Windows 7 Control Panel – Regain the “Classic View” | Tips for better Searching

One of the first “personalizations” I make to a new PC is switch the Control Panel from categorized tasks to the more detailed (and familiar to XP users) “Classic View”.

In Windows Vista, Microsoft provided an easy method for doing that – a click-able option there in the upper left.

Windows 7 there is no click-able option to use. In Windows 7, you have to use a different approach to revert, and switch back to Classic View.

1) Open the Control Panel (Start button > Control Panel)
2) Look to the upper right, and click on the drop-down arrow by View by: and change it to “Small icons”.

That’s it! You’re done. Your Control Panel will now be much more familiar looking if you’ve been using Windows for a while (more “XP like”) as well as providing a more comprehensive list of the Control Panel’s options.

Orig posting: 3/31/10

(Kinda hard to fathom that Win 7 has been with us 2 years already, eh?)

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Bonus: Tips for Searching the Web learn the secrets of “power” searchers.

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Enjoy your weekend everybody! It sure feels like Spring here.

Today’s quote: “Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.” ~ Ralph Marston

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

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Tuesday – Tech Tossed Salad

Mix and match for your Tuesday. (And Software Giveaway.)

• Some time back I mentioned “virtual tours”, and how the Internet can allow us to see things and places we might not be able to get to in person.. like Rome, Italy, for instance (see, Visit The Sistine Chapel – Right Now – Free!). I came across a 360° view of the space shuttle’s cockpit, and I think it is pretty neat-o. By default, it pans around the 360, but there are ‘control buttons’ (including “zoom”). Even if you are not an “airplane nut” like me, I think you’ll find it interesting. Check it out here.
(And I notice that’s not a Macbook there…)

• A Craigslist Scam Hits Home

“Recently a friend of mine posted a high valued item on Craigslist and within hours he received the response reflected below. Ultimately his common sense kicked in and he had me take a look at it. I immediately knew it was a scam” Read more..

• 10 survival tips for non-morning people

“Some people jump out of bed in the morning, hit the ground running, and leave a trail of creative thinking and focused accomplishment in their wake. And then there’s the rest of us.” Read more..

• Stay safe online: 5 secrets every PC (and Mac) owner should know

“My #1 help question of 2011? It’s no contest: “How do I protect myself online?” In this post, I share the five steps I teach to friends, family members, and clients who want to avoid malware, scareware, phishing sites, and other online scams.“ Read more..

• The 20 best back-to-school laptops

“Schools starts in just a few weeks so you can’t put off buying that laptop much longer. Here are 20 of the best available right now.“ Read more..

• Brilliant But Doomed: Technology’s Most Magnificent Failures

“The short lives and sad fates of twenty genuinely bright ideas.” Read more..

• Geek technologies that still thrive at 25 (and beyond)

“Join us in a celebratory tour of high tech’s still-kicking senior citizens: the technologies that geeks know and love, and that tend to make a lot of everyday technology work.” Read More..

• Five tips for controlling procrastination

“Some people say procrastination works for them, keeping them sharp and efficient. But for others, it’s self-defeating, guilt-inducing, and demoralizing.” Read more..

• Don’t miss out on the chance to enter my latest software license giveaway drawing.

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*** A Chance To Win A Valuable Prize! ***

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The folks at Softland have generously donated ten licenses for novaPDF Professional to me, to award to my readers.

“novaPDF is a PDF creator for Windows that allows you to easily create PDF files. With novaPDF, everyone from novice users to professionals can create high-quality documents in industry-standard PDF format, by simply selecting the “Print” command from virtually any application.“

To enter the drawing, please see: Software Giveaway – novaPDF Professional

• Old-school phishing emails make a return. I have noticed a resurgence of the old “Dearly Beloved” and “for our mutual benefit” scam email spam messages this week. Is this due to the recent stock market plunge? Are they hoping there are more desperate Americans? (You’d have to be desperate to fall for Jurassic Period [circa 1995] scams.. right?)

