Until recently, if you wanted to make a telephone call in your house you needed either a home phone service with AT&T, or use your cell phone in your house (with a hit or miss signal). With AT&T you paid a monthly charge averaging $70 a month with limited services included in that price.  Next came VOIP services like Vonage and Lightyear, where the monthly services were at $24.99 which included popular services like Caller ID, 3-way calling and Call waiting. Not bad right?  Well today we now have a service where you get all those monthly services but only pat $19.99….a year!

MagicJack was introduced in early 2007 with the concept of paying a yearly charge for home phone service that is portable.  This means that you plug in a little box into your USB port on your computer, plug a phone cable from your MagicJack box into your home phone and voila! You have a dial tone.  Using this technology, you are able to not only save a ton of money but have decent home phone service to use.

Now there are ups and downs with this service. Lets go over the positives first.  First of all the service WORKS! Whether you have Windows XP or Vista (Sorry Mac People, no soup for you!), you plug in the box, register your box in the MagicJack service center, pay your $39.99 over the internet ($19.99 for the yearly service, and $20 for the box), and 1 hour later you pick up your phone and you get dial tone. I believe that is a very easy setup procedure with little hassle.

The GOOD

1.         Can plug it into any internet based computer anywhere in the world…If you go anywhere in the world you can plug the MagicJack into your USB port and plug a phone in. so if you are in Russia or Europe and you want to receive your phone calls, you can!

2.         Inexpensive…$20 a year, enough said. You save about $820 a year, so don’t spend that all in one place.

3.         Voicemail is included…if people leave you a message, you can get it online or through your email. That’s convenient.

4.         Digital call history and favorites list that is stored in the box. If you plug the box in anywhere it saves all of your call history, even if you are not online. Tell your Vonage to do that!

5.         Can plug it into a fax machine (recommend using a splitter). You can fax out using this service, although receiving is a little difficult to do

The BAD

1.         No humans to talk to…if you have any issues whatsoever, don’t bother using MagicJack to call anyone, there is no one there! All you have is an email and pray that someone gets back to you.

2.         Any computer usage beyond just using the phone will cause hiccups and poor reception for both parties.  This is a CPU hog so any activity you do on your computer while you are on the phone will severely compromise your phone conversation. In fact, your conversations will at most be 80% of landlines clearness simply because of the internet traffic.

3.         Pc must be on all the time…some people may have an issue with this one, especially if they have a laptop.  Once your pc goes off or crashes, good bye phone system.

4.         Fax support is limited…as I mentioned before, this will not work to receive faxes. That is because data that comes in as a fax gets lost in the internet traffic. Outgoing faxes do seem to work though.

5.         You can only use 1 phone that is near the pc (unless you have a multiple phone system)…yes this one is a doosie! If you own a traditional phone then it does not have any satellite phones. This means you must have the phone right next to your pc and no other room in the house can use it. That’s why I recommend either buying multiple MagicJacks or use the phone maybe for an office phone in your house.

6. Have to deal with advertising…yes they subsidize the cost by putting little advertisements in the MagicJack program software. A little annoying but it does not get in the way of your phone calls.

I give the service pretty good marks for financial savings, but it does not quite cut the mustard when it comes to phone quality, especially those who are used to using a landline phone service.  If a little hissing and “speak louder” requests are ok with you, then I recommend purchasing the last phone number you will ever have…for now.

Well the holiday season 2009 has come and gone and you may be thinking I love to take picture but my camera isn’t what I want or why do I have so many blurry pictures or what in the world do I do with them once I take them.

This article is going to break down the type of camera that you may want, how to take the best shots, what to do with them after you take the pictures and how to store them.

First let’s tackle the type of camera that works best.    There are many different cameras on the market that start at 1 mega pixel to 12 mega pixels, the ones that are 4 and 5 works well for the money.  You will want a nice size LCD screen; you should look for ones that are between 1.8” to 3.5”.   Are you like me and take blurry pictures?  If you get at camera with 3xs optical zoom or higher this will help take the blur out of the pictures.  So now that you have the basics, who is the best camera manufacturer?  Canon’s and Nikon’s are the best cameras on the market.  You can buy one of these cameras for less that $300.

Okay now that you have your dream camera you want to know what all these settings are about.  Please review the manufactures instruction guide for specific instruction but we will discuss some of the basics on settings.  First let’s decide what we are going to do with the pictures.  If you are just going to email the pictures to family and friends you can change the setting to mega pixels to 2 this will produce picture that are 640×480.  If you want to print the pictures, you will want to keep the mega pixels at the highest possible setting.  Setting tips:

1. i.      Make sure you remove the time and date from the pictures if you don’t want them showing up covering the picture.
2. ii.     If the object is standing still make sure you have the camera on a still setting. For moving objects make sure you select an action setting.
3. iii.     Set your flash to auto so the camera will know how much light is available before taking the picture.
4. iv.     If you are going to take moving video with your camera, remember there will be no flash so take daytime shots, and remember to turn off the video when you are done or it will eat up all your memory!

Did you buy additional memory?  Do you need additional memory? How much memory do you really need?  This all depends on the number of pictures you are going to take.  A 64 Mega Byte card will take about 100 pictures.  A 128 mega byte card will take about 150 pictures.  A 2 giga byte card will take about 2000 pictures.  If change your setting to a lower mega pixel you will be able to take additional pictures with the memory card.

So now that we have talked about the basic camera needs you want to know what to do with all of these wonderful pictures that you have taken?    I have taken some of the questions that I have received about saving pictures and put it in an easy to read version.

Q: Which folder should I keep my pictures in?

A:  If you are running Windows XP, you should save your pictures to the MY PICTURES in the MY DOCUMENTS folder.  To make it easier to find your pictures at a later time you should make a sub folder for each time you upload your pictures.

Q: I have Gmail and I want to save my pictures there.  Can I?

A: Yes you can.  If you have an X-Drive or Gmail you can load your pictures there.  This will help you reduce backing up your pictures.  The only down side to doing this is that you can only save about 300 pictures to these places.  The average camera user saves about 2000 pictures on their hard drive.

Q: Do I delete the pictures from the memory card after I upload them to my computer?

A: Yes.  You will want to delete the pictures so that you have the space on your memory care for additional pictures for future use.  Please be sure that you back up your system so that in case of computer failure that you have these stored.

Now that you have your dream camera, you know how to use it, you have loaded them on to your computer, you feel that you have done all that you need to do.  Well I suggest one more thing so that you will not lose those precious memories.   You will want to back your pictures up.  So you want to know how to back them up?  There are for types of backs up that you can do.

1.  A DVD or CD

Depending on the size of the pictures folder you can burn the folder directly onto a CD or DVD and store the disk away for safe keeping.  There are even programs that will turn your pictures into a slide show if you plan on giving a copy of the DVD or CD to others to view.

2.  An external hard drive

By storing them here if lowers the hassles of burning data and keeping track of the disk.  Plus if you get a 160 GB external hard drive you don’t have to worry about running out of space.

3.  A memory card

If you have under 1000 pictures, you save them to a memory card or even an IPod.  This way you can easily transfer the pictures to another computer or even print them out at a Wal-Mart or target store.

4. Online Storage

There are larger capacities online storage centers than X-Drive or Gmail.  Paying a monthly fee, you are able to store all your pictures online so if anything happens to your house that the computer is in, your pictures are always safe.  I would recommend either Iron Mountain (www.connected.com) or Pulkin Computer Services (www.pulkin.com).

Now that you have found a back up method that works for you, you know want to know how often that you need to back them up.  First, you should always do a back up when you up load new pictures to your hard drive.  You should also plan on doing a monthly back up just as a precaution.   Unfortunately, the unthinkable has happened and you now need to restore these pictures.  This is not has hard as you think.  First you go to your back up and reverse the steps that you had taken to back them up to begin with.  If you are using an on line service you can log in to the service and recopy the pictures to your My Pictures folder.    Please made sure that you wait until your computer is back up and running at full functionality before restoring any of your backed up data.   Last but not least what if you lost one of your pictures?  If you think that it is on your computer you can do a search for it by using Windows XP.  If you are not able to find it there, just check to make sure that you didn’t accidentally delete it and it is sitting in your recycle bin.

