Using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard as a quick file backup tool in Windows XP

Have you backed up your files lately? Put the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard to use, and preserve valuable information on your Windows XP machine.

You can migrate your files and settings from one computer to another using the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP. Did you know that you can also use the same utility to back up files? Using the Wizard, along with an external hard drive connected via a USB or Firewire connection, you can. In addition to an external hard drive, you can even back up to a network drive.

Here's how:


1. Launch the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard, select the Old Computer option on the Which Computer Is This? screen, and click Next.
2. Choose the Other option on the Select A Transfer Method screen.
Click the Browse button, specify the backup destination—an external hard drive or a network drive—and click Next.
3. On the What Do You Want To Transfer screen, select the appropriate Files And Settings option, and click Next.

Follow the instructions in the wizard to create the compressed backup file.

To restore the files, simply run the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard as though you were transferring the files to a new computer.

For more information of the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard, see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Using Files And Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP
Using the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard By Using the Windows XP CD-ROM
Using the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard with a Wizard Disk in Windows XP

Music Mix in Messenger

MUSIC MIX in Messenger!

How To Use It:
Open a conversation window
Hit “activities”
Select the second one down: Music Mix
When the play list opens, add tracks to it and jam away…together!

Details:
Remember – you’re sharing a play list. If you fastforward, skip, or stop a song, your buddy will hear the same thing you do.
Songs are not actually transferred to your buddy, only a compressed version is temporarily cached on their computer while you mix.
Playlist file formats are wma, mp3, & wav
Music Mix holds up to 25 songs at a time, each a max of 20MB in size. You must delete songs to add more
Album art info is shown at the top of the activity window only in the US, but obscure songs can sometimes show the wrong album art.
the Search button only shows up for songs added by your buddy, clicking it will take you to an MSN Music search for your song

Requirements:
Currently only available in the US, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK.
Requires WMP 10, which is available for Windows XP and up.
Now available on Windows Live Beta & MSN Messenger

Microsoft earns patching praise from IT execs

Microsoft may take the most heat on security vulnerabilities, but other software vendors need to catch up when it comes to dealing with flaws found in their products, IT execs and analysts say. Read the Computerworld article here

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/holes/story/0,10801,107938p2,00.html

World Cup Fixtures in Outlook

2006 Football Germany World Cup - All Outlook Appointments for all Fixtures/Games/Matches
Fancy having all the fixtures for the Football World Cup in Germany in your Outlook Calendar – then go here. Just drag and drop them from the zip file into your Outlook Calendar and Voila -
England are playing Sweden on my birthday. To be honest, I don’t have a great track record when it comes to England results on my birthday, but you never know. There’s always a first time .. .. ..
Oh yeah, if you’re an egg chaser then the 6 Nations Rugby fixtures are up there too.
If you are a football fan and you’ve qualified for the World Cup then I’d be interested to know who you’re supporting and how well you think you’re going to do.
I’ll start – England – disappointing exit in the quarter finals.

New Honda Advert

I just like this HERE go watch, then see how they made it.

;)

Webcast Calendar

Microsoft's NEW Interactive Webcast Calendar
This is awesome!

I have always thought that TechNet and MSDN webcast offerings were a great source of information, but I have been frustrated at how hard it is to find a specific topic, event or presenter. Now you can!

This interactive calendar will quickly help you find live webcasts that fit your schedule as well as on-demand webcasts to view at your convenience. You can choose your time zone and filter this list by intended audience, webcast series, product or topic, and presenter.Dean Andrews and the webcast team did a great job with this--thanks!
Check it out http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/calendar/monthview.aspx

Create a Sleep Mode Button in Xp

Is the Sleep button on your Windows XP machine in an inconvenient location for regular use? If so, here are five simple steps that show you how to create your own Sleep button.Many computers or keyboards have a Sleep button, which when pressed puts the computer into either Stand By or Hibernate mode depending on how Windows XP's Power Options are configured. However, the Sleep button might not be in convenient location for regular use (e.g., if the Sleep button is on the front of a mid tower case that is under your desk).You could activate Stand By or Hibernate mode from the Shut Down Windows dialog box. An alternative to this method is to create your own Sleep button by creating a shortcut on your desktop.

Here's how:

1. Right click on the desktop.

2. Select New Shortcut.

3. Type rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState in the text box.

4. Click Next.

5. Type Sleep in the text box and click Finish.

Now when you click the Sleep icon, Windows XP will put the computer into either Stand By or Hibernate mode depending on how the When I Press The Sleep Button On My Computer setting is configured on the Advanced tab of the Power Options Properties dialog box.

How to extract a file from an ISO image+ Blogcast on Mounting an ISO image

How to extract a file from an ISO image
There's a free tool that enables you to view the contents of an ISO image and extract individual files. The tool is named "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP" - it's not supported though so please bear that in mind.
Browse here to download the utility together with a brief readme file.
Thank you to Steve Clayton (a Microsoft employee) for sharing this useful information.

