For Emergency Repairs, You Need This Disc

Should the worst happen, and your computer decides to give you some white text on a black screen (saying essentially gibberish words, like, “Stop Error 0x0000005a” or “IRQ not less than or equal to”) instead of “booting” into your Windows Desktop like normal, you’re probably going to start panicking.

Well, yes. A certain amount of panic is probably justified. You quite probably have a rather serious “glitch”. Take a breath, and take comfort in the fact that there are Pros who can help you, (shameless plug: such as myself) and if you have the right tools you might be able to repair Windows yourself.. and get a working computer again.
And by “right tools”, that typically means a “boot disc”. And – typically – that means the “Windows Install” disc.

Before you do anything else today, please do this: find the discs that came with your computer.

Do you see a “Windows″ or “System Recovery” disc? No? Not surprising. Most PC makers are using a recovery partition these days (see, About the Recovery (D:) Drive). 
[note: The “recovery partition” option wipes your hard drive, (aka “Drive C:”) and reverts the machine to the factory-condition state –> total data loss. All your updates and installed programs — gone. Thanks, manufacturers! *]

If you have a Windows 7 PC, you’re in luck: you can make a “boot disc” which includes an automated startup (“boot up”) repair tool, some repair/diagnostic tools, and the ability to access a System Restore point and revert your system to an earlier (working) time. (see, My favorite Life Saver flavor? System Restore).

If your PC is older: I have to opine, you really should upgrade to Windows 7 for security reasons if nothing else (see: It is time to face facts and finally dump Windows XP.) and also say that there is no reason (I can see) to wait for Windows 8 (unless you are planning on getting a touchscreen/tablet..). And I can tell you that to get a “boot disc” appropriate for your machine, you should click here: How To Get Windows Re-Install Discs.

The disc you’re about to make will give you important “recovery” options, that can get your computer working again.

So if you have a partition and not a disc. Remedy that now. All you need is a blank CD or DVD.

Step 1) Click the Start button and type repair into the Search box. The top result is what you want to click – “Create a System Repair Disc”.

2) Your optical drive should be detected (if not, use the ‘drop-down arrow’ to select your CD/DVD drive). Click “Create disc”.

The drive tray should open, so put in your blank disc…

After a few moments, the tray should open (“eject”) and you will now have a “bootable” System Recovery disc…

.. and a powerful tool for repairing your computer in the event of serious errors. You need to make this disc BEFORE you need it.. though I hope you never will.

In case I wasn’t clear: do it now.

[note: To use this disc, and make repairs, you will need to “boot” to it. If you don’t know how to do that, see How to boot from a CD ]

Kudos to Microsoft for making this tool a part of Windows.

* Utter, snide, facetiousness. A terrible move; and whoever decided that should be ashamed. And fired. IMHO.

Today’s quote: “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”  ~Epictetus

Bonus: As a reward for reading down this far, I will explain a bit of Geekspeak you may have seen but not recognized (maybe you have) “disc” – with a “c” – is an optical disc, which you probably think of as a “CD” or “DVD”. When it’s spelled with a “k” (“disk”), they’re talking about hard drives.. usually the storage inside your machine.

Bonus bonus: Amazon has a list of hundreds of up to 50% off gifts for dad (aka “a sale”).

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

In Case Of Emergency: You Need This (Disc)

Before you do anything else, please do this:

1) Find the discs that came with the computer.

Do you see a “Windows 7” or “System Recovery” disc? No? Not surprising. Most PC makers are using a recovery partition these days (see, About the Recovery (D:) Drive). Well the plain and simple fact is — In Case Of Emergency: you going to want (need?) this disc.

Why? Because the discs are “bootable”, and can allow you to repair machines that will not otherwise boot (aka “start up”). If you ever run into such trouble, you can boot to the disc; which includes an automated boot-repair tool, some repair/diagnostic tools, and the ability to access a System Restore point and revert your system to an earlier (working) time. (see, My favorite Life Saver flavor? System Restore).
[note: The “recovery partition” option wipes your hard drive, and reverts the machine to the factory-condition state –> total data loss. All your updates and installed programs — gone. Thanks, manufacturers! *]

The disc will give you important “recovery” options, that can get your computer working again.

So you have a partition and not a disc. Remedy that now. All you need is a blank CD or DVD.

2) Click the Start button and type repair into the Search box. The top result is what you want to click – “Create a System Repair Disc”.

3) Your optical drive should be detected (if not, use the ‘drop-down arrow’ to select your CD/DVD drive). Click “Create disc”.

The drive tray should open, so put in your blank disc…

After a few moments, the tray should open (“eject”) and you will now have a “bootable” System Recovery disc…

.. and a powerful tool for repairing your computer in the event of serious errors. You need to make this disc BEFORE you need it.. though I hope you never will.

In case I wasn’t clear: do it now.

Kudos to Microsoft for making this tool a part of Windows.

* Utter, snide, facetiousness. A terrible move; and whoever decided that should be ashamed. And fired. IMHO.

Today’s quote: “”Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.” ~ Douglas MacArthur

Bonus: As a reward for reading down this far, I will explain a bit of Geekspeak you may have seen but not recognized (maybe you have) “disc” – with a “c” – is an optical disc, which you probably think of as a “CD” or “DVD”. When it’s spelled with a “k” (“disk”), they’re talking about hard drives.. usually the storage inside your machine.

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Absolutely unrelated (video How To)

Because I have decided that I am definitely not going to do any kind of a “countdown to the holidays”, I am not going to remind you that the time to sit down and address greetings cards is, well, today. And I am not going to show you pictures of one of my favorite holiday traditions (and “childhood memories”) – the gingerbread house.

Did you ever make one of these? Or help eat one?

