Backing Up Your Data in Windows XP

Backing Up Your Data in Windows XP

by: Kara Glover

If you haven’t backed up your important data at least to a CD, you should do so IMMEDIATELY! A computer, any computer, can crash at any time, whether itกs a new computer, an old computer, a really expensive computer, or a cheapy.

This article will teach you how to back up your My Documents folder on a CD, since the My Documents folder is where people usually keep most of their important stuff. I only discuss the method for Windows XP here, because methods for other operating systems tend to vary.

(By the way, you need a CD burner (or CDRW) to do this. If you’re not sure if you have one, look at your CD drive(s) and see if you see ‘rewritableก written in tiny tiny letters. If so, you can burn CDs. If not, well you might want to think about getting a CD burner installed in your computer.

1. Open your CD burner. Thereกs usually a button on the outside you can press to open it. Place the CD in the burner. The side you will burn onto should be face down. Close the burner, again using the same button you used to open it.

2. Wait a minute. A box should pop up on your screen with a variety of choices. Click once on the choice that says กOpen Writable CD Folder Using Windows Explorer.ก (Thereกs a picture of a manilla folder next to it.) Your choice should turn blue. Click OK.

3. A box opens up representing the empty CD you want to burn. Now take your mouse pointer and place it on the top blue border of this box. Press and hold (don’t click) with your left mouse button, and drag the box down into the lower righthand corner of your screen.

4. Locate your My Documents folder on the desktop. If this folder isn’t on the desktop, you should put it there for convenience sake. See the tip How to Put a Shortcut on your Desktop.

5. Now simply press on the folder with your left mouse button and drag the folder onto the empty box representing your CD in the lower right corner. You should see the contents of your folder being copied over. If you get a box asking if you want to copy ‘thumbsก files, you can say กYesก or กSkip.ก Itกs your choice. These files aren’t important, trust me. You can also check the box to repeat your answer for each of these files to save time.

6. When the folder is completely copied to your CD box, clik on กWrite these Files to CDก on the lefthand side of the box. A กwizardก pops up.

7. Click Next in the wizard (ignore the CD name and date underneath) Wait for the CD to burn. Youกll see a green line progress across the screen.

8. When the CD is done, it should pop out of its drive, and you can click on Finish in the wizard. Label your CD with a Sharpie or other felttip pen, and you’re all backed up!

About The Author

©2005 by Kara Glover

Kara Glover is a Computer Tutor and Troubleshooter. You can find her online articles and tutorials on topics such as Microsoft Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint® at her website: http://www.karathecomputertutor.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 21

by Kara Glover

How to Keep Your AdSense Account From Being Nuked

How to Keep Your AdSense Account From Being Nuked by Google

by: Robert Plank

There have been whole AdSense accounts bringing in $5000 per month banned for life from Google because of fraudulent clicks. If Google catches you clicking on your own AdSense ads, they can shut you down.

You won’t get canned just for a single click, but if you’re like me and tweak your site a lot itกs only a matter of time before you click on one of those things by accident.

The way I keep this from happening is I temporarily block the domain name Googleกs ads are served from. Once Iกm finished editing my site I go back under the hood and turn it back on.

Getting this setup will take you less than a minute.

First, find your HOSTS file.

Open Notepad. Go to File, and Choose Open.

If you have Windows 95, 98, or ME browse to the folder กC:\windowsก

If you have Windows XP Home browse to the folder กC:\windows\system32\drivers\etcก

If you have anything else (Windows XP Pro, Windows 2000, NT, 2003, etc.) browse to the folder: กC:\winnt\system32\drivers\etcก

Once you’re there, open the file called กhostsก. If you don’t see anything listed just type the word hosts and the file should open up. Just the word กhostsก, no extension or anything after that. Itกs probably blank but it might not be.

Add this line:

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

And save. You’re done.

Now go back to a site that you know has some Google Ads. There should be an empty space where the ads appeared.

