Windows Reinstall - The "Go-To" Site for Windows Guides - Interviews Jim White

Hi everyone!

For those of you not familiar with WindowsReinstall.com, it's a site managed by Mark Walmsley that exists to provide help with repairs, installs, reinstalls, and other general help with the many flavors of Windows (Windows 95 through Windows Vista). It even provides some great documentation for MS-DOS (remember that one?!). This is an excellent site and one that I talk about in my book, Just the Computer Essentials as the "go-to" place when looking to restore your computer.

Mark recently invited me to talk with him in an interview about my book Just the Computer Essentials. Check out this link
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/articles/Reviews/justthecomputeressentials/
where you can read the interview.

In addition, I gave Mark a few chapters from Just the Computer Essentials to post online. If you haven't purchased your copy yet, this is a great opportunity to take a look at the chapters he put up on the site to see what a great piece of work I'm offering! ;)

Remember, if you like it, you can get pick up the book from Amazon, BarnesAndNoble.com, or any other online retailer. You can also have any bricks and mortar bookstore get in in for you as well. And, of course, if you order it from my website, http://www.booksbyjim.com/, it will be autographed.

So, be sure to check out Mark's website. You'll quickly find out that it's a real wealth of knowledge and definitely one you'll find yourself coming back to.... http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

Have a great week everyone!

-- Jim
MCSE, CCSP, CCEA, Server+, A+, and more!
www.booksbyjim.com/

How To Free Up Major Disk Space After Vista SP1 Install

Hey everyone!

I realized that I lost some disk space on my laptop after installing Vista SP1. I wanted to see where all the free space went, so I ran a freeware utility called TreeSize. It scans the drive or folder you want it to and sorts everything by size. After running a scan on the C drive, I found that one particular folder (C:\Windows\winsxs) was taking up over 9 GB of space - 9 GB!!! That's a lot of space lost. I won't go into the details of this directory, but in a nutshell, as applications are installed and uninstalled, the manifests are kept in this folder. If you're interested in more info on the WinSxS directory, here's a good place to start... http://blogs.msdn.com/jonwis/archive/2005/12/28/507863.aspx.

But, back to the point... 9 GB!!! I began to realize that part of this probably had to do with SP1, but from what I had read, I also knew not to delete from this folder. So I did some digging on cleaning up after SP1 and found out that not only is this possible, but SP1 includes a built-in utility to do exactly that. VSP1CLN.EXE is a utility that can reclaim some of this space. And being built into SP1, there's no downloading or installation necessary - if you have SP1 installed, you're ready to go!

To run it, hold down the Winkey (the one that looks like the Microsoft flag usually on the lower left of the keyboard) and then press the "R" key. This should open up the run menu. Type in "vsp1cln.exe" and click OK.

This will open up a command prompt with the option to make Vista SP1 permanent on your computer. Now, before you press the letter "Y," keep in mind that this utility will run and will do exactly what it says - it will remove all the files that were archived that allow you to uninstall SP1. So be sure that everything runs correctly after SP1 before doing this. Assuming your ready to go for it, press the letter "Y" and Vista will do its thing.

It took probably about 10 to 15 minutes to run on my laptop and when it was done, it simply exited.

So how much space did this free up? Well, I first read about this utility on the "My Digital Life" website where they talk about getting back up to 800 MB of space. On my laptop though, I reclaimed a whopping 3.49 GB of space on the C drive!! I'm sure this is not the norm, but regardless, I hope this helps you to clean up a substantial amount of disk space on your computer as well!

For more great advice and tips, don't forget to check out my book, Just the Computer Essentials from my website www.booksbyjim.com, Amazon.com, or your favorite book distributor.

Have a great week everyone!

-- Jim
MCSE, CCSP, CCEA, Server+, A+, and more!
www.booksbyjim.com/

How-To Geek - A Great Windows Resource

Hi everyone! I realize that some of my subscribers are Windows novices and some are experts, but I have found that when it comes to learning the ins and outs of Windows, a great resource across the board is the How-To Geek website (http://www.howtogeek.com/)

Each post focuses on how to do a specific task with your computer or a good trick or shortcut. The topics cover everything from common error messages to weird process that run in the background to tricks of the trade in popular software (like Microsoft Office).

What's nice about this site is that you can subscribe to the site using your favorite RSS reader (or via email), just like many of you do to my blog. I currently use My Yahoo! as my RSS reader and have probably a good 70 to 80 modules in there. So, usually about once or twice a day, I skim through my page to see any worthwhile news. And I will tell you that the How-To Geek site usually makes me click on through to read the whole topic.

