Thursday, May 30, 2013

Function Key

The function keys, typically labeled F1 through F12, are hardware keys on a computer keyboard reserved by the operating system or the current application to perform a given function. Common function key assignments include F1 to open the help file and F5 to refresh the content of the current pane (such as in a file explorer or web browser).

Function keys can frequently be combined with other key modifiers, such as the ALT or CTRL key. Pressing CTRL+F5, for example, changes the refresh in a web browser from a soft refresh (the browser reloads the page from the local cache) to a hard refresh (the browser completely reloads the page from the remote host).

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

How PowerShell Differs From the Windows Command Prompt


command-prompt-vs-powershell

You may have noticed a new command-line environment in Windows since Windows 7 — PowerShell. PowerShell is a much more powerful command-line shell and scripting language than the Command Prompt is, giving Windows system administrators a useful command-line environment.
PowerShell is more complicated than the traditional Command Prompt, but it’s also much more powerful. The Command Prompt was dramatically inferior to shells available for Linux and other Unix-like systems, but PowerShell competes favorable with the shells available for other platforms.

How PowerShell Differs From the Command Prompt

PowerShell is actually very different from the Command Prompt. It uses different commands — known as cmdlets in PowerShell. Many system administration tasks — from managing the registry to WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) — are exposed via PowerShell cmdlets, while they aren’t accessible from the Command Prompt.
PowerShell makes use of pipes, just as Linux and other Unix-like systems do. Pipes allow you to pass the output of one cmdlet to the input of another cmdlet, using multiple cmdlets in sequence to manipulate the same data. Unlike Unix-like systems, which can only pipe streams of characters (text), PowerShell pipes objects between cmdlets. This allows PowerShell to share more complex data between cmdlets.
PowerShell isn’t just a shell you use. It’s a powerful scripting environment that can be used to create complex scripts for managing Windows systems much more easily than you could with the Command Prompt.
The Command Prompt is essentially just a legacy environment carried forward in Windows — an environment that copies all of the various DOS commands you’d find on a DOS system. It’s painfully limited, can’t access many Windows system administration features, is more difficult to compose complex scripts with, and so on. PowerShell is a new environment for Windows system administrators that allows them to use a more modern command-line environment to manage Windows.

When You’d Want to Use PowerShell

So you’re an average Windows user — when would you want to use PowerShell? Well, if you rarely use the Command Prompt and fire it up to run the occasional ping or ipconfig command, you’ll probably never need to touch PowerShell
However, PowerShell can be a much more powerful command-line environment than the Windows command prompt. For example, we’ve shown you how to use the PowerShell environment built into Windows to perform a search-and-replace operation to batch rename multiple files in a folder — something that would normally require installing a third-party program. This is the sort of thing that Linux users were once able to do with their command-line environment, while Windows users were left out.
However, PowerShell isn’t like the Linux terminal — it’s a bit more complicated and the average Windows user won’t see many benefits from playing with it.
System administrators will want to learn PowerShell so they can manage their systems more efficiently. If you need to write a script to automate various system administration tasks, you should do it with PowerShell.

PowerShell Equivalents of Common Commands

Many common Command Prompt commands — from ipconfig to cd — will work in the PowerShell environment. This is because PowerShell contains “aliases” that point these old commands at the appropriate new cmdlets, running the new cmdlets when you type the old commands.
We’ll go over a few common Command Prompt commands and their equivalents in PowerShell anyway — just to give you an idea of how PowerShell’s syntax is different.
Change a Directory
  • DOS: cd
  • PowerShell: Set-Location
List Files in a Directory
  • DOS: dir
  • PowerShell: Get-ChildItem
Rename a File:
  • DOS: rename
  • PowerShell: Rename-Item
To see if a DOS command has an alias, you can use the Get-Alias cmdlet. For example, Get-Alias cd shows you that cd is actually running the Set-Location cmdlet.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Spam Trigger Words & Phrases To Avoid


So you’re doing the right thing… You’re creating non-spam e-campaigns and sending to a list of subscribers who have given you permission to send to them… Then why are your messages getting caught up in spam filters?
The most common culprit would be the words that you are using in the subject line of your e-campaigns. There are actually certain spam filter “trigger” words, which are words and combinations of words that are identified as being most commonly used in spam messages. These add spam points to your email when being received by your subscribers, and if your points are too high, your message will get blocked. In other words, if your e-campaign “looks” like a spam message, it could get caught in spam filters, even if you are following all the rules.
So… wondering which words and phrases to avoid? Have a look…

