SnapIt - Screen Capture Software

Ever wanted to be able to use a graphic that you saw on your screen in another document or website? Well, now you can get a usefull tool to make this easy!

Capture anything you see on your PC screen with SnapIt. It is convenient tool for graphic designers, bloggers who capture and crop images for their posts, for tech writers who need to describe menus and interfaces of applications, web designers and those who work with graphics every day. It captures and auto saves images with one click.

* Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard

* Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard

* Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images

* Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats
* Auto-names captured images

Screen Capture Software

Give it a try, and then post your comments here...

Optimizing Battery Power on Your Laptop

The most basic step you can take to prevent power loss on your mobile PC is to invest in a high quality battery and always keep a spare on hand. Splurging on a quality battery and spare can save you from hours of lost access to your mobile PC.

Battery Care

Once you've invested in a good battery, you need to take care of it. To clean your battery contacts, first turn off and unplug your mobile PC. Remove the battery and wipe its metal contacts and its contacts inside the device with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol. Let dry completely before reinstalling and reconnecting to a power source. Repeat every two to three months.

Modern lithium ion (Li-Ion) batteries can be recharged and partially discharged time and time again, but you should never fully discharge them. Nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries common to older laptops should be completely drained and recharged every one to three months.

After mastering the basics of battery care, make sure you are utilizing your mobile PC's built in energy saving features.

Optimize Your Power Settings

The hard disk and display on your mobile PC consume the most battery power. Choose a power plan, refered to as a power scheme in Windows XP, to reduce the use of power-hungry functions and lessen screen brightness.

Utilize the following battery-saving states:

• Sleep or Standby
  
  In a sleep state, your hard disk and display turn off, and all open programs and files are saved in Random Access Memory. In case of a crash or power loss, save your work before placing your system in sleep mode. Your mobile PC should wake up quickly from sleep, and your desktop and files should appear just as you left them.
  
  
• Hibernation
  
  When your computer hibernates, it saves everything to its hard disk before shutting down. When you restart, your desktop should be restored exactly as you left it. Hibernation takes a bit longer to wake up from than sleep, but it uses less power.

Further Tips for Lowering Your Energy Use:

• Turn off your wireless device when you're not connected to a wireless network but you're using your mobile PC.
  
  
• Turn off scheduled tasks.
  
  
• Keep the use of tools in the notification bar minimal.
  
  
• Limit power-intensive activities such as gaming, watching a DVD or listening to a CD.
  
  
• Reduce power consumption by adding memory (RAM) to your mobile PC. (See our post on "Low Memory" earlier this month)

Help is Here!

As always, we're here to help!  If you have concerns over your battery charging system or need som guidance in changing the settings we've recommended, feel free to contact us.  We can usually connect remotely, walk through it with you and have you all set in about 15 minutes!  Goto http://www.CrossLoop.com/HelpMeMax to Share your Screen. then give us a call at 847-348-3489, ext. 3.

Tips for Printing Beautiful Digital Photos at Home

Recent technology has made printing high-quality digital photos from your home computer a simple, inexpensive process. Using a basic inkjet printer and the following tips, you can easily transform your amateur shots into professional-looking photo albums, wall art or gifts for your loved ones.

Photo Resolution

Higher resolutions photos will produce better prints. However, resolution cannot be increased once the photo is snapped, so set your camera to the highest resolution possible. You can always reduce the size later. If you plan to print a photo that is less than 5x7 inches, 3 megapixels is sufficient. Larger photos require at least 5 megapixels.

Photo Editing

It is rare to capture a perfect image, so you may need to engage the services of photo editing software to enhance the photo quality. Free programs, such as Windows Live Photo Gallery for Windows 7 or Windows Photo Gallery for Windows Vista, allow you to apply a multitude of effects, including removing red eyes, balancing light and color, softening edges, rotating image orientation and cropping out unwanted elements.

Printer Settings

If you will be regularly printing photos at home, it is crucial that you purchase a quality machine capable of producing high dots per inch (dpi). Look for a printer that offers at least 600 dpi to produce vivid, crisp, finely detailed photos. These settings can be adjusted using your desktop computer or on the printer if it is equipped with a menu screen. High dpi settings will increase the amount of ink used and the time it takes to print the photo, so use the lowest quality settings to run a test print, then switch to the highest quality options when you are ready to run your final print.