Also

In this blogcast Duncan McAlynn, Microsoft SMS MVP, presents a great utility from Microsoft that allows you to virtually mount ISO images

http://www.blogcastrepository.com/WINXP/Contrib/DMcAlynn/VirtualCDDA.htm

A crash course in computer security

I get at least one phone call a week from a friend, relative or - cheekily - a met-once acquaintance. It usually happens on Sunday morning and it goes like this. Them: "I think I've got a virus - my computer's gone all weird." Me: "Did you have anti-virus software and a firewall?" Them: "What?"
These people are not just ruining their life (and my weekends), they're patient zero in a worldwide security pandemic. Let's face it; my "friends" are a security risk.

Ignorance is Not Bliss
Of course, you are different, fellow blogger. You are doing something about it. After all, here you are, reading this blog. I bet you have a firewall and virus protection already! don't you?
So the problem is not you and me, but our less well-informed friends and families. In the bright days of the internet, let's say 1999, technophiles were keen to show people wonders. "Look, you can do your banking online, buy books, send email to distant friends. It's great." Now the backlash.
There are 35 million people in the UK with Internet access but 34 million of them don't know a firewall from a chocolate biscuit. It's as if the whole of the country suddenly discovered cars and started calling driving instructors to ask for advice about how not to crash.
The problem is that they are making the roads unsafe for everyone else and instead of helping them to get better, increasingly exasperated technophiles just sort it all out for them. We enable our friends' incompetence.
In the real world, of course, driving instructors charge money and take the weekend off. You can't drive a car without passing a test and you have to learn the Highway Code.
In this spirit I have drawn up a ‘Highway Code for Internet Beginners.' In future, if anyone asks me for help, I'll send them this list. If they do everything on it and still have a problem, then I'll consider helping. I urge you to do the same.
They've freeloaded long enough on our geek goodwill. From now on, it's tough love. We're all nerds now. My mother included.

The Highway Code for Internet Beginners

1. Get anti-virus software. Understand how it works. Keep it up to date. I use e-trust from Computer Associates myself.

2. Get a firewall. In Windows XP use the built-in Internet Connection Firewall.

3. Keep Windows up-to-date. Do the same thing with Microsoft Office.

4. Get an anti-spam filter. Outlook 2003 has its own filter.

5. Make weekly backups of your work. I like to transfer it to an external HDD and record it to a CD and post it to my family for safe-keeping.

6. Don't open email attachments or download files from the internet unless you are 100% confident that they are above-board. Avoid opening emails that look suspicious.

7. Be paranoid. Don't give away your personal details, especially financial information and passwords, unless you are convinced it is safe to do so. Don't be suckered by too-good-to-be-true promises, whether they are for potency pills, dictator's loot or work from home schemes.

8. Don't forward hoax virus warnings, chain emails or stupid petitions. Check their bona fides first online. This isn't a security issue but it will stop you looking like a bozo.

9. Educate yourself about security. Learn how to use your computer properly
.
10. Try my patented fix-anything diagnostic technique: 1) Restart or reboot, 2) check everything is plugged in and switched on, 3) read the manual and online help 4) check the manufacturer's support website, 5) call their technical support line, 6) think. Works EVERY time for me.

The Threats and Countermeasures Guide v2.0

The updated Threats and Countermeasures guide provides you with a reference to all security settings that provide countermeasures for specific threats against current versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. This guide is intended primarily for consultants, security specialists, systems architects, and IT professionals who are responsible for the planning stages of application or infrastructure development and the deployment of computers that run Windows XP with SP2 or Windows Server 2003 with SP1 in enterprise environments. This guide is not intended for home users.

Windows Updates on an ISO image file

saw this on Barnaby’s blog and didn’t realize they were doing this now. For the IT Pro who needs to update many machines with security updates, but isn’t using WSUS or simply enforcing/allowing automatic updates, Microsoft are now making the monthly security updates available as a download-able .ISO file. I think that’s pretty cool.
For example, the download to the January updates is available here.
“What’s an .ISO file?”
An ISO file is essentially a disk image. You can take that image and quickly burn it to a CD using CD Burner software. (Any worthwhile CD burning software includes this capability. I use Roxio, but there are others too.)

My Thanks to Kevin A. Remde for his link of which I have almost taken verbatum

Online Technet Mag for Jan/Feb 2006

The January/February TechNet Magazine is now available online...
The complete content from the January • February 2006 issue of TechNet Magazine is now available online at http://www.technetmagazine.com/
Details and other good content are available at the TechNet Magazine Blog. (including links to download CHM files of the magazine)
See blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/tnmag/archive/2006/01/03/416824.aspx

The February 2006 edition MSDN Mag online

The February 2006 issue of MSDN Magazine is now available online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/02.
And for those of you on the go, a downloadable CHM file of the entire issue is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/htmlhelp.aspx.

Enjoy,

Adhoc fix for WMF virus

Ad hoc fix for WMF here http://www.hexblog.com/
Use the Checker first.......... there's no beggaring about with this thing chaps & chapets.......
Click save to desktop................ then run it........... if it say's your vulnerable
Download the hotfix & save to desktop then run the thing.
Restart to computer needed.

UPDATE Microsoft Update now available WMF virus fix