IMAP Stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is the new standard for connecting to your online email account. You have probably heard of, or have used POP. POP is still a standard, but IMAP is quickly taking over. It is now the default protocol for Windows Mail, Microsoft Outlook 2010 and many smart phones on the market.

POP stands Post Office Protocol. It is great for retrieving and sending email from your mail application. The drawback of using POP is the lack of synchronization. For example, when you delete an email from your mail client, it will not delete in your actual online email account. This is horrible because most of us use our mail on more than one device. We have mail on our phones, laptops, Macs, PCs, and other devices. With all of these devices it would be great to have a synchronization process between them all. Well, now we do.

IMAP is an easy way to keep all of your email in sync. Changing your POP accounts to IMAP accounts will save you a considerable amount of time organizing email. This is because Unlike POP, IMAP will sync most of your actions. For example, If you use an email client on your PC, laptop and phone, they can all be in sync. If you move an email from the inbox to the trash bin, all of your devices will be updated to match.

IMAP is generally easy to set up. Usually, all you need is a well known internet account such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo mail. When you set up IMAP, Just type in your email address, password, and a display name. In most cases, this will be all you need. For some devices, you will need to type a custom IMAP addresses. To find that address, you may need to ask your administrator or do a Google search. For example, Google's IMAP address is imap.gmail.com and can be found by typing "gmail imap address" in Google search.

Using IMAP is the next best way to keep all of your email in sync. It is generally easy to setup and it is becoming common place on many devices that support email. Windows Mail and Microsoft Outlook 2010 are already using it as their default protocol. Keeping all of your email applications in sync has never been easier.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Mozilla Firefox is a web browser like Windows Internet Explorer or Apple Safari. It is in wide use today and is one of the most popular alternative web browsers. It is also an open source program, which means it is very customizable. From its looks to its functionality, Firefox is becoming the browser of choice for customizing.

Firefox may look a bit boring by default. It wouldn't hurt to have a theme that suits you. A theme is a pre defined layout that someone else has made. Hundreds of themes have already been created. To try some out, open Firefox, then click "Tools" then "Add-ons". You will be taken to a gallery of wallpaper choices. Scroll down to one you like and click "Wear It". The wallpaper will be applied to your Firefox background. I believe this is called the Personas Gallery.

To get a little more of a personal touch, Firefox has themes that can change the icons as well. To find those themes, click "Explore Firefox Themes »" found at the bottom left of the Personas Gallery window. Here you can browse through a gallery of themes to change the entire look of Firefox. Click one that you like, then click "Continue to Download" on the proceeding page. Click "Accept and Install" to the end-user license agreement, then click "Install Now". After it has finished installing, Firefox must restart. Click "Restart Firefox" on the Add-ons menu that has popped up. After Firefox restarts, you will see the effects of the new theme. If you do not like what you have done, click "Tools" then "Add-ons". Go to "Themes" and click "Default" or whichever theme you previously had, then click "Use Theme".

Now that you have a theme picked out its time to find some add-ons. Go to "Tools" and click "Add-ons", then click "Get Add-ons". Click "Browse All Add-ons" to open the add-ons gallery. Browse the categories for add-ons that may suite your need or taste. After you find one you like, click "Continue to Download" and accept the end user license agreement. After it has installed, you must restart Firefox for the program to run. Click "Restart Firefox" to complete the procedure. Some add-ons work differently then others, so it is important to read the documentation that pops up about that add-on.

We should be coming close to something that looks great. To organize the buttons and interface, right click a button, like your refresh button and go to "Customize". The Customize Toolbar will pop up. This is where you can drag and drop icons to the interface of Firefox. Drag and drop icons until you find the solution that works for you.