Want to turn it off? Don’t just delete it, put a ก#ก sign in front of that line, like this:

# 127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

Whatกs that do? It basically says กignore this line.ก I like to leave it like that so when I want to hide Google Ads again, all I have to do is remove the ก#ก sign and save – then put the ก#ก back in when Iกm ready to go back to normal.

About The Author

Robert Plank

See how you can take the oldest PHP trick in the book and give it a unique twist by watching this free video.

http://www.affiliatebattleplan.com/Rewrite.html

This article was posted on August 1

by Robert Plank

OptIn Email Marketers: How to Deal With a Growth

OptIn Email Marketers: How to Deal With a Growth Pain of Internet Success, the Email Glut

by: Marty Foley

There are certain Internet business problems that have a positive side: They come as a byproduct of growth and success.

This article can help you cope with a very common growth pain: that of being swamped with email. Some of it junk, some of it helpful reading material, some of it important correspondence that you must reply to and/or file away for future reference.

The email glut can cost you dearly. Hereกs your first tip on dealing with it:

Start with a good email program.

This is a foundation stone of efficient Internet business operations. Here are some top email programs that can help you automate much of your email operations, based on the collective opinions of many experienced cyberpreneurs:

Pegasus: http://www.pmail.com/

Eudora Pro: http://www.eudora.com/

MS Outlook: http://www.microsoft.com/outlook/

Learn and use the automation features of a good email program.

All the above programs help automate various email activities to one degree or another, through features generally referred to as กfilters.ก If you’re not using an email program with automated filtering capabilities, or if you have one but aren’t taking advantage of filters feature, seriously consider it.

Arrange wellorganized email folders.

If too much email sits in the กIn Boxก of your email program, it can get overwhelming, and itกs very easy to overlook the highpriority messages. You can reduce that by using filters to move certain messages to folders specifically set aside for them.

(With Pegasus, you can also set up a series of กQuick Folderก keys, which allow you to quickly copy or move messages to certain folders with just a couple of keystrokes.)

Periodically assess your email flow.

Subscribing to too many email lists can also contribute to your email deluge. If overwhelmed, periodically step back, assess which lists are delivering you true value and which aren’t and unsubscribe from those that don’t make the grade.

To save time, you can temporarily move those you want to cancel to a folder named ‘to Unsubscribe,ก and cancel several at once.

Reduce spam.

This wellworn topic gets old sometimes, and there aren’t any miracle solutions, but here are a couple of quick tips:

Use email filters to move spam (or potential spam) to a folder set aside for it.

Spam often (but not always) has an email address other than one of your own in the ‘tOก line of the email message.

If you use a filter to delete all such messages outright, thereกs a chance youกll miss some important email. If you move it to an email folder set aside for it, then you can scan through it quickly on occasion and make judicious use of your delete key. After a while youกll be able to accurately detect most spam messages without opening them.

Be careful giving out your main email address(es).

Some people willingly hold people กhostageก to their email lists. Itกs frustrating (and sometimes seemingly impossible) to unsubscribe. Thatกs certainly not a way to foster good business relationships, but it happens. (Iกm not talking about other problems leaving a list that aren’t the fault of the list owner; thatกs another story.)

If you’re a bit wary about giving out your main email address due to this or other problems, you can either set aside an กaliasก address within your domain that you only use for situations like this (and use a filter to send those messages to a special email folder).

You can also use one of the free email addresses available online that forwards messages to your main email account. If worse comes to worse and that address starts getting overwhelmed with spam, you can stop the flow by cancelling it.

Note: Some list owners prefer that you do not subscribe using a free email account, due to various issues.

