Workers' Edge

The last time Windows' System Restore failed on me, I didn't blink an eye. I gave up trusting Microsoft's own Registry safety net a long time ago. And considering the quality Registry freeware available, there's no reason you should rely on Windows to repair and recover from Registry-related problems. These four freebies will keep the Windows engine purring like a kitten.

Clear out the clutter with CCleaner Piriform's popular Windows-optimization utility includes a Registry-scrubbing component that clears out old application paths, ActiveX controls, shared DLLs, fonts, icons, and other Registry detritus. The program gives you the … Read more

There's simply no reason for any computer user to lose important data.

My hat is off to the tech companies that provide the hardware, software, and services we rely on every day. From Microsoft's Shadow Copy feature in Windows Vista (though only partially implemented in the Home Edition), down to the smallest Web start-ups offering free and easy online storage (though you have to pay for unlimited storage capacity), they have made tremendous strides in helping to keep our valuable data safe. Now it's up to us to take advantage of these great products and services.

For … Read more

Earlier this week, I described some Registry tweaks that force Windows to shut down faster. Another weapon in the fight against interminable shutdowns in XP is Microsoft's User Profile Hive Cleanup service, a free download written by Robin Caron.

Some programs and services don't release their connections to Registry keys when a user logs off. This can cause problems when the person tries to log onto another PC connected to the same company network, but mainly it just adds to the time it takes XP to shut down.

Before you can download the program, you have to let … Read more

Last December, it was Word 2007. Two weeks later, it was Outlook 2003. Out of the blue, a program that worked just fine yesterday freezes up today.

A few days ago, I described how to force Windows to close hung applications faster at shutdown. That fix might get you out the door quicker, but it doesn't address the source of the problem.

Unfortunately, determining the source of a hung application usually requires quite a bit of detective work. If the problem is widespread, chances are Microsoft and any other hardware or software vendors affected will do their best to … Read more

It took all of about 20 minutes to get accustomed to Linux's virtual desktops, which let you switch between work environments with a single click. The problem is, I still spend most of my computing time on Windows machines that lack this handy productivity-boosting feature.

I tried using Microsoft's Virtual Desktop Manager, a PowerToy for Windows XP that lets you create as many as four separate desktops, but it's as buggy as an anthill, and offers no version for Vista. However, I did find three free virtual-desktop programs that work better and give you more options: VirtuaWin, … Read more

Perhaps the greatest single productivity-boosting feature in Linux is the ability to open several virtual desktops at one time. This allows you to create separate work environments for various simultaneous tasks, such as one with a word processor, image editor, and spreadsheet open for creating a report, and another with e-mail and browser windows active for keeping in touch with co-workers. The multiple desktops let you focus on the task at hand without interruption, but switch to your other active workspace with a single click.

By default, the Gnome interface used by Ubuntu 7.10 allows only two virtual desktops … Read more

The other evening I turned off my Windows XP system and busied myself with other matters, only to find the machine churning away several minutes later as it worked through its shutdown process. I could've understood the delay if it were installing updates, or even if some program or service had hung the system. But this was a typical PC shutdown, and it was taking forever.

"There's gotta be a better way," I thought, and after doing a little research, I found a bunch of Registry tweaks that reset Windows to close shop like it's … Read more

The battle for your in-box shows no signs of waning.

Despite the efforts of software companies large and small, spammers and phishers continue to find and exploit weaknesses in junk-mail filters at the server and client levels. After years of foil and parry between these two forces, you would think that Microsoft Outlook, the most widely used e-mail program in the world, would be a paragon of in-box defenses.

Then again, this is Microsoft we're talking about, a company not noted for being the paragon of anything more than profitability.

A few years back, Service Pack 2 for Office … Read more

I spent Wednesday afternoon getting to know Microsoft's new Office Live Workspace, a free service that lets you store Office files online for easy access and sharing.

Once I got used to what the service isn't--it isn't a way to actually work on the files in a browser--I came to appreciate how easy the service makes it to save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files on the Web, and open them in their original app on any PC with an Internet link.

The biggest downside is how difficult it is to get the service working on a Vista machine running Office 2007. I was uploading and downloading Office 2003 documents on my XP machine in just a few minutes, but I had to jump through a series of hoops to do the same in their Office 2007 equivalents on my newer Vista PC.

I decided to start from scratch by creating a new Windows Live account rather than using my existing Hotmail account. Signing up for the account was a breeze, though I opted out of most of the options the installer presented. For example, I had no interest in downloading Messenger, the Windows Live Toolbar (my browser's cluttered enough already), or anything having to do with OneCare, which single-handedly destroyed my home network when I tried out the beta last summer. Be sure to uncheck the option to make MSN your home page, and you may want to avoid sending Microsoft any more data than the company already helps itself to.

Once the Windows Live installation completed, it took just a few more clicks to get started with Office Live Workspace. You're prompted to give the generic workspace a name and description, which you can change later simply by mousing over the name in the left pane and choosing one of the options that appears.

Of course, there's not much you can do with the service until you get some files uploaded. You can add files from inside the workspace one at a time or in batches, though the batch approach uses an ActiveX control, and thus requires Internet Explorer 6 or higher. Since I normally use Firefox (and had used that browser to create the workspace), switching to IE just to upload a bunch of files at once would have been a major inconvenience. Still, I never intended to use this method to add files to the workspace. Instead, I downloaded the Office Live Add-in, which lets you upload files to and download them from the workspace directly inside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

… Read more