I hope that you found this information helpful.  Happy holidays to all of you and enjoy taking pictures this year. (And make sure you keep the naughty ones off Facebook!)

By Eddie L Hines AKA COMPUTERMAN!

Up until now, a lot of computer users that use a Gmail account simply log onto Gmail website check their email and that’s that.  However, in some offices the Gmail webpage has been banned so users can no longer check personal mail. Furthermore a lot of people also use Outlook to check their email, but are afraid to add Gmail to Outlook simply because they usually leave their outlook on at home set to automatically send and receive. This means that is they try to check their email away from home, OH NO no email!  Well this article will show you how to use a recently new technology called IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to check your emails from anywhere regardless of which mail program is receiving emails at the given time.

I will first show you how to enable Gmail to use IMAP then I will show you how to configure Outlook to receive it.   To start, go to gmail.com and go to the settings page by clicking on the upper right of the web page.

Once you are at the settings page, click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link near the top middle of the page.  On this page, you can ignore the forwarding section unless you have no other email address to forward your Gmail to.  At the POP download, I suggest you disable that so you cannot mistakenly use Email in Outlook anymore even if you did it by accident. Now the third option is IMAP…

Do you see these options? Let’s enable IMAP first by clicking on that first radio button.  Then say yes to Auto-Expunge. This will prevent your emails from piling up when you want to delete them offline.  The third option I would recommend you click on “archive the message”. This means if you deleted one by accident, Gmail will keep it on their server for 30 days regardless.  Save your changes then exit out of settings. You are done with the website portion, so let’s open up Outlook and begin working there!

I will be using Outlook 2007, but you can adjust this to any version of outlook you wish.

1. Open Outlook.
2. For new setups, select Do not upgrade.
3. Click Yes.
4. Enter your display name, email address (including ‘@gmail.com’), and password.
5. Select the ‘Manually configure server settings or additional server types’ checkbox.

1. Select Internet E-mail.
2. Settings: name, full email address
   • In the Account Type dropdown menu, select IMAP; enter the incoming and outgoing server names shown below.
   • In the ‘User Name’ field, give your full Gmail address, including ‘@gmail.com’
   • After creating these settings, clicking next takes you to the end of the setup.

1. In the Tools menu, select Options then Mail Setup. Under ‘Email Accounts,’ click E-mail Accounts.
2. Select an account, and click Change above the list of accounts. Click More Settings, then the Advanced tab.
   • Incoming server must be 993, and must use SSL encryption.
   • Outgoing server can use 587, TLS encryption.

1. Click the Outgoing Server tab. Make sure that ‘My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication’ is selected. The radio button ‘Use same settings as my incoming mail server’ should also be selected.
2. Click OK > Next > Finish > Close > OK.

This method works in mobile devices too! For Windows devices all you need to do are these steps…

• · Enable IMAP in your Gmail settings. (which you can find earlier in this article!)
• · Open the Start menu and select Programs > Messaging > New E-mail Account.
• · Enter your Gmail address (including ‘@gmail.com’) in the E-mail Address field*. Google Apps users enter your full address in the format ‘username@your_domain.com’*.
  * Windows Mobile 6.1 users: Enter an unintelligible email address (such as ‘g@g’) at this step. This will bypass the automatic configuration for POP access.
• · Uncheck the box that asks to get settings automatically from the Internet and select next.
• · Select Internet e-mail as your email provider in the drop-down menu
• · Enter your name as you want it to appear in sent emails.
• · enter a descriptive name for the email account and select next.
• · Enter ‘imap.gmail.com’ in the Incoming Mail Server field
• · Select IMAP4 as the Account type from the drop-down menu and select next
• · Enter your full email address (including ‘@gmail.com’ or ‘@your_domain.com’) and password.
• · Select Next
• · Enter ‘smtp.gmail.com’ in the Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server field
• · Make sure that the Outgoing server requires authentication box is checked.
• · Select the Advanced Server Settings link.
• · Make sure that the Require SSL box is checked for both incoming and outgoing emails.
• · Select the Internet as the network connection from the drop-down menu.
• · Select Done and then Next.
• · Select how often you want your phone to send/receive emails from the drop-down menu.
• · for more download options, select the Review all download settings link.
• · Select Finish.