Here are some other helpful hints to help you get around Firefox faster. Most of us have a few sites that we tend to visit on a regular basis. For sites like these, we want to open to them very fast. The best place to save these sites is the bookmark bar just above the tabs and below the address bar. By default there may be some already saved bookmarks. If you do not want the pre saved bookmarks, simply right click on them and choose "Delete". Go to a site that you browse frequently. After the website has popped up, you will see an icon just to the left of the address of the website. Drag this icon to the bookmark bar. Now that the website is in this bar, simply click it to open that web page.

Firefox has proven very customizable. By using Themes, you can completely change the way your browser looks. If you need to bring more functionality to Firefox just install add-ons. Firefox is an open source program and many people have uploaded useful applications to the web. Browse the Firefox add-ons page and you are sure to find something you like.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Windows 7 is more customizable than any other previous version of windows ever created! Customizing the look of your Windows 7 user profile will give you a better look and overall feel. You will be more at ease on your computer and feel more relaxed with your own user theme. From your wallpaper to your mouse, many aspects of your Windows 7 experience can be modified.

1. Customize your display resolution:

Right Click and empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". Click "Display" to the left, then click "Adjust resolution". Use the pull down menu under "Resolution" to change the pixel height and width of your monitor.

2. Customize your wallpaper:

Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". Click "Desktop Background" at the bottom of the window. From here you can change your wallpaper. Click "Browse" next to "Picture locations". Locate the folder you would like to add to the dropdown list, and click "Ok". Your folder with the pictures should pop up. Click on one or (Ctrl) select multiple pictures to use for your wallpaper. If you chose multiple pictures, select how often you want your wallpaper to change, then click "Save changes".

3. Customize Windows theme:

Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". This is where you can choose a custom theme. The current theme in use is located under "My Themes". By default the categories are Aero Themes and Basic and High Contrast Themes. From the Aero Themes section, you can choose from Windows 7, Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes, and United States. in the Basic and Hi Contrast Themes, you can choose from Windows 7 Basic, Window Classic, High Contrast #1, High Contrast #2, High Contrast Black, and High Contrast White. Play around with different themes until you find one you like. You can always go back by clicking your "Unsaved Theme" from the top.

4. Customize window color:

Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". At the bottom, click "Window Color". You may choose from the default colors or you can make your own color. To make your own color use the color mixer to change Hue, Saturation and Brightness settings. Click "Save changes".

5. Customize desktop icons:

It's is possible to change your desktop icons. Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". Click "Change desktop icons" to the left. Choose which icon you would like to change, then Click "Change Icon". You can choose from the available defaults and click "Ok" or you can browse the web for additional icons. A website called Vistaicons has some neat ones. After you download additional icons, you can find them by choosing "Browse" in the "Change Icon" window.

6. Customize mouse pointer:

Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". To the left, click "Change mouse pointers". From the Scheme dropdown menu, you can choose from, Magnified, Windows Aero (Extra Large, Large, or normal), Windows Black (Extra Large, Large, or normal), Windows Inverted (Extra Large, Large, or Normal), or Windows Standard (Extra Large or Large). The Windows Inverted Scheme will change the cursor color the inverse color of the background.

7. Customize user profile picture:

Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". Click "Change your account picture". Choose from the list of pictures or click "Browse for more pictures" to find your own.

8. Customize the taskbar:

Find an empty spot on your taskbar to right click, then go to "Properties". Checkmark "Auto-hide the taskbar" to make the taskbar disappear after a few seconds. Checkmark "Use small icons" to make the icons on the taskbar smaller. Windows 7 gives you the option to place the taskbar to the left, right, top, or bottom of your screen. Click "Taskbar location on screen" to change its position.

9. Customize desktop icon size and spacing:

These options are a bit hidden. Right Click an empty space on your desktop and go to "Personalize". Click "Window Color" then click "Advanced appearance settings". From the Item menu choose "Icon". You can change the size by entering higher or lower numbers. Alternatively, right click an empty space on the desktop, go to view and change from small, medium, or large icons. To change the width between icons, under item choose, "Icon Spacing (Horizontal)". Change the Size parameter to change the width spacing. To change the height spacing, in the item menu, choose "Icon Spacing (Vertical)". Change the Size parameter to make the spacing smaller or larger.