But don't take my word for it - I think the 44,000+ subscribers the "Geek" already has to his blog speaks volumes in itself.

So, if you haven't already, check out the http://www.howtogeek.com/ website and let me know what you think.

As a bonus, the "Geek" recently posted a review of my Just the Computer Essentials book (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/book-reviews/book-review-just-the-computer-essentials-vista/). Shameless plug - yes, but definitely not the only reason to check out the site! With the wealth of useful information, you're bound to be a loyal subscriber!

Have a great week, everyone!

-- Jim White
MCSE, CCSP, CCEA, Server+, A+, and more!
http://www.booksbyjim.com/

Office Open XML - A Quick Touch on the Office 2007 File Formats

By now, many of you may have started to become a little familiar with the new Microsoft Office formats that became a part of Office 2007. These are easily distinguished by their file extensions which are now four letter extensions ending in an "x" or "m" depending on whether they contain macros or not. For example, up through Office 2003, Word documents would end in .doc. However, if you create a new non-macro document in Word 2007, it will default to an extension of .docx. Additionally, a new Word 2007 document containing macros will default to an extension of .docm.

Here are some of the updated formats in Office 2007:

Microsoft Office Product	Older Office Format	New Office 2007 Non-Macro Format	New Office 2007 Macro-Enabled Format	Other New Office 2007 Formats
Excel	*.xls	*.xlsx	*.xlsm	*.xlsb, *.xltx, *.xltm, *.xlam
PowerPoint	*.ppt	*.pptx	*.pptm	*.potx, *.potm, *.ppsx, *.ppsm
Word	*.doc	*.docx	*.docm	*.dotx, *.dotm

That's great, Jim… but, why should I care anything about these new formats?!

Here's why…

The new formats are XML-based versions. Unlike prior formats, these are open formats and can be used by other companies and developers to help create a more universal standard. Microsoft's standard is called Office Open XML (or OOXML) and they are not the only player in the game trying to get their document format to become the universal standard. Sun Microsystems is pushing its OpenDocument Format (ODF) as well, and right now, it's anyone's game.

The new Microsoft XML formats allow for a number of benefits over the prior formats Office used. They can provide for files that are up to 75% smaller than if they had been saved in the older formats. They also are less prone to corruption than the older files. Additionally, a new file can easily be identified if it is has macros in it simply by the format extension it has (e.g. *.docm versus *.docx), which can help you see real quick if a file may unwanted or unknown code. More of the benefits can be found by looking at:

Microsoft MSDN: Introducing the Office (2007) Open XML File Formats (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338205.aspx)

A neat little trick is to know that the new formats are saved in a ZIP format. So it you rename a file like "My Document.docx" to "My Document.zip," you can actually browse and see how the new file format works from within your ZIP program. Although, pretty cool to look at and learn from, don't try this with critical files or modify any of the content within it or you can screw up the file.

So, it sounds pretty cool, Jim – but are there any issues?

Well, if someone with Office 2007 saves a Word document in the new .docx format, for example, and sends it to someone with Office 2003, that person won't be able to open the .docx file unless they have installed the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. So, if you are running an earlier version of Microsoft Office, you should download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, which will allow you to open files created in the new format. More information, as well as a link to download and install the compatibility pack, can be found by looking at:

Microsoft Article ID 924074: How to use earlier versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to open and save files from 2007 Office programs (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074)

Hopefully, I've been able to help you understand the Office 2007 file formats as well as some of the benefits and "gotchas." The new open formats that are available can lead to some dramatic changes to the way office suite documents are handled by office suites all around and now, I hope that you understand the first giant step in that direction!

-- Jim White
MCSE, CCSP, CCEA, Server+, A+, and more!
www.booksbyjim.com

Windows Vista for Beginners

Hi everyone! It's been a while since my last post, but I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about a website called Windows Vista for Beginners. I came across this website a while back and have been keeping an eye on it ever since.

As the name suggests, Windows Vista for Beginners is a website dedicated to providing easy-to-understand tutorials and advice for Windows Vista. If this sounds familiar, that's because that is very much along the same lines as my book, Just the Computer Essentials.

Because of this, I thought that my book would be a good match for the Vista for Beginners team. So I got in touch with a really good guy named Ciprian and I asked if he would be interested in taking a look at my book and providing his readers with an honest, unpaid review. He agreed and starting today the review can be found here.

Aside from the fact that they reviewed Just the Computer Essentials, the Windows Vista for Beginners website is a very good site and one you will definitely want to add to your favorites. Or even better, if you have an RSS reader that you use, you may want to add the http://feeds.feedburner.com/WindowsVistaForBeginners feed URL to it (or iGoogle, My Yahoo!, etc.) to ensure you always keep up-to-date.

