The popularity of apps like Instagram highlight how popular mobile photography is and how fast it’s growing. Though there are some fairly good editing apps for Android and iPhone that offer functionality beyond filters, most people are still more comfortable editing their photos on computers.

(Related — Survey: Smartphones Don’t Totally Dominate Photos, Image Editing Yet)

Whether you’re rocking a point-and-shoot, smartphone, or entry level micro four-thirds, a good image editing program is a necessary companion. The big daddy of the category, Adobe’s Photoshop, is one of the best, but also usually costs above $600 unless you have an educator’s discount. It’s also overkill for most non-professionals.

Most people need a program that will easily import or open their images, allow them to remove red eye, fix errors, crop and resize without confusing them or getting in the way. An affordable price would be nice, too. Below are four programs for Mac and Windows that fit that criteria and cost between $0 and $100.

Paint.net — Free [Windows]

click to enlarge

The name sounds similar to the basic program that comes with Windows, but don’t be fooled. Paint.net is a more powerful app than you’d suspect given the price (free). It’s good enough for even advanced users to deal with in a pinch but won’t intimidate newbies thanks to a clean layout and interface. Features include red eye removal and other photo effects, layer support, and a large menu of adjustments.

Download Paint.net

GIMP — Free [Windows, Mac, Linux]

click to enlarge

This open source program is meant to be a Photoshop competitor, offering a wealth of features in an attempt to rival the notoriously expensive software. Though it falls short of being a complete Photoshop replacement, advanced users with tight budgets will find this a suitable substitute. Novice users may find the interface and feature set confusing since there’s not much emphasis on making GIMP easy to use. For minor edits, it’s overkill. But users who need more advanced touch-ups, effects and layers will appreciate the complexity.

Download GIMP

Pixelmator — $29.99 [Mac]

click to enlarge

iPhoto is an okay basic program, but doesn’t cut it when you need to go deeper or do some simple image manipulation. There aren’t many great free apps for Mac like Paint.net, but Pixelmator offers robust functionality for not too much money. In fact, it’s good enough for photographers with deeper needs who can’t afford or don’t want everything Photoshop offers. Yet the clean interface and easy to understand tools make it a good choice for novices, too.

Buy Pixelmator from the Mac App Store

Photoshop Elements 10 — $79 – $82 [Mac and Windows]

click to enlarge

This version of Photoshop is aimed at consumer users, not pros, thus the drastically lower price. The two programs have similar interfaces and features, though Elements brings forward or re-labels functions for the target audience. This makes it easy to use even if you’re new to photo editing, and includes red eye removal, picture straightening, and even the removal of background elements you don’t want. People used to working in Photoshop but have to step down to something less expensive will feel much more comfortable in Elements than in GIMP.

Buy Photoshop Elements from the Mac App Store or Amazon.com

4 Best Photoshop Alternatives is a post by K. T. Bradford from Notebooks.com.

Tomorrow is World Backup Day, an annual event invented to bring awareness to the masses around backups, data, and security. Most people know that they should back up their important data but many don’t do it.

Why? Some are busy and think setting up a backup scheme is too time-consuming, others might think it’s too hard or complicated, and many are worried that it will cost too much money. Guess what: none of that needs to be true.

Below are four fast or easy or inexpensive or free ways to back up your important files, including music, video, documents and more.

The most important thing to remember is that redundancy is your friend. Like grandma said, don’t put all your backups in one basket. Mix it up between local and offsite/cloud storage to make sure your data is safe no matter what happens.

Local Backup

Keeping a local backup makes it easy and fast to recover files if something goes wrong. You’ll need either a large external hard drive — 500GB minimum — or a NAS device. NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and, as the name implies, it connects to your entire home network, not just one computer.

I recommend a hard drive if you only have one or two computers in the house. If you have more than that and/or like to access files or media on every computer and possibly your TV, look into a NAS device.

1 – Hard Drives

If you don’t already have a large drive, here are my suggestions:

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra–portable Drive (PC and Mac)

Comes in sizes ranging from 500GB ($199) up to 1TB ($179). I recommend this one because it comes with a USB 3.0 interface, but you can also buy eSATA and Firewire interfaces for it so you can get the fastest backup speed no matter what ports your computer has. Plus, it includes good backup software.

Buy it @ Amazon

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Drive (PC and Mac)

For people who need more space, this drive comes in 1TB – 4TB sizes ($129 – $249). It’s great for a large media collection. It comes with either USB 2.0 or 3.0 connectors (I suggest going with 3.0) and users can also buy a Firewire adapter if needed. It also comes with backup software.

Buy it @ Amazon

2 – NAS Devices

LG Super Multi N2A2 (PC)

This NAS device is made for power home users, and though it’s easy to set up, I don’t recommend it for people who aren’t pretty comfortable with tech. Once set up, users can manage the device through a web interface. File transfers happen over the network, but since the drive itself is connected to your router via an Ethernet cable, it will happen fast. The drive has 2TB of space ($229) plus you can plug in an external hard drive to add more storage. There’s no backup software included.

Buy it @ Amazon

3 – Backup Software

If your hard drive or NAS device doesn’t come with a backup solution, you have a few good choices.

Time Machine (Mac)

This free utility included in Mac OS X backs up automatically after the initial setup and is easy to use.

Check out this post for details: How to Setup Time Machine on Your Mac

Create Synchronicity (Windows)

This free, open source backup solution will keep backups fresh by syncing when it detects changes. Though straightforward to use, it’s not as tech-novice friendly as other solutions. However, it’s pretty powerful for a free program.