10. Customizing Windows Sidebar.

Windows sidebar is a place to have gadgets, or mini applications, open and running. If you do not already have the sidebar open, click start on the taskbar and type "sidebar" then hit enter. Windows sidebar should popup automatically. To add a gadget, right click an empty spot on your desktop and go to "Gadgets". The gadget window will pop up. From here you can drag and drop gadgets from this window to any place on your desktop or sidebar. You can find additional gadgets in the download area on Window's website.

Here are 10 different ways to customize the look of your Windows 7 user profile. You are able to change your user interface from wallpapers to gadgets. There are many changes you can make to your profile. Play around with some of these settings until you get the look and feel you are after.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

By default, Windows operating systems with NTFS or newer file partitions have permissions. This would include computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP Home or Professional, Windows Vista of any type, or Windows 7 of any type. Adding permissions would be necessary when transferring data from one computer's hard drive to the next. If you do not add permissions first, you may not be able to access files and folders for transfer. This is because user profiles that have been password protected usually have limited permissions from other computer users.

If you have come to this article, you have probably connected your old hard drive to your new computer. If you have not yet attached your drive to your new computer, there are a few ways to do so. Depending on your make and model you may be able to connect via external enclosure, or better yet, your computer may have an existing connection available on the motherboard. Check online for resources if you are unsure.

By now you should have your hard drive successfully connected to your new computer. We must decide what we need to backup. whether you are transferring from Windows XP or the newer Windows 7, most of your important information is probably in your "My Documents" and "Desktop". In this case we can just change the file permissions on a particular user file. For Window XP, go to "C:\Documents and Settings\" and choose the user you want to transfer files from. On the other hand, you may choose to change file permissions on the whole drive. In this case go to "My Computer" and choose the drive from the old machine.

Now that we have chosen what we would like to copy, we can begin changing permissions. The first thing we need to do is change ownership of the files. Files are owned by a particular user, if we do not change ownership of the files, we may not be able to change file permissions. Change ownership by right clicking the folder or drive, and going to "Properties". From here, choose "Security" then click "Advanced". Go over to "Owner" and then click "Edit". This is the page to change ownership. You probably want to change ownership to "Everyone". This will make files and folders easier to transfer. Click "Other users or groups" and click "Advanced". Click "Find Now" and in the (RDN) menu choose "Everyone". Click "Ok" twice. Checkmark "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" then click "Ok". You will get a popup that states you will need to close and reopen all boxes, click "Ok". Then, click "Ok" two more times to close all remaining boxes. We have now changed ownership of that folder or drive.

We are now ready to setup permissions. Right click that same folder or drive and go to "Properties". Traverse to the "Security" tab, and click "Advanced". Click "Change Permissions" then "Add". Click "Advanced" then "Find Now". Locate, "Everyone" in (RDN) and click "OK" twice. The Permission Entry window will popup. Checkmark "Allow" to "Full control", then click "Ok". Checkmark "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object" then click "Ok". The Windows Security window will popup, Click "Yes" to replace all descending files and folders with these permissions. Now click "Ok" twice to close all windows.

You are all set to copy information from that drive or folder to your new computer. You can now drag and drop anything within that folder or drive to your new computer, without having trouble with inadequate permissions.

In short, it is possible to copy information from your old hard drive to your new computer. To achieve this, we need to change ownership of files and folders. Then, we need to add permissions so that everyone will have full access to those files and folders. After these two acts have been performed, it should be quite easy to transfer any file or folder to your new PC.

Warmest Regards,
Erik Mjelde

A small business, home office file sharing network is a group of computers within the same network (Subnet), capable of sharing files with one another.

There are two methods of setting up a small business, home office network. The first method is to have one main computer as the share point for files and printers. This is usually the computer that will be powered on the most. Method two, each computer has its own share point. This is where every computer can connect to every other computer that has a share file or printer enabled. Either method works, but method one is easier to manage and setup.

