If you would like to change the color of your theme for any office 2007 program you can use the registry. You have the option to change to one of three different background colors. You can choose from blue, silver, or black. To change the color, BE VERY CARFULL and follow these directions. This edit will work for most installations of Microsoft office.

1.       Open Run and type “regedit”

2.       Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\

3.       Click the “Common” folder

4.       In the common folder you will find “Themes”. Double click “Themes”.

5.       Change the Hexadecimal value to the following:

1 = Blue

2 = Silver

3 = Black

6.       Close the registry editor and open office. The theme should be updated to reflect the registry key.

If you do not feel comfortable using the registry, it is just as simple,  to change the color from the office menu. To accomplish this you will need to open any office program. Once an office program is open, click the office logo at the top left of the window. From there, click “Word options” In this menu under the “Popular” tab, you will find “Color Schemes”. From the dropdown list, you can choose from the three different colors. Click “OK” to apply the change. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, you will need to open an email or click “New” to open a second window that will have the office logo. From there you will find “Editor options”.

Changing the color of your Microsoft office application can be done in two ways. Both are just as effective, but if you do not feel comfortable using the registry, use the second method to change your theme.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Have you ever wanted to know what the best free applications are for your PC? Well, wait no more! Here is a list of my person top 10 picks. These are all around great programs and are all free of charge! Let’s get started.

1.       VLC Player:

VLC player is a small program for playing just about any video or audio you can throw at it. From popular DVD to MPEG to uncommon formats like MKV and DVB this program most likely be able to handle it.

2.       7-Zip:

 7-Zip is a utility for decompressing file extensions. Common formats like .zip and .rar are no problem for this program.

3.       Deep Burner:

Deep burner is a CD/DVD burning utility. It can be used to burn data disks, music CD’s and .ISO. It is very simple and stable.

4.       Open Office:

Open office is an office suite full of useful programs. It is commonly the alternative to Microsoft Office. It has programs that rival Excel, Word and PowerPoint among others.

5.       SuperAntiSpyware

SuperAntiSpyware is a spyware and virus detection utility. It has been on the forefront of bug detection for quite some time. It is simple to use and will detect many different pests in your PC.

6.       Picasa

Picasa is a Google application for viewing pictures and vides on your computer. It organizes your photos and videos in an easy to look at fashion. Picasa will automatically setup your picture folders or you can set it up yourself. Along with easy thumbnail browsing you can also edit you pictures.

7.       Smart Defrag

Smart Defrag is a utility for speeding up your computer. When you have used your computer for any length of time it will become fragmented. Use Smart Defrag to make your data sequential.

8.       Firefox

Firefox is an open source web browser. It has many add-ons to customize to your liking. Along with endless plug-ins and themes, it is also a safer alternative to windows explorer.

9.       Thunderbird

Thunderbird is an email application for sending and retrieving email. It is a snap to setup and is easier than going online to get your emails. It is contrary to this article but if you can afford a copy, I think Microsoft Outlook is a better choice.

10.    Paragon Backup


Paragon Backup can protect your entire PC in the event of a hardware failure. By making a backup of all your valuable information, you will not have to worry about losing important files.

Here are a few free applications that you may want to try. They are all free as of the writing of this article and are easy to find. Just type the name of the program into Google or your favorite search engine and you should have the application up in a flash.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Windows Live family safety is a Microsoft program developed to help filter content that may be inappropriate for children. To download WLFS (Window Live Family Safety), visit Microsoft’s download page and search for Windows Live Family Safety. If your computer has Windows Live Essentials you may already have WLFS. To check whether you have WLFS already installed, type “Windows Live Family Safety” in the start bar search.

To begin using Windows Live Family Safety, type “Windows Live Family Safety” in the start search bar. Click “Windows Live Family Safety” to start the program. To use WILF you must have a hotmail account. If you do not already have one, you can click the “Sign up” button at the bottom of the screen. Once you have a hotmail account, type your login credentials and press “Sign in”.