Download It Here

Clickfree Automatic Backup Software (Windows)

This $30 program is perfect for people who want the easiest backup ever. You just install it, then connect an external hard drive via USB. The software asks if you want to use it for backup. Click yes and Clickfree does all the work for you, figuring out which files and folders to sync. Subsequent backups will only worry about files or folders that are new or have changed. Users can tweak the settings if they want, but otherwise you get hassle-free, automatic backups.

Download It @ Amazon

Macrium Reflect Free (Windows)

Most backup solutions concern themselves with your files and media and such, but it’s also a good idea to make a disk image of everything on your hard drive. Why? Because if the hard drive crashes and can’t be used anymore, you can buy a new drive and restore everything from your operating system to all of your programs plus your files. This kind of backup takes a long time and is pretty involved. Macrium Reflect makes it simple to do and is free.

Download It @ Macrium

4 – Cloud Backup

Backing up to the Cloud — which just means to an online service, not a local hard drive — shouldn’t be your only method of backup. It should be a backup to your backup.

Aside from keeping your files safe, it’s also useful for accessing them when you’re away from the computer. Most good cloud services have apps for phones and tablets, and all of them will allow you to sign in from any computer to manage or download files.

SugarSync

This is my cloud backup service of choice because the company offers 5GB of free space and reasonable rates if you want or need more. Plus, the free service allows for syncing across multiple computers. And you don’t have to sync just one folder, you can sync as many as you want.

SugarSync Plans: 5GB (Free) | 30GB ($4.99/mo or $49.99/yr) | 60GB ($9.99/mo or $99.99/yr) | 100GB ($14.99/mo or $149/yr)

DropBox

One of the most popular cloud sync services around, DropBox works similarly to SugarSync and will keep data up to date and accessible from multiple devices. Because it’s so popular, it makes sharing files with others easy, too. All they need is a free DropBox account.

DropBox Plans: 2GB (Free) | 50GB ($9.99/mo or $99.00/yr) | 100GB ($19.99/mo or $199.99/yr)

Google Music

I mention this because it’s hard to find a service that will allow you to back up your entire music collection online for free. 2GB or 5GB is fine for documents, but will fill up fast when you start in with media. Google allows you to upload up to 20,000 tracks for free then listen to them on Android phones or on any computer via a web interface.

iCloud

Mac, PC, iPhone and iPad users can sync data to iCloud, including music and video bought on iTunes, for free. There’s a 5Gb cap on photos, documents, email and calendar data, but there’s no limit to how much iTunes media you can store in the cloud. Essentially, if you bought it from itunes, you can re-download it at any time via iTunes on a computer or iDevice.

Learn how to setup and use iCloud:

• How to Sync Email, Contacts and Calendar with iCloud
• How to Setup iCloud’s Photo Stream on Mac
• How To Get iCloud’s Photo Stream Working On A Windows PC
• How to Download Previously Purchased Media from iTunes in the Cloud
• How to Set Up iTunes Match on All Your Computers and iOS Devices

These lists aren’t exhaustive, but are meant to give you an overview of what’s available. No matter which hard drive or NAS device or backup software or cloud service you prefer, take the time to set them up this weekend. It won’t take more than an hour and, for many of you, won’t cost any extra money.

More World Backup Day Posts:

• Backup Your iPhone and iPad Automatically
• Back Up Your Android Smartphone And Tablet Automatically

4 Fast, Easy, Inexpensive Or Free Backup Solutions For Mac and PC is a post by K. T. Bradford from Notebooks.com.

Sometime later this year (probably before July) Adobe will release the newest version of Photoshop: CS6. But today you can download the Photoshop CS6 beta version for free to try it out. Though the company has not announced pricing, the program usually costs hundreds of dollars, so it’s worth giving it a try before buying or upgrading.

Not everyone will need the advanced functionality of this professional image editing program. For many, Photoshop Elements has all the tools they need. But if you find yourself fiddling with your pictures and trying to get them perfect, the full Photoshop is very tempting.

You don’t have to be a professional photographer to take advantage of CS6′s cooler new features.

Blur Gallery

Adding specific blur patterns to images can drastically change the perception and focus of the final picture. Now Photoshop CS6′s Blur Gallery offers several blur tools that allow for fine-grained control over the type of blur and which parts of the image get blurred and which stay sharp. Users can even create multiple blur points and control width, tilt, and more.

This is a sweet tool because it allows those of us with less than optimal camera skills to still look as if we’re super good at focus and artistry. It can also turn an otherwise ho-hum picture into something worth looking at, as you’ll see in the demo videos below.

Content Aware Fill, Patch and Move

The Content Aware Fill tool is very useful when you have an area of an image that doesn’t fit in with the picture you want or you’ve cut and moved some element and now have a gaping hole.

Photoshop CS5 is able to fill that in based on data from the surrounding pixels and is generally good at figuring out how to do that on its own. CS6 adds Content Aware Patch to the toolbox, which allows the user to choose the part of the image Photoshop should use to fill in what’s missing.

Content Aware Move takes things even further by allowing you to easily grab a part of the image — like a person — and move them to a completely different part of the picture. Content Aware Fill cleans up the large hole left behind and also helps the fringes around the object fit in with the new background. You don’t need to spent hours cutting around the person or object, either. Photoshop does that for you, even when the edges aren’t clean.

Content Aware Overview

Content Aware Move

Camera RAW 7.0

Even if you don’t shoot pictures in RAW format, the new Camera RAW 7.0 is still a valuable tool as it works on JPEGs, too. Adobe redesigned the interface to make it easy to use and understand even if you’re a novice but still offers all the numbers and data for pros who know exactly what they’re doing.

