Vista Startup Sounds
Do you like the way the Vista operating system sounds when you boot up your computer? You know, it plays that little song for you. All the Windows operating systems do it, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have to like it, there's a way you can shut it off.
there was no way to turn this sound off in earlier versions of Windows. But, now with Vista, there is, so we might as well take advantage of it, To turn off the startup sounds that Vista makes, click on your Start button and in the search box below it, type in the word "sound" to create a search query for it.
When your results come up, find the one that simply says "Sound" and click on it. Next, choose the Sounds tab. From there, look to the bottom of the box and uncheck the option that says "Play Windows Startup Sound." When you're finished, click Apply and then OK. Once you do that, you won't have to hear all those "sometimes annoying" sounds that play while your operating system is starting up.
What can you tell me about the parental controls in Windows Vista?
The parental control software you need for your computer came right along with your Vista operating system, so you don't have to worry about purchasing another program or anything like that. The controls in Vista are designed to help you manage what your children do while they're using the computer. You have total control over what programs your children use, what games they play, which Web sites they can visit and you even have control over the amount of time they can spend on the computer. To keep your mind at ease, everything is taken care of!
To get to the Parental Controls section of Vista, go to Start, Control Panel and then select User Accounts and Family Safety. Next, click on the link that says "Set up parental controls for any user." Vista will then ask you if you want to continue since you'll be changing some components of your computer. You'll only be changing a few settings, so click Continue to move on.
Now, the next thing you need to do is make sure all of your accounts are password protected. If you have more than one account on your computer, you need to create a password for each of them. If you don't, your children could log in to another account where the parental controls are not enforced and that just defeats the whole purpose! To do that, click on an account that doesn't have a password. Then click on the Yes button when it asks you if you want to ensure that all your accounts have passwords. You'll then be taken to the area where you can set up passwords for all of your accounts. On the other hand, if your accounts already have passwords, you can just skip past that part.
When you're ready, click on the account name you want to set parental controls for. You'll then see a list of settings and you can go through each one to set them up exactly the way you want them. For the Parental Controls option, make sure the On choice is selected. The next option is Activity Reporting. That one needs to be turned On as well. Next, you can go down the list and change the settings to fit your needs. You can do so for: Windows Vista Web Filter, Time Limits, Games and Allow and Block Specific Programs.
Once you have all of those set up, go over to the right hand side of the window and you can change your settings for the Web Restrictions (you can set it to High, Medium, None or Custom) and you can turn on the Time Limits, Game Ratings and Program Limits controls if you want as well. When you're completely finished changing your settings and when you're satisfied they're set right for your children, simply click OK. Once you click OK, everything will take action!
I found this online calculator Web site to be very interesting. To get started, I recommend scrolling down to the Ready to Use section and taking the tour. It will walk you through the features for the calculator.
What I love about it is you don’t have to press Enter to get an answer. Also, you can use multiple lines to do more than one step in a problem!
To switch between styles of math you want to compute, use the drop down box on the calculator. Perhaps you need to do trigonometry or find a volume. If so, just switch it from Basic Math to whatever you need.
You’ll find examples on the calculator as well. They're demonstrating how to put in the information so that you get the right answer. I would have been lost without the square root example!
You can also find other kinds of calculators here: BMI, Unit Conversion, Home Loan, Video Game Prices, Web site Bandwidth and Web site Earnings, just to name a few. To use those calculators, just click on the links under the Ready to Use section.
You can also share the calculators either via a link or you can embed them into your Web page. For more instructions on that, check out the Hassle Free Sharing section underneath the calculator.
http://instacalc.com/EZ Printing
Need to print a recently used document? Don't waste the next 2 minutes of your life opening up Word, Excel, Notepad etc, then digging around for the document, finally opening it up, hitting the print button, and dealing with any dialog boxes that may pop up. I have a faster way.
Click the Start button, My Recent Documents. Right-click the document you want and select Print from the resulting menu. The document's application will run, open the document, then print it for you with the default printer. Windows is even thoughtful enough to close the application for you too - and it's all blissfully automatic.
