Windows 7

I don’t know how often you reboot your computer, but between trips from my home dock to my work dock and work back to home, I probably reboot mine about twelve times a week. Some Certified Legal Nurse Consultants leave their computers running all the time, while others put their computers to sleep at night. I’ve blogged about the difference between sleeping and hibernating (ask your husband) and the need to reboot to combat the occasional memory leak, but I’ve never discussed one of the pitfalls of rebooting – and that’s the time it takes.

Busy CLNC^® consultants understand the scientific connection between time and money and waiting for your computer to boot up is not billable time unless you’re doing something productive in the meantime. That means something other than watching the computer boot and counting the minutes until you can do the three-finger salute (Crtl-Alt-Del) and wait some more. And then, once your desktop comes up you still have to wait for all the programs and services to finish loading before you can actually work.

Here’s a Tech Tip I found for Windows^® XP that actually speeds that boot time and will help you get to work faster, but it only works for Windows XP. If you’re running Windows 7, you’re already built for speed so come back next week. I will warn you, like anything useful, this Tech Tip does involve a Windows Registry hack, I mean edit, so it’s not for the faint of heart. Therefore I must recommend that you read this and back-up your Registry before you try this tip (I didn’t, but then I like to live dangerously).

Once you’ve done that, click Run and start the Registry Editor by typing “Regedit” into the box and click OK. Next navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > ContentIndex. Then on the right side of your computer screen (known to my techie CLNC^® Amigos as the “right pane”), look for an entry (“value”) called StartupDelay. Double-left-click on StartupDelay and when it opens in a new box titled Edit DWORD Value (don’t ask), click the radio button next to Decimal and enter 40,000 (it’s probably set to 480,000).

Once you’ve done that, click OK then File and Exit to exit the Registry Editor. If you’ve done everything right, simply close your programs and restart your computer. Your machine should boot faster and you can thank me later!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I recently installed a new piece of freeware on my laptop. Freeware is software that doesn’t cost anything. In other words, it’s someone’s gift to the world – think of Firefox as an example. Quite often freeware is open source software, which means that after the creator gives up trying to fix the bugs in the program, he or she puts the source code on the Internet and lets other people turn it into something reliable. Again, think Firefox.

It’s fairly normal for me to test any software, freeware or not, before recommending it to my CLNC^® amigos via Vickie’s Legal Nurse Consulting Blog. I won’t tell you the name of that program, or what it was supposed to do, but I will tell you that not only did it not do as advertised, it also put one heck of a whammy on my computer. Every time I launched this program, my computer froze, and other things didn’t work well, if at all. Even the uninstaller wasn’t working.

So I took the same steps any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant would in a situation like this. First, I downloaded and updated the free anti-malware program Spybot Search & Destroy and scanned my computer for malware – just in case this new program was really malware in disguise. The good news was, other than a few routine tracking cookies (since deleted), the offending program wasn’t identified as malware.

Still somewhat baffled, I decided to reach back in time to restore my computer’s Windows^® installation to its last known functioning point. To do so on my XP machine, I clicked the Start button, then clicked Programs, Accessories, System Tools and finally System Restore. I selected the radio button next to Restore my computer to an earlier time, clicked Next and selected the blue-colored date that was immediately prior to my attempt at installing the new program. I clicked Next again and let Windows do its wonderful work.

After a fashion and after a reboot, Windows was restored to a point prior to that new program making any changes. All my programs that were affected by the new installation worked smoothly again and I just deleted the options for that new program from my various menus. I probably could have tried to run the offending program’s uninstall routine again, but since it didn’t work the first time and the program didn’t work, I had no trust in the uninstall process. Instead, by hiding it, I can pretend it’s not there. Any damage done was repaired – so why tempt the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

What is System Restore? In the words of Bill Gates himself, “You can use System Restore to undo harmful changes to your computer and restore its settings and performance.” What system restore does is create back-up points or restore points at various times, either automatically or when you install certain programs (which are undefined by Microsoft^®). If something goes wonky after an install (or even a bad system crash), you can then restore your system to a point where it was working and you’re good as new!

If you plan on installing new software, you may wish to manually create a restore point in case what happened to me happens to you (bad install or bad programming). To do that, follow the same steps as above but instead of selecting the radio button next to Restore my computer to an earlier time, select Create a restore point, click Next and follow your machine’s instructions. After the restore point has been created, go ahead and install your new software. If needed, you can restore your Windows system.

For lucky CLNC^® consultants with spiffy new machines running Windows 7, it’s even easier – click the Start button, type in the words Create a restore point and click the restore button. Your newest restore point will be created before your eyes! To restore from Win7 click the Start button, type in the words Restore my computer and follow the instructions from there.

