Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

Have you ever had a laptop and one of those head-scratching moments while you tried to figure out which combination of buttons to press so you could use a projector or monitor that you plugged in?  On one laptop it might be fn+F8, while on another fn+F5 while on another it might be a button that you press that is somewhere on the laptop.

With Windows 7 Microsoft made it easy.  Press the Windows key and p.  That’s it.  Windows Key + P will bring up a window that will allow you to switch between your laptop display and a projector or monitor that you hooked up.  If you are running a desktop system with multiple monitors you can also use Windows Key + P to configure your displays.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com

Daniel Scurlock

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

972.633.1111

If you are using Windows 7 and Firefox did you know you can enable the nifty little feature to display your open tabs in the Taskbar?  Previously this was a feature only available in Internet Explorer.

What this will allow you to do is hover your mouse over the Firefox icon at the bottom of your screen and see images of all of your open websites in Firefox.  You can simply click on the site you wish to jump to.

To enable this feature in Firefox, simply type “about:config” (without the quotes) where you would normally type in a website URL.

You will get a warning, press the ‘I’ll be careful, I promise!’ button

In the Filter box, type browser.taskbar.previews.enable – this will display the entry, and by default it is set to false.

Now double-click under Preference Name on browser.taskbar.previews.enable.  This will change the value from false to true.

That’s it!  Now close Firefox and open it back up.  If you have multiple tabs open you can hover your mouse over the Firefox icon at the bottom of your screen and you will see images of all of your open tabs.

Keep in mind that this feature is available only in Windows 7.  Thinking about upgrading to Windows 7?  Give us a shout and we will be happy to discuss the best upgrade path for you, be it replacing your system or reworking your existing system.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com

Daniel Scurlock

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111

Winzip is a handy little utility that not only compresses files but can also encrypt (password protect) your zip files to keep the data safe when emailing to others or placing on media such as flash drives or CD’s that could potentially wind up in the hands of someone other than the intended recipient.

There are many options in the latest version of Winzip – this post will go over the basics of creating a zip archive, adding a file and encrypting the file.

You can find the latest version of winzip at http://www.winzip.com.

After you download and install the product, open it up.  You will see a screen similar to the one below.  Click on the Settings option on the menu bar at the top

Now click on the Options icon at the top

At the bottom of the screen choose ‘Legacy menus/toolbar’ and press okay.  There are several different ways to create zip archives with the program – for this demonstration we’ll be focusing on the Legacy interface, but don’t shy away from trying the wizard or ribbon interface as well!

Click on the ‘New’ icon at the top left

You will be prompted for a file name.  This is the name of the actual zip file itself.  You can name it anything you like.  I named mine ‘test zip’

Browse out to the file you wish to include.  You can add multiple files or entire folders.  For this example we are adding a single file.  Notice the ‘Encrypt Added Files’ option near the bottom.  Place a check mark in the box to encrypt (password protect) your file.  Now press the Add button

Type in the password for the file and press OK.

Notice the lock icon next to the file indicating that it is encrypted.  That’s it – you have now created a zip file and password protected it.  Don’t forget the password!  When anyone attempts to open it up they will be prompted to enter the password.

There are a multitude of options in Winzip – this is just one of the many ways in which the program can be utilized.

We welcome any feedback, and as always if you have any questions don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Web www.scurlocksystems.com

Daniel Scurlock

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111

Mozilla Firefox is an absolutely fantastic browser, and one of the many features that makes it that way is the ability to use add-ons.  Add-ons allow you to customize your browser in myriad ways.

One of the ‘I can’t live without this!’ add-on is Ad-Block Plus.  Ad-Block Plus strips out all of those annoying adds that seem to take over web pages.

The add-on is easy to install, and will serve double duty in that your surfing will be faster without having to load the extra baggage that the adds bring, and will protect you against those annoying fake virus warnings “Click here now!  You are infected by eighty-bazillion viruses!”

1 – To install, open up your Firefox browser and click Tools, Add-ons

2 -Click the ‘Get Add-ons’ icon, then type ‘adblock plus’ in the search field and press <enter>

3 -There will be several add-ons listed.  What you want is Adblock Plus.  Click the Add to Firefox button

4 – Click Install Now

5 -Next press the Restart Firefox button

6 -Adblock Plus works off of a (free!) subscription.  Choose the EasyList (English) if it isn’t already listed and press Add Subscription button.

That’s it – you have installed Adblock Plus.  Let’s take a look and compare the same website viewed on two browsers.  One *with* Adblock Plus and one *without*.

1st the browser without Adblock Plus…

Take a look at the right side of the screen.  Quite a few adds over there.  Now, take a look at the same website loaded on a browser *with* Adblock Plus installed…

Just a wee bit more space there, eh?

Thanks for stopping by!

Please visit our website at www.scurlocksystems.com and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/scurlocksystems for more information, and check out our new youtube channel at www.youtube.com/scurlocksystems!

Daniel Scurlock

Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111

In various versions of Windows you can press the Alt + Tab keys to cycle through your open programs.  By keeping the Alt key pressed town you can jump from program to program by pressing the Tab key until the program you want is displayed.

Starting with Vista, Microsoft added a very slick new way to display your open programs called Aero Flip 3D.  It also displays your open programs, but displays them in a 3D (well, as close as you can get to 3D without wearing those silly glasses) view.  You can see your open programs and use your mouse wheel or Tab key to cycle through the windows.

To use the Aero Flip 3D view press the Windows Key (near the bottom left of your keyboard) and Tab key.

It’s that easy!  Next time you are flipping between open programs try using the Windows Key + Tab and enjoy the view.