If you don't see the document you want to print listed in the My Recent Documents menu, hope is not lost. Just head to the location on your hard drive where it lives (probably under your My Documents folder), find it, and give it the right-click treatment described above. This little tricks works for pretty much any document anywhere on your computer.
Now that Spring is almost here, I'm dying to get my house whipped into shape! I want to change the furniture layout and get new curtains for sure. And with My Deco’s 3D room planner, I can do it without the hassle of moving my furniture a billion times, just trying to get the right configuration.
On the right hand side of the screen, you'll find a side menu. Choose Design a 3D Room to get started. That opens in another window. It's really easy to use! You just drag and drop everything and then arrange it to suit your taste.
You start by selecting the shape of the room you want to decorate. You then add alcoves or walls as needed. Next, you furnish the room (if you're using it for rearranging like I am, just pick furniture that has the same shapes as what you have) and then you can decorate it!
If at any time you want to see your room larger, just click on the Bigger and Better button beneath the 3D image of your room. That will make the 3D image bigger. When you’re finished, make sure you save your design so that you can refer back to it later.
Another great part of this Web site is the ability to create a mood board. A mood board lets you collect ideas or create collages of things you like. They're helpful when designing a room, because they give you something to refer back to if you get stuck on your design.
For your mood board, all you have to do is drag and drop the items you like from the left side of the screen to the right side. You can then organize them in a collage style that suits you.
Another option you might consider is Furnish a Photo. That lets you take a picture of the room you want to decorate and upload it so that you can make your changes directly to it. The photo can't be larger than 4 MB.
You can also check out 3D rooms and mood boards other people have made. With the 3D rooms, you can even edit them if you think something else would look better. There are even competitions for the best designed 3D rooms. Have fun!
http://mydeco.com/design/The most common reasons why a CD burn fails.
1.) The blank CD you're trying to burn with may have a scratch on it. Even a little dust can cause the burn to fail. Make sure you handle the CD with extreme care when transferring it from its case to your CD ROM drive.
2.) When burning with some programs, the auto insert notification and DMA (direct memory access) come into play. If the software you use has an option for either of those, make sure it's unchecked before you start the burn. You can usually go under the Preferences menu and uncheck the boxes. (You may have to restart your computer after doing so as well). If you don't do that, you may have trouble with lock ups and buffer under run errors, among others.
3.) Depending on the type of media (CDs) you're using, you may have too low of quality to get a successful burn. Non-branded media or no name media is usually referred to as a "B grade," so you'll want to make sure you don't buy that type of writeable CD. If you do have that kind, you'll more than likely run into some writing errors.
4.) Make sure all other programs are closed out before you start the burning process. You can do that by simply hitting Ctrl + Alt + Del. You'll then see a list of all the running programs and you can close them down one by one. That includes your screensaver, virus checkers, uninstallers, etc. All of those will take CPU time away from the writer, causing lock ups and buffer under run errors. The only programs that should be running are your burning software, Explorer and the system tray, if you must.
5.) If you have a power management program set up on your computer to shut down your hard drive every so often, that could be causing the burn to fail. If the power is shut down during the burning process, you'll receive the usual errors and you'll go nowhere.
6.) If you have a compressed hard drive, you may also run into some problems. Compressed hard drives cause the access time to diminish and that can cause errors. If that's your situation, make sure you turn that option around before starting to burn a CD.
7.) If you're having continuous burning trouble, you may have some sort of virus on your system. Make sure you run your virus scan before you start burning. Ensure that you have a clean system to start the process with. Update all your virus definitions, etc. before starting as well.
8.) You may have more than one burning software installed on your computer. If so, that may be causing your problem. Sometimes various programs conflict with each other and when they're not compatible during the burn, they can cause system lock ups. That isn't always the case, but if you're having trouble, you may want to check that one out.
9.) Last, but not least, there are a couple simple things you can do to try and solve your burning problems if nothing else has worked thus far. It's recommended to defrag your system before you start burning. If there's any fragmentation on your hard drive, it can cause slower access time and other errors. You can also try restarting your computer. If yours has been on for a long period of time, sometimes all it needs is a good reboot.
Check out any one of these possibilities to try and fix your CD burning blues. Once you figure out which one is causing the trouble, you'll be on your way to CD burning.
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