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10 Great Tools For A Budget

Takeaway: From diagnostic tools to antivirus to backup utilities, this list of freebies will help you do more with less.

If you’re trying to stretch a thin IT budget, you probably can’t afford a lot of pricey tools. Luckily, a number of highly useful tools are available for free. Some of them even work better and are more efficient than their costlier alternatives.

1: ComboFix

When the standard antivirus/malware software can’t seem to find the problem, ComboFix almost always does. It also looks for and removes most rootkits and Trojans. To use this tool, you must completely disable all antivirus solutions (and you should completely remove AVG). Caution: If ComboFix is not used properly, it can wreak havoc on the machine you’re trying to fix.

2: ProduKey

ProduKey will help you get product keys from installed applications so that when you need to migrate to a new machine, you can continue using those costly licenses. ProduKey will recover keys from more than 1,000 software titles, including Microsoft Office, Adobe, and Symantec. When you use this tool, you will have both the product ID and the product key; the ID is important because it will tell you which version of the software is installed.

3: Hiren’s BootCD

Hiren’s BootCD is a one-stop-shop Linux boot disk that can help you pull off a number of small miracles. Its tools include Antivir, ClamWin, ComboFix, Clonedisk, Image for Windows, BIOS Cracker, 7-Zip, Bulk Rename, Mini Windows XP, CCleaner, and Notepad++, among others. This single bootable disk could easily be the only tool you need.

4: Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the better free antivirus tools available. Its tagline, “The anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program,” is true. When the firm I work with was looking for a new free solution, we tested Microsoft Security Essentials against AVG Free and Avast Free and found Microsoft Security Essentials to be superior, less intrusive, and less resource intensive.

Note: Microsoft Security Essentials can be used for free for up to 10 PCs. Beyond that, you can purchase the business version, System Center Endpoint Protection.

5: WinDirStat

WinDirStat is the program you need when you must know what is taking up the space on a hard drive. When C drives begin to fill up, performance degrades rapidly. It’s essential to have a tool to help you discern what is gobbling up the precious space on a machine, and WinDirStat is the foremost app for getting this information quickly.

6: CCleaner

CCleaner gets rid of temporary files and Windows Registry problems faster than any other tool. When a machine is having problems, this is almost always the tool I use first. CCleaner also helps ensure privacy by getting rid of traces left behind (such as cookies) by Web browsers.

Note: It is legal to use CCleaner Free for business use. However, CCleaner Business Editioncomes with a few more features (including one-click cleaning) than the free version.

7: Defraggler

Defraggler blows away the defragmenting application in all Windows operating systems. It’s faster, more reliable, and more flexible than the built-in tools. With Defraggler, you can defrag a single file or an entire drive. Defraggler supports NTFS and FAT32 systems.

8: 7-Zip

7-Zip is the best file archiver/compression tool (outside of Linux command-line tools). It’s open source and works on multiple platforms. Once you install it, you will find 7-Zip has Explorer support and a simple GUI tool that any level of user can manage.

9: SyncBack

SyncBack is a reliable, easy-to-use backup utility. No, you won’t be recovering from bare metal, but you can save your precious data. SyncBack can synchronize data to the same drive, a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc.), an FTP server, a network, or a zip archive.

10: FileZilla

FileZilla reminds you that the cloud has not made FTP useless. There are plenty of reasons you might need FTP, so why not use one of the best and most cost effective FTP clients? And if you need an easy-to-use FTP server to slap up on your Windows machines, FileZilla has one.

Verizon officially lands iPhone

Takeaway: It’s official. Verizon is getting the iPhone. There are five big questions that we’ve been hearing in relation to the iPhone 4 launch on Verizon. Here are the answers.

It’s official. AT&T’s deal as the exclusive US carrier for the iPhone has ended (apparently the 4-year deal concluded at the end of 2010), and Verizon is the first new US telecom to add the iPhone to its roster. The long-anticipated move was announced at a Verizon press event at New York’s Lincoln Center on Tuesday in the midst of a circus atmosphere that included the tech press, all of the national news networks, and even The Daily Show.

The iPhone 4 will arrive on Verizon on February 10. Current Verizon customers will be able to pre-order online starting February 3. The price of the iPhone will remain the same: $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB, with a two-year Verizon contract. As for the price of Verizon data plans for the iPhone, Verizon coyly stated, “Customers will also be required to activate a data package. Pricing will be announced at a later date.”

