Windows XP came with an e-mail program called Outlook Express. By the way, don’t confuse Outlook Express with Outlook. They are two different programs. When Windows Vista came out, Outlook Express had not only been given a makeover, it had a new name. The new name was Windows Mail.

Now you may be wondering what e-mail program Windows 7 will come with. The answer is that it won’t come with one. But don’t worry, there are lots of options. When you purchase a new computer with Windows 7 on it, if you get Microsoft Office with it, you will have Outlook unless you got the Home and Student version of Office.

If you didn’t get Office, or you got the Home and Student version of Office, no problem. If you want to,  you can read your e-mail on the web. If you don’t like that, then there are a lot of great e-mail programs out there, and a lot of them are free. Our two favorite ones are Thunderbird and Windows Live Mail.

Just a reminder, although Windows 7 doesn’t have an official release date yet, it is expected to ship in time for the holiday shopping season, which is only about 6 months away. So we will probably be having articles relating to Windows 7 in this newsletter pretty frequently.

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The term “Server” has different meanings to different people. To one person it might refer to server hardware running a server operating system. That is one type of server, but the generic term refers to any computer that serves as a central repository accessed by other computers on the network. A server can simply store files and other data, or it can serve up applications, games, web sites, and much more.

A small business can benefit from a server in many ways. Having all of your data stored in one place means you always know where it is. It’s easy to access and it’s easy to back up. Servers can also make it easier for people in an office to work together. For example, you can see each other’s calendars, schedule meetings, reserve conference rooms, etc. Many of these benefits even apply to a business as small as two people.

A common thing to use a server for is for your accounting software like QuickBooks. Your QuickBooks data can be on the server. Anyone in the office can have QuickBooks installed on their computer and access the same data on the server. If one person makes a change to it, everyone else will see that change.

Most homes these days have more than one computer. Homes with more than one computer can benefit from a home server as well. You can store all of your music, photos, movies, videos, and other items. Then you can easily access them from any computer in the house. You can take it a step further by having each computer user store their personal documents on the server instead of on the local computer. Then you can access your personal documents and other information from any computer in the house.

Microsoft makes a product called Windows Home Server. It’s like Windows, but it’s for a Server. It’s a really good product, too. And I don’t say that about just any product. Windows Home Server is easy to install, and easy to maintain. It’s not complicated like most server versions of Windows. It’s very easy to use. It not only serves as a central location to store all of your files, but it will automatically back up all of the computers in the house. This isn’t a file backup, it’s an image backup which is far superior. It will also alert you to possible problems on your computers. For example, if the security software on one of the computers is out of date or not functioning or expired, Windows Home Server will pop a message up on all of your computers alerting you to the problem.

You can also purchase computers with Windows Home Server already installed on it as well.

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Have you ever tried to print a page off of a web site only to get something other than what you expected? It’s difficult to explain why that happens without boring you with a lot of techo mumbo-jumbo. Suffice it to say, the code behind the web page you are looking at is complicated. Printing something that complicated is difficult. Plus, when you add in all of the banner advertisements, menus, and other junk around the actual content of the web page, the resulting printout may not be very useful.

But there are things you can do to make this better. Instead of printing, do a print preview first. To do that in Internet Explorer, instead of clicking on the printer icon, click on the little down arrow next to it and choose “Print Preview” from the pop-up menu. It will show you what the printout should look like when it prints. You can change the orientation of the printout from portrait to landscape here. You can also tell it to shrink to fit, which is helpful for printing web pages. Once you see how it’s going to print, you can print it right from the print preview window by clicking the printer icon.

Web designers often build special printing abilities into certain parts of their websites. For example, if  you read your e-mail on a website, don’t click the print button in internet explorer. Instead, look for a print link or icon on the web page. It will take your e-mail and format in a way that makes it print nicely, without any advertisements and such. It will usually be an a seperate pop-up window. You may have to hit the print button in that window once it comes up.

If you purchase something at an online store, they often provide a special link for printing your receipt. This is just like the e-mail printing I just mentioned. It’s specially formatted for printing. Look for these special links and icons on websites when you want to print. If you don’t’ find it, use print preview to make sure.

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It’s a fact. Computers make noise. Your average computer has at least 3 fans inside it, often 4 or 5. Some computers have even more. I have personally seen a computer that had 9 fans. The most common fans are on the power supply, processor, back of the case, video card, motherboard chipset, and hard drive fans.