Photo Quality Paper

Bright white glossy paper produces a vibrant, shiny image that reflects light well. Purchase paper that has a quick-dry surface and is water resistant to avoid bleeding issues. Matte paper is best for black-and-white or sepia colored prints due to its nonreflective coating. It is also less likely to become smudged from fingerprints and dust. Satin paper offers the best of glossy and matte prints, providing a semi-gloss finish that is still rich in color, yet reflects less light and is fingerprint resistant.

Printer Maintenance

Before printing, run the machine's print cartridge cleaning settings to remove any blockages that may have built up in the ink spray nozzles. You should also be able to adjust the machine's alignment and color calibration.  It's a good idea to have CLEANING SHEETS available to help clear the paper path and keep things from collecting around the inkjets.

If you have questions, we'd be happy to make some suggestions - give us a call at 847-348-3489.

Solving the 'Low Virtual Memory' Message

Has this happened to you? Your computer’s performance gets slower and slower. Applications take a little longer to open each time. Web pages time out before they’ve fully loaded.

Then, something dramatic happens. You get a worrying message that your virtual memory is too low.

It’s not as bad as it seems, however. You can fix the problem of low virtual memory.

Simply put, your computer’s virtual memory is the hard drive space your machine uses when it is running short of random access memory, called RAM. Common programs like Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Microsoft Office Word can be real memory hogs, sometimes using all of your computer’s free RAM.

What can you do about a “virtual memory low” message?

If you get a warning that says your virtual memory minimum is too low or something similar, there are two things you can do to correct the situation.

The simplest solution is to increase the virtual memory size on your hard drive, if space allows. To do that, simply go to your control panel and increase the size in the System section. The exact location varies depending on whether you’re using Windows 7, Windows Vista or another version of the operating system.  Choose the CUSTOM SIZE, and set the MAXIMUM the same as the MINIMUM - 3.5x - 4.5x the amount of Physical RAM is a good rule of thumb.  If you have sufficient disk space available, just set it to 4096 on both.

A somewhat more complicated solution is to add more RAM to your computer. If you continue to get messages that say things like “your computer is running low on virtual memory” even after you increase the virtual memory size on your hard drive, adding more RAM is your only option. That requires opening the case, but the new RAM simply clips into place.

Here are some general guidelines for how much RAM average systems need:

• Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM to work properly.
• Windows Vista requires 512 MB of RAM or more to work well, but some applications, especially gaming software, need twice that much.
• Windows XP can manage with only 256 MB of RAM, but like all systems, it will work better with more.

For a work computer, ask your company’s IT administrator to add more RAM for you. It’s a simple process. For your own computer, buy additional RAM at a computer store and ask them to install it for you. You can buy more RAM online if you prefer.  I ususally recommend the following as a good starting point: www.Crucial.com - run the "Scan for Memory" tool and it will tell you what you have and give you options for upgrading.

A low virtual memory message isn’t really as terrible as it sounds. It indicates a problem you can easily solve.

How to Protect Your Network from Hacker Bots

Not all hackers are only after your data. The real prize is your wallet.

To carry out cyber-crimes, many hackers will use email spam, phishing attacks, or insidious websites to infect computers and turn them into "Hacker Bots." These Hacker Bots become drones that can be controlled remotely by cybercriminals, unleashing attacks on businesses that generate a steady revenue stream for the criminals.

A Trend Micro study recently found that roughly 25% of all infected computers belonged to businesses. It's often hard to know for sure whether your computer has been turned into a Hacker Bot. The best solution you can take is to contact a security expert to fully assess the machine.

Before you call a security expert, there are a few initial steps you can take:

1. Disconnect the potentially infected computer from the Internet. If the computer is infected, this step will immediately stop data from being stolen, and prevent attacks on other businesses.
2. Search for any sensitive data on the potentially infected machine and move it to a clean computer. Another option is to move the data to an external hard drive for safe keeping.
3. Clean the potentially infected computer using antivirus software. You can also hire a professional to utilize advanced tools to ensure a complete quarantine of your machine.