I decorate mine with small candy canes, gumdrops, M&M’s, Life Savers candies, red hot’s, and chocolate. (I think those are Pez on the one shown .. )

Here’s a How To Video. (That anyone can follow.)

I give gingerbread houses two Tech Paul thumbs up.. and a gold star too!

* There are a mere 17 days until Christmas arrives, and we are smack-dab in the middle of the cyber-criminal’s favorite, and most active, time of year. It is the time to redouble your “paranoid common sense” and triple your vigilance for scams, e-mails links, making sure the payment portal is https://, etc.. Let’s all be safe out there!
(To help you, here is 7 Practices for Computer Security [my thanks to reader KsTinMan for the link].)

Related: How to Make an Evergreen Wreath

Unrelated: Cnet’s Holiday Gift Guide 2010

Copyright 2007-2010 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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MMORPG

No time today Folks, sorry. Here’s a pretty picture…

* MMORPG = Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game (such as World of Warcraft).

I built this custom “Demotivator” poster online at the Despair.com (home of the Demotivators) D-I-Y page. Upload your photo.. give it some text.. and bingo! Download the results to you computer if you like. Totally fun fersher.

See? Mondays aren’t all bad. Click here and make your own Demotivator posters.

Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All Rights Reserved. post to jaanix.

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Ease Holiday Mailings With Word and Mail Merge

Use Word To Create Labels From Your Address Book Of Contacts

You can use Word’s “mail merge” feature when you want to create a set of documents that are essentially the same but where each document contains unique elements. For example: a letter of holiday greeting, your inserted photos and the basic message (text) will appear in each letter, but the address and greeting line will be different in each letter.

Using mail merge, you can create:

• A set of labels or envelopes The return address is the same on all the labels or envelopes, but the destination address is unique on each one.
• A set of form letters, e-mail messages, or faxes The basic content is the same in all the letters, messages, or faxes, but each contains information that is specific to the individual recipient, such as name, address, or some other piece of personal data.
• More…

Using mail merge, all you have to do is create one document that contains the information that is the same in each version. Then you just add some placeholders for the information that is unique to each version. Word takes care of the rest.

It is that first – creating address labels – that can really help if you need to send correspondence to a lot of people. Your “address book”, or “Contacts” list, can be used as the source for the label maker (see Step 2). Microsoft has a very clear tutorial on using Word’s “mail merge” feature, and here are the links:
Step 1: Choose a document type and main document
Step 2: Connect to a data file and select records
Step 3: Add fields to the main document
Step 4: Preview the merge and then complete it

When you have “merged” your address book, and the ‘labels’ (or, if your printer allows it, envelopes), you just insert a sheet of labels (such as Avery) and hit “Print”. Saves having to look up, and manually copy down each person’s address…

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Create a hidden folder for your private stuff

Sometimes a little privacy is nice. Today I’m going to show you how to hide a folder so that other people who use your machine won’t be able to see it, or its contents.
I hope all of you had a pleasant and enjoyable holiday weekend.

Tip of the day: Create a hidden folder for your private files. The first thing to consider is where to place the folder. You want it to be someplace you’ll remember easily, and someplace sort of out of the way. Some folks will put it right on their desktop, and there is a certain elegance to the “hide in plain sight” approach, but I’m going to bury it a little… inside my My Video folder (inside My Documents).

Navigate to the My Video folder (My Documents >My Video) and open it. If you have not loaded any video onto your PC, this window will be blank (empty). Now create a new folder. Right-click on any part of the blank area and select “New” from the list of choices, and a new list of choices appear — select “folder”.

Now you will see a folder ready for a new name. I chose to name mine “stuff”, as it is fairly uninteresting and innocuous. If you want to make sure nobody is tempted to look in there, you could name it “efficiency reports 2005”, but you want to avoid an intriguing name, like “private”, “confidential”, “good stuff”, or “collection”.

Now we’re going to make the folder hidden: right-click on your new folder (“stuff” in my example) and select “Properties”. Down towards the bottom is a checkbox labeled “Hidden”. Check it, and click on the “Apply” button.

Now when you navigate back to the My Video folder you will not see your folder. If you do, it should be faded, or “dim”. This means you have your Folder Options set to “show hidden files and folders”. This is normally off, by default; but to undo this setting, look (up) to the Tools menu and click it, and select “Folder Options” (the bottom choice) and then the View tab.

Make sure the radio button “Do not show hidden files and folders” is selected, and then click on the “Apply to All Folders” button, or the “Apply” button if you only want to affect the My Video folder. Now the folder is invisible. To make it visible again, for when you want to use it, reverse the steps above to “Show hidden…”

Let us say you want to put a password “lock” on the folder to make it even more difficult for other users to look inside (should they locate it somehow). Right-click on the folder and select “Properties” again and click on the Sharing tab.

Place a check in the “Make this folder private” checkbox and click “Apply”. Now the folder is protected with your User Account’s logon password. If you have not implemented a User Account password, you missed my very second Tech–for Everyone article; to see it, click here, you will now be warned that there’s no User Account password.

answer “Yes”, and you’ll be taken to the User Accounts control panel.

Since you will have to enter this each time you log onto the PC, I suggest you follow the rules of a strong password (complex), as discussed in the article above (the link) and write it down someplace as well.

Now you have a secure — and private — place to keep your personal files. But wait, there’s more!

Today’s free link: Because of the fact that hidden files and folders can be found by someone with a little savvy (like you, now that you know the “Show hidden files” command) and the password protection will only apply to network shares and when the other user have their own User Accounts… if you are sharing your UA (User Account), you need a 3rd-party tool to hide and encrypt the folder(s) you want to keep private. True Crypt is the free solution I recommend.

Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul, All Rights Reserved.

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