HowToDoThings.com Recent Utilities Articles

How To Display your AdSense Earnings on the Desktop of your PC

alexalexL — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:46:16 -0500

How To Mount an ISO Image as a Virtual DVD Drive

alexalexL — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:28:34 -0500

How To Save Money with Legal Forms

jasonkeeley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:51:16 -0500

How To Edit MP3 File Tags

alexalexL — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:10:36 -0500

How To Recover Your Data

jasonkeeley — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:44:20 -0500

Losing your valuable data, either by damage to your computer or accidental deletion, is an upsetting situation. Whether the lost files contain sensitive personal information, treasured photographs, or data for your small business, the loss can be devastating. Your data doesn't have to stay lost, however. Data recovery services specialize in restoring files that most people wouldn't think would be recoverable. Keep reading to learn how data recovery services work.

Why Data Recovery is Possible

The files stored on your computer are all written onto the hard drive, which consists of thin, round platters coated with a shiny magnetic data storage medium, much like the shiny coating on the thin ribbons contained inside VHS and cassette tapes. Just like in a VCR or a tape player, a head inside your computer's hard drive reads and reads and writes the data onto the magnetic storage medium.

How To Encrypt Data

aunraza77 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:29:06 -0600

Currently, almost every computer is connected to the Internet, some more securely than others. With the rapid growth of the Internet, and it becoming an essential part of our life, we tend to use it to store personal information. For example, text files with phone numbers, e-mail addresses, sometimes even passwords or PINs, thinking that as long as the computer has anti-virus software installed, and can not be logged into without a password, the data is safe. That is a fallacy. Anyone with malicious intent can find numerous ways to access your personal data.

GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) is a free implementation of the OpenPGP (PGP = Pretty Good Privacy) standard, and that is what we will be using to encrypt and secure your data. These instructions are specific to the Microsoft Windows Operating System, however, GPG can be used on any Unix variant, like Linux, Mac OS, Solaris, etc.

How To Transfer Files from a Desktop to a Laptop

rik — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:46:46 -0600

More and more people must rely on using a laptop/portable PC in their ever-busy lives to keep up with their workload, and then find they have different copies of the same file on this PC and their desktop. The easiest solution is having all machines networked and storing all working files on the network's file server(s). However, if you need to work at home and other locations using multiple computers, this may not be possible.

How To Format a USB Flash Drive with the NTFS File System

alexalexL — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:22:45 -0600

By default, Windows users are able to format a USB flash drive with FAT or FAT32 file systems only, but not with NTFS. It confuses some of them. NTFS (New Technology File System) is the standard file system Microsoft uses for their Operating Systems starting from Windows NT 3.1 till Vista. But when you try to format a USB flash drive with this standard file system, you don't have this option available.

Why do users want to set up the NTFS file system on flash drives? What advantages could it bring them?

Advantages
With NTFS, you can save more files on the flash drive (from 5 to 40% of disk space). You can create permissions to access files and/or folders on the flash drive. You get all other security file management options you have on Windows.

How To Make a Link

shand0 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:09:27 -0600

Links are the most effective way to get your website noticed by search engines. Without links to your website, it will not survive. The best way to get a good ranking with all major search engines is by getting high quality links to your website. Search engines like websites that have a high link popularity. In the following tips, I will explain issues related to link creation, like how to make a link to your website in other websites, how to make a link to an inner web page within your website and how to make a link to another website from your own website.

Places where you can add your link. First, I suppose that you want to know where you can make a link to your website. There are many places that accept a link to your website. The first and the best place to add your links is blog comments. You can search for the highest quality posts that have a good Google page rank and add a comment there, including a link to your website.

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How To Run Chkdsk on Your Computer

Matt Lamar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:11:56 -0600

This is how to run chkdsk on your computer.

How To Make a Moving Signature for Forums

Buballoo — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:27:24 -0600

Well, to make a moving signature, we should insert a HTML command called "marquee" in it. The code is the following:

How To Burn the Game Gears of War on Two DVDs

aleoO — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:26:00 -0600

The amazing action game, Gears of War, has a size more than 7GB. If you don't want to burn it on a DVD8, here is the solution to split it on two DVD5s.