The Aero Flip 3D does require a bit more hardware oomph from your system in order to display the 3D view.  Here are the minimum requirements to use Aero:

Minimum Hardware Requirements for running Windows 7 Aero:

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB of RAM

128 MB graphics card

Please visit our website at www.scurlocksystems.com and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/scurlocksystems for more information, and check out our new youtube channel at www.youtube.com/scurlocksystems!

Thanks for checking out the post.

Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111

As you know, when browsing the contents of your computer you can right-click on a folder or file and one of the options you have is ‘Send to’.  Send to is handy, but somewhat limited in where you can actually send the file or folder to.

Now take a look at the additional places you can send the file or folder by simply holding down the <Shift> key while right-clicking and pressing the Send to option:

As you can see there are quite a few more places you can send your data to, including the Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Videos folders.  Quite handy!

Please visit our website at www.scurlocksystems.com and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/scurlocksystems for more information, and check out our new youtube channel at www.youtube.com/scurlocksystems!

Thanks for checking out the post.

Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC
972.633.1111

Sherry and I both have Quickbooks 2009 on our systems and we share one data file.

It’s a great system – Sherry takes care of the day to day invoicing, I can run reports, enter stock, and all those other Quickbooksey things that one does in the daily running of a business.

Sherry had been using an old Dell desktop since she started here over a year ago (I know, the cobbler’s kids have the worst shoes) and we finally built her a very nice replacement system.  All the bells and whistles, including an upgrade to Windows 7 Professional – woohoo!

So we get the new system installed, all of her data transferred over, her Outlook up and running, MS Office up and running, Mozy backup setup, etc. and we get Quickbooks installed.

When running in multiuser mode Quickbooks requires one to run a little program called Quickbooks Database Server Manager – you simply run the program and it scans your drive for Quickbooks files that you wish to share.  Easy peasy.  We ran the program, it found the data file and we shared it.

Sherry opened up our company file in Quickbooks with no problem and set Quickbooks for multi-user mode.

I head back to my office to fire up Quickbooks – I have stock to receive, invoices to print and mail, it’s time to get to work!

Alas, Quickbooks has other plans.  I can see the Quickbooks file on Sherry’s system but Quickbooks is not having any of it.  Nuh-uh.  No way.  Not gonna happen.  Quickbooks gleefully points out that it can’t open the file on Sherry’s system.  I hear sounds Nelson on The Simpsons “Ha-ha“.

Quickbooks can’t open the file – it tells me that the file is not properly setup for sharing on Sherry’s system; it can’t connect.

Hrrrmmm.

Much troubleshooting ensued.  Data file moved from Sherry’s machine to mine, new data shares setup on both systems, and so on.

What we ended up discovering was a nifty little utility from Intuit’s site for troubleshooting network connection issues from within Quickbooks.  We downloaded and ran the tool and it generated two errors for us to research.

After a bit of research we the found the cause of the issue to be……

Undocumented ports that needed to be opened at the firewall!  No really.  That was the issue.

In all of the troubleshooting and knowledge base searching at Intuit’s site nowhere did we find any mention that certain ports needed to be opened on the firewall software in order for Quickbooks to function in a multi-user environment.

It seems that the Windows 7 firewall blocks these ports by default.  The fix took all of 30 seconds to implement.  Opened up the firewall on Sherry’s system and allowed access to ports 8019 and 55333.

We are quickbooking away now – woohoo!

-Daniel Scurlock
Scurlock Systems and Associates LLC

So, you buy a new computer. You may wonder what all those programs that came with the system are used for. Consider this: they aren’t necessary. Most of the factory-installed programs are what are considered bloatware. Let me explain…

Software manufacturers are paid to design a good product that has good loading times. To achieve these loading times, they load a “launcher” which typically shows up as an icon in the tray (the area near the clock). In their ideal testing conditions, this speeds the launching process significantly. The unintended side effect is that if you get just a few of these programs, they start to slow the system down significantly, defeating their original purpose entirely.

Other instances of bloatware are little “extras” that manufacturers put on their systems such as games, trial programs, hotkey launchers, and things of that nature.

To combat this, we offer a remote cleanup service that eliminates this bloatware (among other things) and restores your system to a state that’s quite possibly faster than it was when you purchased it.

If you want to know more about bloatware and its’ problems, don’t hesitate to call Scurlock Systems at 972-633-1111. We’ll be glad to answer questions and clean up your system.

www.scurlocksystems.com

Dear Colleague/Friend/Family/Mom,

I love hearing from you and knowing you’re thinking of me. I’m flattered that you know my taste so well: I enjoy the strategic advice you’re forwarding about shopping mall parking lot safety and the pithy anecdotes about dogs getting into Heaven. However, regarding what are commonly referred to as chain e-mails? Please exclude me from your list of recipients. I rarely open them and I never pass them along to others.

This type of e-mail poses a threat to the security of my computer. One of the worst things a computer user can do is share her e-mail address with too many people, which gets it added into any number of address books.

Whenever an e-mail is forwarded to others, all the e-mail addresses that came before are also forwarded. Did you know that all of those people you sent the chain letter to now have my e-mail address? I would never share your e-mail address with anyone without your permission, and I hope that from now on you will return the favor.

Also, you’d be surprised at how many computers have some sort of malware residing on them. Many users don’t even know there is malware on their computer. Some of the sneakier malware harvests e-mail addresses from your address book and e-mail.

If you do want to send an e-mail to more than a few people, you can help protect those email addresses by using the BCC (blind carbon copy) field instead of the “To” or “CC” fields. This will hide multiple addresses from prying eyes.

And, by all means, please first check the validity of the story on a trusted web site such as: www.snopes.com.

Thanks for listening. I hope we can still be friends.