How to back up you Outlook Express Data

Unlike online mail services such as Google and Yahoo which you can access from any internet connected PC, Outlook Express mail sits in the hard drive of your PC. While this is convenient most of the time, sometines, when you are using another PC, there's no way to access your existing Outlook Express mail.

One way to manage this is to make a backup of your Outlook Express mail into a USB drive.

Follow these steps to make a backup onto a USB drive :

Make sure the USB drive has been plugged in into your PC
Create a new folder in the USB drive called Mail backup
Open Outlook Express and click on Tools - Options - Maintenance
Click on Store Folder box
From the Window that opens, highlight the folder location, right click and select
Copy
All the Outlook Express folders are now in the clipboard
Now select and open the USB drive and click on the new Mail backup folder you had created
Right click in this folder and select Paste
All the folders from your Outlook Express will now be saved here in a dbx format.

How to customise your Send To Menu in Windows Explorer

If you regularly transfer files from one directory or folder to another, you can customise the Send To menu in Windows Explorer. When you right click on a file name, a menu pops up with a Send To option. This usually has a few standard items such as Desktop, My Documents, Compressed folder etc. You can add any drive, directory or folder to the Send To menu. This is useful if you frequently transfer files.

Open My Computer and double click on the drive where Windows is installed. This is usually the C: drive. Double click on Documents nnd Settings and then double click the user account where you want to make the changes. In the new Window, double click the Send To folder. Then position the cursor on an empty part of the Window and right click. In the menu tht opens up, click on NEW and SHORTCUT. A wizard opens up and asks you the select the destination folder which you would like to add to the Send To menu.

To select the destination folder, click on Browse and select the folder you want. Click Finish and close the Windows.

Now when you right click on any file and select the Send To option, you will see the new destination folder in the Send To list.

(if the Send To Folder is not visible, it could be a hidden folder. In which case, click on Tools - Folder Options - View - and under Hidden Files and Folders, check the box Show Hidden Files and Folders.)

How to bypass the Windows logon screen

When you start your computer, Windows asks you to enter your password against your user name. if you would like to directly log into your PC and avoid this process, Windows allows you to disable the logon screen.

Click Start - Run and type "control userpasswords2". (Without the quotation marks)
In the window that opens, uncheck the box that says "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer". Another window then opens. You need to enter the user name and password of the user account you wish to disable. Click ok.

Go to the oontrol Panel and open User Accounts. Click on "Choose the way users log on or off'. Uncheck the "Use the Welcome Screen' and "Use Fast User Switching" boxes.

Close the window. The next time you log into your PC it will bypass the logon screen and go directly to your desktop.

How to turn off annoying Balloon prompts in XP

Windows has the habit of popping up balloon prompts, reminding you of updates or connection status and so on. This can be irritating. If you'd like to disable this feature you can edit the registry files.

A word of caution - When working in the registry area, you need to be careful. Erasing registry entries by mistake can lead to major problems - its always advisable to have a backup of your registry settings before you make any modifications in your registry. Check out how to back up registry settings in this blog.

To disable balloon prompts :

Click on Start - Run and type regedit.

Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Move the mouse to the right hand pane and right click it. Click on New and in the pop up menu that appears, select DWORD.

A new file gets created called New Value #1. Rename this file as EnableBalloonTips. Then click open this file and select hexadecimal and assign the value 0.

Close the registry wondow and log off Windows. The Balloon prompts will be disabled the next time you log in.

How to back up Outlook Express Data

Unlike online mail services such as Google and Yahoo which you can access from any internet connected PC, Outlook Express mail sits in the hard drive of your PC. While this is convenient most of the time, sometines, when you are using another PC, there's no way to access you existing Outlook Express mail. You can make a backup of your Outlook Express mail into a USB drive and use it on any PC.

Follow these steps to make a backup onto a USB drive :

Make sure the USB drive has been plugged in into your PC
Create a new folder in teh USB drive called Mail backup
Open Outlook Express and click on Tools - Options - Maintenance
Click on Store Folder box
From the Window that opens, highlight the folder location, right click and select
Copy
All the Outlook Express folders are now in the clipboard
Now select and open the USB drive and click on the new Mail backup folder you had created
Right click in this folder and select Paste
All the folders from your Outlook Express will now be saved here in a dbx format.

Identify contents of files in Windows Explorer

Sometimes it's difficult to identify a file's contents through its name - so you end up opening the file to scan the contents. This can be a painful and slow process. Windows explorer has a provision for creating comments against each file. You can use this feature to write a short description of the file's contents.

To do this, in the Windows Explorer folder, click on View - Details. This view allows you to see the various attributes of a file such as Size, Type, Date modified and so on.

To allow comments to be displayed, click on View - Choose Details. In the Window that opens up, select Comments and click OK. The comments field will now be displayed in the Windows Explorer folder. You may need to scroll to the extreme right of the folder to see this field. Click and drag it so that it is next to the file name.

For posting comments on any file, right click the file and click on Properties. Click on the summary tab. You will see a text box titled "Comments". Enter the description of the file and click ok.

This comment will now appear next to the file name.

Create a RSS feed even from sites which have no RSS Feed built in

If you would like to set up links to specific websites, you typically use a RSS Feed. This is fine as long as the website you want to link to has a RSS Feed. If it doesn’t, what do you do ?

Ponyfish is a free web feed creator that allows you to create a RSS feed from almost any website. If you are the kind of person who maintains links to lots of websites, this is a gem of a tool.

Ponyfish helps you to set up a feed in a simple, easy to use manner. Anyone cn do it – just follow the simple steps that the site takes you through.

http://www.ponyfish.com/