It’s odd that the iPhone wouldn’t simply use the existing Verizon 3G data plans. This seems to indicate a couple possible scenarios. Either: 1.) Verizon is going to have a special data plan just for the iPhone (it has been rumored that Verizon would offer a truly unlimited data plan for iPhone), or 2.) Verizon is about to change the price of all of its 3G data plans in conjunction with the iPhone launch.

Beyond the basic details, here are answers to five big questions that we’ve been hearing from our audience in relation to the iPhone finally landing on Verizon:

1. Will it be CDMA or LTE?
Unfortunately, the iPhone 4 will only run on Verizon’s 3G CDMA network and not on its newly-launched 4G LTE network. This was the biggest disappointment of the Verizon iPhone announcement, especially since upcoming Android devices like the HTC Thunderbolt and Motorola Droid Bionic will be running on the LTE superhighway in a few months. At CES last week I tested the HTC Thunderbolt on the Verizon LTE network and was blown away by the desktop-like speeds for loading Web pages. At today’s press event Apple said that including LTE in the iPhone 4 would have involved “design compromises” (probably in size and battery life) and would have taken longer before it was ready to launch. However, both Apple and Verizon stated that this is just the beginning of their partnership (Translation: Expect an LTE-capable iPhone in the future).

2. Will it have mobile hotspot capability?
The biggest surprise of the Verizon iPhone announcement — and arguably the biggest news of the press conference since everything else was pretty much as expected — was that the Verizon version of the iPhone will offer the capability of turning itself into a mobile hotspot that can share its 3G Internet connection over Wi-Fi with up to five devices. Again, no information was provided on whether Verizon will charge extra for mobile hotspot capability. Verizon has wide variations in its treatment of tethering and mobile hotspot charges. It has charged Android users an additional fee for it, but threw it in for free to Palm Pre Plus users. What they do with the iPhone will probably depend on how aggressively the company wants to try to poach current AT&T iPhone customers.

3. Does new Verizon model fix iPhone 4’s antenna?
As you’ve probably heard, when the iPhone 4 first launched last June there were a bunch of customers who experienced antenna problems when holding the iPhone in a way that covered a sensitive portion of the antenna in the lower left-hand corner of the phone. The problem was drastically overblown by the tech press and drastically understated by Apple. In the end, Apple said the problem was significantly reduced if you use an iPhone case and offered free cases to buyers. A number of people have asked if Apple has fixed the problem in this new iteration of the iPhone 4 for Verizon. Naturally, Apple hasn’t said that it has changed anything with the iPhone antenna, but a closer look at the Verizon iPhone shows that it does indeed have a different antenna design and early reports indicate that the Verizon iPhone is not exhibiting the antenna problems.

4. Can you transfer an existing iPhone to Verizon?
The AT&T version of both the iPhone 3GS (which just got a price drop to $50) and iPhone 4 are built on what’s called GSM radio technology (used by both AT&T and T-Mobile in the US). Meanwhile, Verizon and Sprint use a completely different technology called CDMA. The two standards are incompatible. They use different radios and operate on different wireless frequencies. So, no, you cannot take your existing AT&T iPhone and walk into a Verizon store and simply switch networks. Even if you own an iPhone 4 you will have to purchase a completely new iPhone 4 with CDMA chips in order for it to work on Verizon.

5. Will iPhone kill Verizon’s network like it did to AT&T?
Another question that we heard a lot leading up to the expected announcement of the Verizon iPhone today was whether the influx of millions of new iPhone users would bring the Verizon network to its knees the same way it has crushed the AT&T network in areas such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and at big events like CES and SXSW. I think the answer is “no,” for several reasons. First of all, Verizon is a lot more serious than any of the other US wireless carriers when it comes to network integrity. They aggressively test and audit their own network, so I’ll think they’ll be ready. Second, they just beefed up all of their cell sites to handle additional bandwidth and network load for the launch of their 4G LTE network in 38 cities and they are in the process of upgrading the rest of the US to LTE over the next 24-36 months. Third, while there will be plenty of existing Verizon customers who jump on board with the iPhone and some die-hards who jump from AT&T to Verizon, the vast majority of iPhone customers will remain on AT&T because they are under contract and leaving would be prohibitively expensive.

