Searching in 7

Search is built into every aspect of Windows 7, and as we get more and more files, documents, photos, music and videos in our personal libraries it can become harder to find things, especially if we haven’t looked at them in a while.

Search in Windows 7 works in a contextual way depending on what you’re searching in. For instance, search in the Start Menu will prioritise Start Menu items and programs, search in Explorer will prioritise documents and pictures, search in Internet Explorer will prioritise Favourite websites and browsing history and so on.

Alas, gone is the simple search of previous versions of Windows to be replaced by a more text-based search. When you start a search a drop down will ask if you want to add a search filter.

There and a great many of these which I shall detail but the basic ones Name: and Type: for file name and file type respectively would be used in the format…

Type: pdf

…if you were looking for Adobe Acrobat files. This is a way to help narrow down searches.

Kind: used to search the properties of a document type

Kind:email
Kind:tasks
Kind:notes
Kind:docs
Kind:music
Kind:song
Kind:folders
Kind:programs

Datemodified: to search by the date a file was modified

Datemodified:22/10/2008
Datemodified:22/10/08
Datemodified:yesterday
Datemodified:lastweek
Datemodified:pastmonth
Datemodified:27/03/03..1/4/08

Type: to search by file type

Type:image
Type:.doc
Type:.pdf

Name: searching by file name or by a property name for a file

Name:holiday
Name:wedding

Unfortunately the search syntax doesn’t let you double-up on search terms. For instance typing type:.docx, .pdf won’t bring up search results for all Word and PDF files.

Consolidate Multiple Email and Contacts Into One

For various reasons, we often end up with multiple email accounts: Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. It gets confusing and hard to keep track of. It also takes a lot of time to check for new mail on all the services.
The good news is that it is possible to consolidate all those email accounts into one, without losing anything stored on the other services.
You probably want to keep your email accounts active and receiving mail, at least for 90 days. You have had those addresses for a while, and, if people don't know your new address, they have no other way to reach you.
I chose Google's Gmail for my One Address. It's reliable, the gmail.com name is respected and widely used by both personal and business users. Gmail is searchable in many useful ways, and its spam filter is among the very best. Best of all, Gmail now lets you consolidate all your other email accounts very easily.
Of course you want to import to your One Address all your email contacts from the other services, AND your old email saved on those services. Gmail lets you do all that with a few simple steps.
Use the Gmail Import Feature
After logging into Gmail, in the upper right corner, click on Settings, then click the "Accounts and Import" tab. Next, click on "Import Mail and Contacts" and just follow directions. One by one, you will enter the email address and password for each of your other accounts.
You'll be given the option to import contacts and old mail; import new mail arriving at the old address for 30 days; and to add the old mail address to the imported mail as a tag to tell you where it came from. Click "Start Import" and go do the same for your other email accounts.
Google advises you that the import process may take several hours, even up to two days, before you start seeing imported mail. In actual practice, I started receiving imported old mail within minutes. Your experience may vary. But importing goes on without you, you don't even have to be logged on to Gmail.
Since Gmail has a "filters" function, you may want to set up a rule that routes mail from each old account into a specified subfolder, rather than have everything pile up in your main Inbox.
From here, you have only one webmail site to bookmark, and just one username and password to remember. Email checking will go much faster with only one account to check. And you'll have all your contacts and messages in one place.
Frankie On Call uses Gmail every day and can help with any support or questions you might have.

How Can I Tell If My Hard Drive Is About To Fail?

