WindowsTalk.org » The Desktop Experience

Setting Up the Acronis Secure Zone for PC Recovery

James — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:03:19 +0000

I have been a long-time user of Acronis True Image, but I have never really taken the time to set up the Acronis Secure Zone on my PC. No real reason, other than I am pretty good at running weekly full partition backups to my ioSafe external drive (see my review of the ioSafe Solo here).

However, with a laptop that is not always connected to the external drive, another backup solution is needed and the Acronis Secure Zone fits the bill perfectly.

What is the Acronis Secure Zone?

Most likely, if you own a fairly recent name-brand computer (Dell, HP, Toshiba, etc) it came with a ‘recovery partition’ instead of (or in addition to) a set of recovery discs. It would be this partition or disc(s) you would use to recover your PC to ‘day one’ condition, with all the software as well as the operating system – Windows- looking just the same as when you took it home from the store and opened the box. Great in case of a corrupt Windows installation, but restoring your PC in this way wipes all of your personal data as well!

Of course, you have been backing up all those priceless digital images, emails, documents, spreadsheets and such, haven’t you?

Well, if you haven’t, then Acronis True Image 2011 is well worth a look.

The Acronis Secure Zone (ASZ) is like a recovery partition, but it restores the most recent configuration of your PC with everything intact just like it was when the snapshot was created. It is easy to set up for the Acronis Secure Zone Wizard does most of the work for you. Once you start it, it determines how much free space is available to create it, and you can adjust the size if need be. I plan on just keeping the most recent Windows partition backup there, so I kept it on the small size. You can make it larger if you want to store more backup versions. It can also be adjusted later if you find you need more or less space for the ASZ.

Then the ASZ wizard will reboot your PC and create the partition for the ASZ. Once it is finished (my ASZ took about 5 minutes to create. YMMV) the PC will reboot again and you will get a screen saying that the ASZ was created successfully. Now, you can use the Acronis One-Click Backup to create an image to the ASZ as well as a separate file backup if you wish. You can also schedule it as often as you want, or turn off scheduling and run it manually. Or, use the ‘Non-Stop Backup’ option so you never have to worry about keeping your backups up to date.

Discover how well Acronis True Image Home 2011 and Windows 7 work together to better protect your PC.

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5 Tips to Reduce Printing Costs

James — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:51:52 +0000

By Nicholas Knowles (Contributed)

Print in “Draft Mode”

Depending on what you will use your document for, you may consider doing all your prints in “Draft Mode”. “Draft mode” uses less ink resulting in print that is slightly grey in colour or a shade lighter than the standard dense black ink used by most printers. While this may be suitable for prints you do for yourself, use the regular printing mode for more formal documents. A good way to ensure that you won’t be printing in the regular print mode at all times is to set the default to “Draft Mode”.

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Print smaller text sizes

If you are one of those people who prefers to print in larger fonts this may actually be working against you. Use smaller fonts and remove any “Bold” formatting from the document. By choosing more condensed fonts and smaller font sizes, for example no larger than font size 12, you will decrease the amount of ink required to print each document. Additionally you will waste less paper printing.

Save paper by forgoing double spacing and printing on both sides

For larger documents especially those that may require ten pages or more, forgo double spacing and use single spaced formatting to reduce the number of pages that will be required. While double spacing will make reading easier it will waste unnecessary paper, albeit no more ink will be used in either single or double spaced formatting. You should also set your printer to print on both pages of your paper. Some printers have an automatic setting to do this while with others you will need to turn over manually.

Always use “Print Preview” and “Shrink to Fit”

Use print preview to check how many pages and the formatting before printing. You run the risk of printing a document that is not easily read or that goes beyond the formatting lines, meaning that many of your words will be cut short making the print unusable. After using print preview make the formatting changes necessary to ensure a proper print. When printing from a web browser use shrink to fit to guarantee that the document will fit on one the necessary amount of pages.

Buy Compatible Printer Cartridges or have your Cartridges refilled

You may save money by purchasing generic or compatible ink cartridges or toner cartridges. Not all brands will have generic versions available; however you can check several online stores for the brands that does. Another way to save on the price of replacing the ink is to use refilled cartridges. By having your old printer cartridges refilled you may be able to save a substantial amount of money. The quality of refilled cartridges will not be suitable for photographic printing. However you will still be able to do regular prints without any noticeable difference in quality.

