Use [Drive Mirroring] for Instant Backup in Windows 7

Even with the best backup solution, a hard drive crash means you’ll lose a few hours of work. By enabling drive mirroring in Windows 7, you’ll always have an up-to-date copy of your data.

Windows 7’s mirroring – which is only available in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions – is a software implementation of RAID 1, which means that two or more disks are holding the exact same data. The files are constantly kept in sync, so that if one of the disks fails, you won’t lose any data.

Note that mirroring is not technically a backup solution, because if you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone from both hard disks (though you may be able to recover the file). As an additional caveat, having mirrored disks requires changing them to “dynamic disks,” which can only be read within modern versions of Windows (you may have problems working with a dynamic disk in other operating systems or in older versions of Windows). See this Wikipedia page for more information.

You will need at least one empty disk to set up disk mirroring. We’ll show you how to mirror an existing disk (of equal or lesser size) without losing any data on the mirrored drive, and how to set up two empty disks as mirrored copies from the get-go.

 

Mirroring an Existing Drive

Press Win+R to open the Run window and type in:

diskmgmt.msc

The Disk Management window will appear. We’ve got a small disk, labeled OldData, that we want to mirror in a second disk of the same size.

Note: The disk that you will use to mirror the existing disk must be unallocated. If it is not, then right-click on it and select Delete Volume… to mark it as unallocated. This will destroy any data on that drive.

Right-click on the existing disk that you want to mirror. Select Add Mirror….

Select the disk that you want to use to mirror the existing disk’s data and press Add Mirror.

You will be warned that this process will change the existing disk from basic to dynamic. Note that this process will not delete any data on the disk!

The new disk will be marked as a mirror, and it will starting copying data from the existing drive to the new one.

Eventually the drives will be synced up (it can take a while), and any data added to the E: drive will exist on both physical hard drives.

 

Setting Up Two New Drives as Mirrored

If you have two new equal-sized drives, you can format them to be mirrored copies of each other from the get-go.

Open the Disk Management window as described above. Make sure that the drives are unallocated. If they’re not, and you don’t need the data on either of them, right-click and select Delete volume….

Right-click on one of the unallocated drives and select New Mirrored Volume….

A wizard will pop up. Click Next.

Click on the drives you want to hold the mirrored data and click Add. Note that you can add any number of drives. Click Next.

Assign it a drive letter that makes sense, and then click Next.

You’re limited to using the NTFS file system for mirrored drives, so enter a volume label, enable compression if you want, and then click Next.

Click Finish to start formatting the drives.

You will be warned that the new drives will be converted to dynamic disks.

And that’s it! You now have two mirrored drives. Any files added to E: will reside on both physical disks, in case something happens to one of them.

 

Conclusion

While the switch from basic to dynamic disks can be a problem for people who dual-boot into another operating system, setting up drive mirroring is an easy way to make sure that your data can be recovered in case of a hard drive crash. Of course, even with drive mirroring, we advocate regular backups to external drives or online backup services.

Add Background Images and Themes to Windows 7 Media Center

Changing the Background Image with Media Center Studio

Themes and custom backgrounds need to be added with the third-party software, Media Center Studio. You can find the download link at the end of this article.

You can use your own high resolution photo, or download one from the Internet. For best results, you’ll want to find an image that meets or exceeds the resolution of your monitor. Also, using a darker colored background image is ideal as it should contrast better with the lighter colored text of the start menu.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed Media Center Studio (link below), open the application select the Home tab on the ribbon and make sure you are on the Themes tab below. Click New.

Select Biography from the left pane and type in a name for your new theme.

Next, click on the triangle next to Images to expand the list below. You’ll want to browse to Images > Common > Background. You should see a list of PNG image files located below Background. We will want to swap out the COMMON.ANIMATED.BACKGROUND.PNG and the COMMON.BACKGROUND.PNG images. Select COMMON.ANIMATED.BACKGROUND.PNG and click on the Browse button on the right.