Windows 7 can feel cumbersome when it comes to setting up share files. I'll try and break it down very easy. Let's start with making a share folder in your C: Drive. Open you're "My Computer" and double click your Local C: Drive. Create a new folder called ShareFolder_A (For my examples I will end my folder names with A and B. You can change yours to make more sense, for example ShareFolder_TomsPC, or ShareFolder_WendysPC). Great, so we now have a folder.

After a folder has been created, we must enable sharing and set its permissions. To enable sharing, right click ShareFolder_A and go to properties. Click the "Sharing" Tab, then click "Advanced Sharing...". Checkmark "Share this folder", then click "Permissions". Allow "Full Control" to Everyone. Click "OK" twice to close the sharing windows.

To setup permissions, click the "Security" tab. You will see "Groups or user names:". These are the users that are able to use the folder by default. We want to add "Everyone" to this list. Click "Advanced", then click "Change Permissions...". Click "Add..." then "Advanced...". Click "Find Now" then scroll down to (RDN) "Everyone" and highlight it, click Ok. Checkmark Allow "Full control" then click Ok. Next, Checkmark "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object" and click Ok. This last checkmark is not necessary unless you have occupied the folder but is generally necessary. Click Ok three times to close all of the windows.

We now have a shared folder, customized, so everyone has read and write permissions. Before Windows 7 allows other user to access share folders and without a password, we need to change advanced sharing setting. Navigate to "Network and Sharing Center" and click "Advanced sharing settings" or type "Advanced sharing settings" into the Start search bar. You will notice there are two groups, "Home or Work" and "Public". We want to change settings in the "Home or Work" profile. Start by Turning on network discovery to allow other computers to see your computer. Scroll down to "Password protected sharing". Turn off password protected sharing to enable other user access without a password. If this option is not enabled, any other computer trying to access this folder will need to be logged in with the same user name and password credentials as the computer sharing the folder.

We are all setup to allow other computers to find and share a file on your PC. Now we will setup the second computer (Computer B) that will access the share file on computer A (the computer with the share folder). One of the best places to add a remote share folder is "My Computer". Open "My Computer" and click "Map network drive". Choose a drive letter. This letter does not matter much, but usually starts at "Z" and works backwards though the alphabet as you add more drives or share folders. Now click "Browse". Navigate to the computer name of Computer A. If you do not know the name of Computer A, you can find this by right clicking my computer (on Computer A) and going to Properties. You will find the computer name in this menu. After navigating to the computer name of Computer A on Computer B, click ShareFolder_A and click Ok. Make sure to uncheck "Connect using different credentials" then click "Finish" to add the Folder. You have now added a share file to your My Computer. Consequently, it is also a great idea to "Map a network drive" on Computer A. This will allow easy access to the share point from My Computer. To accomplish this, simply perform the same steps to Computer A. For that matter, repeat this procedure to any computer which you would like to add the share folder.

File sharing can now be performed. If there is a file that needs to be shared, simply drag the file into the share folder located in the "My Computer", "Network Location" tab, of either computer. This will place the file on Computer A's hard disk in C:Sharefolder_A.

You may have specific folders on your hard drive you would like to share, like your pictures folder. The same concepts can be applied to sharing that folder as well. You do not always need to create a folder from scratch. Simply right click the file you want to share and go to properties. From there you will see the share tab and security tab.

If you would like to make a folder sharable to just one computer (Computer B) in a network, this is possible. What you will need to do is add the user name and password credentials of Computer B, to the User Account of Computer A. You can add a new user to Windows 7 by opening the control panel and navigating to User Accounts. Click "Manage another account" then click "Create a new account". Type the same User name and password that you use to login to Computer B. Now, remember back in this guide, where I mentioned adding Everyone in (RDC)? Instead of adding Everyone, scroll down to the new user you just created and add that name instead. Now, only Computer B has access to the share folder.