Once you have signed into your hotmail account, you will notice all the accounts you have on your computer.  Checkmark the box for “Monitor account” under the user you would like to monitor.

PLEASE NOTE:

You should have more than one account. You should see a user account under administrator and another under standard users. It is important to have your monitored account under a standard user. If you choose not to have the monitored account a standard user, it is only a matter of a few clicks to disable protection, regardless of any password.

WHY:

WILF uses a service called “Windows Live Family Safety Service” or “fsssvc”. This service can be disabled by any administrator. A standard user will not have access to disabling the service, thus the protection cannot be turned off.

If you have not set up a standard user account, you can click the “Create a new standard Windows account”. This will setup a new standard user for you to login to when you logoff.  Click “Next” when you have selected an account to monitor. WILF will ask you to select a family member to add the account under. More than likely you will want to choose the “Add (so and so)” option to add that accounts user name to the list of monitored persons. Or you have the option to lump everyone into a single group. When you have selected your option from the dropdown, click “Save”. The next window that pops up will show you an overview of what has just been set-up. You should see that “Web filtering” is enabled for adult sites and “Activity reporting” is on.

That is it for setting up a safety filter for the net.  When you want to see what a user is up to, you can view their activity reports by logging into fss.live.com and clicking “View activity report”. You will get a list of website that have been visited and at what time.

Another aspect of WILF is managing when users have permission to use the web. In Family Safety online, click a user. From there click “Time limits” and click the radial button for “Turn on time limits”. From the graph, you can decide when it is appropriate and inappropriate to be on the internet. For time that users should not be on, fill in the white space (Allowed) with blue (Blocked). Now, that user can only access the internet at defined times.

Here is one last note about Windows Live Family Safety. On the Family Safety webpage, click “Web Filtering”. Go down to the bottom of the page where it says “File downloads”. You can decide to uncheck “Allow standard user to download files online”. This will make it less likely your child will download something potentially harmful to your computer.

Now you know a bit about helping protect your children against internet content. You should also know how to view activity reports and set time limits. These are all great ways to keep your family in check and under control.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Emailing your photos with Windows Live Photo Gallery may be one of the best options to deliver your photos across the web to friends and family. This is because WLPG (Windows Live Photo Gallery) used Microsoft SkyDrive, a site developed for uploading media. Because Your emails are sent to SkyDrive, you are able to send as many pictures as you want without filling the end users email box.

You can get WLPG with windows update or by going to Microsoft's download website. Once installed it can be found in the start menu as its own icon called "Windows Live Photo Gallery" or you can type "Windows Live Photo Gallery" in the "Start" search bar.

To email photos with WLPG you will need a Windows Live account. If you do not yet have one, you can sign up at windowslive.com. If you already have a windows live ID, it will ask you to enter your credentials. You will also need a mail application installed, like "Windows Live Mail" or "Outlook".

To begin emailing photos, select one or multiple photos you would like to send. After selecting your photos, click on the icon to the top right labeled "Photo email". This will open your default mail application with a new mail message. The mail message will contain thumbnails of all the images that you have selected. At the top, you are able to enter an album name that describes your photos. Under that you will find links for viewing a slide show or downloading all images at once. These are very useful for the recipient of the email. Once you are done entering a recipients email address and subject, simply press "Send".

When your recipient receives there email, they will be impressed with the layout. Not only will they see all the photos neatly lined up, they can expand any image just by clicking on it. If your recipient has WLPG they will get a very nice preview window with slideshow capabilities. If they want to download all the photos at once, they can simply click "DOWNLOAD ALL".

One drawback to using SkyDrive is that there is an expiration, by default, on your album. The default expiration date for albums is three months. If you would like to change the default, you will need to login to SkyDrive online through your internet browser.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a great application for many things. One of those many things is emailing photos. With a few simple clicks you can send as many photos as you want to your friends and family.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a free, easy to use program developed by Microsoft. You can get it with windows update or by going to Microsoft’s download website. Once installed it can be found in the start menu as its own icon called “Windows Live Photo Gallery” or you can type “Windows Live Photo Gallery” in the “Start” search bar.

