We love shortcuts! They make our lives easier and our computing more productive. For those of us whose hands ache from over using the mouse, shortcuts can add hours of pain-free computer time.

Along with the new window management features in Windows 7 comes shortcuts for those features to completely bypass the mouse. This makes the new features more user-friendly, and solidifies the hope that Microsoft really is listening to their customers. Well, at least the share our affection for shortcuts.

Windows Logo + Right Arrow: Sends the window to the right half of the screen. This is a new feature in Windows 7—usually, you must drag the window all the way to the very bottom right corner for Windows to recognize you want to dock this window on the right. This shortcut sends the window there with just a button click.

Windows Logo + Left Arrow: Sends the window the left half of the screen. When used with the shortcut above, you can see your windows side by side. This is great for comparing products online or fact checking with the internet in one window and a Word file in another.

Windows Logo + Home: Minimizes or restores everything but the current window. Windows 7 allows users to “shake” the current window to minimize all other windows. This shortcut takes the place of the awkward shaking.

Windows Logo + +: Hitting this shortcut will zoom in. Windows 7 has a magnifier that works with almost any window. This shortcut activates the magnifier.

Windows Logo + –: Conversely, this shortcut allows you to zoom out. It should be easy to remember—plus zooms in, minus zooms out.

Windows Logo + G: Displays gadgets in front of other windows. So, if you are making use of the gadgets and want to see what they are doing behind your current windows, just quickly hit this shortcut and the gadgets appear on top of your current windows.

Windows Logo + Up Arrow: Maximizes the current window.

Windows Logo + Down Arrow: Minimizes the current window.

In Windows OSs you can face with the problem that you do not have sound: no system sounds, no sound when playing audio/video files and no sound watching video on YouTube and similar resources. The first problem is usually fixed by installing correct audio drivers for the audio adapter. If the audio adapter is integrated into Mother Board, just go to the official Mother Board manufacturer' site, choose correct model, OS and download audio drivers.

Sometimes, even after installing the latest drivers and following the recommendations on YouTube how to solve the problem with sound, you may still not have sound on YouTube.

To Fix This Issue, you need to perform next steps:

1. Install latest Adobe Flash Player. Click here to go to download page.

2. Download fix sound.reg. Click on fix sound.reg to download fix sound.reg (1.70 kb) .

3. After the file has been downloaded, run it, when it prompts you whether you want to add this info to the registry, click Yes.

NOTE: This will work in Windows XP, Vista, Se7en.

Bluetooth connectivity has become very prevalent in the recent future. It used to be included with very few cell phones and PCs, but has made its way into virtually every laptop, and even into printers.

Bluetooth allows you to create a network between objects very quickly, and it eliminates the need for cables. It can be used for external input devices like keyboards, mice, and headsets, or it can also be used to transfer data from device to device.

Even though it is a relatively easy technology to use, it’s not always intuitive to use. This is how you pair a Bluetooth Travel Laser Mouse from Logitech with Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

1. Click on the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.

2. Click on the Bluetooth icon.

3. Click the checkboxes next to On and Discoverable on the Bluetooth window.

4. Click the checkbox next to Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar.

5. Turn on the mouse by switching the power button on the bottom of the mouse to ON.

6. Click the Connect button on the bottom of the mouse.

7. Click the Set Up New Device button and OS X will attempt to connect to the mouse.

8. When OS X finds the mouse, it will list it under Devices on the Bluetooth Setup Assistant window. Click Continue.

9. OS X will finish pairing the Bluetooth mouse, and will indicate when the connection has been made.

10. If you open the Bluetooth preferences window, you will see a list of all of the connected devices.

One of the biggest inspirations for colorful swear words since we started using Windows 7 has been when trying to put the computer into sleep mode, but instead accidently hitting the big shut down button on the start menu rather than the little arrow beside it. Lo and behold, there is actually a very simple remedy for this problem.

First, click the start button. Right click directly on the button where it currently says Shut Down. The only link available says Properties—click it.

In the menu that appears, click the selection menu next to Power button action. From there you can choose the power function you use the most often. In our case, that option is Sleep, but if you are using a networked computer, you might want to choose Log Off. If you share a family computer, you might want to choose Switch User.

Click Apply and OK. If you click the start menu now, you will see the power button with the option you just selected. We predict far fewer four-letter-word utterances in your near future.

Bonus Tip: In the menu above, if you click Customize, you have complete control over what appears on your start menu. If your start menu is displaying too many recent programs, you can minimize the number shown in the selection box at the bottom of the menu.

If you would rather not search through all of your programs to find the ones you use most often, you can also increase this number.

For those of you who are minimalists, you could go through the entire list of possible things to display on the start menu and select don’t display this item and your start menu would look far less cluttered.

Installing Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp is a great way to get full performance out of both operating systems. Boot Camp works by partitioning your Mac’s hard drive to use two operating systems, in this case, OS X and Windows 7.

Thus, when you use Windows 7 with Boot Camp, you are simply booting directly into Windows instead of OS X. This is a great way to run Windows on a Mac because it gives all of your Mac’s power (RAM, processor speed, etc.) to Windows.