Sharing files and folders in Windows 7 can be done with just a few clicks. It can be very useful for productivity, and can save hours over traditional ways of sharing media. For instance, sharing via CD's or memory sticks. By using the Share tab and Security tab, you can set any folder on your computer as a share folder. Mapping a network drive in My Computer is a great place to keep all of your share folders. This is an easy location to remember and an easy icon to click at. When you drop a file in the share folder, it is saved on one computer, but either computer may manage and edit that file from the share folder.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Like many people I started out thinking, as a kid, that commuter's were magical. When you clicked something on the screen your computer would magically go to a database and bring up what you clicked. Images are stored as images right! And videos are stored on reels. The flashing light on the front of the box means it's thinking and renaming a .wav to .mp3 would make the file smaller... I thought.

Well as it turned out, my computer wasn't so magical after all! If you open your computer you will find a handful of major components. All of these components use electricity to do everything a computer does. It doesn't communicate with pictures and words and it is not the least bit intelligent. Everything a computer performs, knows, or thinks is directly tied to how it is programmed or wired. Instead of a physical picture, computers will store an image with magnetism, on a physically round disk in a pattern of 1's and 0's. 1's equal "on" or magnetized and 0's equal "off" or un-magnetized. Imagine you had a picture that was just one square pixel of red. Red is signified by a pattern that looks like this on a hard drive 11111111. So if we are using Red, Green, Blue (RGB), one square red pixel would be 111111110000000000000000. The rest of the sequence is 0 because we do not want any green or blue in our red pixel.

So you can imagine, just by the sheer quantity of 1 and 0 combinations, you can create many different colors. In fact with the pattern represented, which is indeed 24bit RGB, you can make over 16 million different colors combinations! So if your red pixel uses 24 1's and 0's and we have an 800x600 red picture, how much hard drive space do we need to store that image? Well, 800x600=480,000 which is the number of pixels that make up that picture. If every pixel in our image is 24 1,s and 0's long, 24x480,000=11,520,000. That means we need space on our hard drive for 11 million, 520 thousand 1,s and 0's... seems like a lot just for a red picture! Let's make more sense of this number. There are eight 1's and 0' in a byte. There are 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte and a thousand kilobytes in a megabyte.

How many megabytes of space do we need for our red picture? 11,520,000 1's and 0's divided by eight equals 1,440,000 bytes. 1,440,000 bytes divided by 1,024 equals 1,406.25 kilobytes. To get megabytes we take 1,406.25 kilobytes and divide it by 1,000. We will need about 1.4 megabytes of space on our hard drive to store this image. Luckily, recent hard drives are multi terabyte, which means millions of megabytes of storage. In fact, with a one terabyte hard drive, you could store 714,285 800x600 red pictures! And that is before .jpg compression, which would take that file size down considerably.

Remember DOS, the commands, or at least the fact that you needed to place written commands. Well, that's how your computer runs, under the fancy looking user interface. Whenever you click anything on your computer, you are actually sending an electronic message in the form of written text to your operating system. So when you create a folder you may be sending something like this:

Process Name: Explorer.exe

Create File

C:New Folder

Process Name: Explorer.exe

Query Directory

C:New Folder

Process Name: Explorer.exe

Close File

C:New Folder

As you can see in this example Explorer.exe is the program that is creating your folder. It creates the folder, makes sure it is successful, and then closes the folder. Just making a folder these days is more complex than that. Sure the file is created, but, newer operating systems keep track of what is inside that file, so the OS may query other information. Many people also refer to the visual aspect of your computer interface as a shell. You get to see your computer visually and underneath everything happens through a command prompt. This is the way of recent operating systems.

