Alpha Technical Solutions

Archive for the ‘Top Tips’ Category

This time a few very simple tips aimed at making the life for those of you researching a topic. The concept is simple – use basic web browser functions to make handling your research easy. I’ve made these tips browser agnostic – but you may find features on your particular web browser that will enable you to really optimise your searching and ideas

1. Use one tab for search results and place the sites you want to see in other tabs. This way you can track and refer to your search results as you work your way through them.
2. Save your searches as bookmarks or favourites. This lets you come back to a search easily if you have to stop your work.
3. Use bookmark folders to save search results and interesting pages. A good idea to allocated one folder to the project and subfolders to titles such as saved searches, hot results, interesting results etc. This turns your browser into an idea organiser.
4. On your bookmarks precede the descriptive text with numbers. This lets you order the result and again order your thoughts.

In the early days of WiFi there were a great many open (unencrypted and unprotected) WiFi points. There was some geek kudos to finding and using these. These days open WiFi spots are getting fewer and rarer as most router manufacturers implement out of the box security and more and more companies make sure that their wireless networks are protected. However it is still possible to find a open WiFi.

My suggestion to you is to be very careful when doing so. Open WiFi and free Internet access is nice and tempting but can be quite dangerous. I’ve found a short news video that briefly explains the dangers. Take two minutes to watch it and consider the dangers next time you are tempted to grab some WiFi.

Its a commonly held view that everything you need to know is somewhere on the Internet. This is a good thing. The problem is that the Internet is a very big place.  This means that to find what you want any given time may be difficult. The best way to solve this problem is develop a strategy for dealing with search engines. Search engines such as Google are more powerful than most people realise. However like all powerful tools getting the most from them may not be obvious. The best way to maximise your chance of finding what you want is to create a strategy – a set of things that you do when approaching the problem of searching for something that tends to work for you. I say tends to work for you as we all types of web searches that reflect our personal and professional lives. That means that some techniques will be more useful to you than others.

To develop your personal strategy you need to try different ways of running a search, and remember the techniques that work. Over a not very long time at all you will have build a repertoire of useful methods that will cut down the time you spend looking for things.

At this point you may well be saying “what techniques!”

Fair point so in order to get you started here are my 7 favourite tips for searching the web.

1) It does not matter if you use capital letters or not. London is the same as london.

2) Keep searches simple. Use as few words as possible this usually yields the most results.

3) Try to use the most obvious words first then add additional words to the search in order to home in on your search. For example if you are looking for a holiday in Cornwall you might try the following

1. a. Search using ‘Cornwall’
2. b. Then try ‘Cornwall Holiday’
3. c. Then try the type of holiday ‘Cornwall Holiday Hotels’

4) If you know the name of what you are looking for then use the name. Names help search Engines home in what you are looking for. In the Cornwall Holiday example try ‘Cornwall Holiday Newquay’ to find holidays in Newquay.

5) If you looking for something to do with a technical item. For example – parts for a Washing Machine. Mobile Phone, Computer etc then use the model name, model number or part number if you can find it.

6) DO NOT common words such as ‘and’, ‘it’ ‘where’ ‘how’ etc. These will slow down the search and are unlikely to improve the result.

7) Numbers generally do not work well in a Search. There are two exceptions to this rule

1. a. If the number is part of a name then the number will help
2. b. Adding a ‘+’ sign in front of the number will generally help improve the search.

Within Microsoft Word it is possible to set a series descriptive properties. Using Word 2007 these can be access from the prepare option of the Office button on the top left of a Word Window.

The standard document properties are:

Author, Title, Subject, Keywords, Category, Status, and Comments

However if you take a look at the advanced properties then you will find a large number of additional options are available for you.

So what can you use document properties for?

The properties are information about the document. For example the comments field can be used in a review process to make notes about possible changes. Fields like keywords, subject and category can be used for making search and indexing more effective. You might wonder how this is going to help you. Well Windows Explorer can display document properties for you. In Windows Explorer select the details view  and right click on the column headings. You will see a short list of common properties and there is a ‘more option ‘ from which any property can be selected. You can now customise your view of the documents to contain properties like status, subject, and category. These can all be put into order. Suddenly your documents can be cross-referenced in a manner that means something to you.

Document properties lets you improve your knowledge of a document inside and outside of Word and this can make your life much easier.

It also works for any MS Office application, and most other files too.

People new to Windows and other Microsoft products very often don’t realise just how customisable they are. We’d like to address that by introducing to our top tips not just good IT procedures and scam news but actual useful customisations that you can perform on Windows, Office or any other product we think you might be interested in.

To start with we’ve got a great tip on the creation of shutdown shortcuts in Windows 7. Although Windows 7 has a brief shutdown procedure, accessing features like restart, lock workstation, hibernate and sleep can be difficult for some people. This is particularly true for the elderly or disabled. Making shortcut to do this in a place that is most convenient for the person in question can really help with this most basic of tasks.