Unlike many other programs I have tried in the past for organizing photos, I would have to say Windows Live Photo Gallery is among the easiest to use. One of the more surprising aspects of WLPG (Windows Live Photo Gallery) is that it incorporates the popular media site Facebook. This allows you to easily upload photos directly to your Facebook account.

To use Facebook with WLPG you must first have a Windows Live account. If you do not have one it is easy to set up. Click the Facebook Icon at the top of the WLPG menu bar in the “Share” section. The “Sign in to Windows Live” window, will popup. Near the bottom of that window you can click “Sign up” next to “Don’t have a Windows Live ID?”. When you are finished use your credentials to sign in. You will also need to give permission for Facebook to interact with WLPG

To send photos directly to your facebook from WLPG, click one or multiple photos you would like to add. Then click "Facebook" under "Share". The "Publish on Facebook" window will popup allowing you to select an album to publish to. Here you can create a new album to place photos in or choose from an existing album.

If you are creating a new album for your photos, choose the create new album tab. You will have three categories to fill. First, create you album name, then choose a descriptive text for the album. Last choose who is able to view the album. When you are finished click "Publish". Your photos will be sent to Facebook. Visit your Facebook page and you should see your pictures in the new album or an existing album depending on the options you have chosen.

Publishing your photos to Facebook has never been easier. Just use Windows Live Photo Gallery to create an album or upload to a pre existing one.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Windows 7 Comes with a build in speech recognition program. It can be used to get around the operating system or to type words. It is actually very easy to use and does not require very much practice. It can be found in the "Control Panel" under "Ease of Access" or by typing "Speech Recognition" in the start panel search bar.

To begin using speech recognition click the "Speech Recognition" tab. Then click the "Set up microphone" tab to make sure we are using the correct listening device. From here choose which device best describes what you are using and then click "Next". You will get a brief overview of how to position your microphone, then click "Next". Now Windows will ask you to read allowed a small section of text. Begin Reading the section. This will help windows 7 adjust the microphone volume to a suitable level. Once you are done reading, click "Next". Your microphone should now be setup. Click "Finish" to end the microphone setup wizard.

To further the speech recognitions ability to understand what you are saying, it is a good idea to run the "Train your computer to better understand you" tab. This can be found in the "Speech Recognition" window. The training session will take about 10 minutes to complete and you should have a quite place you can read aloud. When you are done with the first exercise you can choose to do more speech training or click "Next" to finish. The more you talk to your computer and correct it's mistakes, the better it will understand what you are saying.

To begin using speech recognition Click "Start Speech Recognition" in the "Speech Recognition" window. Say out loud "Start Listening". The Computer will now listen to commands you give. For instance try saying "Open WordPad". WordPad should appear on your screen without clicking a thing. You can even use menu options just by using your voice. For instance, in WordPad if you say "Font" you will get four different options. In this case I would like to change the font size, therefore I would say "four", and then "OK". Last I say the size of the font I would like, for instance "15". You can now begin typing with size 15 font just by speaking the words.

To find commands and other options you can speak, you may want to open "Open the Speech Reference Card" tab found in the "Speech Recognition" window. Here, you will find a reference for common speech commands, keyboard key commands along with commands to control windows.

Windows build in speech recognition is nice. It works well once you have used the training program for windows to recognize your voice. You can use it to do many things you would normally need a keyboard and mouse to accomplish. This can be a wonderful tool for people with slow typing skills or even the advanced computer user looking for another way around there PC.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

In this article I will explain how to setup a backup image in windows 7 using windows very own backup application.

Windows 7 backup is called "Backup and Restore" and can be found by going to "Start", clicking "All Programs" then "Maintenance". In Maintenance you will find "Backup and Restore". Alternatively you can click "Start" and type "Backup and Restore", then hit "Enter".

Windows 7 backup can use many different medias. The easiest is probably an external hard drive but you can backup to DVD/CD's and even network drives. It would be a wise idea to have at least as much free space on your backup media as your current computer hard drive capacity. That way you will never have a problem with running out of backup space.