If something is going wrong with your computer, more than likely, it too is not magic. When you have a buggy computer... don't hit it! They don't like that. Instead, figure there are hundreds of components in a computer and thousands of functions. Which component or software is malfunctioning to make your computer unstable is the question. Usually you will find something like a component that is heat damaged or an update that has conflicted with a program. Magic is usually the last subject on my mind. Check that RAM isn't going bad, or that you have enough disk space. More than likely, if you don't know how to fix your computer, you will take it to a technician. The point is, your computer is not magic. New operating systems keep detailed logs of where and what is going wrong. You can find these in your administrator tools. You may get something like this in your system log

Error

5/29/2010 6:03:31 PM

The device, DeviceHarddisk0DR3 has a bad block.

In this case you can see that there is a problem with a hard drive. Hard disk 0 has a bad block, which means the information on that block may be corrupt. If that bad block contains pertinent information for loading your operating system, your computer may freeze up or reboot continually.

Manufacturers such as HP, Microsoft, Intel, and Nvidia are continually working together to design products that work. Manuals are continually being produced, so that if you plug in, say a USB Wi-Fi device, it can be used automatically and with ease. Sometimes, manufactures are not in sync with their product updates or development, or possibly there is not a well defined standard. This is when you will get errors. Most of these errors can go unnoticed and will not affect your everyday work. If you do encounter problems there may be a product update. It may come in the form of firmware updates, driver updates, or an operating system upgrade.

We now know that computers don't use magic to perform tasks. Everything a computer does is because we have programmed it to do so, created the hardware, or possibly something is missing or broken. We have learned not to hit or kick our computers when they act strangely, in fact, kicking your computer may do more harm! Instead look at your administrative tools to discover problems with your computer or its components. Manufacturers work together to help support multiple platforms and devices. The collaboration of hardware and software vendors will help maintain steady computer performance now and in the future. If your hardware or software is not performing to par, there may be an update at the vendor's website.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

Microsoft Remote Desktop is a program for connecting to another computer over your home network or web. It comes built into Windows and can be found under "Accessories" in the start menu. With some setup, you can connect to your computer remotely from anywhere in the world.

To start, we must configure your PC to accept a remote connection. Do this by right clicking "My Computer" and going to properties. Next click "Remote Setting" or "Remote". Choose "Allow Connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)", Click OK. Your computer can now accept remote connections.

We must make sure your router is set up correctly before we go any further. Your router should be default. Check your LAN IP setup, found in your routers web login. If you're not sure how to login to your router, it should say in the manual. You will probably see something like 192.168.1.1 or 10.0.0.1. For this How to, I will assume your router defaults to 192.168.1.1 and your subnet mask is 255.255.255.0. If yours is different you can leave it the way it is. Just remember, in the upcoming setup, when I refer to 192.168.1, just replace it with 10.0.0. For now, that's all we need to do with your router.

We should give your computer a static IP address. Go to your "network connections" in your start menu or control panel. Right click the connection you use for the internet and go to properties. Double click "Internet Protocol Version 4". Switch to "Use the following IP address" and type 192.168.1.50 in the IP address (or an address you know is not in use). The subnet should be 255.255.255.0 and the default gateway is 192.168.1.1. Bellow you will notice you must type your DNS. Use your default gateway, 192.168.1.1. You now should have a static IP and still have network access.

By default Microsoft Remote Desktop uses Port 3389. Port 3389 is like an imaginary doorway to Remote Desktop. We must tell your router to forward any information it receives from that port to the computer. Now, go back to the router and look for Port forwarding options. There are a few ways routers do this, but your router manual will give you a good understanding of how to Port forward. For Netgear add a custom service. Call it Remote Port. Use TCP with start Port 3389 and end Port 3389, then Click Apply. Next, add a rule under Inbound Services. For "service" choose the service, "Remote Port", we just set up. Under "Send to LAN Server" type 192.168.1.50, The IP address we gave to your computer. Click Apply. You are now done setting up your router.