With virtualization software, such as VMware Fusion or Parallels, your Mac’s power (RAM, processor speed, etc.) is being distributed between both OS X and Windows.

Decided that Boot Camp is for you? Here are some things that you will need before getting started:
An Intel based Mac
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard install disc (the discs that came with your Mac or a retail copy of OS X)
At least 16GB of free hard drive space (recommended by Apple)
Boot camp assistant (should be on your Mac already, located at Finder > Applications > Utilities)
A genuine Microsoft Windows 7 install disc

Installing Boot Camp and Windows 7

*Apple just recently released an official Boot Camp update for Windows 7. Doing a software update (click the Apple logo, select software update from the drop down menu) should automatically get you this update. 

Step 1: Navigate the path Finder > Applications > Utilities. Double click the Boot Camp Assistant icon to launch it.

Step 2: Click Continue on the Boot Camp Introduction screen to proceed to the next step.

Step 3: Step 3 is the partitioning of your Mac’s hard drive. For Windows 7, Apple recommends using at least 16GB to hold Windows 7. Most likely, you do not need this much space to actually install Windows 7.

However, if you plan on installing any programs within Windows, or having any significant amount of files on Windows, be sure to partition your hard drive accordingly.

Click the Partition button. Wait for Boot Camp Assistant to partition your hard drive. Once it finishes, you should have a BOOT CAMP drive icon on your desktop.

Step 4: Insert your Windows 7 install disc into your Mac’s DVD drive and wait for it to load and recognize. Click the Start Installation button from the Boot Camp Assistant screen.

Step 5: Your Mac should automatically restart and boot into the Windows 7 installer, rather than OS X. The next screen that you come to will be a prompt screen, allowing you to choose which partition to install Windows 7 on.

Make sure that you select the BOOT CAMP PARTITION that you just created, by clicking on it once to select it. Click the link that says Drive options (Advanced). Click the Format button. A prompt screen should pop up saying “This partition might contain…”. Click OK.

Step 6: Windows should now be installing on your computer. Throughout the installation process, Windows will reboot itself a couple of times and you will be required to eject the install disc from your Mac’s DVD drive.

Do this and let Windows, finish installing completely. Fill out your Name, language, etc. Upon successfully installing Windows 7, you need to do a Windows Update to get the latest fixes and Windows released drivers. Restart your computer before proceeding to the next step.

Step 7: Once Windows boots back up, you need to install a couple of additional drivers. Insert your Mac OS X disc into your Mac’s DVD drive and wait for it to load. Click the Run setup option from the prompt window.

Step 8: Click Next on the first screen of the Boot Camp window. Accept the terms and click the Next button again. Put a checkmark next to Apple Software Update for Windows. Click the Install button.

Step 9: Let the installer complete, it may take a couple of minutes. After it completes, click the Finish button to exit out of the Boot Camp installer window.

Step 10: Eject the Mac OS X install disc from your computer and restart your computer.

Using Boot Camp: That’s all there is to it. Boot Camp and Windows 7 should now be running on your Mac. Upon powering on your computer (right when you hear the chime), hold down the option key on your Mac to go to the boot menu. From here, you can choose if you want to use OS X or Windows 7.

Imagine that somebody wants to explain to you in words what is going on on his desktop or wants to show the problem which appears frequently, and it takes a lot of time and efforts trying to explain that.

In such situation knowing how to make a screenshot  of the desktop can be very helpful.

How to Make A Screenshot On Mac OS:

1. Press next key combination: <COMMAND>+<SHIFT>+<3> to make a screenshot.

2. Minimize all the Windows to see the created file on the desktop.

3. The file is now on the desktop.

Another, more advanced option is to make the screenshot of the part you want.

1. Press <COMMAND>+<SHIFT>+<4>, now cursor will turn into crosshairs.

Press the button and hold it while choosing the area  for capturing.

2. Release the nouse button and you'll hear the shutter sound.

3. The picture will be on your desktop again.

Here’s a quick how-to guide on how you can track email to it’s originating location by figuring out the email’s IP address and looking it up. I have found this to be quite useful on many occasions for verification purposes since I receive lots of emails daily due to my blog. Tracking the IP address of an email sender does require looking at some technical details, so be ready to dig your heels in!

There are basically two steps involved in the process of tracking an email: find the IP address in the email header section and then look up the location of the IP address.
Finding the IP address of an email sender in GMail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook

Let’s go ahead and take a look at how you would do this for Google, Yahoo and Outlook since those are the most popular email clients.

Google’s Gmail

1. Log into your account and open the email in question.

2. Click on the down arrow that’s to the right of the Reply link. Choose Show Original from the list.

Now here’s the technical part that I was telling you about earlier! You need to look for the lines of text that start with “Received: from“. It might be easier to simply press Cntrl + F and perform a search for that phase. You’ll notice that there are several Received From’s in the message header. This is because the message header contains the IP addresses of all of servers involved in routing that email to you.