To view the original article in it’s entirety, Click Here

Warm Laptop on Legs Can Harm Skin

CHICAGO — Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit.

Doing it a lot can lead to “toasted skin syndrome,” an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports.

In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months.

“He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position,” Swiss researchers reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg.

Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, was stumped until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 125 degrees.

That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.

The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren’t hot enough to cause burns. It’s generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap.

Salkey, an assistant dermatology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, said that under the microscope, the affected skin resembles skin damaged by long-term sun exposure.

Major manufacturers including Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell warn in user manuals against placing laptops on laps or exposed skin for extended periods of time because of the risk for burns.

View full sizeAP Photo/HO via PediatricsA 12-year-old boy with evidence of “toasted skin syndrome” on his left leg caused by exposure to high temperatures while spending a great deal of time playing video games with a laptop resting on his legs.

A medical report several years ago found that men who used laptops on their laps had elevated scrotum temperatures. If prolonged, that kind of heat can decrease sperm production, which can potentially lead to infertility. Whether laptop use itself can cause that kind of harm hasn’t been confirmed.

In the past, “toasted skin syndrome” has occurred in workers whose jobs require being close to a heat source, including bakers and glass blowers, and, before central heating, in people who huddled near potbellied stoves to stay warm.

Dr. Anthony J. Mancini, dermatology chief at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said he’d treated a boy who developed the condition from using a heating pad “hours at a time” to soothe a thigh injured in soccer. Mancini said he’d also seen a case caused by a hot water bottle.

He noted that chronic, prolonged skin inflammation can potentially increase chances for squamous cell skin cancer, which is more aggressive than the most common skin cancer. But Mancini said it’s unlikely computer use would lead to cancer since it’s so easy to avoid prolonged close skin contact with laptops.

To view the full article Click Here

Windows 10 Privacy Settings Guide

Where do you draw the line on personal privacy? The right options are different for everyone. This guide shows the privacy settings that will help you to create the right balance of privacy and convenience in Windows 10.

Over the past year, We’ve read countless “privacy guides” for Windows 10. Most are well-intentioned, but they invariably take a simplistic approach to privacy: Just turn off every switch in the Privacy section of the Settings app.

If you do that, you’re not understanding the privacy landscape, which encompasses far more than just those settings. You’re also missing some important additional steps.

Windows 10 is a mix of software and services. With every session, a Windows 10 device exchanges a great deal of information with Microsoft’s servers. That’s neither unusual nor alarming. Microsoft’s chief rivals, Google and Apple, are also blending services into their software, with the goal of making your life easier and making that software more reliable.

So are other tech companies that you don’t think of as software companies: Amazon, with the Echo. Tesla, with its self-updating, software-driven cars. Your thermostat and your home security system.

There’s something profoundly satisfying about a service that anticipates your every move, reminding you when to leave for an appointment to arrive on time, or to pick up flowers for your anniversary tomorrow. Your digital personal assistant, whether it’s Siri or Cortana or Alexa or Google, needs to be able to see your calendar and contacts to make that magic happen.

But when that sort of personal attention goes too far, it “crosses the creepy line,” to use a phrase that Eric Schmidt probably regrets uttering when he was Google’s CEO.

The thing about that line is that it’s drawn in a different place for everyone. There are people who are thrilled at the idea that their PC or mobile device is so familiar with their actions that it can anticipate what they’ll do next. I know others who would like to build a virtual Faraday cage around their computing hardware so that none of their personal details can escape.

Both of those viewpoints, and everything in between, are perfectly valid. That’s why the software and services we use are loaded with switches and dials designed to help you take control of their potential privacy impact.

In this post, We’ll walk you through the big privacy questions for Windows 10, with enough context to help you decide which settings are right for you.

Note that this guide assumes you are using Windows 10 on a personal PC or one in your small business. If you are in an enterprise setting, or if you are in a regulated industry, you should seek professional assistance to ensure that you’re meeting proper standards.

Let’s start with the part of your PC that has the biggest impact on your personal privacy.