Your computer's hard drive is its permanent memory, the critical repository of all your important data, the programs and operating system that make a computer "smart". If the hard drive doesn't work, the whole computer is just a brick. How can you tell if your hard drive is close to failing and needs fixing or replacement?
The bad news is that hard drives may give no warning of imminent failures. Like a car that runs over a nail, a hard drive most often just dies, leaving you stranded suddenly. The sudden burnout of electronic components; a bearing that blows in a second; a "head crash" in which the read/write head touches and scratches the magnetic platter; these sorts of catastrophes usually happen without warning. Fairly uncommon but, we do see “dead drives”.
Here is an interesting bit of data. Modern hard drives last a long time. Look on a drive's label or in its technical specs and you will find a value labeled MTBF - Mean Time Between Failures. That's the average (mean) number hours a whole bunch of drives spun at full speed before something broke in each of them. An MTBF of 50,000 hours is the minimum acceptable today; 100,000 hours is not uncommon. There are about 2,000 hours in a typical employee's work-year.
This average" does not mean "guaranteed minimum." An exceptional drive that runs 400,000 hours may be offset in the average calculation by one that burns out after only 5,000 hours - and that early departer could be yours. We just don’t know.
Warning Signs of Hard Drive Failure
If you start getting read/write errors, i. e., "cannot write to disk" or "cannot access file," THIS is bad. It may be the drive's firmware, or it may be corrupted, cross-linked files; run CHKDSK to find and fix such things. These are the easiest and cheapest problems to fix.
CHKDSK comes with Windows, and it's pretty good at detecting bad files and physically damaged sectors. It will lock damaged sectors so that the computer will not attempt to write to them. To run CHKDSK, open a command prompt (Start, Run, CMD, Enter), then type CHKDSK C: /F /R then press Enter. This tells CHKDSK to scan for bad sectors, and fix any errors found. There are free utilities out there that run more thorough tests. One of the highly recommended utilities is Seagate SeaTools for Windows.
Listen to your computer. If you hear a clicking sound, especially during startup, that's often a sign of a damaged hard disk, and impending doom. Just like you can hear when a car engine is "laboring," you can often hear when a hard drive is working too hard. That means it's wearing out faster, just like an engine that climbs steep hills every day. If you hear vague rattling noises when your hard drive is accessing data, you should run a disk clean-up and defragmentation right away. The less the read/write head must move to find, read, and write data, the longer it will last.
If you feel your hard drive is failing or if you would like to have it checked, Frankie On Call will help you. We can image your existing drive to a new drive. This will offer more space and a new healthy drive. Call ore email Frankie On Call with any questions.
If noises or errors become frequent, don't hope the problem will go away -- because it won't.
You wouldn't count on an old car with a blown engine seal in emergencies or even for backup use, would you?

A Free Windows 7 Upgrade Could Cost You

Think upgrading your new Vista PC to Windows 7 will be a breeze? Think again.
Jared Newman

If you bought a Windows Vista-based PC in the last four months, and you're now eagerly awaiting the launch of Windows 7, consider restraining your excitement. While many major computer manufacturers have promised free upgrades from Windows Vista to Windows 7 for anyone who bought a PC after June 26, 2009, what you don't pay in hard cash could still cost you in headaches.
I'm not just talking about the upgrade process itself, which can be exhausting. Glancing through the upgrade information pages for participating manufacturers, several red flags went up. Here are some things to watch out for when it's time to claim your Windows 7 Upgrade Option:
1. Getting the Upgrade Could Take a While
When Microsoft offered free XP-to-Vista upgrades two years ago, getting the disc became a nightmare for some customers. We've now seen the first foul-up for Windows 7, with Toshiba telling customers that its upgrades won't go out until December, according to Bright Side of News. (Toshiba previously said the upgrade would ship within 60 days of October 22.)
For other manufacturers, you'll need a couple weeks of patience, or maybe more. To leave the actual ship date open-ended, Hewlett-Packard and Dell say that upgrades will begin shipping after October 22, though Lenovo says upgrades will ship one to two weeks from your request. Acer says "shipments will begin in increments. All orders will be handled on a first-in, first-out basis." So if you bought a computer last week, you could be at the end of a long line.
A word of advice: If you can, order the free upgrade now. Most manufacturers--Sony being the major exception-- are already allowing requests. Microsoft has a list of participating computer makers.
2. System Recovery Issues Abound
Say your HP computer experiences a hardware failure and needs repair under warranty. HP restores the computer to its factory settings, which means you'll be reunited with Windows Vista. No problem, as long as you've got a nice chunk of time to upgrade back to Windows 7.
Recovery issues aren't limited to HP. Softpedia reported that Windows 7 upgrades could kill the recovery applications that manufacturers include with their computers, though to be fair, people who purchase Windows Vista will deal with this as well.
3. You Need a DVD Drive to Install
This applies to anyone who upgrades to Windows 7, but as the optical drive becomes unnecessary for some users, I see trouble for recent computer buyers who skipped the DVD drive in their rigs. In particular, I'm thinking of Dell's Studio 14z and Acer's Timeline 3810T, which both ditched the optical drive for slimmer, lighter frames. Owners of those notebooks will have to buy an external DVD drive or borrow one from a friend to install the upgrade.
4. HP Hates Your Browser, Unless It's IE
Here's a minor nuisance for HP computer owners who've dropped Internet Explorer like a bag of dirt: IE is required to visit HP's Windows 7 upgrade order page. That's because the world's biggest computer manufacturer uses a Web program to validate your computer, and it only works in IE. If for some reason you don't have Microsoft's browser, you're told to contact Arvato, the third party that's handling HP's upgrades. Only one problem: the contact page isn't viewable in any other browsers, either.
5. Hope You Kept Your Receipt
Not all manufacturers are allowing upgrades without a proof of purchase. I'd say only a fool tosses his or her receipt for a computer, but, come to think of it, where is that receipt for the notebook I bought a few months ago? HP and Toshiba explicitly state that a proof of purchase, not just a serial code, is required.
6. Free, or "Free?"
When all is said and done, you might still have to open your wallet, due to shipping and handling charges and taxes. Lenovo charges $17.03 for U.S. customers, while Compaq, HP, Sony, and Toshiba charge some users, but not others, according to watchdog Edgar Dworsky of Consumerworld.org and Mouseprint.org. Acer, Asus, Del,l and Gateway don't charge U.S. customers for the upgrade, unless you believe that time is money.