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Nick is a self-confessed computer geek and printing enthusiast, he writes for Ink Factory, a British company that has been in the printer supplies business for over ten years; as well as selling ink cartridges, the Company also operates Inkfactory.org, a site that promotes ink cartridge recycling.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicholas_Knowles

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How to Fix Slow Printing of PDF Files

James — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:41:18 +0000

By Glenn Lamb (Contributed)
I experienced a major problem with my HP Officejet Pro 8500 printer. When printing PDF files there was a long delay before the file would print. This is not acceptable for a top of the line inkjet printer.

I called HP tech support three times and was given several things to try with no improvement. A search of the internet showed that this is a common problem.

Some posts suggested that this could be a problem related to firewall or virus protection software. However disabling the firewall and antivirus software was no help. Other posts suggested reinstalling the printer or uninstalling other network printers. That didn’t help either. Upgrading to the newest version of “Adobe Reader” gave no improvement.

We have had several HP L7590′s at our auto insurance agency. The l7590 is the prior version of the HP Officejet Pro 8500, and none had this problem. So why would the new “improved” model be so much worse?

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I was about ready to give this printer away to someone that I don’t like, and buy a replacement printer of another brand. Finally I discovered the remedy! I downloaded a free version of “Foxit Reader” and selected that for my default PDF reader. Problem solved! As a bonus this free program also allows saving filled forms where the free version of Adobe does not.

So if you experience a delay in printing PDF files try the “Foxit Reader”. It is free and only takes two minutes to download. You get more features and much faster printing. I am going to make this my PDF reader on all my computers.

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Tip: The Right-Click Trick

James — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:09:23 +0000

Well, it is not really a ‘trick’, but I am always amazed when I show the right-click mouse option to some and they never knew it existed.

What is the right-click and what can it do?

Well, it depends on what program you are currently in or where you are in Windows itself.

For example, right-click a blank area of your desktop and this is what you will likely see:

Now, right-click the Computer icon on your desktop (if you have it displayed) and you will see different options:

You get the idea now; the right-click menu can be a like a group of shortcuts related to the item clicked.

How about extending the options available? I have been using a great little freeware product called ‘Right-Click Extender’ which adds (or can add, it is up to you) quite a few options to the right click menu. It is now in version 2 and can be downloaded from The Windows Club site: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/right-click-context-menu-extender-for-windows-7-released

My two favourite options that Right-Click Extender adds is ‘Copy to…’ and ‘Move to…’ when you click on a file:

Right-Click Extender v2 adds many new options from the previous version. Right-Click Extender is designed for Windows 7, but should work with Windows Vista as well. While not designed for Windows XP some features will work with XP as well, but if you try it and you don’t find the feature added, this is due to certain features not being available for XP.

For more information and to download your copy of Right-Click Extender visit: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/right-click-context-menu-extender-for-windows-7-released

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Why You Should Build a Music Server

James — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:00:56 +0000

By Michael Lihl
Are you an avid collector of music?

Imagine accessing your entire music collection using a single remote control, or browse album covers without getting up from your chair. No more disc flipping. Look up your favorite tracks within seconds or create play lists across your entire music collection. Your precious discs reside in a safe place to prevent them from getting scratched.

All of this and even more is possible with a digital music server. Virtually any modern computer (PC or Mac) plus cheap hard-disk storage is powerful enough to act as a music server that can handle thousands of discs in loss-less uncompressed quality.

Build a reference digital audio transport that can compete with players at any price!

More Benefits of Digital Music Servers

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), sales of physical discs have been constantly declining in the past 5 years as consumers are flocking to downloadable MP3 files. There is evidence to suggest the CD era is drawing to a close although physical discs and vinyl will certainly coexist with computerised systems for some time.

Here’s what you will be able to achieve by setting up a music server:

Turn a computer into a reference digital audio transport that will astound you
Stream music to multiple rooms in your home Navigate through your entire music collection within seconds
Create global song playlists Listen to worldwide internet radio stations Listen to music purchased from online stores such as iTunes or Linn Records Utilise digital room correction Digitise your analogue record collection Independence of failing mechanical CD transports.