To create a backup click "Create a system image" near the left top of the window. "Create a system image" window will pop up. This is where you can choose which media to create the backup upon. Unless you have an external hard drive attached the default media will be your DVD/CD rewrite drive. I will assume you are using the more popular method, external hard drive, but the other methods are closely relatable. Click "Next" and then "Start backup". Depending on the amount of space used on your current hard drive the backup process may take a long time. Let it go until it is finished. When it is done you will have a backup image of your entire computer.

Congratulations, you have now created a system backup image. What do you do if your system actually needs to be restored. Well, first we need to create a system repair disk. You can do this by clicking "Create a system repair disc" in the "Backup and Restore" window. This will open the "Create a system restore disk" window. choose your burning DVD/CD rewrite drive and pop in a blank disk. Click "Create disk" and windows will create a bootable CD.

Restoring you PC from a major hard drive failure or crash is beyond the scope of this tutorial and should probably be accomplished by a IT professional.

So we have learned how to create a system backup of your entire hard drive onto an external backup drive. We also know how to create a system restore disk, just in case the worst happens.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Printer sharing on Windows 7 is necessary if you have a USB printer or parallel (LPT) printer. Newer printers may have Wi-Fi or a LAN connection for sharing with multiple computers. By setting up printer sharing, you are enabling other networked computers to connect and print.

Let's start with setting up Windows 7 for printer sharing.

1. Click "Start" and open "Control Panel", then click "Devices and Printers".

2. Right click the printer you would like to share and click "Printer Properties"

3. Choose the "Sharing" tab and checkmark "Share this printer", then click "Apply"

4. Choose the "Security" tab. If you are setting this up for yourself or you trust all the people on the network click "Advanced". Choose Everyone and click "Remove". Click "Add", Advanced, then "Find now". Find Everyone in (RDN) and click "Ok" twice. Checkmark all the boxes in the Permission entry window, then click "Ok". Now it should say full control for everyone. Click "Ok" twice.

5. Click "Start" and open "Control Panel", then click "Network and Sharing Center". To the left click "Change Adapter Settings".

6. Right click the adapter that you are using on the network and choose "Properties". Double click "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)".

7. Choose "Use the following IP address:". We must change your IP settings from DHCP to Static. If you do not know what to put here, right click the adapter you are using on the network and click "Status", then "Details". For the IP address type the numbers you see under "IPv4 Address". For example, you may see something like 192.168.1.2. You may also use the same subnet mask and default gateway you see in the details window. Because we have chosen to "Use the following IP address:", "Use the following DNS server addresses:" has now become necessary. Fill in "Preferred DNS server:" with the default gateway IP address and the "Alternate DNS server" with the "IPv4 DNS Server" address you see in the details window.

8. In "Network and Sharing Center", to the left, click "Change advanced sharing settings". Scroll down to "Password protected sharing", under "Home or Work", and make sure it is set to "Turn off password protected sharing".

This concludes the Setup of the Windows 7 system. We will now turn to the Windows XP system to setup the printer for sharing. There are two ways to do this.

For printers with network driver setup, like most HP drivers, just follow the steps to connect to the network printer when you load the drivers. The drivers for your printer can more than likely be found on the venders website. If not, you will have to search them out or use a similar models driver.

For printers that only come with the local USB driver setup, follow these steps.

1. Connect the printer to the Windows XP system. Install the Windows XP drivers for that printer.

2. Run a test print to be sure the printer is functioning on the Windows XP machine and then reconnect it to the Windows 7 system.

3. Click "Start" and open "Control Panel", then click "Printers and Faxes". Right click the printer you have just added and choose "Properties".

4. Click the "Ports" tab, then click "Add Port" from the bottom of the window. Choose "Standard TCP/IP Port" and click "Next". Click "Next" on the Welcome to the Add Standard TCP/IP Port Wizard page. Type "\\" followed by the IP address of the windows 7 system (example: \\192.168.1.2), then click "Next". Click Finish and you are all done. Right click the printer and go to "Properties" to run a test print.

