Jul 31
One of the handiest icons in the Quick Launch tool bar is the Show Desktop. No matter how many windows you have open, you can click the Show Desktop 
icon and go directly to the desktop where your most important links, programs or files are located.
If the icon is not present (it usually is shown by default when the Quick Launch tool bar is shown) or it has been deleted, it is easy to get it back. Follow these easy steps:
1. Open Notepad
2. Type the following (copy the text below and paste in Notepad):
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
3. Save the text you typed as file name “Show Desktop.scf” on your desktop. Include the quotation marks ” ” around the file name, this allows you to save the file with the .scf extension.
4. Now go to your desk top by collapsing all windows or by pressing the Windows key and the letter D at the same time.
5. Now you can drag and drop the Show Desktop icon 
that is now on your desk top to the Quick Launch tool bar.
Did you notice the other way to go directly to the Desktop? A handy short cut is to use the Windows key 
and the letter D key at the same time.
Jul 29
It happens all the time, hard drives crash without warning. But when someone loses all their data–it is sad.
This last week a graduate student came to our service center with a crashed hard drive. The user had dropped his computer and it would not start back up. The hard drive made clicking and grinding noises as we tried to recovery the data. Sometimes we can recover data using Onetrack software, but not this time because it was a mechanical failure.
The sad part of this story, the user had a lot of valuable data on the hard drive and he did not have any back ups of his data. The computer has a DVD/CD burner. USB keys are inexpensive and external hard drives are very affordable. Still no backups.
The cost of buying an external drive or blank DVDs is nothing compared to the time and effort that went into creating the irreplaceable data.
The user has opted to send the hard drive to Onetrack Data Recovery, where they will try to recover data. This option is very expensive and there is not guarantee that the data can be recovered.
Lesson: Back up your data!
Steps to take:
- Buy and external hard drive and back up your data. Check out this FreeAgent Drive.
- Burn data to CDs and/or DVDs.
- Store data at an off-site location. Store your photos for free at Kodak Gallery.
icon and go directly to the desktop where your most important links, programs or files are located.
that is now on your desk top to the Quick Launch tool bar.
and the letter D key at the same time.