The fine control you get over colors, shadows, highlights, exposure, saturation and more are just as good for correcting flaws (like over exposure) as making images more artistic and interesting. Check out the two videos below for demos from Adobe (first few minutes of each).

Adaptive Wide Angle

In the last Photoshop release Adobe added a ton of new cameras and lenses to their lens correction algorithms to help photographers nudge images into optimal shape. However, sometimes you want to keep some of the lens distortion and effect because it’s what you were going for to begin with — think fish-eye and wide angle lenses.

The Adaptive Wide Angle tool in CS6 gives users fine control over the way Photoshop adjusts images using precise lines. Watch the video below to see it in action.

Video

Even professional Photoshop users may not be aware that there is a video editing tool within the program that’s been there since before CS5. In Photoshop CS6 Adobe pumped up the video editor’s features quite a bit, possibly eliminating the need for a separate editor for many people.

If your focus is video, then you probably want to stick with Premiere or Final Cut Pro. However, if most of your video editing needs involve dropping clips in, trimming them a bit, putting a smooth transition between them, then fading out at the end, you can do all of that in Photoshop. And all with a familiar interface.

Video clips appear in the Layer panel, and just like a layer of an image you can apply filters and do some basic color or lighting correction. What’s really cool is that the adjustments sit in their own layers, so you can apply them to just one clip, across multiple clips, and fade or crossfade them just as you can with the actual video.

As with advanced video editors the video and sound exist on different layers in the timeline. It’s easy to add still images to video and now text with motion controls.

See the videos below for short demos.

These are just the five features I think anyone who works with images or video can use, but there are dozens more. Since the beta is free, why not download it and try out everything? If you run into bugs, have feature suggestions or improvements, visit the CS6 beta forum to tell the engineers.

Top 5 New Photoshop CS6 Features Anyone Can Use is a post by K. T. Bradford from Notebooks.com.

Today at its press conference at CES 2012 in Las Vegas, Intel announced a partnership with Nuance to bring that company’s voice recognition to Ultrabooks at some point in 2012. And while both companies were a bit light on the details, they did have a couple of things to share.

If there was one thing that Intel and Nuance were adamant about was that the voice recognition software was going to be deeply embedded in future Ultrabooks. From sending out Tweets, to checking your calendar, to composing emails, Nuance will help you accomplish all of that.

And maybe best of all, it all can be done without a headset.

Read: Awesome UltraBook Concepts

Nuance also made it clear that it’s working on language to language translation for nine languages, including English and Mandarin, but it said that that technology would not be making it out any time soon.

So, that could mean that at some point in the future, you could say something in English, and it would show up in Mandarin right in front of your eyes on your Intel-powered Ultrabook.

It’s a neat concept to be sure and one that would be extremely useful to those communicating with friends and family who don’t share a common first language.

And while we hope that it makes it to market soon, it appears that we’ll just have to settle for good old headset free voice control in 2012.

Not such a bad consolation prize.

Nuance Bringing Headset-Free Voice Control to Ultrabooks in 2012 is a post by Adam Mills from Notebooks.com.

Want to send or mail out a document to a list of different people? Instead of typing out every single one, or copying and pasting information for each individual person you would like to send the document to, you can simplify things by using Mail Merge.

Let’s take a look at creating a Mail Merge document using Microsoft Office Word 2010.

What is Mail Merge?

Mail Merge mass produces letters, mailing labels or other documents. To perform a mail merge you need two types of files: a Data file and a Form file. The Data file, or datasource, contains records. All the variable (changeable) information in the document combines to form a record.

The first step in the creation of the data source is to give each piece of variable information in the document a name. Each piece of variable information is called a field. All the fields combine to form a record.

The Form file contains the portion of the document that remains constant, plus field codes that link to the data source file.

For the purposes of this article, we will be using Mail Merge to send copies of a letter to multiple persons. Start a new blank Word document, click Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Word. You can download a free trial of MS Office, which you can use for 60 days, here, if you don’t have Microsoft Office installed.

Click the Mailings tab. In the Start Mail Merge group click Start Mail Merge button and click Step by step Mail Merge Wizard….

Since we will be writing a letter, select that as the default. Click Next: Starting document.

We are starting a new document, so we will use the current one. Click Next: Select recipients.

This is a new document and we are creating a fresh list for the purposes of this article. You have the option, if your contacts are stored in Outlook, to use that. If you don’t have any contacts you can create new ones from scratch, which is what we will do. Select Type a new list and then click Create.

This will bring up the New Address List window. Microsoft Word will pre-populate the window with common fields for the recipients. To simplify things and avoid confusion, we will customize and create our own columns for the purposes of this article. At the bottom of the window, click Customize Columns….

Here you will see the list of pre-populated fields. Select each one and click Delete until all are removed.

Once you have cleared the fields, enter your own. For the purposes of this article, I will be using the following fields: Name, Addr1, Addr2, Addr3, and Title. Click Add and enter the field name and then click OK. Repeat this step for each field until all are entered.

Once you have all the fields entered, click OK.

Proceed to enter the information for each record. To enter a new record, click New Entry or you can press Tab to go to the next row. When you have completed this step, click OK.

You will be prompted to save your data source. The datasource is saved as a Microsoft Access database. You can give it a logical name such as Contacts or Addresses.

The Mail Merge Recipients window will appear. Here you are given an opportunity to review and edit the recipient information. You can also uncheck any recipients you don’t want to send the letter to. For instance, you might get a last minute response from a recipient telling you they won’t be able to attend. After reviewing and accepting the changes, click OK.