What About Sound Quality?

A properly set up computer-based music transport can perform just as well or better than even the most expensive CD transports-at a fraction of the cost. That’s because your music resides as bit-perfect data files on a hard-disk.

Once properly stored, your music is no longer subject to read errors typical of CDs caused by scratchy surfaces, vibrations or non-centrical discs. The resulting high-quality error-free digital output stream can be translated into an analogue signal by a digital-to-analogue converter and then amplified.

Oops! Backup: for music, documents, images and other files

I generally design all my products to support the latest digital media products such as the Squeezebox, Sonos music system, or Apple/PC computer transports right out of the box.

But I believe this is just the beginning of the next revolution in digital audio! Once your music is digitally stored on a hard-disk, it opens up previously undreamed-of possibilities. Now you can even perform digital room correction and future upgrades become simply a matter of a software update.

Before dismissing all of this as a hype, bear in mind that professional mastering studios have long used computers for their daily work. These pros know why!

What You Need to Get Started

You basically need a receiver with a set of digital inputs in the SP/DIF format (look out for coaxial or optical Toslink inputs on the back of your amplifier or receiver). Your receiver would then translate the incoming digital signal into an audible analogue music stream. Audiophile listeners probably want to go with a dedicated external digital-to-analogue converter (also known as “DAC”) which can be connected to virtually any preamp or integrated amplifier. Many external DACs already come with USB or Firewire inputs which comes in handy if you want to use your Laptop as the music source. In addition, you probably want to purchase a large external harddisk to store your music. I would recommend planning for the worst — so do back up your music frequently. Better safe than sorry.

Example Setups:

PC/Macintosh as Source

If you prefer the flexibility of computers and don’t mind setting one up in your listening room, this appears to be a great choice. Simply connect the digital SP/DIF output of your computer’s sound card to one a high quality digital to analogue converter. Your music would reside on the computer’s internal hard-disk or on an external USB hard-disk or NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. For playback and library management software you have the choice between Windows Media Player, Foobar or Media Monkey on Windows platforms.

Laptop or MP3 Player

Establish a USB connection between your laptop/MP3 player and a digital to analogue converter with USB capability. Any audio file can now be played back in high quality through your stereo system.

Streaming media devices are quickly gaining popularity as you don’t need a computer in your listening room. They look and work like a home audio device and can be plugged into your home stereo system just like any CD or DVD player. Your music and the actual server can be located anywhere in the house so there’s no issue with noisy computer fans. Streaming media clients pull your music remotely from the server either via wired or even wireless LAN connections. Any computer or laptop can become a streaming server.

Some of the major players are Logitech Squeezebox, Transporter, Roku SoundBrige and the Sonos music system.

Apple Airport Express

If you’re already using Apple iTunes to manage your music collection and want your music to be streamed wirelessly in high quality to your home stereo system, then Apple’s Airport Express might be an alternative.

This device provides something like a “wireless digital output”. Simply connect its optical output to a digital to analogue converter for sonic bliss!

How Do You Convert Music into “Digital Files”?

For new music, your first option is to buy albums or single titles directly as data files from an online store like Apple’s iTunes. But be wary of lossy-compressed file formats.

MP3 quality below 320kb/s isn’t desirable for an audiophile. Another recent high-quality alternative is Linn Records, Linn’s very own online store which even offers true studio master quality file versions without copy protection.

For your existing music archive, you need to extract or ‘rip’ your CDs into data files first. All you need is a computer equipped with a DVD drive and some free software.

Although the software does most of the work like tagging songs and albums as you rip CDs, it’s still a bit of a tedious process though and might take some time to finish.

But fortunately you only need to do this once for each album.

Although Windows Media Player and Apple’s iTunes get the job done, more demanding audiophiles might prefer Exact Audio Copy because it’s known to produce bit-perfect results. I strongly recommend you download and use this software for high-quality audio extraction.

If you don’t want to do all the work, there’s help from professional service companies who will rip your entire CD collection in just a matter of days.

Regarding file formats and quality levels, I generally recommend sticking with loss less audio formats such as WAV, FLAC, WMA Lossless or Apple Lossless.

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