I’ve worked in situations where I have had to wipe a client’s computer clean and assure them as such so they can safely pass that information to the agency that requires them to adhere to strict data removal protocols. Some state agencies provide me with their own proprietary software to do such work. Others rely on my good faith that I will erase the data in a way that someone else can not easily retrieve it by rummaging through the trash bin and running a fancy undelete program. As a home user or small business owner, your need for such drastic security measures are probably not needed but wouldn’t you sleep better at night knowing your sensitive information is not in the wrong hands? This is where Darik comes in.
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So far I’ve enjoyed using Windows 7 much more than Vista. One thing I’ve found annoying is I would like to pin the Recycle Bin, My Computer, and Control Panel to the taskbar or ‘superbar‘ as it is called now. Once you do this you can theoretically have an icon free desktop existence. I remember seeing many tips back in the Windows 95 day and even up until Vista, stating that an uncluttered desktop fosters a faster computer. This makes sense since your PC has to redraw all of those icons AND a background picture if you had one, each time you do something on the desktop. By moving all of those icons into the taskbar, you offload the heavy lifting to the taskbar applet that is always running anyway.
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HP comes out with new printer in what seems like every 30 days. When I’m at the electronic store I see a new printer with incremental model numbers that distinguish it from its’ predecessor every time I look. With thousands if not hundreds of thousands of printers to wade through to find your exact print, it can be dificult to locate the software needed to get your old printer running on a new OS. If you are looking for windows vista or xp driver for your HP photosmart d7145, here is what you will get.
http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Lookup?h_lang=en&h_cc=us&cc=us&h_page=hpcom&lang=en&h_client=S-A-R163-1&h_pagetype=s-002&h_query=photosmart+d7145&submit.x=0&submit.y=0
Basically, HP somehow forgot they made this model and does not display an information page for the product.
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I am a person who uses two operating systems every day. My desktop is a Mac and my laptop is PC. Unlike your typical fanboys I appreciate both and am not partial to either one. I see them as tools to get a job done. There are things on each OS that I wish the other one had. One such item is a desktop background rotators for Windows. OSX has one built in while only Windows 7 will start having one. For everyone using Vista or below, one solution is WallPapa. While there are many to choose from, you should only use one that takes little system resources and easy to configure.
http://www.phoeniixz.net/software.html
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If you ever have problems with windows 7 crashing in a constant loop once you put an avi or any movie file on the desktop, then you are the victim of thumbnail cache error. There are many ways to fix this but the quickest and easiest is to disable thumbnail preview all together. A side benefit of this operation is your windows explorer will be much faster loading up. You can individually enable thumbnail view for a folder if you want in the future, but keep it off system wide to avoid the aforementioned problem above.
Here’s how:
1. Open up an explorer window, click on the ‘organize’ button on any folder and choose ‘folder and search’ options.
2. Click on the ‘view’ tab and check the ‘always show icons, never thumbnails’ checkbox.
3. Click OK, and you’re done.