Well, there you have it: Some practical tips for dealing with a common กgrowth painก that often comes with Internet success. May these tips contribute toward your own Internet success story, while bringing some relief to a common กgrowth pain.ก

More Helpful Resources…

LeadFactory is a proven กpay per subscriberก or กpay per leadก service that EXPLODES the size of optin email lists! ==> http://ProfitInfo.com/cf/leadfactory.htm

Want to boost your optin email profits? Sign up now for ProfitInfoกs free Email Profits ECourse:

==> http://ProfitInfo.com/cf/ecourses.htm

About The Author

Marty Foley is a successful home business owner and the founder of http://ProfitInfo.com/. His Internet marketing techniques and resources have helped set the standard in ecommerce, and have often been imitated by other famous Internet marketers. They can truly help you succeed online: http://ProfitInfo.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 3, 2002

by Marty Foley

Net Novice No More

Net Novice No More

by: M6.net

A relative novice when it came to the Internet, not too long ago I didn’t have a clue where to start when trying to create a website or why I had the need for one. Luckily though, with time and practice, it became apparent.

Having a website has advantages, providing solutions to a wide range of everyday problems. Websites can be used as a personal identity to promote you or what you offer, to the world, be it global, local or personal.

Web hosting, where one puts a web presence and stores it along with pictures, pages and ‘tricksก. As a novice I felt the need to have things explained to me in the simplest of terms and I know I’m not alone.

For all those out there who quietly sink into their seats when friends or colleagues start discussing the กNetก, I am going to explain to you, what web hosting is. Simply.

The web page. This is a document file, created by a web Editor software such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver. It is your first step, this is the page you will view. It will hold your pictures, your logos, your text, your links to other places and your Internet ‘tricks and fanciesก.

You then need to create your content, as above, pictures, logos, text etc. Once compiled, as you have with other computer design programs, you need to take the images and web pages and find a web host. This a service provider that offers space for your กNet presenceก.

Now …once you have negotiated a ‘rentก for your presence on the providers land (his servers), you will need to กmove inก. You will be given the key, a secret password and ID that only you will know, which will unlock your กplotก of web presence.

Once you are here, then it is only time you will need for unpacking your gear, and nestling into your web presence. You will be faced with a space to put up your web pages; drag and drop your created web pages; and you will be advised to create a folder called กImagesก, where you will double click to open, and you will place your pictures, logos, and other images in.

A good tip: take note of the web address, path, http://www.yourdomain.com/images/pic1.gif as you will need this to direct your picture (pic1.gif) from the images folder to your web page. Also note, that you can direct the image off to another page by applying a hyperlink address to it in your web pagecreating software.

This is basically it, once you have gotten this far, you are more advanced than the majority of the world. You have a web presence, you have a folder which looks and acts like any other folder on your computerกs desktop; in which you have web pages and a folder called กImagesก; and finally the images are in the กimagesก folder. Web hosting is really the selling of virtual space for you to store your websites. There’s really nothing too complicated about it.

Now the decorating is up to you, you can adorn it with pictures and text or in time add automated and smart features; and to provide invitations to your กpresenceก warming, (promotion of your site) you can find help with by searching the Net for กOnline Promotionก.

About The Author

M6.net

http://www.m6.net

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 01, 2004

by M6.net

How to Organize Your Digital Photos

How to Organize Your Digital Photos

by: Gary Hendricks

If you’re like me, you may have taken tons and tons of digital photos with your trusty digital camera, but never took the time to organize them. It’s certainly not a good idea to have thousands of photos lying in your hard drive totally disorganized. For one thing, it’s going to be very tough to find a specific photo for viewing purposes.

So what can you do to put those photos into some semblance of order? Well, this article will show you how, so read on. We’ll assume Adobe Photoshop Album is used as the photo management program of choice.

Step 1: Get a Good Photo Management Program

The first step in organizing your precious photos is to get a good photo management program. Some people maintain that you don’t need a dedicated program to organize your photos – they prefer to use native Windows XP features to do the organizing.

Personally, I think a dedicated, commercial grade program is better since they is usually more user friendly and there are a host of extra features (e.g. the ability to catalog and backup your photos). Currently, my favorite program for organizing photos is Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0. You can also consider an alternative option, Ulead Photo Explorer 8.5, which is equally good.

