Turn Vista into a Power Tool!!

Paul

I’ve been thinking of some other cool things you can do with Vista and here are some of them!!

As you see, this little program can make command line shortcuts. All you have to do is go to the start menu search bar and type in a shortcut command and it will run a nice little script. It is a real nice shortcuts.

Snipping Tool

If you need something to capture a portion of a screen in vista. You have a nice little capturing program. It’s call snipping tool, and it isn’t readily available. You can get to it by hitting the start Menu and typing “Snip” in the vista Search bar. It is really nice not to have to download a program for making screen shots.

Super Root Administrator

Now if you’re a Linux user your understand the value of this little secret. Vista has a Super Root Administrator available to use but deactivated and if you use this you must be understand this is for people who need to have an Admin Account that can do more than just an Administrator, so Here is how you do it. Type Cmd in the search bar, (star menu), and right click on cmd.exe and run as Admin, then you type this in prompt. “Net user administrator /active:yes” in the command prompt. Now after you activate, you will need to make it unprotected by selecting a password for this after wards. If you want to disable this account you do the same stuff first then this : “Net user administrator /active:no” on the Command line. That will turn it off. I hope this helps you out when you use Vista.

UAC Discussions and Tips

Paul

As many of you know, if you bought Windows Vista you’ve had this annoying little pop up for User Account Control. It darken}s the screen and only allows you to continue if you select OK or you can always Cancel. I find it waste CPU cycles, and Resources. I’ve been reading about a program called:

[TweakUAC] — TweakUAC(TM) is a free software tool that you can use to quickly turn UAC (User Account Control of Windows Vista) on or off, or to make UAC operate in the quiet mode.

This little program lets you make it quite, I’ve found that quite mode doesn’t do me any good because it makes you still have to click ‘OK’ on a lot of system level programs. Like Regedit.exe, and MsConfig.exe. This can get annoying if you are using you system for more than just day to day routines. I also find that if you use common sense you won’t have to have UAC on at all. That’s right I have turned my UAC off on windows and have no viruses or problems yet that have been associated with turning it off. I find most of the time people ignore the UAC and gets to used to it to prevent Viruses or Spyware. It’s all about getting to used to the UAC and ignoring all the warnings.

If you’re like me and want to disable UAC without downloading any programs check out my previous post on how to do it at:

Ways to improve Battery Life in Vista

People also say don’t use an Administrator account, Well I’ve been using an Administrator account for the past year and half. I’ve had no problems doing it, it’s all about how you use your account.

Now if you want to know about security and how to protect yourself you should read my other post:

Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!!

This little post talks about ways to prevent viruses and Malware a.k.a. Spyware. I have had great response on that little post. I will be later on this weekend posting ways to use Vista safely. If you have any ideas or want to help provide avenues of discussion please leave a comment.

Vista Tips and Secrets!!

Paul


I’ve learned a lot of little tips and tricks in Vista and I want to share you one or two!!

You can add the run command to your Start menu:

  1. Right-click on the Start menu and choose Properties.
  2. Select the Start Menu tab and click on the Customize button.
  3. Check the “Run command” option.

Add Items to you quick launch bar such as browser, email ,other important programs and you can easily start them up with a keyboard command:

  1. Windows Key + #

If you have Firefox first next to the start menu, you’d hit 1, and the next is 2, and so on.

I found these shortcut keys to be quite helpfull with Vista and it helps with speed. I also suggest getting a SD Card or Flash memory card, twice the size of your current memory if you’ve got a 1 gig, get a 2 gig flash and use that as a ReadyBoost
option. I will put more up later!! Keep watching!!

Social Mythmarking on the Net

Paul3 Replies

[ad#ad2-left]So I sit here reading about some interesting concepts one totally rock my thought process, making my synapse fire and got me thinking. The article that started this post was:

Is Social Bookmarking worth the trouble? — A really intriguing little discussion on why we bookmark? I say we have several more like 5 types of internet users. These users come in all shapes and sizes, especially small to big.

These users are:

  1. Propagators — bloggers, News, Yahoo, Microsoft.

  2. Aggragators — Social media on the net

  3. Readers — They just read the post but don’t respond

  4. Writers — Those who like to respond to other post

  5. Money Makers — They are in it just for the money!!

So I sit here thinking about all the bookmarking I’ve done this week and understand one thing. I don’t bookmark in the Social networks for myself.  I bookmark these sites and areas for other people. It’s like I want to share what I’ve found, sure someone else has found it too but possibility didn’t share it. I on the other hand use some very useful Social outlets:

Friendfeed — This little site is an aggragator of sorts to combine several areas into one nice little feed to be able to keep up with what people say and bookmark. They use 36 different sites including Twitter, Lastfm, Digg, and Youtube. Now I’m not saying this is bad, actually it has very nice to find some gold gems in this little social bookmarking media. I’ve become a better blogger and understand what people are looking for since I have started watching this site.

[ad#ad2-right]Twitter — This is good for shouting out to people what you’ve done like a new way to say “Hey found this awesome site and you need to check it out” or it also good to communicate with your friends on-line when you’ve got no internet access and have only a cell phone. I don’t like it that much but it allows me some modern comforts.

FeedDemon — Now if you’ve read some of my other post this is good for those who like to keep RSS alive and need it. I like it for the luxury of an offline reader. See previous posts about it in detail

Although these are just a small part of what I use in my day to day internet life, I’ve found them to be very useful in keeping up with technology and it makes my days go buy quicker. I agree on a small amount with his post about how I don’t go back to my bookmarks after I’ve bookmarked them on the social media, that is because I’ve got other things to do then to go back. There’s a ton of stuff out there that I want to learn and to see and don’t have time to look back. I would love to hear what others think!! Is Social Bookmarking Bad or good?

Vista Friendly Programs

Paul

So I’ve had some good programs that seem to be working with vista. I figured I’d talk about some of the programs that seem to work well with my copy of Vista. Although if you want to use the programs like I do, please install Vista Sp1 before you try these programs. I’ve got Sp1 installed in this system and have had no problems with the Service Pack or these programs.

RoboForm

So I’ve had problems Keepass and Windows Vista Prem. I’ve found this little program that actually does what Keepass does without the trouble of how to install it. I like the management and how well it intergrated into Vista and Firefox. It is also free. Go check it out.


So you’ve signed up to Friend Feed and want to get updates on your computer without a browser. So Feedalizr gives you updates and all on Vista without a browser. You use Adobe Air which works well with Vista also.

TwHirl

It also uses Adobe Air and lets you use it with twitter and also works well with Vista. I’ve had no problems with these programs from installation to running them on Vista.


FeedDemon


This is a great little RSS reader that works well and I’ve had no major problems with this little reader. This is also a free reader to install and use. It’s brought to you by Newsgator.

Pc-Decrapifier

I have used this for my OEM systems with Vista and does extremely well to remove all the useless programs that are loaded into vista when they are shipped. I also find this works well with XP OEM versions also. I’ve had no problems with this one program even without SP1.

These are just some of the programs that work well with Vista. I hope this helps people to use Vista a lot better.