If you are interested in learning how to do this click here and you will be taken to an excellent article in TechRepublic that goes through the procedure step by step with some very clear illustrations.

Image by stevecadman via Flickr

Libraries are a new feature in Windows 7 that allow you to group folders from more than 1 location under 1 heading. Here’s the official description from Microsoft:

where you go to manage your documents, music, pictures, and other files. You can browse your files the same way you would in a folder, or you can view your files arranged by properties like date, type, and author.

It may not sound all that sexy and interesting at all. Except that you can customise the properties and which folders go into a library. Now you can collate files by purpose, project, or your own personal needs. You can also cross reference files. All achieved by not moving any files or making copies of any files. Instantly this decreases the chances of a file going out of date whilst also making it easier for you to find based on the use you are going to make of it.

If you are the kind of person who needs to organise lots of files, then should take a look at libraries, it will make your life much easier.

For the nitty-gritty on getting into and managing libraries there is a good blow by blow account by lifehacker listed below.

Over the last few weeks much has been said regarding the safety of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web Browser, things got so heated that the governments of France and Germany recommended that you no longer use Internet Explorer and Microsoft itself rushed out a unscheduled security patch to help alleviate the situation. This has led to a lot of recommendations regarding browser security, and this can be boiled down in the simplest and most general terms to do not use Internet Explorer 6, and remember that Internet Explorer 8 is the better option.

Many people say do not use Internet Explorer.

You could do that. In fact I personally favour the Firefox and Chrome Browsers.

However if you stop using Internet Explorer you may actually not be stopping using Internet Explorer. Allow me to explain.

Microsoft uses Internet Explorer throughout Windows and the Office range of products. For example you will find that Outlook uses Internet Explorer to display emails. This means that if you display an email that contains a payload (such as some malware or a link to a web site containing malware) then you will be as exposed to the same risk as someone using Internet Explorer. A lot of people use the preview pane in Outlook to quickly look at whichever item of email you are pointing at. That is very convenient. It is however very easy to look at an email that you should not, and that can cause you big problems. So what to do about it?

My tip here is a very simple one. Turn off the preview pane and look at the senders name on every email you open and check the subject line on every email you open. You should then only open emails that look like things you should be opening. If the email is not opened, the security flaws in Internet Explorer cannot be accessed and you are in a safer position.

So turn off the preview pane, and think about what which emails you are opening. You will be safer.

I’m taking a bit of inspiration here from last weeks security alert.

Let’s recap on the nature on this scam.

• Someone from claiming to be from Microsoft calls you

• They claim there is a security issue with your computer

• They talk you through “fixing the computer”, though actually they are invalidating security and exposing you to a web site full of hungry malware.

• They take your credit card number and money vanishes from your account.

This is classic approach that preys entirely on the victims ignorance and fear.

It opens up the question how do you gain the savvy to avoid being a victim to this kind of attack.

The answer is a fairly simple – you do it keeping a clear and thoughtful head applying these rules

• Any unexpected telephone call that makes you feel fear or concern has a good chance of being some one trying to manipulate you. Put down the phone and try to verify their claims. Do not blindly believe them.

• No large computer corporation ever calls customers to fix problems ad-hoc. It doesn’t happen as there are better solutions to the problem for them. Again put down the phone this is not real.

• A company you know calls you and asks for access to your computer. Possibly real but unless they can prove who they are put the phone down.

Scams are all about convincing you to do something. Remember this – a computer criminal attacks computers. A good computer criminal goes after people. Psychology is a powerful weapon and it is horribly easy to get you to do something that is not in your best interest. After all why hack a computer if you can get someone else to do all the work for you? 

These days every company and web service has an opinion on what makes a good password. The general consensus is that the more complex the password the lower the chances are that someone will be able to crack it. Providing of course that the password is not stolen by clever social engineering or a nasty piece of malware.

Web darling of 2009 Twitter has gone a step further – it’s done some research and created a list of 370 passwords that it will not allow users of it’s service to use. The list was published in Techcrunch over the holiday period. I’ve taken a look at it and have to say that this list makes a lot of sense, it really does contain some very bad passwords. Worse now that the list has been published.

Make sure that you never use a password that is on the list.

Its the start of the first working week of a new year, and everyone is getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas break. So instead of getting right back into your routine take a little bit of time to check that your backups are working well. I’ll admit this is a bit of a boring an onerous job but it is a very important one.

There is nothing worse than suffering a disaster, running to a backup and finding out that what you need is not there.

The trouble is that very few people ever check their backups. Backups are set, and they run and they run and they run.

You thing in fact you are sure what is being backed up.

However you don’t know for sure unless you regularly check your backups.

So do yourself a  favour. Before this years work really builds up – check your backup. Hopefully all will be well, but if it is not – well at least you can now save yourself.

If you happen to be one of the many who never backup, make your first job creating that backup.