To find the first computer that originally sent the email, you’ll have to find the Received From that’s farthest DOWN. As you can see from the above image, the first one is from a computer called “aseem” with the IP address 72.204.154.191. Then it was routed to my ISP’s server at eastrmmtao104.cox.net and so on and so forth till it got to your email server.

The computer aseem is my personal home computer and that’s my public IP address for my house! I’ll go through Yahoo and Outlook before talking about tracking the location of that IP address.

Yahoo Mail Beta

1. Log into your account and open the email (if you’re using Yahoo Mail Beta with the new preview interface, make sure you double-click on the email so that it opens in a new tab)

2. At the top right, you’ll see there is a drop-down option where Standard Header is selected by default.

3. Click on it and choose Full Header.

Again, you’ll see the same information as before, just in a different window:

Microsoft Outlook

1. Open the email in Outlook by double-clicking on it

2. Go to View at the top menu (the menu options for the email, not the main Outlook window) and choose Options.

You’ll get a dialog box where you can set the message options and at the bottom you’ll see the Internet Headers box. For some silly reason, the box is very small and you have to scroll a lot, so it’s best to simply copy and paste the text into Notepad to view it more easily.

Tracking the location of an IP address

Now that we have our originating IP address of 72.204.154.191, let’s find out where that is! You can do this by perform a location lookup on the IP address. My favorites are IP2Location and GeoBytes IP Locator.

GeoBytes gave me a big map of New Orleans, LA along with a bunch of other information about the location itself.

IP2Location also gave me the same information pretty much, including the ISP (Cox Communications). Of course, this is correct since I live in New Orleans!

If you want more information, you can do a WHOIS database search also.

Imagine you updated to Windows 7, but some of your programs do not work and you decided to go back to Windows XP. You can avoid this by using Windows 7 feature, - Windows XP Mode. It allows you to launch all the programs in Windows XP environment as if you really have Windows XP installed. Windows XP Mode is a kind of Virual machine you run in Windows 7. 

NOTE 2 main factors:

1. XP Mode is not available in Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic Editions.

2. Your CPU (i.e. processor) must support hardware virtualization and it must be enabled.

How to determine if the processor supports hardware virtualization:

If you have an Intel Processor you'd perform next steps:

1. Download Intel Processor Identification Utility . Install it. Run it.

2. You can launch the program from Start > All Programs > Intel Processor Identification Utility. Accept the licence agreement.

3. The window with CPU info will show up.

4. Now go to 'CPU Technologies' tab to check if it supports hardware virtualization.

This very CPU doesn't support hardware virtualization and you can not use XP Mode in Windows 7.

If you have an AMD Processor you'd perform next steps:

1. Download AMD Virtualization Technology and Microsoft Hyper-V System Compatibility Check Utility. Install and run it.

2. In order to run it, you should have administrator privileges. Right-click on the executable file and choose 'Run as Administrator' option.

3. When the program loads, it will tell you if the processor supports hardware virtualization.

If it does not support Hyper-V, then you will not be able to use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7.

New OS from Microsoft, -  Windows 7 - contains some hidden(extended) context menu options which are visible if you hold <SHIFT> key when right-clicking on the folder or file and give you quick access to frequently used extended options.

So, the main and most usable are:

1. <SHIFT>+<right-click> on the empty area of the Desktop shows the extended menu option Open Command Window Here:

Desktop:

Folders/ Directories:

Executable file:

Shortcuts(.lnk) file:

Navigation Pane In Windows Explorer:

Start Menu:

Start > press <CRTL>+<SHIFT> and <right click> on an empty area in Start menu, and you'll get a hidden option Exit Explorer. This option was available in Windows Vista as well.

Very often when trying to install program which uses Windows Installer, in Windows Vista you can get the following error: 

The Windows Installer Service couldn't be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.

This error usually happens in Normal Mode due to the reason that this service is disabled in Safe Mode.

There are few ways to get rid of this error:

A. Start the Windows Installer process in Windows Services.

1. Start > in the search bar at the bottom, type in: 'services.msc' without quotation marks. Press Enter.

2. In the opened list of the services find Windows Installer service. Right-click on it and choose 'Properties'.

3. On the General Tab set the Startup Type of Windows Installer to Manual.

4. Click Start button to start the service.

5. Click Ok.

B. Unregister and re-register the Windows Installer:

1. Start > Run(Step A.1.), type in MSIEXEC /UNREGISTER, and then click OK. Even if you do this correctly, it may look like nothing occurs.

2. Start > Run(Step A.1.), type in MSIEXEC /REGSERVER, and then click OK. Even if you do this correctly, it may look like nothing occurs. After you run this command, the operation is complete.

3. Try your Windows Installer-based application again.

C. Windows Installer Registry Fix (in case Windows Installer service is not listed in the services):

1. Download msiserver.zip and Save it to the PC.

2. Unzip the file and extract msiserver.reg to the Desktop.

3. Right-click msiserver.reg and choose Merge.

4. Click Yes to confirm the changes.

5. Restart Windows.