THE NETWORK

No one knows more about your online identity than your Internet service provider. Every packet you send or receive from anywhere online goes through their servers. When you travel and connect to Wi-Fi networks that are under the control of others, the owners of those networks can see every connection you make and can intercept their contents.

Regardless of the platform you use, that’s why it’s important you use encrypted connections for any kind of sensitive communications. Using a virtual private network whenever possible is an excellent best practice.

Windows 10 does offer one obscure option that can help protect third parties from tracking your movements based on your connections to Wi-Fi networks. (Note that this feature requires support from your Wi-Fi adapter, so if you don’t see this option, the most likely explanation is that your hardware doesn’t support it.) Under Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi, turn the Use random hardware addresses setting to On.

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That step keeps third parties from matching your Wi-Fi adapter’s hardware address with your personal information, making it more difficult to track your location.

THE BROWSER

Countless third-party ad networks and analytics companies use cookies and other tracking technology to record your movements around the web and to correlate your online activities with your offline identity.

The result is a digital fingerprint that can be extraordinarily detailed and, unfortunately, outside of your ability to change.

To limit the amount of information that those ad and analytics companies know about you from your web browsing, consider third-party anti-tracking software such as Abine’s Blur, which is available for every web browser except Microsoft Edge. (That lack of solid support for add-ons is one reason I can’t yet recommend Edge as a full-time browser for most Windows 10 users.)

Another privacy product worth considering is Ghostery, although some are suspicious of this browser extension because of its uncomfortably close ties to the online advertising industry.

Ad-blocking software can also provide some privacy protection as a side-effect of performing its basic function. Here, too, watch out for close ties between some ad-blocking add-ins and the third-party trackers they supposedly protect you from.

Note that none of these steps is unique to Windows 10. Anti-tracking software is typically a browser add-in and works with most popular browsers.

THE OPERATING SYSTEM

With those two big, platform-independent factors out of the way, we can now turn to Windows 10 itself. When you use a Windows 10 device, it is capable of sharing the following types of information with Microsoft’s servers:

Your location

Windows 10 can determine your location to help with actions like automatically setting your current time zone. It can also record a location history on a per-device basis. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location to control the following:

  • Location on/off?Use the master switch at the top of this page to disable all location features for all users of the current device.
  • Location service on/off?If location is on for Windows, you can still turn it off for your user account here.
  • General location?This allows you to set a city, zip code, or region so that apps can deliver relevant content.
  • Default location?Click Set default to open the Maps app and specify the location you want Windows to use when a more precise location is not available.
  • Location history?Click Clear to erase the saved history for a Windows 10 device.

If location is on, a list at the bottom of the Settings > Privacy > Location page allows you to disable access to that data on a per-app basis.

Your input

If you enable Cortana, Windows 10 uploads some info from your devices, such as your calendar, contacts, and location and browsing history, so that Cortana can make personalized recommendations. If you don’t want any accounts on your PC to use Cortana, follow the steps in this article to disable the feature completely: Turn off Cortana completely.

Windows 10 uses some feedback from the way you type, write, and speak to improve performance for you and as a way to improve the overall platform. This isn’t keystroke logging; rather, the operating system uses a very small amount of information. A separate feature uses your speech and writing history to make better suggestions in Windows and Cortana.

You can control this collection with two sets of controls:

Under Settings > Privacy > General, click Info about how I write and turn it off so that your typos aren’t used to improve things like the built-in spell checker.

Under Settings > Privacy > Speech, inking, & typing, under the Getting to know you heading, click Stop getting to know me to turn off personalization.

To clear previously saved information associated with your Microsoft account, click the first link under the Manage cloud info heading. That takes you to this Bing Personalization page, which includes this prominent button:

windows-privacy01

Click Clear to remove that saved information from the cloud.

Files and settings

When you sign in with a Microsoft account, you have the option to save files to the cloud using OneDrive. Windows 10 also syncs some settings to OneDrive, allowing you to have the same desktop background, saved passwords, and other personalized settings when you sign in with that account on multiple PCs.

If you use a local account, of course, none of your settings are synced. If you use a Microsoft account, you can turn off syncing completely or remove certain settings from the sync list by going to Settings > Accounts > Sync Your Settings.

OneDrive is an opt-in service. If you don’t sign in, it does nothing. You can’t save files to OneDrive accidentally, and no files are uploaded without your explicit permission, which you can revoke any time. To disable OneDrive for all users on your PC, follow these instructions: Shut down OneDrive completely.