As you can see, it is possible to share a USB or LPT printer on Windows 7 with your Windows XP systems. Follow these steps and you should be up and running in no time.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

An icon in Windows 7 can be viewed from the desktop, taskbar, start menu, and file system. You may not like the default icons a program comes with or you may want to enhance the look of your user profile. Either way, replacing your default program icons with a custom icon is fun and easy.

Before we go any further, you should know a thing about Windows. Windows likes to use icon files. This means the icon file name will end in ".ico". You cannot use any picture format you desire. A website I would recommend is "vistaicons.com". They have a great selection of free icon packs that all come in .ico format. When you download the icons to your computer, be sure to save them in a secure location. Place the icons somewhere they will not be moved or deleted.

Now to the fun part, applying a custom icon. Find an icon that you want to change and right click it, then go to properties. Keep in mind that you may need to travel to the icon inside the start menu. If the icon you are trying to change is on the taskbar, you may not see the properties option when you right click. The Program properties box will pop up. Click the "Change icon" button. You can change your icon to one of the defaults that comes with Windows or, use one you have downloaded.

To use the Icons you have downloaded, you must traverse to that file location. If the files are ".ico" files, Windows will show you a preview. Find the icon that you want to use and click "Ok" twice. You now have changed to a custom icon.

Windows 7 shows icons everywhere around its user interface. To enhance the look of your user profile, you may want to change the style of your icons. Doing this in Windows 7 is actually not very hard. There are many websites dedicated to different styles of icons. Find some that you like and try them out.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Mozilla Firefox is a great internet browser that works like Microsoft Internet Explorer. Unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox is an open source program. This means that Firefox is much more customizable. There are many add-ons made just to work with Firefox. To find downloads for Firefox, go to the Firefox web page and go to the downloads section. I am going to tell you about a couple I have found quite useful.

1. Browse Faster - Add-on

The Browse Faster add-on is a neat application that has a few features. The feature that really stands out in my mind however, is the auto next page feature. This feature is great for reducing the amount of time you spend pressing next, over, and over, and over when using search engines. For example, when you make a search on Google and scroll to the bottom, Browser Faster will automatically search the next page and display it below the previous. Now you no longer need to click to the next page. Browse Faster will do it for you!

2. FlashCatch - Add-on

Flash Catch is an add-on for downloading streaming media, such as the videos from YouTube. It will add a download Icon right next to the subscribe icon above the video. When you want to download a video, click this icon. Available formats are FLV, MP4, 3GP, HD and Full HD. Now you can save those videos for offline use!

3. Tab Mix Plus - Add-on

Tab Mix plus is an add-on that extends the capabilities of your tabs. Among its futures, the ones that stand out are web page completion bar, duplicate tab option and protect tab option. The web page completion bar will show you how much of the web page has finished downloading. It displays across the middle of the tab for every tab you have open. The duplicate tab option will copy the current tab to a new tab. This is useful when you want to keep a window open but want to click a link within that window. Lastly the lock tab option will lock a tab so you do not accidentally delete it. Great if you are a constant multi-tab user!

4. Firefox Showcase - Add-on

The Firefox Showcase add-on is a utility for previewing all tabs at once. Once installed, grab the "Open Showcase" icon and drop it to your toolbar. To do this, right click an icon on your toolbar, and go customize. Drag out the "Open Showcase" button and drag it to your toolbar. Whenever you have the need to find a particular tab, click that button to show all open tabs.

5. Autofill Forms - Add-on

The Autofill Forms add-on is an automated system for filling in just about any form that requires personal information. It will automatically fill in text for username, E-mail, title, first, middle and last name, street, city, state, zip, country, language, birth day, birth month and birth year, company, phone, and homepage. It is now an easy click away from filling in a whole page of information in just a few clicks!

These are some great add-ons for your Firefox browser. Installing add-ons is an easy way to enhance the way you use the web. Check out the thousands of add-ons that are available for Firefox. You are bound to find some that are just right for you.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde