Are you an addict??

To my darling husband…… Dear John,

I am sending you this letter in a bogus software company envelope so that you will be sure to read it. Please forgive the deception, but I thought you should know what has been going on at home since your IBM computer entered our lives two years ago.

The children are doing well. Tommy is 7 now and is a bright, handsome boy. He has developed quite an interest in the arts. He drew a family portrait for a school project. All the figures were good, but yours was excellent! The chair and the back of your head are very realistic. You would be proud of him.

Little Jennifer turned 3 in September. She looks a lot like you did at that age. She is an attractive child and quite smart. She still remembers that you spent the whole afternoon with us on her birthday. What a grand day for Jen, despite the fact that it was stormy and the electricity was out.

I am also doing well. I went blonde about a year ago and was delighted to discover that it really is more fun. Lars–I mean Mr. Swenson, the department head, has taken an interest in my career and has become a good friend to us all. I have discovered that the household chores are much easier since I realized that you don’t mind being vacuumed around, although that feather duster does make you sneeze. The house is in good shape. I had the living room painted last spring. I’m not sure if you noticed it. I made sure that the painters cut air holes in the drop cloth so you wouldn’t smother. Well, dear, I must be going. Uncle Lars – Mr. Swenson, I mean, is taking us all on a ski trip and there is packing to do. I have hired a housekeeper to take care of thing while we are away. She’ll keep things in order, fill your coffee cup, and bring your meals to your desk, -just the way you like it. I hope you and IBM have a lovely time while we are gone.

Tommy, Jen and I think of you often – try to remember us while your disks are booting.

Love, Mary.

Its been a minute

Hey folks, its been a minute or two since I posted here. I have been in the middle of a household move that has me completely drained. We will return you to your regularly scheduled computer chit chat shortly!

I completely forgot!

I had said I would make a post on creating manual restore points in Windows XP. Common reasons for creating manual restore points would be the following:

1. You feel you have your system set up just perfect for you and everything is running great. This will ensure you can get back to this state in case of trouble in the future.

2. Your about to install a program you are unsure of and want to be able to get back to that safe state you had before hand.

OK so here goes…

Open the Restore Utility by going to your System Tools group under Accessories in your Programs menu. Click on your System Restore icon.

To create a manual restore point click on the option for “Create a restore point” then press NEXT. Now you will be asked to name the restore point. When you are finished press the CREATE button. The System Restore Utility will then give you a confirmation screen letting you know that you have successfully created the restore point. You can now choose CLOSE to close out the Utility. PRESTO! Complete! So simple dont ya think?

OK so I bought a registry cleaner!

Ya know, Im pretty confident in my computer skills so to speak, but when it comes to the registry I just absolutely HATE to mess with it. I searched and searched looking for a good registry cleaner out there, lots of searches on Google. There are a ton of them out there and I tried quite a few before I actually purchased one. CCleaner seems to be popular but I just wasnt happy with the results. While one the CCleaner site I noticed a Google ad for PC Registry Cleaner so I took a look over there. I downloaded and installed their free trial scan and it found quite a bit that CCleaner did not. I decided to go ahead and purchase the PC Registry Cleaner for a year, its a little less than 30 bucks so why not? They also include technical support with your purchase as well as well as a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee, how can you go wrong there? If you want to see for yourself, just check it out at the link below.

http://www.maximumsoftware.com/registrycleaner.php

Do you know how to use your Windows XP system restore feature?

This is such an excellent feature to have built right into the operating system and is used to restore your system to a previous state when your experiencing a system failure or even just an unknown issue. This saves you from having to reinstall the operating system and potentially having to lose important files. in the process. So many people I talk to don’t even know its there, much less know how to use it. Its so simple and can alleviate a ton of headaches for you. You do need to ensure that System Restore is turned on and is saving restore point *snap shots* for you on a regular basis. I have no idea how many times Ive gone to walk someone through a system restore only to find out that they don’t even have it enabled. How heartbreaking is that??

Its great to be able to go to the System Restore feature and make a manual restore point before installing new software or making vital changes that could possibly wreak havoc on your machine. You always have a safety net in place.

To use the System Restore, make sure you’re logged on as an administrator, and then follow these steps:

1. Click Start, go to All Programs, go to Accessories, go to System Tools, and then choose System Restore.

2. On the System Restore screen, choose Restore my computer to an earlier time, and then click Next.

3. On the Select a Restore Point page, select the date on the calendar that shows the restore point you’d like to restore to, and then click Next.

4. On the Confirm Restore Point Selection page, verify that the correct restore point, and then close any open programs.

5. Click Next if you are ready to proceed or click Back to change the restore point.

6. The computer will shut down automatically and reboot. Once rebooted, you’ll see the Restoration Complete page, just click OK and your finished.

Next time we will discuss how to create manual restore points!

Who has Vista now?

Im still in the indecisive stage on whether or not to upgrade to Vista just yet. I was a die hard who went straight from 98 to XP skipping all the other crap in between. Im just not sure if Im ready for this big change again. My newest machine is Vista ready, but am I? lol Im already hearing so many negative things about it as well. Is this because people are just throwing it on an old machine with just the bare minimum requirements and hoping for the best? Is this causing more issues than its worth?

Anyone having a good experience? I have a friend I was chatting with that recently bought what he called his *new super laptop* which has Vista on it and he loves it. I didnt bother to ask what he bought but will do so when i get the chance again. Ive talked to a few people that upgraded their XP machine and have had nothing but problems since.

*sighs*