Now all legal nurse consultants have the ability to not only restore their Windows system, but also their sanity.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Last week I explained to Certified Legal Nurse Consultants how to delete a file when Windows^® won’t let you. This week, I want to remind you that it’s a good idea to do an occasional spring cleaning (or even early summer) of your documents, photos, folders and files. Take some time and make sure you find all the legal nurse consulting flotsam and jetsam (not to mention detritus and other cosmic debris).

While you’re at it, be careful not to delete essential “system files.”  These are files on your computer that are, if not essential, very important to keeping your computer running in good health. If you attempt to delete a file and get the warning message shown below, it’s Windows telling you that you’re trying to delete one of these so-called system files.

I don’t care what you do now, as long as you DON’T DELETE IT! You could be deleting an essential program or part of your operating system and you could have major issues later. This is a good time to just say No. Use some common sense and good judgment and you should be safe. (Why do they call it common sense when it’s so rare anyway?)

Remember, too, after you delete your files, wait a day or so to confirm things keep running smoothly. Then empty your “Recycle Bin.”

After you’ve deleted all those files, if you’re running Windows XP^® you can click the Windows Start button, then Accessories, then System Tools and finally Disk Cleanup. This will run the Windows disk cleanup tool. Just follow the prompts and you’ll remove all the excess temporary files, installers and other stuff that has built up over the years. If you’re running Windows 7^®, Microsoft has made it much easier (not). Simply click Start, then Control Panel, then System, then Performance Information and Tools and finally Open disk cleanup and follow the prompts from there.

Finally complete the process by defragging your system. Win 7 users can skip this step since Win 7 automatically defrags.

Keep on techin’ (safely),

Tom

I once described a wine to Vickie as being “not entirely intolerable.” After about a month supporting Windows^® 7 on Vickie’s spiffy new laptop, I’d describe Windows 7 as “not the best, but not entirely intolerable” and I think that any Certified Legal Nurse Consultants running Windows 7 would agree.

Vickie always jokes that she’s the early adopter in our family. She went from paper Daytimer^® to Palm^® PDA, she had the first cell phone, the first Blackberry^® and now is the first to dip her toes into the wild world of Windows 7. In point of fact, her new laptop is so fast and glorious that I’m having a hard time not liking it. It runs circles around my XP machine and has caused me no small amount of hardware envy. That being said, I’m not in a hurry to leave my old, comfortable shoebox of an XP machine for Windows 7 and neither should you.

If you’re a CLNC^® consultant who’ll be buying a new computer for your legal nurse consulting business (or family), you’ll be saddled with Win7. Once you get done tweaking it, you’ll be happy with it. Win7 combines the best of Vista (if there was any) and the stability of XP to good effect. I’m having a little difficulty navigating the options for filing documents (but we work with networked storage so it’s not a real issue for us) and will muddle through it with the help of a Windows 7 for Dummies book. You’ll probably get Office 2010 at the same time so that book will help.

Vickie works in two worlds: with her XP desktop at the office and her Win7 laptop she uses at home and on the road. To her credit, she goes back and forth between the two without a problem and once you’re on Win7 you’ll like it too.

Back to the question of the day from one of my CLNC^® amigos: should you upgrade today, tomorrow or next week? I’d say only if you’re upgrading because you’re buying a new computer for your legal nurse consulting business. The average life of a computer, laptop or otherwise, is about three years. If you are a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with a fairly new computer running Windows XP, there’s no need to put yourself through the upgrade and data transfer process.

With Vickie, we built her Win7 machine from scratch and all I had to do was move her iTunes^® library, photos, documents and other settings, etc., from her old computer to her new one. Trying to upgrade to Win7 on a box running XP or Vista will be more problematic and much more laborious. In fact, I have a Win7 laptop that I’m going to do a “Tom” build on (in my spare time) and then one day just transfer over to it, sort of like we did with Vickie.

So, stay with XP until you’re forced to Win7. Once you’re there, you’ll enjoy it.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I have been asked whether CLNC^® consultants should encrypt the data on the computers they use for their legal nurse consulting businesses. My previous answer, if you remember, was an unequivocal “it depends.” It depends on your needs and on the sophistication of your computer skills. To that end, I suggested using some version of Microsoft^®’s “Bitlocker” program depending upon the operating system you may be running (Windows^® Vista Ultimate or Windows 7). If you were running XP or lesser versions of Vista, I suggested an add-on program called TrueCrypt, a free download, that will allow you to encrypt your entire hard drive or a portion thereof. These processes still work.