You will notice that groups previously grayed out in the Mailings tab, such as Write & Insert Fields, are now active. This means we are ready to type our letter and enter our Mail Merge fields.

Below is a sample letter I will be using for my mail merge letter.

—————————————————————————————————-

Andre Brown <——————Field1—–Name
Cross Keys P.O. <————– Field2 —–Addr1
Manchester <——————–Field3—–Addr2
Jamaica W.I. <—————— Field4—–Addr3

Dear Mr. Brown <—————Field5——Title

We will be keeping our annual Youth Group fund raising event next week at the Cross Keys Social Center. Our Youth Group would like to invite you to this special event and hope you will be able to invite your friends and family members as well. Please make every effort to be in attendance on June 20, 2011 at 8:00 PM in the main hall.

See you there.

Yours,
Sarah Smith

————————————————————————————-

Since the letter starts out with the address, we can begin inserting the Merge Fields. To do that, click on Insert Merge Field, located in the Write & Insert Fields group.

Repeat this step until all the appropriate Merge fields are inserted, see below:

The next step is to start writing the body of the letter.

Merging the Files

Once you have completed all the necessary steps, you need to merge the letter with the appropriate addresses. To do that, on the Mailings tab in the Finish group click Finish & Merge and then click Edit Individual Documents.

Select All then click OK. Microsoft Word will now work its magic.

All recipients addresses have been merged producing four unique letters to different persons and addresses. Your options include printing and saving these documents.

How to Create a Mail Merge Document Using Microsoft Word is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

MacUpdate offers a bundle of apps every so often at a sale price. It sometimes includes some awesome apps at a great price. The Fall 2011 bundle, in particular, will only cost $49.99, and you get over $487 worth of software in it.

In the past I’ve seen the list of apps and considered them to be mostly junkware. Sure, maybe one or two programs are  ones I would use, but I could get for the same price or less. However, the most recent bundle has some great programs, so I jumped at the chance to save myself some money. If you bought them all you would spend much more than the $50 the bundle costs by itself.

Let’s take a look at what you get, and how much you would pay for each app alone if you purchase it outside the bundle.

Toast Titanium 11 – $79.99

The do-it-all app for burning disks, capturing video and converting video to various formats. Toast comes from Roxio, and Windows users will recognize the manufacturer as the makers of the once great CD and DVD burning app Roxio Easy Creator.

Printopia – $19.95

Printopia brings AirPrint to users no matter what kind of printer they use, as Apple’s over-the-air printing solution only works with a handful of HP printers. Printopia works great as I found out when I reviewed the app. This app will be included only for the first 20,000 bundle buyers.

Data Rescue 3 – $99

Data Rescue 3, from Prosoft, recovers files from hard drives that are otherwise unreadable. You can use it to get those pictures or documents off a bad hard drive or flash drive. It works on internal and external drives. The light edition is also available in the Mac App Store for $59.99. It only works on non-boot and external drives.

FX Studio Pro – $39.99 in Mac App Store

FX Photo Studio Pro works with your images to make them look beautiful with lots of effects and filters. It handles both RAW and JPG files for editing and touching up pictures. You can sharpen them, or deal with shadows, highlights and color adjustments. You would pay $39.99 just for this app in the Mac App Store.

Fantastical – $19.99 in Mac App Store

Adding appointments to iCal gets easier with this Menu Bar app. It drops down and lets you type in natural language. Click the Fantastical Menu Bar button at the top of the screen and start typing something like, “have lunch with Josh at 3 PM Sept 12 at Joe’s Crab Shack” and it will add an appointment to your calendar at the right time and date with the location entered properly. In my experience it works great. You also get quick drop down access to your calendar showing a month view and list of appointments below it. The Mac App Store version costs $19.99.

iStat Menus – $16

iStat Menus quickly shows you real-time hardware data like CPU usage, disk usage, battery life, network use, disk activity, memory use, the date and the time and temperature sensor information. It stays in your Menu Bar and you can quickly view with the data via drop downs. The app lets you turn on or off the various monitors, so you don’t clutter up your OS X Menu Bar with more than you really want.

If you use this app, I recommend turning off some of the OS X Menu Bar applets and use the iStat Menu Bar applets for things like Date & Time as well as Battery. Also, to keep from overloading your Menu Bar go to the Combined item at the bottom and put most of the sensors on a combined drop down menu.

Phoneview – $19.95

Phoneview lets you backup your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad data to your Mac. The app looks like a Finder window and lets your explore the various kinds of information and data on your device. You can view the device like a regular disk, so you can easily see and copy your photos, videos or files. You can view contacts, notes, call logs, text messages, web pages, voicemail and apps. It also lets you view and back up media like music, videos, books, podcasts, ringtones, photos and voice memos.

Concealer – $19.95 in Mac App Store

Concealer hides files and info to keep them confidential using AES-256 bit encryption. The app stores secret or personal information like notes, credit card numbers and passwords. You can assign passwords to specific files or folders or you can use a master password for the entire app. You might also want to keep a private diary or journal in text files. The program will hide those too. You can find it in the Mac App Store for $19.99.

EarthDesk – $17.99 in Mac App Store

EarthDesk adds a view of the globe to your Mac OS X Desktop. It shows you a view of the earth behind your app windows. You can pick from a lot of different maps with real-time views of sunlight over half the globe or city lights at night. You can view weather patterns with cloud cover. Center the globe on your favorite city or home town. It supports multiple monitors. The app can be downloaded from the Mac App Store too.

