Windows Update

Now what? Out of the blue my Windows Update does not work anymore. I get error message 0×80070424 and have no clue what that means. All I know is that my computer is not up todate and no matter what I do I always get the same error message.

Doing some research lead to all kinds of tips and ideas. I tried some and ignored some, but they did not work and then at the end when I was ready to just give up I came across this little tip. I used it on the Windows XP machine and don’t know if it will also work for Vista or Windows 7.

Tip

• Click on the Start button
• then click on run
• write this in the box: regsvr32 wuaneng.dll
• press enter
• Now reboot and try to update Windows again.

 It worked like a charm for me. Let me know if it worked for you.

So if Facebook Marketing is hot, how do you do it? I am not going to even attempt to go there, but I came across this very a long list of tips at Copy Blogger and just had to share it. Follow the link at the end of the excerpt and become a master of Facebook Marketing.

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing

I’ve just finished writing Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies with two fabulous co-authors (Amy Porterfield and Phyllis Khare) and we’ve been neck-deep in Facebook for the last 9 months.

Even Copyblogger is on Facebook now. Do you have your Facebook Page yet?

For a platform that’s used by hundreds of millions of people, Facebook can be kind of … complicated. Particularly if you use it for business. So let’s get you some specific how-to advice so you can get rolling without getting frustrated.

Have you ever wondered how you could leave comments/notes with the files/folders in the Windows explorer? I just found the answer in the Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter newsletter from http://techsupportalert.com

How to Add Notes to Your Files and Folders

The average PC contains so many files it’s pretty easy to forget what a particular file contains or what it does. Most users try and get around this by using descriptive file names. So rather than call a file something like “list.doc” they might call it “thanksgiving acceptances 2007.doc”

In principle this should work pretty well as Windows will accept file names up to 255 characters in length. However in practice, lists of very long file names are difficult to quickly scan and are often truncated by Windows Explorer. And there are other problems. The maximum file name length in the Joliet system commonly used to burn CDs is 128 characters. Worse still, the maximum Joliet path length (including file name) is only 160 characters. This means that many really long file names will be lost when you burn your data to CD.

But there is another way of documenting files using an inbuilt but little-used Windows feature. This involves the use of the “Comments” field. It’s an attribute of all files and folders in Windows just like name, size and date created. Most users don’t know about this field as the Comments field is by default not displayed in Windows Explorer in XP.

Turning it on is easy. Open any folder in Windows Explorer and right click on a blank space in the field title bar. That’s the grayed out area that says “Name Size Type” etc. When you right click you will see a list of fields displayed with some checked. To display the Comments field, simply check that field. Once checked you now see that field on the right hand side of your Explorer window, though you may have to scroll to the right to see it.

The Comments field will be blank, as we haven’t added any comments. I’ll get to that later but first we have to tell Windows to now add the Comments field to every window. To do that select Tools / Folder options / View from the window where you just added the Comments field. Then press the “Apply to all folders” button. NOTE: If you have customized folder views for different folders you may want to skip this step as it will give all your folders the same view.

Now here’s how you add comments: Just right click a file, select “Properties” then click the “Summary” tab. You can then enter your comments directly in the Comments box at the bottom of the Windows. Whatever you enter will then be displayed in the Comments field in Windows Explorer.

Neat eh? But here are a few additional tips that make the comments field even more useful:

When searching for a particular file you have commented, remember, you can sort on the Comments field in Internet Explorer by clicking on the title, just like any other field. Sorting will group all your annotated files together, which makes them easier to scan when looking for a particular file. Sorted comments are also in alphabetical order, so try to annotate systematically using meaningful keywords at the start of your comments.

Many desktop search programs index the Comments field. That makes searching your comments even easier.

Finally, you can comment your files even more quickly by using the free HobComment Explorer Extension utility that makes the Comments field available directly off the context menu when you right click a file. You can get HobComment from here:

http://www.dr-hoiby.com/CommentExt/index.php (14KB)
http://www.dr-hoiby.com/CommentExtXP/ (12KB) <= XP users may need this as well

• No calculator handy, then use Google. It does all math functions of a calculator right in the search box.
• It also can tell the conversion rate of currencies, weights, speeds and other measurements.
• Want to know what time it is in another part of the world? Ask Google.
• Google can also give the weather and temperature of places around the world.

Please wait for the video to load.

There is more to Google searches than just looking for websites or key words. Google can define words, it also lets you search for only files of a certain file type or only a certain type of site, ie. .edu sites.

Have you ever wondered how to get the best results from Google. I created this video based on the Google guide to help you out.

Here are few key tips:

• be specific
• be brief
• don’t worry about spelling
• don’t use punctuation
• apostrophies count – we’re or were
• hyphenated words are automatically searched with and without hyphen
• the word AND is implicit
• searches are case-insensitive
• they show both upper- and lowercase results
• write search terms in order of importance in search box
• use the words that are most likely to appear on the pages you want
• avoid using a question as the search term
• Force Google to include or exclude a term by preceding the term with a “+” or “-” sign
• Do not put a space between the plus or minus sign and the word
• Specify another term with an uppercase OR or | (vertical bar)
• Find synonyms by preceding the term with a ~, which is know as the tilde or synonym operator
• Use * (the asterisk character), know as a wildcard, to match one or more words in a phrase enclosed in quotes

The restore function comes in handy when something goes wrong with the computer. Rather than having to start from scratch you can go back to a date when you had no problem.

There is, however, one time when the restore function is a pain and that is when you had a virus that your virus checker removed, but your restore point still has the virus and every time you boot up it tells you so. It will not cause any problems for you unless you restore to the day with the virus.

So how do you get rid of this annoyance? It is quite simple, but you have to be logged in as Administrator for it to work.

• Click Start.
• Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
• Click the System Restore tab.
• Select "Turn off System Restore"
• Click Apply. You will be asked if you really want to turn off ‘system restore’. As noted in the message, this will delete all existing restore points. Click "Yes" to do this.
• Click OK.
• Reboot
• Now you repeat the above steps again, but this time your remove the checkmark from the "Turn off System Restore" and your computer will generate new system restore points from this day on forward and you will have no more reminders telling you that you have a virus.

Nobody wants their computer to be a target and open for viruses and malware, but often it not that easy to understand. So when I came across this helpful article at Geeks.com I thought it is a great a idea to pass the information on.

It is important to use protection and if you can’t afford to buy it, give some of the free ones as try. In all the years I have been using a computer, I have been quite successful in protecting my system with free programs.

The one thing to be very vigilant about  is to keep the program always current. That is usually quite easy to do, as most of the programs have an option to automatically keep it up-to-date.

I just came across this wonderful assortment of Free Online Applications and Services at Gizmo’s Freeware site.

Online applications come now in many different flavors. The program I am using right now to write this blog post is the Chrome browser, which is an online program. That means I did not install it on my computer’s hard drive, I access it over the Internet or in other words the cloud. Also if you have a Netbook computer you don’t have that much storage space, in that case online applications are definitely the way to go. So rather than filling up my hard drive with programs that I will have to constantly update or buy newer version, I use the online application that always uses the newest and most up-to-date version. The benefit of this list is that these are all FREE applications.

I really would like to hear from you and hope that you find something that is helpful for you.

I find it hard at time remembering all those Firefox keyboard shortcuts. Then I came across these links with all the shortcuts for Windows/Mac/Linux all in one place.

• Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts
• Firefox Mouse Shortcuts

originally posted in March 2008