Step 2: Bring your Photos into Photoshop Album

Now the next thing you need to do in the organization process is to import those pictures into Photoshop Album. If your pictures reside in your camera, then make sure you hook up the USB cable between the camera and computer. Then click on the Get Photos button with Photoshop Album. If your pictures are already in your computer’s hard drive, then click on From Files and Folders in the menu.

I guess it’s appropriate to introduce my folder structure for digital photos. I use a very simple folder hierarchy. In my computer’s C: drive, I have a folder called ‘Photos’. Under ‘Photos’, I have 3 subfolders.

Raw photos

Edited photos

Unsorted photos

The ‘Raw photos’ directory stores all original versions of my pictures. This means they have been untouched by any image editing program. Assuming I had 50 photos in my collection, I’d name the photos here in running order using filenames like PIC0001.jpg, PIC0002.jpg, PIC0003.jpg … PIC0050.jpg.

The ‘Edited photos’ directory will contain only the edited versions of my images after perform edits like cropping, sharpening or redeye removal. Following the above example, if I only edited PIC0001.jpg and PIC0003.jpg, then only these two files would appear in this folder.

The ‘Unsorted photos’ directory is sort of a temporary area I use to store any new pictures imported from the camera. After I import the pictures, they may have funny names like IMG001.jpg, IMG002.jpg, etc. What I usually do is to rename them according to my convention in the ‘Raw photos’ folder. In the above example, I would name the photos in the ‘Unsorted photos’ directory as PIC0051.jpg, PIC0052.jpg, PIC0053.jpg, etc.

Step 3: Tag your Photos

With your pictures imported into Photoshop Album, you can begin the tagging process. What’s that you ask? What’s tagging? Well, tagging is a cool concept found in photo management software. What you do is to attach descriptive text called tags (e.g. ‘Uncle Joe’, ‘Robert’s Birthday’, ‘School Play’), to each photo in your collection. When you do this, you no longer need to worry about a picture’s filename, folder or date. All the need is the tag that you entered.

For example, if I had a tag called ‘Uncle Joe’ attached to 30 pictures in my hard drive (regardless of their filename, which folders they were in or when they were taken), all I need to do is to search for the tag ‘Uncle Joe; in Photoshop Album. The program will automatically locate and retrieve those 30 pictures for my viewing pleasure.

OK, back to Photoshop Album. If you have existing tags, you can attach them to your photos by dragging and dropping them on individual photos. You can tell that a photo has been tagged if there is a small icon shown in the photo’s thumbnail.

If you don’t have an existing tag, you can create a new one choosing the Tag > New Tag option from the menu. You’re allowed to specify the category of the tag (e.g. People, Places, Events) and can enter the actual tag keyword, along with a note for describing the tag.

Step 4: Move Your Photos to Appropriate Folders

Once you’ve tagged all your photos in Photoshop Album, it doesn’t matter where they reside in the computer’s hard drive. If you’ve just imported a new batch of photos, you can proceed to now move your digital photos to whichever folders you want. For me, I’d first rename any new photos in my ‘Unsorted Photos’ folder, then proceed to move them into the ‘Raw Photos’ folder.

Step 5: Edit Your Photos If Necessary

You can perform basic image edits like rotation within Photoshop Album itself. Basic image editing functions like rotation, cropping and redeye removal are readily available at the click of a button. You can find out more in my photo editing guide here.

Step 6: Backup All Your Photos Regularly

Within Photoshop Album, there is a function to regularly backup your entire photo catalog. All database information (in particular, tag information) will be backed up as well. You will want to get a CD burner, DVD burner or even an external hard drive to cater for this purpose.

Conclusion

Taking the time to organize and clean up you digital photo collection is a worthwhile investment. By tagging your photos properly, you’ll be able to retrieve images in a snap. No more sifting through folders and image files to locate that specific photo. Try the above organization tips out and I’m sure your digital photo experience will be that much more rewarding. Good luck and have a great time organizing!

About The Author

Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site on digital photography. Visit his website at http://www.basicdigitalphotography.com for tips and tricks on buying digital cameras, as well as shooting great photos.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 15

by Gary Hendricks