Mellel – $28.99 in Mac App Store

We highlighted Mellel in our look at Apple’s suggested writing and blogging apps. My ministry friend who works in Hebrew a lot loves this app because it handles Hebrew fonts and reversed direction text really well. The interface is not as beautiful as some word processors, but it offers Word-like power for a Pages price.

It handles Word files well and exports to them, so you can share files with the majority of other people in the world. I used to be a Word Perfect user and it handles those files too. The app is great for long-form documents like a student dissertation or a multi-chapter book! The app comes in the Mac App Store.

Bookends – $99.99

If you are a student writing a significant paper like a dissertation or you work with works cited in an education or academic environment, then Bookends will help you organize your references. It helps with citations, annotations, and more. The app interfaces with PubMed, Amazon, Google Scholar, JSTOR, Web of Science and tons of university libraries.

You can look for keywords in your document to create cross references and make note cards, add tags and make tag clouds, and produce instant search of the document. It also automatically scans your paper and makes a bibliography and footnotes. The app costs a whopping $99.99 all by itself in the Mac App Store.

If you like the apps above and think you will save money by getting the bundle, you can order it at MacUpdate. I got mine and saved hundreds of dollars. You can download the bundle or you can just get the disk by mail for an extra fee. They will send you the registration codes via email if you download it.

MacUpdate Promo Bundle Saves You $487 on 11 Useful Apps is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Windows 7 is built on the reliability of the Windows NT code base, which has strong lineage dating back to the early 90’s. With recent releases of Windows such as Vista and Windows 7, the platform is even more robust. However, Windows is still susceptible to instability. But are the root causes of this always Windows?

The Windows Memory Dump Screen

The appropriate name for this screen is ‘Memory Dump.’ It is rare on Windows these days, but it does happen occasionally. The common trigger for it is when an application or driver try to access a location in memory they do not have permission to access. This usually happens due to a poorly written device driver or application.

Common culprits:

• Video Card
• Network Adapter
• Faulty Memory Modules
• Faulty/Failing Hard disk
• Antivirus utility
• Attached devices (external USB hard disk)
• Antivirus or any application or utility that needs low level access in the operating system such as the kernel (the heart of Windows).

Diagnosing the problem.

Restart: By default, Windows 7 should automatically restart when a BSOD occurs. If it restarts and boots up normally then, you can check the Event Viewer and Action Center (see below) to see what might have caused the problem.

The Memory Dump screen will usually provide solutions you can attempt to resolve the problem with, while also providing information about what might have caused the problem. In the screen shot near the start of the article, you will see suggestions for what might be causing the problem and a recommendation to update the driver or disable it. The Memory Dump provided some technical information as to what system file is associated with this problem. In my case, its luafv.sys. Of course this is cryptic, but you might be able to resolve it, although you might not get far since it would make more sense to a software engineer. The first thing I will do is a web search to find out what luafv.sys is.

Here is what the web search results found:

luafv.sys (LUA File Virtualization Filter Driver) file, which is part of User Account Control.

Resolution:
Search your computer for luafv.sys, and make sure, it’s located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers folder.
You need to enable view of hidden, AND system files before you start search. If you have User Account Control turned on, try to turn it off, and see, if it helps with crashes.

Of course, not all Memory Dump issues are that easily resolvable. Others might be hardware related. Here are some things you can try:

If you continually experience a Blue Screen, it could be hardware added to the system recently, such as a USB printer. Remove it to see if the error reoccurs. The SCSI card in your System Unit many not have a compatible driver. If you have recently upgraded your graphics card, try reinstalling the old card and see if it resolves the problem. If the computer repeatedly displays the Blue Screen and you have tried everything, such as removing any external hardware devices with exception to the keyboard, mouse and monitor – try removing PCI cards. You should run hardware diagnostics supplied by the system manufacturer. For details on these procedures, see the owner’s manual for your computer.

Update BIOS:

Your computer just might need a special kind of update to work reliably with Windows 7. BIOS updates, although recommended as a last resort, can improve compatibility with installed or upgraded devices such as a video card or externally attached peripherals. BIOS updates are normally available from the manufacturer’s website. If you built your system yourself, the first place to check is the motherboard manufacturer’s website and search for the model number.

The Windows Event Viewer can help find what might have caused the problem, if you are able to successfully boot to the Windows desktop. Click Start, type: event viewer, then hit Enter on your keyboard. Expand Windows Logs and look through the log for the most recent error, this will compose information in the General pane indicating what might have caused the error.

Use the Windows Action Center:

Using the Windows Action Center can also provide information about an application or hardware device that might be causing system instability along with a solution.

To resolve a faulty system service problem as indicated by the action center: Disable the service and confirm that this resolves the error. If so, contact the manufacturer of the system service about a possible update.

If the error occurs during system startup, restart your computer and press F8 when you see a character-mode menu that displays the operating system choices. At the resulting Windows Advanced Options menu, choose the Last Known Good Configuration option. This option is most effective when only one driver or service is added at a time.

Resolving an antivirus software problem:

Disable the antivirus program, restart, and confirm that this resolves the error. If it does, contact the manufacturer of the program about a possible update.

Check your hard disk for errors:

Run Chkdsk /f /r to detect and repair disk errors. You must restart the system before the disk scan begins on a system partition. If the hard disk is SCSI, check for problems between the SCSI controller and the disk. You can learn more about how to run Check Disk here.

Faulty Memory

If you have recently upgraded the memory modules it’s a possibility that either the memory modules faulty or loose and need to be fitted properly. It’s useful, then, to check your memory modules for errors.