Telemetry

Microsoft, like all modern software companies, uses feedback from its installed base to identify problems and improve performance. In Windows 10, this feedback mechanism produces diagnostics data (aka telemetry) that is uploaded to Microsoft at regular intervals. The data is anonymized and is not used to create a profile of you.

The default telemetry setting for all consumer and small business versions of Windows 10 is Full, which means that the uploaded data also includes details (also anonymized) about app usage. If you are concerned about possible inadvertent leakage of personal information, I recommend that you go to Settings > Privacy > Feedback & diagnostics and change the Diagnostic and usage data setting to Basic.

THE APPS

Although the number of subcategories under the Privacy heading in Settings seems daunting, most of them govern access to your information by Windows Store apps. That set of apps includes those that are preinstalled (Mail, Calendar, Groove Music, Photos, and so on) as well as those you acquire from the Store.

Most of the categories offer a single on-off switch at the top, which you can use to disable all access to that feature by all apps. If you leave the feature enabled, you can use a list of apps at the bottom of the page to enable or disable access on a per-app basis.

This capability works the same with the following categories: Camera, Microphone, Notifications, Account Info, Call History, and Radios. The Other Devices category lets apps automatically share and sync info with wireless devices that aren’t explicitly paired with your PC. Use the Background Apps category to specify which apps are allowed to work in the background.

If Location is enabled, you have the option to disable location access on a per-app basis and to disable Geofencing.

The Contacts, Calendar, Email, and Messaging categories allow you to control which apps can have access to these features. If you want to share content from an app using email or messaging, this option has to be on for that app. Note that Mail and Calendar, People, and Phone always have access to your contacts; Mail and Calendar are always allowed to access and send email and always have access to your calendar.

Finally, one horribly misunderstood setting is available under Settings > Privacy > General. Advertising ID controls whether Microsoft serves personalized ads to ad-supported apps. If you turn this option off, you still get ads, but they’re not personalized. In any case, your information is not shared with advertisers.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

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To read this article in its entirety click here.

Office 365 Activation: How to Fix

Imagine you are a customer of Microsoft’s Office 365 service, including a subscription to the Office desktop applications like Word, Excel and Outlook.

One day you click on the shortcut for Word, but instead of opening, it just shows a “Starting” splash screen which never progresses.

Being smart, you try to start Word in safe mode by holding down the Ctrl key, but the exact same thing happens.

Annoying, when you want to do your work. What is going on?

We took a look at a case like this. Two things you should do (after the usual reboot):

1. Look in the event viewer. Here, we found a clue that the issue is related to software activation, specifically Event 2011 “Office Subscription Licensing exception”:

2. For all things related to Office licensing, open a command prompt, go to (for example) C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16, and type:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

In this case we got the following:

This told us that Windows thinks TWO product keys for Office are installed. One has expired, the other is fine.

The guilty party may (or may not) be the trial version of Office typically pre-installed with a new PC. Or it could be a consequence of changing your Office 365 subscription. Neither would be the fault of the user, who is fully licensed and has done nothing other than follow Microsoft’s normal procedures for installing Office 365.

Solution: we reinstalled Office from the Office 365 portal, and attempted to remove the dud product key with:

cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:<Last five characters of product key>

as explained here. All is well for the moment.

Activation and subscription license checking is for the benefit of the vendor, not the user, and should never get in the way like this.

Further, cannot Microsoft find some way of informing the user when this happens, and not have Word simply hang on starting? How difficult is it to check for licensing and activation issues, and throw up a message?

Migrate Facebook Data to Google+

You may not be ready to ditch Facebook for good, but now that you’ve had a chance to kick the tires on Google+, you might be ready to make it your go-to social network. The problem: You’ve built up a lot of friends, photos, videos, and other data on Facebook over the years, and you don’t want to simply lose all that data. Here’s how to migrate it all from Facebook to Google+.

Photo remixed from an original by Shutterstock.

When Google+ came out, it’s success was very much up in the air (remember Google Buzz?). However, it seems a lot of people have already thrown themselves into Google+ full force—Facebook may have 750 million users, but Google+ has already crossed the 20 million user milestone in only 30 days. If you’re ready to give it a shot as your main network, here’s what you need to do.