Other mechanical devices inside your computer that make noise are the hard drive and the DVD/CD drive. The DVD/CD drive, of course, will only make noise if a DVD or CD is in it. You should only have a DVD or CD in that drive if you need it. Otherwise, it will not only be noisy, it can slow down your computer when it first boots up. The hard drive will make noise when the hard drive is accessed, which is generally pretty frequent.

The reason I mention all of this is because I wanted to talk about what you should do if your PC starts making a louder noise than normal. If you aren’t using a DVD or CD, then the noise is either a fan or the hard drive. The first thing you need to do is figure out if it’s a fan or the hard drive. Most computers have a light on the front that lights up any time the hard drive is accessed. If the noise you are hearing coincides with that light coming on, it’s probably the hard drive. It still could be the hard drive if it doesn’t coincide with the light though.

Another way to tell is to open up the computer while it’s running. Get your ear down near the computer and figure out where the noise is coming from. If you do this, be careful not to touch anything inside the computer. In fact, it would be best if you let a computer technician do this.

If your hard drive is making noise, shut down your computer and call us immediately. Your hard drive is dying. You could lose your data. The sooner you act, the less likely you are to lose anything and the less expensive the repair will be.

If the noise is a fan, the danger is not as urgent as a hard drive problem, but it’s still dangerous. Fans are put in certain areas of the computer to keep those areas cool. If a fan is making noise, it could still last for years, or it could die tomorrow. There’s no way to know. If a fan does die, the component it was keeping cool will get hot. And there’s a reason the fan was put there to keep it cool. If it gets hot, it could fail, or at the very least, it could be damaged. It just depends on which component we are talking about. If it’s the fan that keeps the processor cool, the processor gets VERY hot and won’t last long without a fan keeping it cool. Most computers will shut off it the processor gets too hot. This is done to protect the processor. But not all computers have this feature. And even if the computer does shut off because the processor got to hot, it cou ld still damage the processor.

In a nutshell, if your computer starts making more noise than usual, it’s best to have us check it out for you. If you let it go, your hard drive could crash and you could lose your data, or a component inside the computer could overheat and fail. Waiting to have it checked out just makes the price of repair go up. Fixing it early on might be $80-$100. Fixing it after the hard drive crashes could be $200-$250. If the processor is damaged, that would be even more and it might be better just to get a new computer.

In fact, that’s a good rule of thumb when it comes to computers. When a small problem arises, check with us to see what should be done. Most of the time, people just let a problem on the computer go without doing anything about it. Then they call us when the computer fails. Had they called us when the problem first arrived, it might have been a simple and inexpensive repair with no data loss. Waiting until it fails means it’s going to cost more to fix and you might lose your data. Something else we see alot is when someone tries to fix it themselves. They usually end up making the problem worse. That makes the repair more expensive. At the very least, call us or send us an e-mail at the first sign of trouble and we can tell you what we recommend. It doesn’t cost you anything, so why not?

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The most recent version of Microsoft Office for Windows is the 2007 version. The next version is Office 2010. Makes me think of the movie “2010: A Space Odyssey”

Office 2010: A Space Odyssey

Maybe not.

What’s new and exciting about Office 2010?

Microsoft isn’t saying anything specific. Just general marketing mumbo-jumbo like:

The new version of office will make it even easier for people to create and collaborate in real time using the web, the phone, or their PC.

As I said, nothing specific.

Microsoft has not published a release date for Office 2010. But we do know the year we make contact will be 2010 (little joke there referencing the movie).

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When you go to a website, or click on a link, you may get an error of some kind. A common error is “Page Not Found”. Or sometimes the web page might be jumbled and miss-formatted. When this happens, don’t assume you are out of luck. And you don’t have to hit the Back button either. The quickest way to fix this is to do a refresh.

You can do a refresh several ways. All web browsers have a refresh button. The refresh button is usually near where the website address is shown. On Internet explorer, the refresh button looks like this:

The refresh button is usually to arrows going in a circle, or sometimes its one arrow in a circle. But no matter which web browser you are using, there is a quick way to do a refresh. Just hit the F5 button on the keyboard.

Another reason to do a refresh on a web page is to make sure you have the latest updates to the webpage. When you view a web page, Windows saves a copy of it on your computer. So when you go back to that same web page, it can display the web page quicker because at least part of the webpage is already on your computer so it doesn’t have to be downloaded from the internet. However, if the web page has been updated since the last time you visited it, then what you see on your screen may not include those latest updates. To make sure, just do a refresh!

There are other places in Windows where you may want to do a refresh as well. Anytime you have a list of some sort that you think is out of date, just hit F5 to refresh it.