What Is System Restore?

What does Windows System Restore do on your computer? Is it worth having System Restore on all the time, or is it wasting resources you could use?
System Restore runs quietly in the background doing nothing but monitoring your computer's programs, system settings stored in the Windows registry; what files are on your hard drive and which have changed in some way. So it doesn't consume much computer resources by running constantly. SO, you won't gain performance by turning off System Restore.
System Restore saves your computer's current state to a file called a Restore Point when one of the following events happens or is about to happen:
• When software is installed using the Windows Installer, Package Installer or other installers which are aware of System Restore.
• When Windows Update installs new updates to Windows.
• When the user installs a driver that is not digitally signed by Windows Hardware Quality Labs.
• Every 24 hours of computer use or every 24 hours of calendar time. Such a restore point is known as a system checkpoint. System Restore requires Task Scheduler to create system checkpoints. Also, system check points are only created if the system is idle for a certain amount of time.
• When the operating system starts after being off for more than 24 hours.
• When the user requests it.
In Windows Vista, copies created during File Backup and Complete PC Backup can also be used as restore points. Be aware that restore points can consume a healthy chunk of your hard drive
By default, Microsoft Windows slots up to 15 per cent of your hard drive's available space for the saving of restore points. When this space is filled with restore points, the oldest restore point is deleted on a "first in, first out" basis. If your hard drive is getting close to being full, Windows may also delete some older restore points to free up space. You can change the System Restore disk space amount as follows.
• Click Start, then Control Panel. (On XP, select "Classic View")
• Click System, then click System Protection (On XP, click System Restore).
• Select a drive and click the Configure/Settings button. A dialogue box appears that lets you
o Turn System Restore protection on or off for this drive.
o Set the percentage of disk space devoted to restore points
o Delete all stored restore points (Vista or Win7)
Remember, when using System Restore, programs installed since the last restore point was created will be lost.
System Restore can also be a way to get rid of malware but, it is not an effective measure. Frankie On Call can help with your virus and malware removal.

