Connecting Your Windows 7 PC With An External PC
Sunday, May 16th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

So it could be for a presentation, could be you want to watch Hulu from your computer on your tv, or you are connecting your laptop to an external monitor to have two monitors.

Well with Windows 7, it is very easy to transfer your output to either duplicate your screen, extend your screen (so that you can have two different desktops), or turn off multi-monitor display.

1. Press and hold the durango pc repair key and press “P” and you will see the below image.

2. While holding the durango pc repair key press “P” each time it will change the options for outputting display.

3. If you want to turn off the multimonitor display just press durango pc repair and “P” until the farthest left option is selected and the picture will return to just your main computer.

Try it out… play with it… this is a very convenient way to hook your PC to your TV or external Monitor for multi-tasking.

Category: General, Windows 7  | Leave a Comment
Copy/Paste Shortcuts
Friday, May 14th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

Regardless of your computer experience, there is always a need to copy text from one application and paste into another.  I feel that most of my clients have the experience to highlight the text you want to copy and then they go up to the menu bar and select copy.

But there is an easier way to copy/paste so that you don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard.

1. Highlight the text, web address, picture, or any file that you want to copy and press “Ctrl” and “c” to copy the item.

2. Select the destination where you want to paste the copied item and press “Ctrl” and “v” to paste the item.

That is it!  This seems like a trivial item which will only save you a second or two, but it will simplify the way you copy/paste.  Enjoy.

Category: Shortcuts and Tricks  | Leave a Comment
Outlook Back Up Tool
Tuesday, May 04th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, like many of my clients, your Outlook mail file (.pst file) get extremely large if you do not clear out your email folders on a regular basis.  Many clients I know like to keep their emails for years so they have records, but Outlook begins to run slow and have many error as these files grow.

If you plan to keep old emails what I would recommend is backing up your emails files every few months and then cleaning the files out within Outlook, so you have a record if needed but Outlook continues to run smoothly (or as smooth as possible).

There is an add-on from Microsoft for Outlook, click here for download information, that can make backing up your mail files a breeze.

After you download and install you simply:

1. Open Outlook

2. Select the “File” menu

3. Click “Backup”

4. Select the Folders you want to back up, the location to save them (preferably an external drive), and click “ok“.

5. Once the process has finished verify you have the back up files where you selected to back them up to, then delete the files in Outlook that are not needed.

6.  Right click on “Deleted items” in Outlook and “Empty Deleted Items” to permanently delete these messages and free up space and hopefully eradicate some Outlook errors.

Hopefully that helps you clean up some errors and reduce your overall mailbox (.pst file) size.

Category: Maintenance, Software  | Leave a Comment
How To Select Multiple Files At Once
Friday, April 23rd, 2010 | Author: Brendan

So whether your burning files to a cd, copy/pasting, or any other task that you need to select multiple files it can be time consuming and tedious if you select one file at a time.  This should help for all sorts of tasks where you need to select multiple files and in the past have selected one at a time.

Their are several ways to select multiple files:

If continuous (file 1 – 100 for example):

1. Click on the first file, then hold the “Shift” key and click on the last file.  Every file in between will be selected.

If you want random files but not everything in between:

1. Click on the first file you want, then hold the “Ctrl” key and select the next file, then the next file, and so on.

If you want to select all the files within a folder:

1. Press and hold the “Ctrl” key, then press “A“, and all files will be selected.

Category: Shortcuts and Tricks  | Leave a Comment
Locking Your Computer
Monday, April 19th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

This is a useful tool if you have sensitive information open and want to protect it from being seen, mainly useful in the workspace setting.

If you are going to walk away from your computer you can easily lock your computer so that it has to been unlocked when your back and you know no one can access your information.

This can be achieved several ways listed below:

1. Press the Windows Key (durango pc repair) + “L”

2. Press “Ctrl” + “Alt” + “Del“, then select “Lock this computer”

I hope this helps!