But recently, I discovered an easier-to-use program – AxCrypt. Beside being free, it has the advantage of letting you encrypt your legal nurse consulting data on a file-by-file basis. That’s right! You select the file you want to encrypt and you don’t have to worry about setting up encrypted partitions or parcrypted entitions or any other gobbly-gook, tech-speak. AxCrypt integrates itself right into Windows Explorer^® so all you have to do is right click on the file you want to encrypt, or decrypt, and make the proper selection. It even registers the file extension with Windows so an encrypted file will automatically be recognized and prompt you for its key when you wish to open it.

AxCrypt uses a pretty high standard of encryption (read about it here). My favorite benefit is that it keeps the original file name and, by allowing you to encrypt on a file-by-file basis gives you the ability to carry your encrypted files on a thumb drive or email them to your attorney-clients. It will even prompt you to print out a copy of your key for safekeeping.

I haven’t looked for an encryption program for Mac users but I’m sure one or more exist. Now any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant (running Windows) can add file encryption to the files you use for your legal nurse consulting business and you couldn’t find a simpler program to use. Try it today!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Okay my CLNC^® amigos, I’m going to try something never done before in the history of my Tuesday Tech Tips. No, it’s not going to be something anatomically impossible, instead I’m going to actively solicit the opinions of all my readers (hope you’re here today, Mom) on the Windows 7 operating system.

I want to hear from the following groups of CLNC^® consultants, nurses and/or geeks:

• People who upgraded to Windows 7 from XP on an existing machine.
• People who upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista (tell me your Vista version) on an existing machine.
• People who upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit systems (you know who you are) at the same time as one of the above.
• People who bought a new machine with Windows 7 preinstalled.

I want to know how the upgrades went and whether you think it was worth it. Tell me what you think about the new operating system and, whether or not, in your learned opinion, it is or isn’t a better version than XP or Vista. Be honest in expressing what you think, tell me how you’re using it and whether it’s making a difference in your legal nurse consulting business.

There are a few rules:

1. No profanity.
2. Comments must contain at least five words of more than four letters each and those words must be in the Oxford English Dictionary (abridged).

Comments may not consist solely of symbols (like in the comic strips – #!*@# OSX).

3. Anonymous comments will be allowed but, to keep the level of discourse civil, comments with names will be given preference in posting.
   
   As far as I know, Bill Gates isn’t reading my Tuesday Tech Tips (he should) so you shouldn’t have to worry about him hunting you down and wiping your system if you say something he wouldn’t want to hear.
4. Mac users will be allowed to submit an opinion which will be fairly reviewed, then ignored prior to being deleted.
5. You must have used your own copy of Windows 7. I don’t want to hear that the second cousin of a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant subcontractor you work with has a friend who’s dating someone whose roommate tried it in a kiosk at the mall.
6. If you’re willing, you can also let me know what kind of computer you’re running it on (laptop or desktop) and any details (processor speed, RAM, etc.) you want to share.
7. If in doubt about your response, see Rule #1 again.

Here’s your chance to help the rest of the legal nurse consulting community make their own upgrade decisions about Windows 7. If you have any great user tips you want to share, this is the time to do that too.

I personally know three CLNC^® consultants who have Windows 7 so I’m expecting to hear from each of you.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

This week’s tech tip is in response to all the telephone calls, emails and anxious faxes I’ve received requesting tech support – not from Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, but from my parents. Prices on computers keep falling and some legal nurse consultants out there may have succumbed to the temptation of purchasing your parents a computer for the holidays or at the sales that follow. If you haven’t yet done the deed, you may want to think twice or even three times about it.

Here’s the Tech Tip for this week: DON’T BUY YOUR PARENTS A COMPUTER UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO BE THEIR HELP DESK FOR LIFE! If you have the time to leave your legal nurse consulting business at a moment’s notice, live close enough to drop in 3-4 times a day and explain how to stop pop-ups, patch programs, where to type a URL, download an Adobe^® Flash update or find a lost LOLcat, then go for it. Otherwise, a reasonable alternative is to consider purchasing them a third-party tech support service agreement from a local (to them) computer company or a national service such as GeekSquad. You’ll need to check out the rate sheets but this may be more economical. This will help avoid any additional causes or symptoms of FDD (family dysfunctional disorder). You might even consider a similar plan for your own legal nurse consulting business.

I thought buying a computer for my parents would be a nice gesture and it was well received. My parents can get online, stay in touch with their friends, spend hours each day learning rumors, watching YouTube and LOLing at LOLcats. In return, I get to spend a good part of any visit to my parents’ home patching up, cleaning out and generally servicing their computer. I also get photos of my niece and nephew printed on regular paper with the dregs of their last color cartridge instead of photo prints (my niece apparently has a bad case of jaundice to judge from her color in the photos). Plus there’s the added bonus of talking to my parents more often, getting lots of questions about how to format a Word^® document, how to get on and off the Internet and how to pay for their antivirus program as well as their Internet service provider.

