It used to be when you bought a PC, a system repair disk was also included.  This was useful in the event you needed to rebuild your system.

During this holiday season, many will be getting a new PC as a gift. What you will not receive is a system repair disk. This can be used to boot your computer in the event you are unable to from your hard drive, need to recover windows from a system error.  You will need to make a system repair disk.  This should be done as soon as possible after purchasing your new computer.  It could end up being invaluable in the event of a system failure. 

To create a system repair disk, click the "Start' button.  In the address bar type "Backup" .  Under "Programs"  select "Backup and Restore".  In the left pane is an option "Create a System Repair Disk".  Select this.  Insert a CD to create a system repair disk.  When you are done creating your system repair disk make sure to put it in a safe place but not so safe a place you forget where. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

While this blog is a posting of computer related items, cell phones are in fact a computer and this is a potential life saving issue. I am doing this post that indirectly relates . 

In case of emergency (ICE) is a program that enables 1st responders to identify victims and contact next of kin in case of an emergency.  Hence the acronym ICE.  All cellphones should have one or more ICE listings should the unfortunate happen. 

That said, cellphones and particularly smart phones have password protection mechanism where your phone, ICE and all other information cannot be accessed without keying a password or drawing a pattern to unlock all of this.  What I am trying to get at here is if your phone is password protected, ICE is not able to be accessed.  Please have an alternate form of identification that lists an emergency contact(s).  Don't feel a false sense of security having ICE on your phone where there is password protection enabled.

While people still go door to door or are in crowded places trying to get signatures on a petition for a cause, there is another way to get signatures on a petition. Online petitions are now a thing. Site like Ipetitions and Petitiononline are changing how petitions are done. There are pros and cons to an online petition. It is good that anyone with internet access can create a petition online. This also can lead to petitions for frivolous causes. Another issue  are people using false names that could make a petition invalid.  People using false names is also an issue for non online petitions as well. I would also guess that some petitions you see people trying to get signatures for in crowded places some consider frivolous as well. 

You can create a petition for your cause. You also can sign a petition for or against a cause. One thing to keep in mind is that unless you wish to make yourself anonymous, your name may come up as signing the petition in question. 

So go ahead while at home sign your name to a cause at 3 in the morning if you desire.

This is not going to be a political post. I do not get political on this blog. However there are times where politics and tech related issues intertwine and this is one of these times. This blog is from a tech perspective and I will not issue an opinion of Congressman Weiner one way or another politically. 

Congressman Weiner admitted yesterday that he had tweeted lewd pictures of himself. He supposedly is one of the more tech savvy members of Congress. I have made mention both on this blog and on Twitter the need to be careful of what you put out on the internet especially social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. A lot of what you put out there in cyberspace is out in the open for all to see. Congressman Weiner who again is tech savvy should have known this. Unless your tweets are protected or you are sending a direct message to someone, any tweet you make is there and cannot be considered a secret in any way, shape or form. When I tweet, I realize this. If I make a grammatical error or another error guess what? It can be seen by anyone and does not put me in the best light. Anyone with internet access can see them by simply doing a search on Twitter. A lot of my tweets can also be found by doing a search on Google or another search engine. Since he admitted that he sent it, I cannot understand how Anthony Weiner as a user of Twitter could not think that somehow the Tweet of him in his underwear would be hush hush. If he intended to send a direct message, he should have been extra careful knowing the implications of the tweet in question. Also keep in mind that anyone using Twitter has the ability to retweet a tweet to their followers and of course that is there for all to see. So for argument's sake, if Charlie Sheen who has over 4 million followers was to retweet Weiner's infamous tweet all 4 million plus of his followers will see it. Sheen's followers can then retweet it to their followers and you can see this all spiraling.

Let me respond about hacked passwords here as Weiner initially said his account was hacked. You need to have a safe password. I have blogged about the need for a safe password in previous posts. Please see the link which also has links to related posts. http://computerconciergeny.com/3/post/2010/09/password-protection-revisited.html. You also need to be careful of phishing schemes. 

In this day of social media, Google, Facebook, etc., we need to be careful of what we put online. Anything you do online in a public forum can be obtained by others. A few years ago I signed an online petition that photography in New York City subways not be banned. One time when doing an online search of myself, it came up. Anything I put on my website www.computerconciergeny.com is not between friends but for the whole world to see. This means that not only what you put on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter do you need to be careful about. You need to be careful about EVERYTHING you put online that is not an email or text message. Yes the recipient of an email or text can share that with others. But that also holds true for what you tell someone verbally or in writing.

CCleaner is a product developed by Piroform. It is used to clean unwanted files and invalid Windows registry entries from a computer. It is an application for Windows and not for Macs. However the Piroform webite which is responsible for CCleaner notes on its website that it soon will be making CCleaner for Macs as well.  It is free and a valuable program to have. One of its applications is the removal of cookies. For those who may be unfamiliar with cookies per Wikipedia they are "a piece of text stored on a user's computer by their web browser". What this piece of text does is that it stores various information on it. This information can be site preferences, shopping cart contents and an identifier.