How To Create an ISO Image Using DVD Decrypter

vicfalmac — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:15:02 -0600

"An ISO image (.iso) is a disk image of an ISO 9660 file system. ISO 9660 is an international standard originally devised for storing data on CD-ROM". -Wikipedia

This means that you can create an exact copy of your CD/DVD-ROM in your hard disk. With this image you can burn your files to another CD/DVD easily. It can be even easier when you use DVD Decrypter.

DVD Decrypter is a freeware that can create ISO images from your CD/DVD or burn ISO images to your CD/DVD. You can download it at: http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/.

How To Speed Up Windows XP Installed on Your Personal Computer

pmzlabis — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:15:58 -0600

Before we begin, you must understand that adjusting your Windows settings is a risk on your part. Your PC's hardware maybe be damaged due to incorrect software settings! So knowing that a risk exists, this article lets you know only those settings that are safe for your Windows XP operating system. Follow the instruction below to modify your current settings:

How To Use iGoogle to Its Fullest Potential

genepooldesign — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:35:45 -0500

In May of 2005, Google introduced a customizable homepage called Google Personalized Homepage. In April of 2007, this service was renamed iGoogle. iGoogle allows you to assemble, all on one page, rss feeds, various gadgets, and tabs to organize a virtually unlimited amount of information. iGoogle is compatible with IE 5.5+ (Windows), Firefox 0.8+ (Windows, Mac, Linux), Safari 1.2.4+ (Windows, Mac), Netscape 7.1+ (Windows, Mac, Linux), Mozilla 1.4+ (Windows, Mac, Linux), and Opera 8+ (Windows, Mac, Linux). I will take you step-by-step in creating your very own personalized iGoogle home page.

How To Get Computer Help

genepooldesign — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:27:09 -0500

At one point or another, most all of us need help fixing a problem with our computer. It could be anything from the network not networking to the thing just refusing to turn on. When you turn to your computer-savvy friend for help, be mindful of these Ten Commandments, and everything should go smoothly - for the both of you.

How To Fight Spam

txtter — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:14:59 -0500

"Spam" is a very popular term used frequently on the Internet to refer to unwanted and unsolicited e-mail and unwanted postings at blogs, newsgroups, forums etc. Spam is also known as junk mail. These unwanted messages are usually intended to trick the recipient into buying a product or service of some kind. Everyone receives spam and we all hate it. Some estimate the level of spam being sent to be more than 90% of all legitimate e-mails. The senders (known as spammers) do not ask their recipients beforehand if they want to receive such e-mails and usually distribute messages to millions of people at once.

How To Get Quality Digital Audio Recordings for Transcription

anne@penguinofficeservices.co.uk — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 05:24:59 -0500

Whether you are recording dictation, interviews, conferences, focus groups or meetings, it is important to know how to get the best quality recording, because if you are going to get the material transcribed then the better the quality of the recording, the more accurate the transcription will be.

How To Choose Backup Programs and Devices

D605 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 00:40:00 -0600

A couple of years ago, my computer died in the middle of writing an important mid-term paper. I mean, seriously died. I couldn't get it to boot up at all. I tried everything I could think of - I even begged every hardware geek I knew for help. The answer was always the same: it's dead. I couldn't even hook up the hard drive to another computer. The computer itself was easy enough to replace - put me back a few bucks, but I would have to get a new computer sooner or later. The thing that really caused problems for me was the loss of data - programs, documents, my iTunes library, photos, etc. But I had everything backed up, right? Not exactly...

How To Clean Your Hard Drive

D605 — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:16:00 -0600

Remember when you first got your computer and marveled at how fast it ran? How you immediately knew where - and what - every document was? Then some time passed, and your computer ran slower, took more time to boot up, and it was harder to find documents? If you clean your hard drive on a regular basis, you can restore your computer to its original speed, and keep it running smooth. There are many tools right within Microsoft Windows to help you clean your hard drive, as well as some third-party utilities that work great.

One optional tip to begin with: you may want to create a "System Restore Point" before attempting any of the techniques below. That way, if something goes wrong, you can bring your computer back to how it was before you started. You can find System Restore Point by going to All Programs, then Accessories, and then clicking on System Restore Point, following the instructions on the screen.