100 Spam Trigger Words & Phrases To Avoid

(Note: I am going to assume you are not using words like sex, Viagra and other spam filter trigger words in an honest e-campaign, so obvious ones like that have been intentionally left out of this list.)
#1
100% satisfied
4U
Accept credit cards
Act Now!
Additional Income
Affordable
All natural
All new
Amazing
Apply online
Bargain
Best price
Billing address
Buy direct
Call
Call free
Can’t live without
Cards Accepted
Cents on the dollar
Check
Claims
Click / Click Here / Click Below
Click to remove
Compare rates
Congratulations
Cost / No cost
Dear friend
Do it today
Extra income
For free
Form
Free and FREE
Free installation
Free leads
Free membership
Free offer
Free preview
Free website
Full refund
Get it now
Giving away
Guarantee
Here
Hidden
Increase sales
Increase traffic
Information you requested
Insurance
Investment / no investment
Investment decision
Legal
Lose
Marketing
Marketing solutions
Message contains
Money
Month trial offer
Name brand
Never
No gimmicks
No Hidden Costs
No-obligation
Now
Offer
One time / one-time
Opportunity
Order / Order Now / Order today / Order status
Orders shipped by priority mail
Performance
Phone
Please read
Potential earnings
Pre-approved
Price
Print out and fax
Profits
Real thing
Removal instructions
Remove
Risk free
Sales
Satisfaction guaranteed
Save $
Save up to
Search engines
See for yourself
Serious cash
Solution
Special promotion
Success
The following form
Unsolicited
Unsubscribe
Urgent
US dollars
Wife
Win
Winner
Work at home

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Did You Know Windows 8 Has a Built-In Time Machine Backup?


We sometimes forget with all the focus on Windows 8′s new “Modern” interface, but Windows 8 has a variety of great desktop improvements. One of them is File History, a built-in backup feature that functions similarly to Apple’s much-loved Time Machine. Enable the Windows 8 “time machine” File History, and Windows will automatically back up your files to an external or network drive. You’ll be able to restore previous versions from these backups, whether you’ve deleted a file or you just want to recover an old version of a file.
File History requires a removable hard drive or network share, as it can’t save files on your main Windows drive. This ensures that, even if your main Windows hard drive dies, your File History backup drive will still have copies of all your important files. This feature essentially replaces the Windows 7 backup feature in Windows 8 – the Windows 7 backup tools are still present so you can use them if you want, but Microsoft considers them outdated.

Enabling File History

You can open the File History control panel by pressing the Windows key, typing File Historyat the Start screen, selecting the Settings category, and clicking the File History shortcut that appears.
windows 8 time machine
Connect an external hard drive to your computer and click the Turn On button to enable File History. You can also click the Select drive option in the sidebar to select the exact drive Windows should copy previous versions of files to. Using the Select drive screen, you can optionally set up File History using a network share instead of a hard drive connected directly to your computer.
Windows will save copies of the files in your libraries, desktop, contacts, and favorites to this location.
time machine on windows 8
After clicking Turn On, you can choose to “Recommend this drive to members of your homegroup.”  This will automatically share it with computers in your Homegroup so they can use it as a network backup location for File History.
After you turn it on, you’ll see an indication that it’s saving copies of your files.
time machine on windows 8
It’s that simple – Windows will now automatically save copies of your files every hour. If you disconnect your removable hard drive or the network share becomes inaccessible for a period of time, Windows will create a local cache of files to save on the drive when you next connect it.
You can customize the frequency of saving, size of this local cache, and other settings by clicking the Advanced settings link in the sidebar.
time machine on windows 8

Excluding & Including Specific Folders

You can exclude specific folders and entire libraries by clicking the Exclude folders link in the sidebar of the File History control panel. Add folders and libraries you want to exclude from file history backups. For example, if you have many large video files in your Videos library and you don’t care about backing them up, you can exclude your Videos library to save space.
windows 8 backup
Bear in mind that only files in certain folders – your libraries, desktop, contacts, and favorites – will be backed up. To force another folder to be backed up, you can simply add it to one of your libraries.
From within File Explorer, select a library and click the Manage library button on the ribbon. Add any folders you want backed up to the library.
windows 8 backup

Restoring a File

Whether you’ve accidentally deleted a file or want to restore it to a previous version – perhaps you’ve saved over the original document – you can now get the file back from your File History backup.
You can get started with this in several ways:
  • Open a File Explorer window, navigate to the folder that contained the file, and click the History button on the ribbon to view a history of files in that folder.
  • Open a File Explorer window, select a file, and click the History button to view previous versions of that specific file.
  • Click the Restore personal files link in the File History Control Panel.
windows 8 backup
You can use the arrows at the bottom of the window to switch between backups taken at specific times and choose the version of the file you want. After selecting a file, click the green Restore button at the bottom to restore the file to its original location.
windows 8 time machine
Your file will be restored. If it would overwrite an existing file, Windows will ask you what you want to do
Have you made use of the Windows 8 “time machine” File Backup yet, or do you preferanother backup solution? Leave a comment and let us know!