Yes you can use the Disk Cleanup program in the System Tools of your PC. However CCleanerdoes a better job. As mentioned it can be used to delete invalid registry entries from your computer. It is not a sophisticated program for doing this but for those unfamiliar with registry files, it will do the job without harming your computer. It also is very good for cleaner your internet browser's cookies, history, temporary files and form history and download history. 

Having said all this I will add that you can customize the settings. For example should you not wish to delete anything related to MS Office you can. This is important because if you select MS Office your history of recently opened documents will be deleted. 

CCleaner also removes from your PC temporary files, listing of recent documents opened and clears your recycle bin. In addition it also removes unnecessary information from various third party programs. These include MS Office and Adobe Acrobat. If you like your computer to save your passwords (not recommended) or browsing history you have that option. Should you wish not to delete selected cookies, there is an option for that as well.

You also can uninstall programs using CCleaner instead of going into your computer's Control Panel.  The ability to wipe your hard drive also exists by going into the Tools option and selecting "Drive Wiper" then selecting "Entire Drive"  in the drop down menu to the right of "Wipe" so you do need to exercise some caution.

In all this is a desirable program to have on your hard drive. It is free and is a good way to get rid of unneeded files as well as being user friendly. I have found the settings to be easy to use.

UPDATE:  CCleaner is now available to Mac users as a free beta download.  http://lifehacker.com/5808168/ccleaner-for-mac-clears-personal-data-in-one-click-for-safari-and-firefox

I would like to add here that if anyone has a suggestion for a subject, please let me know. Also please feel free to comment.  All comments are welcomed.

Ever want to grab part or all of what you see on your screen? Want to email some or all of what you see on your screen? The Snipping Tool is for you.  This tool is included in the Windows7 and Vista operating systems. To access it go to the "Start" tab and in the search bar type in "snipping tool". You will then see the icon to click for the Snipping tool at the top left of the start menu .

Note that you are limited to what you are able to see on the screen view.  You can select all of what you see or some of it. You have the choice of a rectangular snip, free form snip, window snip or full screen snip. You select this by selecting the down arrow in the drop down menu next to "New".  With the rectangular snip, you are able to snip in a rectangular form  what you see on your screen.  The free form snip is just that.  You can snip whatever shape of your screen view to capture whether it be a triangle, circle, etc.  With the window snip you select a window that you have opened that you wish to capture.   The full screen snip is just that.  What you see on your screen is what is captured. 

Once you have captured your screenshot, you can make your own notes and/or highlight selected areas on what you just captured in the captured file.  You also have the ability to email your finished product.  You also have the ability to save your capture.

The Snipping Tool is a handy tool and can make your computer life a bit easier.  Give it a try sometime.

What would happen on a trip if you were to lose your passport, credit cards, driver's license, etc?  I find it to be a good idea to scan all except the credit cards and then save it as a word file using Microsoft Word (MS Word).  As for the credit cards, I make a list of that using MS Excel. I have the name of the card in one column and the card number in another column. You can also do a list in MS Word.  Using MS Excel is a personal preference. 

In saving these files I make sure to password protect them. Since the method to password protect a file differs by program used and version of that program you need to go to the help section to determine how to password protect the file. I then email the file to myself. What I am doing here is adding an extra layer of security to information that if it fell into the wrong hands would make me more susceptible to identity theft. One would need to know both my email password as well as the password I am using to protect the respective files that contain this sensitive data. I would suggest making the passwords for your email and files different.

One does not have to limit to just credit cards, passport and drivers license. Scanning current drug prescriptions you are using and saving them to a word type file is another good idea where you have a copy of the prescription. This way if you were to lose the prescription drugs you had packed, you should have an easier time refilling it. You can also put the numbers of your travelers checks in a file as well. I also keep my phonebook in my Google contacts list so should I need a number I can get it wherever I have an internet connection which would include my smartphone.

Doing all of these is not a magic bullet should you have a loss. It will however make it easier to travel and in the case of a passport get a replacement more easily in the event of losing any important documents. I would also suggest that you avoid using an unsecured public wireless network to obtain any of this. If you have a smartphone, you can likely access this information using it. That said another way to store your files is if you are using a syncing program likeDropbox or Sugarsync. You can log onto the one you are using to access the information in question. I will suggest here that you do not save this information on the hard drive of any computers you may be travelling with. Better that it is in the cloud where the data and you are not in the same place. Also should your computer get lost or stolen, you can still access it from another computer. If anyone is interested in opening a Dropbox account let me know before setting up your account. I will send you an invite to join Dropbox and both of us will get an extra 250mb of free storage. A win/win for both of us. Note: as I mentioned in my blog last week, you cannot upload or save a password protected file in Google Docs.

Hopefully you will never need to access these files in an emergency.  However, having them in an emergency can make your life easier when it occurs.