Category: General  | Leave a Comment
Resizing Programs in Windows 7
Thursday, April 15th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

So  if you have made the leap to Windows 7 you should of noticed that if you move a program to the right/left side of the screen, it will automatically re-size to 50% of the screen (see image below).  If not try it, it is something that makes multitasking much easier and Microsoft should of thought of this years ago!

If you drag a program to the top of the screen it will re-size “full screen”, left/right it will size to half the screen so you can have two programs open side by side.

But what you might not of known is that you can use the  computer repair durango + Arrow Keys to switch “Full Screen (up arrow)”, “Minimize (down arrow)”, 50% left (left arrow), and 50% (right arrow).

I hope that makes it easier for you to use and keep an eye out for more to come!

Windows 7 Shortcuts and Tricks

Windows 7 Resize Tool

Category: Shortcuts and Tricks, Windows 7  | Leave a Comment
How to open Windows Explorer
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

So there are several ways to open Windows Explorer (Explorer shown below) and I will give you several methods for easily accessing Windows Explorer to view files on your hard drive.  I prefer the option #1, due to the fact that the less time you take your hands off the keyboard the quicker you can accomplish the task you are sitting at the computer to accomplish.

Methods:

1.  Press Picture of Windows logo key and “E“.

2.  Right mouse click on the Windows logo on bottom left and click “Explore” or “Windows Explorer“.

3.  Open “My Computer“.

Windows Explorer Shortcuts

Windows Explorer

Category: Shortcuts and Tricks  | Leave a Comment
What is a Disk Defragmenter?
Monday, April 12th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

The Disk Defragmenter is a computer program included with Microsoft Windows to re-organize the files on your hard drive so that the files can be easily referenced and accessed.  In everyday use, your computer files are written and there are naturally occurring gaps in between the files, and the purpose of defragmenting your computer’s hard drive is to push all files together and “re-claim” these gaps of un-used space on your hard drive and increase the time necessary to reference these files.

Regularly defragmenting your drive is a good idea to make slight improvements in hard drive open space as well as operating time.

To run a defrag:

1. Click Start then go to All Programs then Accessories then System Tools then Disk Defragmenter.

2. Select your hard drive (usually C:) then click “Defragment disk”.

3.  Let run and your finished.  Repeat on usual basis.

Below is what the Disk Defragmenter looks like:

Windows Disk Defragmenter

Category: Maintenance  | Leave a Comment
How Do I Delete All Temporary Files?
Thursday, April 08th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

Maybe your running out of space on your hard drive, maybe you want to get rid of the temporary internet files, or maybe you are just feeling that its time for a spring cleaning.  So how do you get rid off all of the files left behind?

1. Click Start then go to All Programs then Accessories then System Tools then Disk Cleanup.

Your computer will analyze how much space you will gain by deleting temporary files.

shown below

Delete Temporary Files Windows

2.  After Disk Cleanup loads and lists all data that you are able to get rid of, you are able to select which items to remove.  I would recommend checking each item listed.

3. Click OK then all of this data will be removed and you will gain lots of disk space depending on how much data is being purged.

Now you have gained storage space on your hard drive and this tool can be used on a regular basis to keep from storing lots of unused installation data, temporary internet files, and deleted items.

Category: Maintenance  | Leave a Comment
Who gives a RAM?
Monday, April 05th, 2010 | Author: Brendan

So your computers slowing down and you can’t have too many programs open at once…. let’s take a look at how much RAM (Random Access Memory) your computer has to use.

Click here to download a tool to let you know how much, what kind, and what slots are available for sticks of RAM.  *Also a great place to purchase if desired.

This should give you the total amount of RAM in your computer, and below is the minimum I would reccomend.

Windows XP – 1 Gigabyte

Vista – 2 Gigabytes

Windows 7 – 2 Gigabytes (for 32 bit OS)  3 Gigabytes (for 64 bit OS)

Category: Hardware  | Leave a Comment
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