The Info Backstage

Well, we all have been there. We turn on our computer (boot up) getting ready to type that school report, or business presentation and guess what, our computer just does not want to work today. Whether it’s the word processor, spreadsheet, or financial package that isn’t working, most people do not know that Microsoft Windows XP has a built in feature that just may come and save the day. That feature is called “System Restore.”

Basically, System Restore is like a little hound that runs behind the scenes taking “snapshots” of various parts of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. So, if a part of Microsoft Windows XP stops working one day, the System Restore utility is able to reference one of the “snapshots” it took and restore your system from a previous day (a day when your computer worked). It’s kind of like going back in time to a day when your computer worked. All your current data (Microsoft Word files, etc.) are still retained, so you don’t have to worry about losing any present day files.

In order to restore your computer just follow these simple steps:

1. Close any open programs.

2. Click on the Windows “Start” button (normally located on the bottom of your computer desktop)

3. Click on “All Programs”

4. Click on “Accessories”

5. Click on “System Tools”

6. Then click on “System Restore”

7. At this point the System Restore wizard will launch. You will have two options:

a. “Restore my system from an earlier date”

b. “Create a system restore point”

If you just need to restore your system and get it working correctly again, just select option “a” and click “Next.”

8. On this screen you can select a date from the calendar that you would like to try and restore from. So, if you knew that your computer worked fine two days ago, just pick that date on the calendar and click “Next.”

9. The next screen is the confirmation window. Just verify the information on the screen and click “Next.” Windows XP will then reboot and try to restore your system with the settings from the date you selected.

The System Restore process can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes depending on how much reconfiguration Windows XP needs to do and how fast of a PC you have. When System Restore is done, a screen will popup with the results of the restore. If it was successful, you can then log into the system and start using the computer again. Any quirky issues that you were having are now hopefully gone.

Now, on step 7b above, I mentioned the “Create a system restore point” option. This option is for when you want to force Windows XP to take a snapshot of your system just before you install a program or alter any system settings that you are not sure of. It is like a safety net for when you install any internet programs (sometimes riddled with spyware) or system drivers (video, audio, etc). If you want to revert back to a virgin state just create a restore point “before” installing any software. This way, if your machine starts acting weird, you can just restore your settings from the selected point.

With a little practise, the System Restore utility is easy to use and a great way to help ensure the safety of your computer.

Scott Morris manages the site on register internet domain names.

With Valentines coming the gents and ladies will be thinking about what to find their other half and sex aids are consistently on the shopping list. Last Autumn found the sex toy industry explode with sales more than 4 billion. The biggest selling sexy aids were vibrators. The vibrator is the very best selling sex toy as it is so well known, almost any blue movie features vibrators as well as TV programmes like Twin Peaks. For those who want double the pleaseure try sex with Double Ended Dildos.

The second biggest selling sexy aid is of course the dildo, dudes and females across the UK love dildos due to the size and shapes sex toys come in. You might well get a 5 inch white dildo for your bedside drawer or a 12 inch glass dildo for underneath your bed. Sexy toys are astonishing sexy toys make sex more interesting and give your partner a marvellous time.

Marital toys might well be bought from online retailers which get delivered next day and in plain packaging, or you might well even go down to your local sexual toys shop and pick one up. The price for sexy toys start from around 5 pounds. The mass availability and price of sexual toys is phenomenal and that is why guys and ladies delight in sex toys.

Cialis

Erectile Dysfunction, also called impotence or ED. Almost every male has to face impotence problem once in his life. If you are suffering from impotence, you can treat it easily as there are some effective drugs available in the market. Read on to know more about the right drug.

Majority of population among men rank sex at the top of their priority list. So without doubt, sexual problems are bound to be uppermost if any. For most men their vagaries start when they have difficulty in achieving and maintaining erection that obstructs smooth sexual activity. This condition of loss of erection, better known as erectile dysfunction or impotence, is very serious and should be treated effectively. If you have this problem, buy Cialis and you will be able to get rid of this major problem.

Cialis works by increasing blood flow to the penis in response to sexual stimulation. When you buy Cialis and take this blue pill, it relaxes the blood vessels in the penis. This allows blood to flow into the penis causing an erection. Remember, Cialis will help you get an erection only if you’re sexually stimulated.

Cialis is an oral prescription medication for the treatment of Erectile Dysfunction, generally known as impotence, in men. Clinically, Cialis has proved to be a very effective and victorious treatment for ED even in men with acute health problems like diabetes, prostate surgery, hypertension etc. Men with ED have testified to attaining reliable improvement in erection quality and overall sexual performance after taking Cialis.

I recently got an e-mail asking about virtual memory. The person who sent me the question was getting an error on random occasions from their Windows operating system stating “Your computer is low on virtual memory”. They wanted to know what is virtual memory, and if this error does occur, what can I do to fix it? Here is the answer that I sent out:

“Virtual memory is when your computer uses the hard drive as a memory relay once your real memory has been used up. This usually starts happening when someone has installed new programs or is using multiple large programs at one time. Have you installed something new recently, or changed how many programs you are using at one time? Does it seem to occur when you are using a specific program, or perhaps after running a specific program for a longer than usual period of time?

To check your virtual memory settings, follow these steps:

1. Click on Start

2. Select Control Panel

3. Click on System

NOTE: When you first click on System, it will show you the “General” information tab. This tab will indicate how much RAM (physical memory) your system has installed (usually towards the bottom, should be something like “128 MB of RAM”. Make a note of this number.