With great deals on computers, any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant considering a computer purchase for their parents should first take into consideration their age and then their computing ability. I have friends whose young-ish parents could tech-support circles around me and others whose parents have trouble using a cell phone. You have to decide which category your parents are in.

You also have to remember that computers are now shipping with Windows 7 and if you’ve never used it, you may have trouble supporting it. You could have it dropped back down to XP^® which may make things easier for you (that’s what my parents are running). One last tip is to sign them up for a computer course at a local community center or community college, although that may generate more questions than answers.

Remember, a computer is a gift that keeps on giving (and taking and taking).

Until next Tuesday, keep on techin’,

Tom

Windows^® 7 came out last week and the Windows world is buzzing about its cool new features. Some of these features are familiar to Windows Vista^® users and are slightly upgraded. Other features are new and will be useful to legal nurse consultants while some are just cool. The new Win7 delivers a lot of highly technical upgrades and security upgrades plus one really cool upgrade – the ability to create “Libraries” which are collections of files of the same type, no matter what directories they’re stored in on your hard drive (it shows all your photos – no matter where stored). Let’s take a quick look at the coolest upgrades I’m excited about and how the average Windows XP^® or Windows Vista user can get them without suffering through the upgrade to Win7.

First, give yourself some CLNC^® “Snap.” If you’re a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with a wide-screen monitor, Win7 has a feature called “Snap” which allows you to anchor an open window against the right or left side of the screen either by dragging it or hitting a combination of Windows keys and right or left arrows. The selected window will fill half the screen and leave room to open another window.

Anchor window to left with “Snap”

OldWin (Vista and XP) users can get a beta (meaning use at your own risk, unsupported, third-party program) version of this from AeroSnap. I love this because it eliminates the tedious process of resizing a window by hand (plus it’s neat). It works on my dual screens just as well as wide screens and is really handy on my laptop while I’m traveling. You’ll like it too. Remember to right click on the AeroSnap icon and click in the box next to Start with Windows. That way it’ll always be there for you.

Next, since CLNC^® consultants like to shake things up, you can bring this concept to your screen. In Win7 you can grab an active window by the blue bar (with your left mouse button), double click it, then shake it back and forth to make all the other open windows minimize themselves to the taskbar. Repeating the motion will restore all the windows. We all know we can click the little “Show Desktop” button to minimize all our windows, but then we’ve got to fish around and restore the one we want. Aero Shake from lifehacker allows those of us using the OldWin to have Win7 convenience. Way cool.

You can clear up the system tray in the bottom right side of your taskbar by hiding inactive icons. Between my Quick Launch bar, the list of open windows and system tray icons, the taskbar at the bottom of my screen gets pretty cluttered. Win7 allows you to selectively hide your unused system tray icons – OldWin users can do this too. Right click on any clear part of your taskbar. In the first pop-up make sure Hide Inactive Icons is checked, then click Customize to get the Customize Notifications pop-up (in Vista you have to go to the Customize Notifications pop-up to see the “Hide” checkbox).

XP Start Menu Properties Screens

On the Customize Notifications pop-up you can select the behavior for different current icons (Hide when inactive, Always hide or Always show). Pick the behavior you want for each icon then hit OK on each pop-up to save your settings. Your taskbar will appear cleaner and you’ll have more room for active windows.

Finally legal nurse consultants can stop the fishing expeditions (between open window icons) by allowing preview thumbnails of your open windows in your taskbar. This one is for XP users only and emulates the Vista/Win7 rollover Thumbnails or pop-up Previews that allow you to see the contents of your open windows if you mouse over your taskbar icons.

Preview thumbnail

To get it, visit the “How-To Geek” site and look for the “Download Visual Tooltip 2.1” link. Follow that link, fish around a bit and you’ll find the link to download the zip file for Visual Tooltip. Download it, unzip it, double-click on the VisualToolTip.exe file to install it. You’ll find a little icon installed in your system tray that tells you it’s running. Go back to How-To Geek and follow the instructions to resize the previews (and make sure you check the “start with Windows” box).

Those were easy weren’t they? You’ve just previewed some of the cool new features in Win7 and found ways to add these to your current Windows version. Remember that you’re using these at your own risk. They are beta or unsupported products, but they sure are fun.

Win7 will be a darn good version of Windows once the second service pack comes out. Until then, or at least until you choose to upgrade from XP or Vista, any legal nurse consultant can add the cool new features of Win7 to her legal nurse consulting business by emulating some of its best tools and tricks.

Keep on techin’,

Tom