To access the System Recovery Environment in Windows 7, simply boot your PC, and just before the system loads the Windows operating system; hit the F8 key on your keyboard. This will launch the Advanced Boot Options menu. There you will see a new option for Repair Your Computer. Select this option and hit Enter on your keyboard.

On the system recovery screen, click Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool. Your computer will be restarted and the test will be run. If you are unable to boot into Advanced Boot Options, try booting from the Windows 7 installation DVD.

If an issue is discovered, it is possible that one of the memory modules is faulty. If you have recently installed new memory modules, check to make sure they are matching pairs and they are running at the same speed. One of the memory modules could be defective, so try booting with a single module at a time to see which one it could be.

Software:

If you have recently installed any programs since you started experiencing Blue Screens, try uninstalling the programs to see if it resolves the problem. If you are unable to boot into Normal Mode, try booting in Safe Mode, then remove the program.

Another thing to do in Safe Mode is disable Start Up items to see if any of them make a difference.

Reinstall Windows 7:

This is a tough one and the last recommendation when you have exhausted all other options. To avoid deleting your data, try doing a custom install over the current installation, that way, you can recover your data from the Windows.old folder. To do that:

• Boot from the Windows 7 DVD
• Click Install Now
• Accept the License Agreement
• When the option is displayed to select an installation type, click (Custom Advanced)
• Select the disk partition where you would like to install Windows 7 and click Next.

You will receive the following warning:

The partition you selected might contain files from a previous Windows Installation. If it does, these files and folders will be moved to a folder named Windows.old. You will be able to access the information in Windows.old, but you will be able to use your previous version of Windows.

At this point do NOT click anything named Format or Delete or Partition. This way even doing a custom install, your personal files are still preserved. Click OK.

Setup will now start the installation. During the installation, your machine will be restarted several times.

When the installation is complete, you will complete the Out of Box experience of having a new system, such as selecting your machine name, creating a username, password, and setting up your time zone. You can then proceed to download the latest updates for Windows and reinstall your applications and drivers.

You can then recover your personal files from the Windows.old folder and reinstall all your applications and drivers as detailed here.

If you continue to experience Blue Screens, this could be a serious sign of hardware failure, such as your hard disk or motherboard going bad. Take your computer to a reputable PC Repair Shop for further analysis and diagnosis. Write a note detailing all the steps you have already taken and make sure you have copies of your recovery software for the PC Repair Technician along with any documentation that came with your computer.

The Technician might also need access to your user account to make changes. I suggest you setup an account with Administrator privileges so they can effectively carry out their task.

How To Diagnose and Resolve Blue Screens of Death (BSODs) is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

Sound is an important part of using your PC. We use our notebooks to listen to music, listen to the audio in a movie, while we chat with friends and to listen to online radio and video. Sound also indicates various events that take place in Windows, alerting you to a completed download, computer startup, common errors, new emails, calendar events and much more.

Unfortunately, sound may stop working in Windows 7 for a number of reasons. Because sound is an important part of using your computer, we take a look at resolving common sound problems in Windows.

The first thing I always recommend users try is check if the speaker attached to their computer is not turned on or turned down, this can be an obvious ‘duh’ moment, but it happens on numerous occasions to the best of us. So check that first before doing anything drastic.

If you are using a laptop, you can check the volume control in the Notification Area of Windows to see if it’s turned down. Most laptops also have an embedded function key, for example, Fn + Function key used to mute or turn on the volume, you can also check this to see if it might be preventing you from hearing sound.

Windows 7 Audio Troubleshooter

If the above tips don’t resolve these common sound problems, its time to move on to the next solution, the Windows 7 Audio Troubleshooter, which can help you try to automatically resolve problems with audio.

Click Start, type: troubleshooting.

Hit Enter on your keyboard.

This will open the Troubleshooting Control Panel item. Under Hardware and Sound click the link to Troubleshoot Audio Playback.

This will start the audio troubleshooting wizard, click Next to start it. It will go through a series of diagnostics test to see what might be preventing audio playback or what is not running such as the Windows Audio service. If it still does not resolve the problem, then we need to go on to some manual options.

Check the Windows Audio Service

The Windows Audio service manages audio for Windows-based programs. If this service is stopped, audio devices and effects will not function properly. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

Click Start, type: services

Hit Enter on your keyboard.

Scroll down to Windows Audio, right-click it and click Properties.

Under the General tab, make sure that the Startup type: is set to Automatic If it isn’t do so and click Start under Service status then click Apply and OK. Check to see if Audio is working again.

Update Audio Drivers

When you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, this can sometimes break drivers. If you recently upgraded to Windows 7 and audio is no longer working, you probably need to install an updated driver. The first place you can check is Windows Update. Click Check for Updates and look for any audio related updates for your hardware. If there none available, you need to check the manufacturer’s website.

If you were previously running Windows Vista, you could try using the Windows Vista driver in Windows 7 since they share the same driver model. Try installing the same Windows Vista driver using Windows Troubleshooting. Right-click on the driver executable/installer file –> click Properties and select the Compatibility tab; click the check box before Run this program in Compatibility mode for option and select Windows Vista in the list-down box. Then try installing the device driver via Run as administrator.

For more, check out this article about How To Install, Update and Troubleshoot Hardware in Windows 7.

Plug in Headphones

My brother recently updated his DELL Inspiron laptop running Windows 7 RTM to Windows 7 SP1. After upgrading he realized that audio playback wasn’t working anymore. We tried what seemed like every possible solution, including the ones above, but none worked.