Anyway, that's all I have for now, but I'll be posting back here soon with some other tips to keep you rolling along!

-- Jim
http://www.booksbyjim.com/

A Little Bit of Fun with "Just the Computer Essentials"

Hi everyone! I just wanted to point out that I've added something fun to the http://www.booksbyjim.com/ website. Head over to the website and then click on "Fun" along the top. You'll then be taken to every piece of Just the Computer Essentials fun merchandise you can possibly imagine - t-shirts, sweatshirts, boxers, baby clothes, coffee mugs, baseball caps, and more!

Everything is done through a very reputable company (CafePress). I ordered a few different kinds of shirts already and was really impressed with the quality. I just wore them out on the town this weekend and actually had some great conversations with a number of people.

So, take a look and I hope you find something you like! Here a direct link as well:
http://www.cafepress.com/booksbyjim

Guess what friends and family are getting for Christmas this year!!! ;)

-- Jim
Author of Just the Computer Essentials
http://www.booksbyjim.com/

A Couple Great Free Services (Part 2)

Hi everyone! In the last article A Couple Great Free Services (Part 1), I talked about what a great service Jott is. Today, I want to talk about another great service...

GrandCentral


Recently acquired by Google, GrandCentral is an amazing and innovative idea. And best of all, they come through on what they want to accomplish. Here's the gist of how it works...

You go to GrandCentral website (http://www.grandcentral.com/) to reserve a phone number you'd like to have and sign up with your name and email. Right now there's a waiting list, so you need to get on that. Once you get your invite, you can then log into your account and get started with the good stuff.

The phone number you selected initially will now be your number that you give out to friends and family. Within GrandCentral, you can add the phone numbers of other phones you want to include - maybe your cell phone, work number, and possibly your home number. You can also import your address book from other email programs (Yahoo!, Gmail, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.)

So, with the default settings, here's what now happens...

• Someone calls your phone number (the main GrandCentral number).
  
• All the phones you have under that umbrella ring (your Caller ID will still show the person calling like it normally does).
  
• You pick up one of the phones ringing and you now have a few options:
• Accept the call just like a normal call and start talking.
• Send the caller directly to voicemail.
• Send the caller to voicemail, but listen while they are leaving their message, in case you want to pick it up (how cool is that - like an answering machine at home!)
• Accept the call and record the conversation (the caller does get alerted to this and even so, keep in mind that this is not legal in some states)

Well, Jim, it's pretty cool that this number is now a permanent number and no one needs to remember or even know any of your other numbers, but can't it do anything else?

I am glad you asked! How about this:

• Joe calls you and you've answered your phone at the office, but you need to get on the road. Before GrandCentral, you could interrupt Joe's story and tell him you'll call him back from your cell phone. With GrandCentral, however, you just press the asterisk key (*) on your phone and all your phones will ring again. You pick up on your cell phone and Joe continues his story (blah, blah, blah...). That's one of my favorite features.
  
• In the middle of a call, Kevin is about to give you directions to get to the party you're heading to in about an hour. Just press four (4) on your phone and the conversation starts to be recorded. When you're done with the directions, just press 4 again (or hang up) to stop recording. You can now access the recording just like a voicemail when you've made a wrong turn on Albuquerque and need to figure out where you went wrong.
  
• Block callers as spam, just as easily if you can with email.
  
• This one I think is really cool... you can create different voicemail messages for different people or different groups of people. Imagine everyone calling and getting one voicemail message but when Dawn and Lisa call, they get a different voicemail letting them know that your cell phone doesn't work well where you're at and to just meet you at the bar.

There's a bunch of other features as well, but I'll let you go check those out yourself.

The GrandCentral website is a straight-forward, simple, yet elegant dashboard to manage everything. You can quickly setup a "quick rule" to just send all calls to voicemail or just send all calls to a temporary forwarding number. You can play your voicemails and even something called Click2Call that lets you click on a phone number of someone to easily call them (GrandCentral calls you first and then connects to the number you clicked to call).

The potential for GrandCentral is amazing. And they've recently been acquired by Google which helps to ensure the stability of their network. GrandCentral is still in beta and they are currently looking at keeping the service free, while making some of the features available at an affordable cost. While in beta, all the features are free.

I am really impressed with GrandCentral and definitely would recommend this to anyone looking for some fun, cutting-edge technology that can actually make you more productive. GrandCentral can be found at http://www.grandcentral.com/.

If you get an opportunity, check out both services - GrandCentral and Jott (from Part 1). I hope I was able to provide some good info on both of these for you. Have a great week!

-- Jim
http://www.booksbyjim.com/