which is Illustrations. Of the functions on this tab, you’ll probably most often use Picture, to insert images, and Hyperlink, to create links. Click in the Enter Post Title Here area and type a title for the blog post. Now click below the horizontal line and compose your blog. Use any of the formatting tools available on the Ribbon.

How To Post Your Blog
Now that you have something to post, you will need to upload it to your blog host. If you don’t have an account, we recommend WordPress or Blogger to get started, because both are free and easy to set up. We will use WordPress as an example, but the process is similar for all the services. You will need to know your blog’s username and password and, in some cases, the URL of your blog.

Click the Blog Post tab on the Ribbon and then click the arrow under the Publish button and select Publish As Draft. Publishing as a draft lets you preview the blog entry before it goes live. You can use Publish to turn the blog post live right away.

Click Register An Account in the Registering A Blog Account dialog box. Click the drop-down list and choose WordPress and then click Next. The New WordPress Account dialog box opens. In the top box, type or paste the URL of the blog between the brackets and then delete the brackets. For example, if your blog address is http://betterblogss.wordpress.com, the entry should look like this: http://betterblogss.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php.

Type in your username and password and click the Picture Options button. Choose My Blog Provider from the drop-down list and click OK. Click OK again. Click Yes to confirm that you’d like to post the entry, and you should see a message at the top of your entry saying it has been posted.

Now log on to your blog site and preview the post. It may look slightly different than it did in Word. This is because the templates that blog providers use have some rules of presentation that override Word’s. Make any necessary adjustments and then publish your post for the world to see.

Get your Microsoft Word 2007 now.

Tags: Application

Positioned in price and functionality between Adobe Acrobat and basic
PDF makers, Bluebeam PDF Revu is an excellent, if initially confusing, PDF creation and editing solution.

Installation takes a few minutes but requires no program shutdown. During installation, Bluebeam will change your default PDF reader to PDF Revu. Allow this change, as it is needed to trial the product effectively.

After installation, Bluebeam adds a toolbar option in Word, Excel, and
PowerPoint that lets you create or share PDFs or change document settings, such as security and digital signing, within the Office app.

Make adjustments, such as compression format and printing resolution, from the document-creation interface.

A minor stumbling block is that the first time you open PDF Revu, the
setup dialog box can easily be hidden by other programs. On the plus side, PDF Revu’s advanced editing features are impressive, and it offers tutorials to help demystify the process.

Read more from Bluebeam PDF Revu: Standard Edition

Tags: Software

For years, Spyware Doctor has been an industry-leading solution for removing spyware. Now, PC Tools has added antivirus protection plus an add-on module, Browser Defender for Internet Explorer and Firefox, that helps protect you from malicious Web sites. A second add-on for badly infected systems is Behavior Guard, a real-time malicious activity monitor that identifies and stops never-before-seen threats.

Spyware Doctor installs quickly, giving you the option to enable IntelliGuard, the real-time threat-detection tool and run a system scan. Scans are fast, and results are detailed. Spyware Doctor has also enhanced its ability to scan and remove threats in Safe Mode.

The add-on module approach can control of intrusion management level and consequent resource impact. Without the add-ons, resource
impact was minor but noticeable. This varies with system and Internet speed.

Click for more: PC Tools Spyware Doctor + Antivirus 2009

Tags: Application

Taxes are among the most important personal issues that a person will have to take care of in life. After all, not handling taxes properly can be against in the law. Computer software for taxes can be used to help make it easier to take care of filing taxes. There are different programs that can be used for people who have different concerns about taxes.

The most popular type of computer software for taxes is TurboTax. This is considered to be one of the best programs to use because it can electronically gather 1099 or W-2 data from financial groups and businesses. It is also easy to electronically file a tax return and to get updates for forms that need to be filled out through easy to use online upgrade systems.

One of the best benefits of computer software for taxes is that it can be used to help find deductions that a user can take advantage of for saving money. More than three hundred different deductions are listed in the TurboTax program. This can be used to increase one’s tax refund. TurboTax also helps to alert people of information entered that may cause an audit to take place.

TurboTax is a program for people who have had a few things happen to them in the previous year. People who have education expenses and people who either own or have sold a home in the past year should use it. It is also useful for people with a great amount of medical expenses. Since there are many different deductions that can be found in this program, it will definitely be used by people who have made a huge charitable donation in the past year.

H&R Block TaxCut is another type of computer software for taxes. This can be used for filing taxes for the country and for the state that one lives in. This program is supported by the country’s top tax filing group and this computer software for taxes will be released with new editions every year that reflect all of the many changes in the tax code. Past versions dating back to 1992 are also available for those who have taxes from the past that are due.

TaxCut can be used to gather financial data from programs like Quicken and Microsoft Money to help make it easier to read financial data that is needed for filing taxes. It also has an error check feature that is used to make it easier to find difficulties in a tax return so that an audit can be prevented and trouble with the government is avoided.