On a whim I decided to plug in my head phones, I could hear sound, but none was coming from the built in speakers. I unplugged the speakers, restarted to continue troubleshooting the problem, to my surprise, I started hearing audio from the built in speakers again.

What seemed to have happened is plugging in the head phone diverted the sound signal from the external speakers but there are times when unplugging the head phones from audio jack does not return the signal to the built in speakers. So by plugging in the head phone into the sound jack will sometimes resolve this type of problem.

Hopefully these tips can help you resolve any problems you might have with audio in Windows 7.

How to Troubleshoot Sound Problems in Windows is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

Reeder for Mac (spelled with ee instead of ea) is a $10 front end app that connects to your Google Reader account, delivering a more elegant interface, better sharing functionality and an overall better Google Reader experience. Before you ask, Reeder for Mac is definitely worth the $10 price for anyone who uses Google Reader on a daily basis.

Interface

Reeder improves on Google Reader by removing the clutter and replacing it with a simple and beautiful interface. After you enter your Google account info, Reeder pulls the feeds from the service and organizes them in a similar fashion, with the folders along the left and the content along the right. That’s where the similarities end. Instead of the cluttered screen you get on the Google Reader site, Reeder for Mac places the content in a cleaner setup that makes it easier to key in on the content and read.

Compare the above elegant simple interface to the busy and cluttered interface of Google Reader below.

In Google Reader you often get an incomplete view of the article, with pictures out-of-place and poor formatting. To see the article as it is on the feed’s original site in Google Reader you have to click the title and it takes you to the site in the browser. With Reeder for Mac, you can click the more link at the end of the article to see the web version of the article without leaving the Reeder app.

When you are viewing the full article in Reeder for Mac will there is less clutter than there is with Google Reader’s rendition of the article. In the app the article is there with images in place but the ads removed. The fonts are large and easy to read. It looks cleaner and is easier to spend a long time reading articles.

Sharing Features

The other improvement Reeder brings over Google Reader is the ability to interact with other services. From within the app you can post articles to your Instapaper account, Twitter, Facebook and others.

In the upper right corner of the app is a toolbar with a series of buttons. In order, they are:

• Like – your followers can see the article
• Star – bookmarks the article
• Share – posts that article to your Google Reader public page
• Readability – a service that transforms the articles into more readable format on their site or their mobile app
• Instapaper – similar to readability but more for bookmarking pages temporarily to read later on the Instapaper site or the mobile app
• Twitter – shares the article through your Twitter account letting you paste the title and a shortened link plus your own comments
• Email – sends a link through your default mail client
• Sharing Menu – share button pops down a list for doing things like copying the link, opening in other services, or open in Chrome
• CMS – post the article to your blog (not functioning yet)

Other services that are not being used in our toolbar (which you can customize in the Preferences) are as follows:

• Open in Browser – opens your default browser to the page
• Google Mobilizer – opens the article in a mobile version through the Google Mobilizer service
• Instapaper Mobilizer – opens in Instapaper’s mobile version
• Zootool – a visual bookmarking site
• Delicious – a social bookmarking site
• Pinboard – a social bookmarking site that has a monthly fee
• ReadItLater – a service like Instapaper
• Note in Reader – lets you add annotations to articles for use within the app

Some of the other features we really like are the ability to use simple keyboard shortcuts to navigate. You can customize these in the Preferences. There are also plenty of gestures for users of trackpads. They are also customizable. Here are a few of the gestures available:

• Swiping left or right to open/close the built-in article viewer/browser.
• Swiping up or down to move to previous or next article.
• Pinching open or closed to engage the Readability version of each article.

Value and Recommendation

Reeder for Mac earns our recommendation for delivering a great looking interface for Google Reader that makes it easier to read and share a large number of feeds. We can’t count the amount of time Reeder’s simple sharing, customizable shortcuts and gestures have already saved us.

If we had any complaints it would be that there is little built-in help and almost none on the app’s website. We had to email the developer to figure out the answer to one of our questions. Fortunately Reeder is simple enough that most users won’t need a lot of help.

We really wish Evernote support was built into the app. While you can email and Tweet pages to Evernote, this omission is glaring given the large number of services already built in.

You can get Reeder for Mac in the Mac App Store for $9.95.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Simple interface
• Looks great
• Less cluttered than Google Reader
• Pulls from Google Reader
• Lots of sharing services and methods
• Extremely customizable
• Lots of keyboard shortcuts and gesture support for navigation
• Also an iPad app

Cons

• Little built-in help
• Doesn’t work with Evernote natively

Reeder for Mac Makes RSS a Pleasure is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Hardware is an essential part of using your Windows PC. These days, adding new hardware can be as simple as plugging in a mouse to hooking up multiple displays, connecting game consoles and dealing with the ever frustrating printer setup. All of these accessories can lead to a lot of complexity, but Windows 7 does a good job of making the installation painless, but sometimes we need to take action to make new hardware work.  In this article, we’ll take a look at common task associated with installation, updating, and troubleshooting hardware in Windows 7.

Installation

This involves setting up the hardware and preparing it for use. All hardware products require a small piece of software called a driver, which contains a collection of instructions it provides to Windows with the information about how the hardware should be used and configured. In Windows 7, you can install a hardware product in a number of ways, the easiest is by using Devices and Printers located on the Start menu.

New in Windows 7, Devices and Printers provides a visual collection of all devices installed and connected to your computer, such as Web Cams, your system unit, printers and even your smart phone or mp3 player. If you would like to  install a device, click the Add a device button on the command bar.