Let's test your connection. Go to whatsmyip.com and copy that address. Next open Microsoft Remote Desktop and, paste your IP address where it says computer. Click Connect. You should get a prompt that lets you know you have made a connection. Now that you have a connection to your computer we need to make sure that you can connect, even if your IP address has changed. For this we will use no-ip DUC found here http://www.no-ip.com/downloads.php. Download the Windows version and install it to your computer. After you are finished installing, it will prompt you to register. After you register, finish logging the rest of the way in no-ip DUC. Next log into your no-ip.com online account and go to "Your NO-IP" section. Select "add a Host". Choose the domain you want your name to be under like zapto.org or no-ip.org and type a custom host name. When you are finished, click "Create Host". You are finished setting up your account to automatically update your IP address.

Test your connection by going to Microsoft Remote Desktop and for computer type your custom hostname and domain ending. This should also bring you to your remote computer. To take it a step further you could purchase your own domain, for around $10 and link that domain name to your no-ip.com domain name. You then could remote into your computer by typing your own true custom name like 123456789pc.com. The benefit is that your own custom name is easier to remember then a pre configured name.

Yet More! Even though it's not shown in any of the menus it is possible to setup remote desktop on multiple computers within the same network. Again, by default Microsoft Remote Desktop uses Port 3389. To use more than one computer on the same network you must use different Ports on each computer. You can change the Port Microsoft Remote Desktop uses by launching the registry editor. The registry you need to change is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlTerminalServerWinStationsRDP-TcpPortNumber. Double click the value and change the view to "decimal". You can change this value to something like 3390. After you have finished changing this key, just replace 3389 in this tutorial with 3390 and it will work out with the same results.

In Summery you need to give your computer a static IP address. Next make sure your router is setup to forward all incoming packets from port 3389 to the static IP on your computer. To make sure you can remote access, even after an IP address change, download no-ip DUC. To take it a step further, buy your own.com and link it to your no-ip DUC account. This way you have your own personalized remote access name. Expanding even more, edit a registry key and you can remote into multiple computers on the same network.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

File extensions are character attached to the end of a file name after a "." period. The group of characters represents the file's type. For example a.mp3 is a music file and a .mpeg is a movie file. This is how windows identifies what program to use when you open a file. There are thousands of extensions in use today and millions of programs to run those extensions. Making sure the right program opens with the correct file can be easier to manage then you think.

To see extensions on the end of your files, it may need to be enabled. To do this, open a window, like My Documents, click "Tools" and open "Folder Options...". Click the "View" tab and un-checkmark "Hide extensions for known file types". Click apply and you will see extensions on the end of your files.

Windows 7 has a few ways to ensure the correct program lunches when you open a file. The first place you want to look when you are configuring your file extensions is windows "Set Default Program" window. You can find this in the control panel or by typing "set default programs" in the start menu. In Set Default Programs you can set which program will take priority for which file type and computer task. For instance, if you have Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on your computer, this is the page to set which program opens as your default web browser. When you click a program, you can choose to "Set this program as default" or you can "Choose defaults for this program". The "Set this program as default" button, tells windows to use that program to open any files it supports. If you click "Choose defaults for this program", you can see the file types it supports. For example, if you click "Windows Photo Viewer" and go to "Choose defaults for this program", you will see options for .bmp, .gif, .jpeg and others. Here you can choose to just have .bmp open with Windows Photo Viewer. You can then have another image view open the other types of picture files, like .jpeg and .gif.

You can also change what program launches a file more directly. Right click the file you want to open and go to "open with...". Windows may recommend a program to launch or you can choose to browse the program you want to open. After you have selected which program you would like to use, you have the option to always open that extension type. To do this, checkmark "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file". If you do this, any file with the same extension will open with that application.

These days you may download files with extensions you have never seen before. There is no central management agency to control what extension can be used for a particular purpose. Therefore To find what program will work with an extension, you may want to do a checkup on Google. Also, many files you download from the web are compressed with seemingly strange extensions. You may be looking at a compression type. A great program to decompress files of all compression types, is 7zip. Not only can it decompress many file types, it can compress as well.