4. Click on the Advanced tab

5. Click on the Settings button under the top box, labeled Performance

6. Click on the Advanced tab, and this will show your current setting for virtual memory.

NOTE: Windows usually manages this number automatically, and usually doesn’t require any adjustment. Optimally, this number should be somewhere between 2X and 3X the number noted earlier for the amount of system RAM. You can change the setting by clicking on the Change button located at the bottom of this section. You can then set the minimum to 2X (put in the actual number) and the maximum to 3X of the physical RAM.

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions I posed at the beginning, you may need to re-evaluate the system requirements of any programs involved and consider an actual physical RAM upgrade, if your motherboard will support additional RAM. That can have a big impact on what’s happening.

Until next time,

Michael Arcand
www.techsupporthelpdesk.com

Michael Arcand is a CompTIA A+ Certified computer technician and entrepreneur specializing in computer tips & tricks for home users. His most recent venture online provides cost-effective online tech support for home and small business users.

(This article may be reprinted as long as the complete resource box is left intact with embedded links.)

All over the world, people carry with them walkmans and other music devices so that they can play their favorite music as they move around from place to place. The latest thing in the portable music devices field is the iPod, which offers a higher quality of the music being played and one of the most compact design out there.

The iPod allows you to play your music for an very long time (up to 12 hours for most of them) and have a huge amount of storage (some have 30GB). You can store thousands songs within a standard iPod and have instant access to them wherever you are at the moment. This makes them the perfect choice for your nowadays music necessities.

With iPods, transferring music from a CD takes less than 5 seconds, assuming that you use the FireWire and USB 2.0 support and can be transferred in a rather wide variety of formats, such as MP3, WMA, or AAC. With the iPods, users have the ability of importing songs from CDs, shuffling through songs, or choosing specific playlists, to name just a few of the iPods’ features.

iPods are also equipped with a calendar, contact lists, notes and a musical alarm clock, which makes them more than just a portable music device, along with their huge storage capability. With them, you can take your files anywhere at any time, use memos as reminders and even record whatever you want with their microphone option.

iPods come with a wide variety of language support for languages like English, Italian, German etc. and models, such as iPod mini, iPod, iPod Special Edition and iPod Photo, each with its own storage capability (4GB for the iPods mini to 30GB for iPods Photo).

In addition to the device itself, a wide line of accessories are available for iPods, such as camera connector, power adapter, auto charger, car holder, voice recorder and many more.

In conclusion, with their high quality of the music being played, high storage capability, high transfer speed and all their functions, the iPods make the perfect choice if you are a music addict or just need a portable storage device.

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The year is 1981. IBM has just released the Personal Computer; a low cost machine it hopes will create a winning brand. Several models are produced in quick succession accompanied by an ad campaign featuring a Charlie Chaplin figure. The message is clear: It’s cheap and it’s cheerful.

The growth vector for the product turns out to be a software application called a spreadsheet. Its many early forms – VisiCalc, Multiplan, Lotus 1-2-3, along with WordStar word-processing and of course games all help drive hardware sales.

Nobody seems to question the rapid and promiscuous spread of these programs by copying onto 5.25″ floppy disks and passing them from person to person.

That was then. This is now. Harsh fines and jail sentences are threatened to anyone involved in doing what came naturally back in the early ’80s. It’s a Very Bad Thing to copy software without having a license to do so. They say ‘this stuff is ours, we want to be paid for it’, and of course they’re right.

But here is a problem. Software’s binary information is a kind of digital DNA, always wanting to replicate. It’s what has made and sustained the digital revolution. When transmitting information, whether from one disk to another or over the Internet, errors can be corrected, faint signals regenerated as new, and even lost portions of messages recreated. This is the essence of the digital world, and replication is its big trick.

One of the things most of us did with our first computer was to copy something. In our early PC vocabulary COPY was the most popular word. Doing it was so easy and so immediately rewarding. It did nobody any harm – did it? The user got the software and the manufacturer got their product widely distributed.

But a company has to make money, not just gain market share, and at some point in time a shift occurred. It’s as if the manufacturers decided to play the soccer off-side rule and grab the high moral ground at the same time – nearly every PC owner in the world was suddenly wrong-footed. And no one after all can disagree with their position. But how will they play catch-up on their lost revenues? How can they now make all their customers compliant?

A London analyst who specialises in intellectual rights issues says “the paradigm we have at present where the license chases the product doesn’t seem to be an effective mechanism for compliance by itself.”

In other words trying to push a license into everywhere the software has gone without the ease with which the software got there in the first place will prove difficult. But that’s not all.

An account manager for a hardware firm in the US says “It can be difficult to keep the licensing nailed down. The hardware changes, the software moves on, departments, even companies, merge. The picture is always changing”

Demand has always fuelled innovation in Information Technology. Fluid, dynamic, competitive, the elements of IT constantly move. Suppliers apply different strategies at different times for different reasons: Market share, volume shipments, profit. Licensing is a big weapon in their arsenal. Then new technologies emerge, legislation changes, big players go bust and others are created. It’s hard to see how a static and legalistic document can cover all this.

There are also the licensing arrangements that software manufacturers employ. Licenses may be priced according to whether they are academic, charity, large volume, product upgrade, competitive upgrade, client server, thin-client, or one of several other types. On top of that there are the popular service add-ons of maintenance and technical support.

Of course if we all started afresh that would make things easier. But as that’s impossible we must do two things; look at new software in terms of correct quantity and correct type of license. That’s the easy part. The not so easy part is to look at what your company already has and see what licenses, if any, are missing or incorrect.

‘The biggest criminal gang in history’ is about to be disbanded.

©2003 Jamie Plenderleith

Microsoft Certified Licensing Specialist

Chief Developer – Whaddayagot Pro Asset Management Suite

About The Author

Jamie is a software design engineer with Everyman Technologies of Dublin Ireland. He attends Trinity College Dublin part time and is a Sci-Fi fan.

jamie@everyman.ie

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