This will start the ‘Add a device’ wizard. As you can see, I don’t have any newly detected devices, which means, if I am installing a printer or a phone, I need to connect the device first, then turn it on.

Some hardware devices only require that you connect the device. From there Windows will automatically find a driver and install it or the device will install the driver.

When you receive an error message like the one above, it means Windows does not have a built in driver for the device you are trying to install, or the current driver is not compatible with the version of Windows you are using. To fix this, you need to go to the manufacturer’s website and obtain a compatible driver.

Updating drivers

Updating a driver is not necessarily about resolving compatibility issues, updating drivers can also provide enhancements, increased reliability of the device as well as better security. The best place to obtain updated drivers for a device is the manufacturer’s website.

Drivers can normally be found in the Software or Downloads section of a web site. Finding the right drivers means you must first search for the model device you are seeking drivers for. You can start by going to the Support section of the website. For this first example I am looking for driver software for my Nokia 3120 cellular phone.

To quickly find the drivers for your device, you can refine results by using the websites Search feature. In the above example, I simply enter the model number which filters to the particular model I am looking for. Once you have found the device you are looking for, click it, this will take you to the applications summary page.

Click the Software link for the device and you should be taken to a page with all available updates and drivers for that device.

Click the download link and save the driver software to your hard disk.

Updating computer hardware drivers

Lets take a look at updating the drivers for our computer. There are a variety of computer brands and models out there. So, searching for updated drivers might not be the same across manufacturers. Again, you can normally start by looking in the Downloads section of the website. For this example, I am searching for updated drivers for my brother’s Dell Inspiron 640 M laptop.

You can start by looking for the Support section of the website. Most manufacturers will make it easy to find by providing a direct link to the drivers and downloads section of their website. Once you have found it, click it.

Depending on the manufacturer, the requirement to download drivers for your computer might be a bit different, but the information is often easy to find. For instance Dell uses a combination of methods. You can use the Service Tag found on the bottom of a laptop or at the back of a system unit to go right to the downloads section, enter a serial number or just the model of your machine. You can also find such information in your owner’s manual.

For this scenario, I will use the Model number of the machine.

Dell’s website uses a bread crumb menu approach to finding the drivers for your system. First, you start by selecting your form factor, this can be either a desktop or laptop.

The next step is to select the product line, manufacturers offer a wide variety of choices that target certain markets, whether it’s a large enterprise, consumer or small business. In my case, the laptop my brother uses is a Inspiron, so I will select that from the product list.

Finally we arrive at the section where we select our model number. The model number can be easily identified with the product line, in my case it’s a Inspiron 640m. Once you have found it, click it then click Confirm which will take you to the download section for this particular model.

Another step you might be required to accomplish is identifying the installed operating system. This will help to ensure that you download the right drivers for the version of Windows you are running. Sometimes there are no native drivers for the operating system you are running. In the case of this Inspiron laptop, it was manufactured in June of 2006 and originally came preloaded with Windows XP Home, fortunately, it was tagged as Windows Vista capable. Since there are no Windows 7 native drivers, the next best option is to use Windows Vista drivers, they might not be the latest, but Windows Vista and Windows 7 share the same driver model, so they should work just fine.

Once you have found the driver you need, click the Download button and save it to your hard disk and proceed to install when complete.

Windows Update

Microsoft also provides driver updates through its Windows Update service, so you can always check there for updates to common hardware devices such as your printer, network adapter, or even your video card. To use Windows Update, click on the Start menu and type Windows Update. rom there you can check for important and optional updates.

Troubleshooting

When you encounter a problem installing a hardware device, it can be attributed to a number of reasons:

• Incompatible driver – the driver software does not work with the version of Windows you are running and you need to obtain a new version. Sometimes updates to an operating system can break a driver that was previously compatible with the operating system. The best thing to do is check for the latest driver. If none is available, there is another option, which is not guaranteed but can work in some cases, its called Troubleshoot Compatibility.

To install a driver using Troubleshoot compatibility, point to where the driver files are located, right click the setup.exe or .msi file and click Troubleshoot compatibility.

This will start the Program compatibility wizard.

You will be given a couple of choices, the first being Try recommended settings that the operating system thinks will be suitable for this device driver. Or you can manually select the option to troubleshoot the program. For the purposes of this article, I will select Troubleshoot program

If you have determined the program worked in an earlier version of Windows, check that option and click next.

Select the version of Windows the driver worked under then click Next

Click Start the program to see if the driver installs

• Administrative privileges – drivers interact at a deep level of the operating system called the Kernel, which is the heart of Windows. Accessing this area of the system requires Administrative privileges. Because of changes to how Windows handles certain drivers, certain drivers might not have the right to access the kernel since they have not adopted the new model of writing drivers. Fortunately, Windows 7 includes work arounds for this.

Simply right click the driver setup file or .msi file and click Run as administrator. This will give the software driver all the privileges it needs to install properly so you device can function without any limitations.

The ultimate reality of hardware compatibility is that sometimes, we have to let go. Yes, that HP Deskjet you bought in 1997 is certainly a work horse, but because of advances in operating systems and manufacturers own desire to innovate and offer support options for newer model devices, support for older ones have to be discontinued to reduce the cost which can even be a burden for large hardware and software companies. Microsoft has tried to ease compatibility with Windows 7 by offering these many solutions.

I personally have benefitted from using Windows XP Mode, a free download for customers running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate edition. With it, I am able to use my HUAWEI modem which has compatibility issues with Windows 7 64 bit, so I am able to surf the Internet and still benefit from the advantages of running Windows 7.

How To Install, Update and Troubleshoot Hardware in Windows 7 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.