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The Windows desktop is the main screen in Windows that has all of your icons on it. At times, you may have several programs open on the screen, but you want to get to your desktop. You can minimize each program one at a time. But there is an easier way.

Both Windows XP and Vista have a feature called “Show Desktop”. It’s a quick way to minimize all of your running programs so you can see the icons on your desktop. There are two ways to engage the show desktop function.

Vista and XP, by default, have an icon next to the start button that you can click that will execute the show desktop function. The picture to the left shows the default location of the Show Desktop icon and what it looks like in Windows XP. In Windows Vista, the position of the icon is the same, but the icon itself looks different. The icon pictured to the right is what it looks like in Windows Vista.

Be aware, however, that this icon can be turned off or moved, so it’s possible you may not  have that icon turned on, or it may be hidden. Do you have any icons next to your start button? If you don’t, then you’ll need to turn Quick Launch on. To do that, right click on a blank area of the task bar (that bar at the bottom of the screen) and choose properties from the pop-up menu. Then place a checkmark next to “Show Quick Launch”.

Once Quick Launch is turned on, you should have some icons next to the start menu, but you still might not see the Show Desktop icon. If you see icons, but you don’t see the Show Desktop icon, click on the double greater than sign to the right of the icons near the start menu. You should see it in the pop-up list. If it’s in the pop-up list, click on it and drag it and drop it where you want it.

Having said all of that, there is actually a better way to execute the Show Desktop function. On your keyboard, look for the Windows button (looks like a flag and is usually located one or two keys to the left of the space bar. Press the Windows button and hold it down. Now press the D key on the keyboard. Viola!

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Microsoft Office is a product that, depending on which edition you purchase, may include Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and other similar products. But if you have ever priced Office, you know how expensive it is. The cheapest edition of Microsoft Office is the Home and Student edition. It’s only available for residential customers. It generally goes for $150. The professional edition of Office generally goes for $500.

Did you know that there is an alternative to Microsoft Office? No, I’m not talking about WordPerfect Office, although that is an alternative. What I am talking about is OpenOffice.org. The best thing about OpenOfficej.org is that it’s absolutely free! You heard me. Free. OpenOffice.org includes a word processor (like Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet (like Excel), a presentation creator (like PowerPoint), and more.

The one component that is in Office that OpenOffice.org doesn’t have is an e-mail client like Outlook. But, if you don’t care about Outlook, OpenOffice.org might fit  your needs. And the price is right. One of the best features of OpenOffice.org is that it can read files from other office programs. So, for example, OpenOffice.org can open and edit Microsoft Word files.

If you are in need of Office type software and you don’t want to pay a lot of money, give OpenOffice.org a try. If you don’t like it, you can always get yourself a copy of Microsoft Office. But if you do like it, you’ve saved yourself a lot of money. For more information on OpenOffice.org, or to download it and install it on your computer, click here.

By the way, watch out for people who sell OpenOffice. They will come up with names like OpelOffice that sound like OpenOffice to trick you into paying for something that’s free.

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We are always evaluating new security software so that we can recommend the best for our customers. Right now, that’s Vipre. In the past we have recommended AVG. AVG is still good and we recommend it as well. But Vipre provides slightly better protection in our opinion.

Vipre generally sells for $30/year per computer. You can purchase licenses for longer periods of time (2 years, 3 years) and get a discount. You can also purchase licenses for more than one computer at a time and get a discount. And Vipre Enterprise, for businesses with servers, is a fantastic product.

But there is also a licensing option called the Home Site License. It’s only available to residential customers. For $50/year, you can put Vipre on all of the computers in your home, no matter how many computers you have. If you have 2 or more computers, you save money by getting the home site license. It doesn’t matter if you have 2 computers or 10 computers. It’s just $50/year. A great deal!

If you are interested in the Vipre Home Site License, please contact us.

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As you know, Internet Explorer is the program you use to view websites. Most people should have version 7 of Internet Explorer. You can find out what version you have by clicking on Help (might be a circle with a question mark in it) and then clicking on “About Internet Explorer”

If you have Automatic Updates turned on (which we recommend) you will soon get Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) if you haven’t already gotten it. IE8 is faster and has better security. However, with any new version of software, there can be problems when it’s first installed. Just like we had with version 7, some computers have problems after installing IE8.

We recommend allowing the install of IE8 because it’s only a few PC’s that will have a problem with it. And any PC that has a problem installing IE8 has some other underlying problem that needs to be addressed anyway.

If you want more information about Internet Explorer 8, click here.

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