Blackberry and IPhone users have similar instructions so follow these steps the best you can to create your email settings.

Using these steps you can now check your emails from anywhere…anytime…with any device.  For non-Gmail accounts that also use IMAP, just make sure IMAP is enabled with your server and make sure you get the SSL settings correct and you are on your way to getting your email, anyway you want it!

Given the popularity of netbooks, this should be a common scenario: You’ve got a Windows XP-based netbook and you want to upgrade to Windows 7. You certainly do qualify for the Upgrade media–any computer with a valid XP or Vista license does, remember–but there are issues. More specifically:

Platform. Netbooks run on the Intel Atom platform, which works only with 32-bit versions of Windows, so x64 is out.

Optical drive. Virtually no netbooks come with an optical drive, so using traditional DVD-based install media is impossible, or at least difficult.

Migration. Windows XP-to-7 migrations are ponderous and time consuming, even in the best of circumstances.

Now, if you’re lucky enough to have an external DVD drive you can attach to your netbook, you can use that in tandem with traditional (DVD-based) Windows 7 Setup media to perform a migration from XP to Windows 7. But since most people will not have such a drive, there are some extra steps. Fortunately, Microsoft and some enterprising third parties provide free tools to make it easier. Here’s what you will need to make it work:

USB memory key. You will need a USB memory key with 4 GB or more of storage space. (You might also use other USB-based storage devices, such as hard drives or even MP3 players, but I have not tested these types of devices.)

USB-based hard drive (or other comparable storage device). Because you’re performing a migration, you will (optionally) need to use Windows Easy Transfer to backup your documents, settings, and other data files. This is typically done with USB-based storage, but you can also use a network file share if you have one.

A 32-bit Windows 7 Upgrade DVD (or ISO file). You need to purchase any Windows 7 Upgrade version in traditional retail form (i.e. you received Setup DVDs in a box) or, more ideally, in downloadable ISO form from the online Microsoft Store.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. This handy and free tool will take a Windows 7 Setup ISO file and copy its contents to a bootable USB storage device. (It will also copy it to a bootable DVD.)

ImgBurn. This handy and free tool will take a Windows 7 Setup DVD and convert it into an ISO file that we can use with the Windows 7 USB/Download Tool. If you purchased Windows 7 Upgrade media in ISO form from the online Microsoft Store, you will not need ImgBurn.

Step-by-step guide

Here’s how to make it work.

1. Convert your Setup DVD to an ISO

If you only have DVD-based install media, you must first convert this disc to an ISO file. (Remember that you must use the 32-bit version.) Insert the Setup DVD, close the Auto Run window, and then run ImgBurn. In the main ImgBurn window, choose create image file from disc. (Optionally change the destination location to your desktop or somewhere obvious.) Click the graphical Create Image button in the bottom left to create the image. ImgBurn will create two files, the ISO you need and a separate unnecessary file that ImgBurn could use later.

ImgBurn can, among other things, convert a Windows 7 Setup DVD into a standard ISO file.

2. Copy the ISO to a USB key

Launch the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool (as it’s identified in Start Menu Search) and insert the USB storage device you want to use. In Step 1 of the application wizard, choose the ISO file you created in the first step of these directions (or the ISO file you downloaded from Microsoft) and click Next. In Step 2, choose USB device. In Step 3, choose the appropriate USB media from the drop-down list and then click Begin copying. The tool will (slowly) create a bootable USB-based install media. (Note that you must first copy any data off of the USB device as it will need to format and overwrite it.)

Microsoft’s free Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool can change a USB key into a bootable Windows 7 install media source.