Migrate Your Friends

A social network is nothing without a group of friends with whom to talk, so the first thing you’ll want to do is migrate your friends. Not everyone you know is going to be on Google+ yet, but it’s a good idea to make sure you don’t leave anybody out—and you can always send those other late adopters an invite to encourage them.

The easiest way to migrate your Facebook friends is to import them through a Yahoo email address. I know that sounds awful, but hear me out: While a few people have created browser extensions and other migration methods, Facebook shuts them down pretty quickly, since they don’t like non-partners pulling friend data. In addition, the non-Yahoo methods usually add your Facebook friends to Google Contacts, which you probably don’t want. You may not have a Yahoo account, but that’s what makes this method great—no need to fill up your main address book with Facebook junk. Plus, it really does only take a few minutes.

To do this, head to mail.yahoo.com and click the Create New Account button (if you already have a Yahoo or Flickr account, you can skip this step). Once you’ve created an account, sign in and head to the Contacts tab. Click on “Import Contacts” and choose the Facebook option. You should now see all your Facebook friends in your Yahoo address book.

Lastly, head to Google+ and go to the Circles tab. Click “Find and Invite” and click the Yahoo button. It’ll add all your Yahoo Contacts (or Facebook Friends, in this case), to the Find and Invite page and you can add your Facebook friends to your circles. I, for one, was shocked at how many of my friends were already using Google+ without me knowing.

Migrate Your Photos

Migrating your photos is ridiculously easy with the previously mentioned Move Your Photos Chrome extension. Install it, click on its icon in the extension bar, and log in to your Facebook account. Select the photos you want to transfer and click the upload button at the very bottom of the page. You’ll see the progress in the lower right-hand corner. Don’t log out while it works, just let it do its thing.

When it’s done, you’ll see those albums in Google+. By default, they won’t be public, and you can adjust each album’s privacy settings by going into them and clicking on the “Edit” link under “Visible To”.

If you don’t want to use Chrome, you can grab a similar extension for Firefox, but you have to transfer albums one by one. If you have Chrome installed, I recommend using the Chrome extension just this once because it’s much faster.

Migrate Your Videos

The only way to migrate your videos, unfortunately, is to download the entirety of your Facebook data and re-upload them. To do this, head to Account > Account Settings, and scroll down to “Download Your Information”. Hit the “learn more” link and hit he Download button. It will take awhile to gather your info, but you’ll receive an email when it’s done, and you can download a ZIP file full of your photos, videos, and profile information.

Strangely, when I did this, one of my two videos was missing from the “videos” folder in the ZIP file. However, I was still able to download that video from Facebook by installing the Video Download Helper extension for Firefox, navigating to the video you want to download, playing it, and clicking the arrow next to Download Helper’s icon in the add-on bar.

Once you’ve wrangled all the videos you want to move to Google+, you’ll just have to upload them one by one. Head into Google+, click on your profile, and go to “Videos”. Hit the “Upload New Videos” link and re-upload your videos to your Google+ profile.

Update and View Both Networks at Once

Now that all your data’s been migrated, you can enjoy using Google+ as your main social network. However, chances are you still have a few friends on Facebook you want to keep up with. The best way to do this is with the Start Google Plus extension for both Chrome and Firefox. Once you install it, you’ll see a Facebook and Twitter icon in the upper right-hand corner, which you can click on to connect your other accounts. Once your Facebook account’s been linked, every status update you make on Google+ will have the option of posting to Facebook as well, just by clicking on the Facebook icon. It’ll take with it any links, pictures, or other data that the status contains.

Start Google Plus will also plug your Facebook feed into your Google+ feed, so you don’t even need to check Facebook anymore. Just check your Google+ feed, and it’ll show you all of Facebook’s news feed as well, with links to comment if you so desire.

If you prefer to not use an extension, you can also update your status on both networks at once using Facebook’s “Upload via Email” feature. Just head to Facebook’s mobile page, copy your Upload via Email email address, and add it to its own “Facebook” circle on Google+. From now on, when you update your status on Google+, you can just include your Facebook circle to send that status to Facebook as well. This method isn’t perfect, however: it’ll only work with statuses of up to 50 characters, and it doesn’t work with photos. However, it does work over mobile, which is nice, and without any extensions.