• Anonymous Hackers Expose Sensitive Law Enforcement Data

“Anonymous and LulzSec hackers published the private data of more than 70 rural law enforcement agencies across the country, exposing sensitive information such as passwords, security training and tip information.” Read more..

[Have you ever left an ‘anonymous tip’, or work as a a undercover ‘snitch’? Might wanna read this one..]

Today’s quote: “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Have a good day, everybody. I hope you are enjoying your summer.

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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How To Restore The Menu Bar In Vista And Windows 7

In older versions of Windows, the menu bar was always visible in Explorer. In Vista and Windows 7 the menu bar is now hidden by default, and you must press the ALT key to see it. These simple steps will cause it to always be visible.
(The “menu bar” gives you the familiar File | Edit | View |Tools | Help ‘drop down’ menus)

1) Launch Explorer by opening Computer (or Documents, or Pictures..), then press ALT to access the menu bar.

2) Click on Tools and then on Folder options.

3) In the Folder Options window, click on the View tab, and click to place a check in Always show menus.

4) Click on Apply and then OK.

That’s it. You’re done. (Should you decide you prefer the “more screen real estate” no menu bar look, simply repeat the steps and un-check the box.)

Today’s quotable quote: “Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.” ~ Mary Beard

Today’s free download: (an “oldie but a goodie”) It has been a while since I have mentioned one of my fave little computer protection apps – WinPatrol.

Clean up your Taskbar, ActiveX, Brower and Startup programs. WinPatrol monitors and exposes adware, keyloggers, spyware, worms, cookies, and other malicious software. This program puts you back in control of your computer with no need for constant updates.
Download WinPatrol 20.5.2011 (Window XP, Vista, Windows 7 including x64 support)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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View Multiple Mail Identities in One Browser

It has become quite common practice to have more than one e-mail account — you might use one that came with your ISP service, and you might also have a Webmail account (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), for example.

Opening each Inbox, so you can monitor them, is a simple matter of opening a new tab (see, Browser tab quick tips for more) and logging in– as long as we’re talking about different services.

If you have more than one “Identity” at a Webmail provider, (two different Gmail accounts, say) you typically are automatically ‘logged out’ of one when you log in to the other from the same computer. This is annoying. Here’s how to fix that behavior.

Tip of the day: Change IE’s settings to allow separate log ins.
As strange it may seem, you need to close Internet Explorer, and then make a change in Folder Options.. this will affect IE as Microsoft consider it to be a part of the operating system.

1) Start >Control Panel >Folder Options (XP user: Start >Settings >)

2) Click on the “View” tab.
3) Scroll down until you see “Launch folder windows in a separate process” and place a check in the checkbox.
4) Click “Apply”, and then “OK”.

That’s it. You’re done. Now you can launch IE and you will be able to log in to each of your Identities/Inboxes, and one will no longer ‘log out’ the other.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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View PowerPoint presentations without Office

I was reminded of this “quick tip” topic while I was doing research for an upcoming Tech–for Everyone article, and the information I wanted to read was contained in a PowerPoint slideshow (aka “presentation”) archive, available online.. a “.ppt” file.

Normally, this is no problem: you click on the “view” hyperlink; are asked if you want to “Open” or “Save” the file (since all I wanted to do was read it, I chose “open”). Here is where I was reminded that the machine I was surfing on was new and did not have Office installed — “Windows cannot open this file:”

You may have seen a window like this in your computer career…

(My article on what to do to resolve this can be read here.)

Fortunately, a quick visit to the Microsoft Download Center is all that’s required to enable my machine to view PowerPoint Presentations (and cool slides of airshows).

Tip of the day/Today’s free link: If you are not using the Microsoft Office suite of programs, download and install the free PowerPoint Viewer 2007.

Copyright 2007-8 © 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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