3. Backup your existing data with Windows Easy Transfer

If you want to back up your existing documents and settings, the next step is to run Windows Easy Transfer. On the netbook, boot into the current Windows XP-based environment and insert the USB key into a spare USB port. Navigate to the \support\migwiz folder (typically D:\support\migwiz) and run migwiz.exe, which is the executable file for the Windows Easy Transfer utility. Use this utility to backup your personal data. (I provide more information about this process in Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7.

A couple of points, however: You will need a storage location big enough to hold all your data; this was about 129 GB on my son’s netbook. Also, note that the bigger the data set, the more time this process will take. When the backup is complete, remove the backup storage device, but leave the USB key with the Windows 7 install set plugged into the netbook.

It can take awhile, depending on how much data you have, but Windows Easy Transfer is a relatively painless way to move important documents and settings between old and new Windows installs.

4. Clean install and activate Windows 7

Next, you need to reboot the netbook and boot off of the USB key. (How you do this will vary from machine to machine–for example, on my son’s netbook, you hit the F12 key to pick the boot media–but you should see a message on the initial BIOS screen telling you how to make it work; otherwise, check your netbook’s documentation.) Run Setup normally, choosing the Custom install type (not Upgrade). Be sure to try and enter your new Windows 7 product key during Setup as well, if that option is offered. You may also get a choice to use the existing disk (in which case a windows.old folder structure will be created), but I did not, so I just formatted the disk and installed.

After Setup is complete and you’ve booted into your new Windows 7 desktop, activate immediately by typing activate in Start Menu Search and running the utility. It should work fine.

Success! Windows 7 on an optical-drive-less netbook, installed using Upgrade media.

5. Restore your data and reinstall your applications

Once Windows is activated, you’re all set (at least with the scary part). Now you can install updates and then use Windows Easy Transfer (which is included in Windows 7 and can easily be found via Start Menu Search) to restore your documents, data, and settings. Then, you need to reinstall your applications. Fortunately, Windows Easy Transfer does supply a pretty decent report about which applications were installed, so at least in the case of Internet-downloaded applications, you should be up and running pretty quickly.

Did you upgrade a netbook to Windows 7? Let me know how it went!

Windows XP does not allow you to perform an in-place upgrade to Windows 7. In fact, if you try to perform an in-place upgrade, you’ll see the following error message.

Instead, you’ll need to use a built-in utility on the Windows 7 Setup DVD called Windows Easy Transfer to transfer your documents and settings from your XP-based PC to a backup location first. Then, you will perform a clean install of Windows 7 and then use Windows Easy Transfer on the new install to copy over all your settings and data. This process is called a migration.

The downsides to a migration are many but not insurmountable. If you intend to install Windows 7 on the same computer as Windows XP, essentially replacing Windows XP with Windows 7, then you will need to be very careful to backup all of your data first. You will also need to reinstall all of your applications after you finish installing Windows 7. Here is a quick rundown of the steps.

1) Backup all of your data and, preferably, the entire hard drive just in case. (Why? Many applications store data in hidden locations and you may discover after the fact that you’ve wiped out two years of email or whatever.) You should do this even if you are using the Windows Easy Transfer utility as outlined below.

2) If you are installing Windows 7 on the same PC as Windows XP, consider installing it on a different hard drive or partition so that you can keep your XP install in place. This way, you can dual boot between both Windows XP and 7, copy files between the two environments as needed, and fall back to XP if it doesn’t work for some reason.

3) Use the Windows Easy Transfer utility (described below) to backup your XP-based documents and other data.

4) Make sure you have access to the application installers you will need.

5) Install Windows 7 over XP or in a different partition or hard drive. (Or, on a different PC all together, which is preferable.)

6) Use the Windows Easy Transfer utility (described below) to restore your XP-based documents and other data to your new Windows 7-based PC.

7) Reinstall your applications.

OK, let’s get started.

Secret: Windows Easy Transfer is a way to bridge the 32-bit/64-bit divide as well. While you cannot perform an in-place upgrade between any 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, you can use Easy Transfer to move your settings and documents from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version (and vice versa).