It’s also worth mentioning the previously mentioned Google+Facebook extension. While it’s a much easier way to update both statuses at once, it’s been hit by a bit of controversy, which you can read more about over at our post and on this Reddit thread. The company has responded to accusations of malware injection, and it seems more accidental than something that was actually of malicious intent, but we still recommending you use this at your own risk. The “update by email” method is still the safest, but this is a possibility as well. With other extensions out there like Start Google Plus, there’s really no reason to take the risk.

There isn’t a foolproof, one-step way to migrate your data, but this should help make the process quite a bit easier for you Google+ fans out there. Got any of your own migration tips to share? Let us know in the comments.

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

 

Install & Activate Windows 10 Easily

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Summary

Microsoft recently announced the first major update to Windows 10 which includes numerous improvements for end users and businesses. One of the welcome improvements is the compliance check when qualifying for the Windows 10 upgrade. Previously, Windows 7, Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 users needed to have either of those versions Windows installed and activated in order to qualify for the free upgrade offer. For persons who needed to perform a clean install of Windows 10 from the outset, it was a two step process of first validating the machine through the upgrade routine, ensure the Windows 10 Upgrade was activated, then proceed to perform a Reset. With the latest November Update (1511), users no longer have to go through this process. In this article, we take a look at how to install and activate Windows 10 using your Windows 7 or Windows 8 product key.

Details

For the purposes of this article, We are using a Windows 7 license to perform clean install using Windows 10.

Please note: The copy of Windows 10 you download must correspond with the edition of Windows you are licensed for:

  • Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Windows 8.0 Core, Windows 8.1 Core must use a Windows 10 Home ISO
  • Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8.0 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro must use a Windows 10 Pro ISO
  • If you are using Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8.0 Enterprise, Windows 8.1 Enterprise editions you won’t be able to use the free upgrade offer.

Review complete instructions how to download the Windows 10 ISO in the following article:

How to download official Windows 10 ISO files

Review instructions here how to start a clean install if you desire, if you want to perform an upgrade, clickhere.

Have your Windows 7 or 8/8.1 product key ready. If you purchased a retail license, you can find the product key within the product box. The Windows 7 product key is normally found on an orange sticker attached to a pamphlet inside the box. The Windows 8/8.1 product key is found on a small business size card. See examples below. Please note, you can also use your OEM product key too if Windows came preinstalled on your computer.

Retail:

retail

Windows 8/8.1

windows-8

If your computer came preinstalled with an OEM version of Windows 7, look for the Certificate of Authenticity sticker attached to the chassis of your computer. Normally this can be at the side or top of the system unit. For laptops, look at the bottom of the chassis or inside the battery or memory compartment. It looks like the following:

productkey

If you are running an OEM preinstalled Windows 8/8.1 license, Windows 10 setup should automatically detect the product key and install it automatically.

With Windows 8, Microsoft had changed from stickers that have the product key that the user has to type in when installing the operating system to new BIOS embedded product keys. The idea is that by eliminating the sticker, you eliminate one of the easier ways for nefarious users to get a legitimate product key. Eliminating the product key sticker also removes any worry that the sticker might get damaged while at the same time eliminating the long and irritating process of typing in various letters and numbers when installing the operating system.

If the user has to reinstall the operating system on a machine that came with Windows 8, the installation process automatically grabs the software product key from the motherboard BIOS with no input from the user. This means that those familiar Windows product key stickers will no longer appear on the Windows 8 computers.

If you have lost your Windows product key, Microsoft recommends you purchase a new one. 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/where-find-windows-product-key#where-find-windows-product-key=windows-7

You might be lucky by contacting Microsoft Support who might be sympathetic to your situation:
http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/326246/en-us

Contact the Microsoft store:
US: http://www.store.microsoft.com/Help/Contact-Us
1-877-696-77861-877-696-7786 FREE
Canada: https://www.microsoftstore.ca/shop/en-CA/Contact-Us

Microsoft Support Contact Information:
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

General Microsoft contact site: http://support.microsoft.com/contactus#tab0

If you are prompted to enter a product key during Windows 10 setup (November Update aka 1511) from within a running version of Windows, your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 product key will not work. Instead, you should activate your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 first, then re-run Windows 10 setup. You will not be prompted to enter a product key.

windows10productkey

During Setup: If you are prompted to enter a product key when you boot from the Windows 10 setup installation media, click the option ‘I don’t have a product key’. Select the appropriate edition you are licensed for.

Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Windows 8.0 Core, Windows 8.1 Core will install Windows 10 Home ISO

  • Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8.0 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro will installWindows 10 Pro ISO

setup

  • Out of Box Experience, if you are prompted for a product key, Click Do this Later.Complete the installationReview instructions how to activateHow to troubleshoot Product Activation in Windows 10windowstroubleshootSuppose you decide to reinstall Windows 7 or Windows 8?You can reinstall or restore a system image of your previous version of Windows and continue using it, this will not affect the validity of the license.If you continue to experience problems entering your product key:

    Click Start > Settings (press Windows key + i) > Update & security > Activation then click Change product key

    windowsupdatekey

    OR

    Press Windows key + X

    Click Command Prompt (Admin)

    At the command prompt, type the following commands:

    slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx (allows you to replace the current product key with the specified)

    xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx – represents your product key

    Hit Enter on your keyboard

    Exit the command prompt

    Restart your computer

    Wait a while and it should activate, if not, give it a few days.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Access Control Panel in Windows 10

Microsoft is phasing out the traditional Control Panel with the Windows 10 Creators Update, but with a few tweaks you can still access it. Mark Kaelin explains how.

Microsoft has been slowly and methodically rolling out the Windows 10 Creators Update to customers throughout 2017. If you are one of the lucky ones to receive the update already, you have likely noticed more than a few changes to how Windows 10 looks and works. Some of the changes are good, some are a little annoying.

One of the changes Microsoft implemented in the Windows 10 Creators Update that I don’t like is the removal of the traditional Control Panel from the Win+X menu—that’s the menu you see displayed when you right-click the Start button from the Desktop interface (Figure A). Microsoft is migrating the interface for configuring the operating system to the new Settings screen, but some of us, especially IT pros who have been doing this for a long time, prefer the old Control Panel interface.

Figure A

Fortunately, the old Control Panel is still available; it is just lurking in the background. We can bring it back to the forefront with a few clicks, tweaks, and tricks, and this tutorial will show you how they work.

First, what you can’t do

The commands for the Win+X menu are located in this file folder, as shown in Figure B:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local|Microsoft\Windows\WinX

Figure B

But you can’t just add a shortcut to the Control Panel executable to one of those Group folders and expect to see it show up in the Win+X menu. The special links within the Win+X menu system are protected with a special hash calculation, which greatly complicates any attempt to edit its contents.

To add the Control Panel back to the Win+X menu you will have to use a link with the hash already included. In general, that means acquiring a link from a version of Windows that is not the Creators Update. It is possible with the help of a third-party app, but it is complicated, convoluted, and not really necessary.

If you want to go through the process, you can check out this website for the details. But before you do, I have some simple solutions that might work better for you.

Now, what you can and should do

For those of us who want to keep things simple, here are a couple of ways to access the traditional Control Panel in Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.

1. Search for it

Figure C

If you just want to access the control panel occasionally and not add more icons to your desktop, the simplest way to access the Control Panel is by typing control panel in the Cortana search box. Control Panel should be the first entry in the search results (Figure C). You can left-click the link to start the app or right-click it and add the link to the Start Menu or to your Taskbar for easy future access.

Adding the Control Panel to the Start Menu is handy if you are using a touch screen interface. Adding it to the Taskbar works well if you find yourself accessing configuration settings on a regular basis.

2. Add to Desktop

Figure D

There are two ways to add the Control Panel to your Desktop. The first way is fairly obvious: Right-click an empty area on your Desktop and create a new shortcut that points to the Control Panel executable located here:

C:\Windows\System32

But you can also add the Control Panel icon to your Desktop through the Personalization screen. Right-click the Start button to open the Win+X menu and click the Settings menu item. Click the Personalization icon to open the next screen and drill down to the Themes screen. Scroll down until you see the Desktop Icon Settings item under the Related Settings area and click it. A dialog box will pop open and you can check the Control Panel radio button to add that link to your Desktop (Figure D). Click OK and the icon will be added as a primary system link on your Desktop.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

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