For those who are looking for deductions in taxes ItsDeductible can be used. Made by the makers of TurboTax, ItsDeductible records charitable donations made throughout the year and can be imported onto another tax software program like TurboTax or TaxCut. It also produces accurate values for items that have been donated when items instead of money is donated to charities.

With the greater amount of accuracy that is used to track deductions, hundreds or even thousands of dollars can be saved through additional information for deductions. ItsDeductible can even automatically handle IRS Tax Form 8283, which is a form that is needed for non-cash donations that are worth more than five hundred dollars in value.

These are all important programs for computer software for taxes. Many of these programs can be used to help with assisting users in getting full information on tax code updates and forms that are going to be needed for filing taxes. Computer software for taxes can be used to find deductions, handle deductible services and even take care of taxes that have been owed for years. These programs are indeed useful and can be used to help make it easier to take care of taxes and even earn more money on a return. This is the most important thing that keeps the software in high demand.

You’re using with Windows 2000/XP notebook, and you run across a file you can’t open. What’s more, uou can’t reach anyone for help. You may not be familiar with the type of file you’re dealing with, but you’re pretty sure that the sender or download site indicated that it’s a compressed file.

Here’s some help.

Compressed files, or archives, contain one or more files or folders that have been compacted into a format that takes up less storage space. Much like a trash compactor squashes the air out of garbage to make a much smaller brick out of a pile of rubbish, a file compression utility uses various tricks to reduce a file’s size. One of the most basic such tricks is to remove redundant data. Instead of storing a piece of data for every yellow pixel in a photo of your new car, for instance, an archive might store one yellow dot and a digital note to repeat that pixel as needed throughout the image. Archives are sometimes called zipped files after the ZIP format popularized by the PKZip and WinZip utilities.

Compressing a file or folder means saving it in a new format. There are lots of compressed file formats, but some of the most common have the file extensions .ZIP, .SIT, and .RAR. If you use WinRAR to compress a document named Presentation .ppt, for example, you’ll get an archive called Presentation.rar. Presentation.rar should take up significantly less space on your hard drive than it did in its PPT form, but anyone who wants to open the compacted file will need WinRAR, UnRAR, or some other utility that can decompress the format. After unpacking a file, its extension will revert back to what it was before it was zipped, such as TXT for a text document or XLS for an Excel sheet.

Some compressed files can unpack themselves when you double-click them. Most self-extracting archives have .EXE extensions, though they may be referred to as SFX or other types of files. These can be handy when you want to send someone a compressed file, but you don’t want her to spend time trying to find a suitable decompression utility.

How to decompressed?
Before you do anything else, check to see whether the file is available in another form. If someone emailed it to you, ask him to send you an uncompressed version or an archive in a format your PC can open. This can save you a great deal of time.

No dice? OK, see what Windows can do for you. Win2000 can’t natively open ZIPs or most other compressed files. On the other hand, WinXP will open a wizard to help you decompress most ZIPs when you double-click them. However, WinXP can’t handle them all.

If WinXP can’t open a particular file, compressed or not, it will ask you whether you want it to go online to try to find a utility that can. Select Use The Web Service To Find The Appropriate Program and click OK. When we tried this with a SIT compressed file, Microsoft provided us with a hyperlink to a download page with the StuffIt Expander utility.

Try downloading the indicated program and using it to open the file.

If you don’t want WinXP to go online, choose Select The Program From The List and click OK. Click the checkbox next to the application on your PC that you think might be able to unpack the archive, if any, or click Browse to find one that isn’t listed. Don’t check the box next to Always Use The Selected Program To Open This Kind Of File at this stage. That option says that you’re absolutely sure that you’ve guessed right that the app can unpack the archive, stacked against which is the fact that the program hasn’t already associated itself with opening that type of file. Click OK when you’re done.

StuffIt Expander seems to cover most of the format bases, so it’s a good place to start for your decompression needs. It’s a free utility, but it comes wrapped in a trial version of StuffIt Standard or Deluxe. The StuffIt Standard 15 Day Free Trial option, which didn’t require a credit card as did the Deluxe download.

After Stuff-It 9.0.0.21 is installed, we could open several ZIP and SIT archive files by right-clicking them, choosing StuffIt Archive and Expand Here, and clicking Continue when a nag window popped up.

Tags: Application

For years, the only high-power defragmenting alternative to Windows’ own Disk Defragmenter was Diskeeper, but times have changed. PerfectDisk offers most of Diskeeper’s options and functionality, and it even has what may be better optimization routines, a Free Space explorer (to help track down what files and folders are taking up the most space on your drives), and a nicer interface.

The clincher is a lower price, along with different versions for VMware and other specialized situations.

Perfectdisk 2008 Pro Single Lic Single Pcxp/vista License

Tags: Application