Comparison of the Pre and iPhone

The iPhone has been out for a while now, but if you're currently a Sprint customer, the Palm Pre is definitely worth a look if you're in the market for a Smartphone. Which is the better choice? Let's see...
Obviously, Mac users and those who first went gaga over the iPhone jumped at the chance to get one when they first appeared. Others that waited were seduced by the hype of the Pre. When you break down the pricing, features and service it looks like this:
The Palm Pre, available on Sprint, costs $200 after a $100 rebate. For a fee of $70 a month, you get 450 minutes of talk time with unlimited messaging and data. For $90 per month, you get 900 minutes and unlimited messaging and data. Splurge with $100 and you get unlimited everything.
As for Apple's latest iPhone, the cost ranges from $200 to $300. AT&T is the sole signal provider, and $90 per month entitles you to 450 voice minutes, unlimited messaging and data. $110 gets you 900 minutes and unlimited voice, messaging and data will cost you $150.
Both require a two-year contract and when you add up the numbers for unlimited plans, iPhone owners will pay $3,600 while Pre users will only spend $2,400. That's a savings of $600 per year. But is that enough to convince you to buy a Pre over the iPhone?
Features!!!
Let's look at features. Both have Bluetooth compatibility, camera, video player, speaker phone and music player. They both provide access to email, 3G speed, WiFi and GPS. But there are also some differences. The Pre has a real slide-out QWERTY keyboard, as opposed to the iPhone's virtual one. That's a big plus for fat-fingered people like me who have trouble pecking out the keystrokes on a touchscreen. Pre owners can access Sprint's 4G network in some areas while AT&T will not have that speed until next year.
The Pre's 3 megapixel camera has an LED flash while the iPhone 3GS has a 3mp cam with autofocus, auto-macro and improved low lighting performance. When it comes to video recording, only the iPhone has the capability and basic editing is available.
The Pre is shorter and thicker than the iPhone while the Apple Smartphone has a larger display. The iPhone can be purchased in 8 GB, 16GB and 32GB models; the Pre only comes with 8GB of internal memory. How much memory do you need? Here's a rule of thumb: 8GB will allow you to store about 1800 songs OR 10,000 photos OR about 10 hours of video. Mix and match any way you like.
The Pre comes with an easily removable battery -- not so with the iPhone. The Pre but doesn't support Flash video, which means no YouTube for you. But Palm has promised to support the Flash 10 Player by the end of 2009. Both phones can be synched with iTunes, but the Pre is restricted to tunes that are not DRM protected. But most songs on iTunes are DRM-free now, and of course you can download MP3s from Amazon and other places. The Pre allows you to combine phone numbers, calendar entries and email from MS Outlook, Gmail and Facebook in one place and the multitasking WebOS allow multiple apps to be open at once.
It goes without saying that iPhone App store is way beyond any other competitor's. Palm has its own online app store but it will be some time before the applications can catch up to Apple. And of course the "There's an app for that" campaign is far superior to the creepy young woman on the Pre ads.
The bottom line... the Palm Pre is sleek, slick and designed well. But the biggest problem with the Pre is that it's not an iPhone. Apple has created a cult of coolness around the iPhone, while the features of the device speak for themselves. Any device that's serious about playing the role of "iPhone killer" will have to make coffee in the morning, take the dog for a walk, and predict winning stock market picks. The iPhone actually makes people smarter and sexier. How do you compete with that?

Fall In Love with Your PC Again

Few relationships between individuals and their electronic devices are as intimate as the one they establish with their personal computers. If you're like most, you probably have very vivid memories of when you first acquired your PC. You probably had dreams about all the things you could do and would do with your new computer. It was lightning fast and uncluttered. It had that fresh "new" smell. The screen was pristine and there were no dust or cookie crumbs embedded between the keys.
Then, of course, time goes by. You've had a good year or more together and you've accomplished a lot. But now things aren't going so smoothly between you and your PC. It is performing slowly and maybe even suffering from occasional hang, freeze, or crash. You are starting to think that maybe you're going to have to get rid of it and start all over with a new one. But wait! That's an expensive and time-consuming proposition.
One simple but important way of restoring your PC's performance and reliability is to clean the registry - the tool that Windows® uses to keep track of information about the many software pieces your PC uses.

Your IT professional can check the registry for entries on programs that are no longer in the computer, verify that cross references are valid and accurate, and eliminate the empty spaces to make the list more compact and efficient to use. It can also rearrange registry entries to streamline program execution.

The benefits of cleaning the registry are immediate and obvious. Your PC will boot faster and activate programs more quickly. Programs may also execute more quickly, improving such things as video playback and game performance. Most importantly, many of those annoying freezes, glitches, and crashes could simply vanish.

Cleaning the registry doesn't solve all computer problems, but it will go a long way toward restoring your computer's performance and reviving your affection for it.