File extensions are used to define what application is used to open a file. The extensions may be hidden by default. Use the view folders menu to unhide extensions. Windows 7 has "Set Default Program" window to help you manage your extensions and what program uses them by default. You can launch a file with a particular application more directly by right clicking the file and choosing "open file with...". If you do not know what program to use to open a file that has a strange extension, try looking it up on Google. You should be able to find useful information about that particular file type. Lastly many files you download from the internet are compressed. Try 7zip if you do not already have a program for compressing and decompressing.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

These three tools can help manage your busy life and work in a big way. Microsoft outlook has features like Calendar, along with your usual Email and Contact list. Google has Gmail along with Google Calendar and a tracking application called Latitude. Lastly, your smart phone has a calendar, GPS and can install applications. It also has internet access at all times of the day. With these three things you can manage your life more simply.

For starters Outlook is a great mail application. It has features for receiving and composing email and, among other things, has a built in calendar. The calendar is a simple click and type interface with scheduling for days, weeks, months, and years. Outlook is basically the one stop shop for emailing and scheduling.

Google has many neat programs under its belt, but the ones we are going to be using are Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook Sync and Google Latitude. Gmail is an online email service with approximately 7 Gigabytes of storage space. Google Calendar is an appointment book that has a lot of the same features you will see in Microsoft Outlook. Outlook Sync is a program that will update your Google Calendar with Outlook Calendar and the other way around, Outlook Calendar with Google Calendar. Lastly Latitude is an application you can install on your smart phone that will use your GPS to track your phone, thus your location, and will send it to Google.

Smart phones have the capability of having internet all day, which makes them handy with receiving and sending real time information. Smart phones also support many 3rd party applications like the ones we will use. Lastly, they come equipped with a calendar that should be similar in functionality to Outlook calendar.

So how do we put all these resources together to manage your life?

1. Create a Gmail account. Don't worry if you do not want to use Gmail as your main mailing application. For example if you have a business email address that you have been using for years, you will still be able to keep this address. If this is the case, you must take an extra step. Open your original mail client online and forward mail to your new Gmail account. The option for this should be in the control panel. This will copy and forward messages you receive in that mailbox to Gmail's inbox.

2. Sign into Google Calendar, which has become available from signing up for Gmail. This will activate it.

3. Install Outlook Sync Manager to your computer. After you install Sync Manager go ahead and type your email credentials to complete the install.

4. Install Gmail smart phone app. It will give your smart phone the Gmail icon to check your emails and notify you of new messages. You will probably want to place this icon on the homepage of your phone for easy access. After the install type your credentials to begin receiving emails.

5. Install Google Maps on your smart phone. This program comes with Google Maps and Latitude. After the install is complete open the app. and choose to join latitude from the menu.

After these steps, you should be on your way to an easier method of emailing, scheduling, and letting your loved ones and friends know where you are. Using your phone, you now have the capability of sending and receiving email at any time of the day. You can also schedule appointments in your phone and they will be sent to Google calendar for others in your family to read. All the while, your location is being uploaded to Google so anyone you have added to your Latitude friends list can now see your location.

Using your PC, you can add the Google Latitude app to your iGoogle.com homepage. This way you know where your friends and family are located at a glance. You can also use your Microsoft Outlook to send and receive email and add new scheduled appointments. Any Appointments made in Outlook with be automatically updated in your phone. Just like any appointments you make in your phone will be automatically update in Microsoft Outlook. With Google's ability to combine calendars from separate Gmail account into one, you can see who is doing what, and when.

Summary:

It is now possible to stay connected with family and friends whether you are on the go or at home. By using auto synchronizing calendars it's easier to plan your day and see what others have in store. With Latitude you can locate your friend or show the status of your road trip! These tools really can make scheduling and emailing easier.

Warmest Regards,

Erik Mjelde

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