Backing up your XP-based settings and data

To run Windows Easy Transfer on your XP-based PC, insert the Windows 7 Setup DVD and navigate to D:\support\migwiz (assuming D:\ is your optical drive). Then, run the migsetup.exe application. You’ll step through a simple wizard that provides both automatic and manual ways to pick the data you’ll back up.

Windows Easy Transfer explains what it can backup.

You can backup from PC-to-PC with an Easy Transfer cable, or use a network share or USB-based storage device.

When you run the wizard, Easy Transfer scans each user account for settings and data.

When it’s done, the wizard will tell you how much space the data will consume.

You can globally accept the backup, or dive into the file system to manually choose (or un-choose) data to backup.

The resulting Easy Transfer file requires a password.

Once you’ve provided the information the wizard needs, your files are backed up.

Backup complete.

Restoring your XP-based settings and data in Windows 7

Once you wiped out Windows XP by clean installing Windows 7 (a straightforward process I will soon document here on the site), you can re-apply your XP-based settings and data. (Alternatively, you can simply apply these settings to another PC running Windows 7.) To do so, run the Windows Easy Transfer wizard on the new Windows 7-based install–this time, it’s available via the Start Menu–and step through it, locating your saved Easy Transfer file and re-applying the settings and data to the new system.

After locating the Easy Transfer file, you must unlock it by entering the password.

You can choose which parts of the backup to restore.

Advanced Options lets you map old user accounts and drives to different locations on the target PC if needed.

The items are then transferred over…

… resulting in a bizarre hybrid-look Windows 7.

Reinstalling your applications

Unfortunately, the migration process does not include a seamless way to reinstall your applications. So once your data has been copied over to your new Windows 7 install, you will need to manually reinstall those applications.

Afterwards, you can view the Easy Transfer Reports for information on previously installed applications that you may want to install now in Windows 7.

Final thoughts

Obviously, Microsoft should have provided a way for its largest group of customers–Windows XP users–to upgrade more seamlessly to Windows 7. (And after all, this process was provided in Windows Vista.) On the plus side, a migration does offer a truly clean install of Windows 7, and one that can easily include all of your previous documents and other data. Better still, the migration process can be used by other users to move to Windows 7. For example, even Windows Vista users can use this process to migrate from an old Vista-based machine to a new Windows 7-based PC. And anyone hoping to make the change from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version of Windows 7 can use the migration process described here to make it happen. Criticism is cheap. But the Windows 7 migration is a multi-faceted useful technique for getting from one version of Windows to another.

Now AT&T has a fav5 list too!

Not to be outdone by T-Mobile or Verizon, AT&T on September 20, 2009 has entered the “5 for free” market by introducing the “A”-List. With this list you have the ability to have up to five numbers protected from using any of your anytime rollover minutes.  This is a free feature for customers that qualify and you can edit the list at any time.  With the A-List and rollover, AT&T has positioned themselves as not only one of the top provider of cell phones (thanks to the IPhone), but also one of the more affordable carriers in the US. Below are the steps to activate the incredible service.  Make sure you have a voice plan of at least 900 minutes for an individual or 1400 family talk plan

1. Log into www.att.om/mywireless

1. Click “features” menu near the top of the page.

1. Go to the 2^nd page of “features” and you will see “A-List”. Select it

1. Click next at the bottom of the screen. That activates the feature

5,    Click “submit” at the bottom of the next page to confirm your selection

1. On the next screen, click on the “A-List” button to begin adding your favorite 5 people not on the AT&T network

Once you create the list consisting of the names and numbers of the people, you are done!   It takes up to 24 hours to activate the numbers (I recommend doing this on the weekend so when Monday rolls around they will be ready!)

Enjoy unlimited calls to and from the phone numbers in your A-List. Your A-List can include valid domestic phone numbers for any domestic service provider – wireless or wireline. If you have any questions on how the features work or any other AT&T feature, please contact me. Happy dialing!

By Matthew DeCarlo on September 15, 2009 Editor: Jose Vilches Write / Read user’s feedback Find hardware & software prices Bookmark / Share This

I’m not exactly sure when it became cool to abandon the use of your operating system’s desktop, but a growing number of people these days prefer the “clean” look. Recent releases of Microsoft Windows seem to encourage this. By default, Windows Vista and 7 strip the desktop of all icons but the Recycle Bin.