If you don't yet believe any of your machines are infected, you are in a great spot. Prevention is the best cure and is much easier and cost-effective to implement long-term. You can start by ensuring that your antivirus definitions are always updated and you have downloaded (and installed) the latest security patches for Windows and the programs you run on Windows (especially Adobe Flash Player).

You can also outsource your security maintenance to a company (such as MAX Communications), who can professionally perform monthly work on your machines remotely to ensure they are as padlock safe as possible. This saves you the time and headache of having to do the work yourself, and will also give you peace of mind knowing that your data is professionally secure.

Contact us about our recently updated MaxMinder Plus Monthly Maintenance Program that includes 24x7 Network Monitoring, Management, Reporting, and Remote Remediation.  Prices starting as low as $199/mo.
Call 847-348-3489, or Book an Appointment for your Free Network Audit.

Recover a Deleted File in Windows 7

Windows 7 has a built-in tool called Previous Version that allows users to recover files they mistakenly delete. In order to recover deleted files you have to first make sure that System Restore is enabled so that Windows can automatically create restore points. These restore points are what you can revert a folder to in order to recover the files that existed at that time and date.

Step 1 - Making Sure System Restore Is Enabled
You can verify that System Restore is turned on by right-clicking Computer and selecting Properties. Next, you'll want to click the System Protection tab and then click the drive you wish to turn on System Restore. The C: drive is usually the drive selected. After selecting the desired drive and clicking OK, System Restore will be turned on if it was previously off.

Step 2 - Recovering a Changed Document in Windows 7

1. Open the folder where the file was located.
2. Right-click in the white space within that folder.
3. Select Properties and click OK.
4. The Properties screen will then pop-up. In this screen, select the Previous Versions tab.
5. The Previous Versions tab will then display various versions of changed or deleted files in that folder. These versions are based on automatic restore points created by System Restore.
6. Choose the version time and date you wish to revert back to.
7. Then click Open.
8. You will then see all of the previous versions of files in that folder according to the time and date you selected.
9. To recover one of those files, rick-click the file and select Send to and then choose the folder you wish to save the file to.

That's it! Now you know how to recover lost files. It's a handy, useful tool that Microsoft built into Windows 7. We recommend you take full advantage of tne Previous Versions tool as it will save you headaches down the road.

In addition, one of our favorite tools is available from www.Piriform.com and can be used to Recover Deleted Files on most version of Windows: Recuva.  It is a FREE Download and works well, even if the file has been removed from the Recycle Bin.

If you have any questions, we are always here to help.  Call MAX Communications at 847-348-3489 or contact us through the web at www.HelpMeMax.com.

7 Steps to Cutting Costs in Your Business

As a fellow business owner, I understand the importance of maximizing profits and cutting costs to grow a company. That is why all of the business computer consulting services we offer are designed to help our client's bottom line.

This week's Business Computing Tip is a little different - dedicated to other ways you can save money at the workplace to free up resources for more useful places.

Consider these 7 tips the next time you are balancing your budget:

1. Migrating to laptop computers. Laptop computers consume approximately 90% less energy than standard desktop computers. Whenever possible, have your employees make the switch to laptops.
   
2. Printer ink alternatives. Are you paying retail prices for your printer ink? Refilling your used cartridges (once) at places like Cartridge World, and buying recycled cartridges online can save you almost 50% off the suggested retail price.
   
3. Evaluate your phone systems and usage. It's never too late to take a close look at your current phone plan and comparing your usage. Many times, business owners can reduce the number of lines they have or switch to an Internet-based phone system such as VoIP to reduce the costs of their bill.
   
4. Review your weekly spending. If you find yourself buying office supplies once a week, consider the benefits of buying in bulk once a month. Run a quick cost comparison to see how much you could save by simply re-arranging your buying procedures.
   
5. Hiring interns. Many colleges run a college credit program for internships. Simply contact the careers department and ask for information regarding their business partnership and intern programs. They are always on the lookout for opportunities for their students to work as interns in exchange for college credit.
   
6. Turn off the lights. Turning off the lights in unused areas in your office workspace can greatly reduce your monthly electric bill.
   
7. Leverage unused office space. If you have available space in your office that you do not actively use, consider subletting the space out. Sharing the rent and not paying for unused space are two great points to bring to the attention of your landlord.

We'd love to hear YOUR suggestions on thsi topic - Post your ideas in the COMMENTS below...