Try as you may, ignoring this lone icon is impossible. Sure, you can hide it in just a few seconds, but at the cost of losing quick access to deleted files. You could also drag the Recycle Bin icon to the taskbar, but then it will appear pinned under Windows Explorer — requiring an extra click to open and offering half the functionality.

In this tip, we will show you one method of bringing a fully functional Recycle Bin to your Windows 7 Taskbar, so you can clear off your desktop once and for all with little to no compromise.

To get started, we’ll have to bring out the Quick Launch bar. Rest assured, it will not replace the new Windows 7 Superbar — in fact you won’t even know Quick Launch is there. Right click on the Windows 7 Taskbar, hover over Toolbars and click New toolbar.

When prompted to provide a folder directory, enter the following string of text: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

After doing so, a labeled Quick Launch bar should appear near the clock. Odds are it will have several icons onboard, but since we won’t be using this bar for anything apart from hosting the Recycle Bin I would just delete all of the shortcuts.

Right click on the Taskbar and uncheck Lock the taskbar if it isn’t already. Now, right click on your Quick Launch bar and uncheck Show text, as well as Show title. Finally, right click and hover on View to select the size that your Recycle Bin icon will be — I chose large to match my Superbar icons.

With the Quick Launch bar configured, all you have to do is drag and drop the Recycle Bin onto it. Feel free to grab the dotted lines and drag the Quick Launch bar to your preferred location. I would recommend either pulling it all the way to the left near the Start menu, or all the way right near the clock.

When you are satisfied with the position of your Quick Launch bar, relock the Taskbar and hide the Recycle Bin on your desktop by right-clicking an empty space and selecting Personalize, then clicking Change desktop icons in the left column of the Personalization window and un-checking the appropriate box.

Sharing.    The word alone means a great savings to people using the internet, a printer, or

another resource they don’t have to buy multiple of. But how does it work? Is it reliable?

Is it secure? Well in the next few months we will explorer the joys and concerns of

networking and why you should have it.

Now the first thing you will need it something to actually share. The people that

would get the most out of networking have more then 1 computer, broadband access to

the internet (either cable modem or DSL), printing needs by all users, and files that are

shared across the different PCs. Let’s take a look at a cost comparison for someone using

networking and someone who does not. Let’s say they are paying $49 a month for

broadband

Person A (Network)                                        Person B

Internet Access – 3 PCs                      $49                                                      $150

Printer                                                     $149                                                    $447

Labor associated with setup            $160                                                   $0

CDs to burn data on to share              $0                                                       $30

Totals                                                  $309                                                    $627

You see the difference? And the more Pcs you add the more person B has to pay! But

you ask how much does it cost to set up a network? Well I am glad you asked that. The

main components you will need to set up a wired network are

• • 4 port wired Router – $30 (www.linksys.com)
• • # of Network adapters to correspond with # of Pcs networked ($15 each)
• • CAT 5 Cables ($15 each)

That’s it! The computer that’s already connected to broadband already has a network card

and a cable so all you will need is an additional cable for the each new computer and a

network card for each along with the router and you are ready. Be prepared to do a lot of

work cabling if you have computers on multiple floors. This network is more secure but

a pain to set up.

Now for you who choose an easier way, there is. With wireless networking you don’t

need cables and you can put the network anywhere in your home or office. The router

cost about $100 depending on which speed you want.

• • Wireless 4 port Router 802.11N – $80 (www.linksys.com)
• • Wireless USB 802.11N network adapters (1 per desktop or laptop) – $50

The regular speed is 54 Mbps which is fine for a home or small office of 5 or less

computers. If you have more then 5 and you transfer a lot of files back and forth, may I

suggest the 108Mbps 802.11N option? More expensive but faster throughput is worth it. After that

you need a wireless card for each computer you want to connect whether it’s a laptop or

desktop. Make sure you get the card that corresponds with what you have. If you have a

laptop on your network this will be a no brainer.