Browse for your photo and click Open.

Your selected image will appear on the left pane. Now, do the same for the COMMON.BACKGROUND.PNG. When finished, select the Home tab on the ribbon at the top and click Save.

Now switch to the Themes tab on the ribbon and the Themes tab below. (There are two Themes tabs which can be a bit confusing). Select your theme on the right pane and click Apply.

Note: You won’t see the image backgrounds displayed.

Your theme will be applied to Media Center.

Close out of Media Center Studio and open Windows Media Center to check out your new background.

Conclusion

Media Center Studio runs on Windows 7 or Vista and gives users a solution for personalizing their Media Center backgrounds. It is a Beta application, however, so it still has a few bugs.

Currently, there are only a handful of themes available at Themes7MC, but what they have is pretty slick.

If you’d like to further customize the look of Media Center, check out our previous article on how to customize the Media Center start menu with Media Center Studio.

Downloads

Media Center Studio

Theme7MC

Customize Your WordPress Blog & Build an Audience

Want to quickly give your blog a fresh coat of paint and make it stand out from the pack?  Here’s how you can customize your WordPress blog and make it uniquely yours.

WordPress offers many features that help you make your blog the best it can be.  Although it doesn’t offer as many customization features as full WordPress running on your own server, it still makes it easy to make your free blog as professional or cute as you like.  Here we’ll look at how you can customize features in your blog and build an audience.

Personalize Your Blog

WordPress make it easy to personalize your blog.  Most of the personalization options are available under the Appearance menu on the left.  Here we’ll look at how you can use most of these.

Add New Theme

WordPress is popular for the wide range of themes available for it.  While you cannot upload your own theme to your blog, you can choose from over 90 free themes currently available with more added all the time.  To change your theme, select the Themes page under Appearance.

The Themes page will show random themes, but you can choose to view them in alphabetical order, by popularity, or how recently they were added.  Or, you can search for a theme by name or features.

One neat way to find a theme that suites your needs is the Feature Filter.  Click the link on the right of the search button, and then select the options you want to make sure your theme has.  Click Apply Filters and WordPress will streamline your choices to themes that contain these features.

Once you find a theme you like, click Preview under its name to see how your blog will look.

This will open a popup that shows your blog with the new theme.  Click the Activate link in the top right corner of the popup if you want to keep this theme; otherwise, click the x in the top left corner to close the preview and continue your search for one you want.

Edit Current Theme

Many of the themes on WordPress have customization options so you can make your blog stand out from others using the same theme.  The default theme Twenty Ten lets you customize both the header and background image, and many themes have similar options.

To choose a new header image, select the Header page under Appearance.  Select one of the pre-installed images and click Save Changes, or upload your own image.

If you upload an image larger than the size for the header, WordPress will let you crop it directly in the web interface.  Click Crop Header when you’ve selected the portion you want for the header of your blog.

You can also customize your blog’s background from the Background page under Appearance.  You can upload an image for the background, or can enter a hex value of a color for a solid background.  If you’d rather visually choose a color, click Select a Color to open a color wheel that makes it easy to choose a nice color.  Click Save Changes when you’re done.

Note: that all themes may not contain these customization options, but many are flexible.  You cannot edit the actual CSS of your theme on free WordPress blogs, but you you can purchase the Custom CSS Upgrade for $14.97/year to add this ability.

Add Widgets With Extra Content

Widgets are small addons for your blog, similar to Desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 or Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X.  You can add widgets to your blog to show recent Tweets, favorite Flickr pictures, popular articles, and more.  To add widgets to your blog, open the Widgets page under Appearance.

You’ll see a variety of widgets available in the main white box.  Select one you want to add, and drag it to the widget area of your choice.  Different themes may offer different areas to place Widgets, such as the sidebar or footer.

Most of the widgets offer configuration options.  Click the down arrow beside its name to edit it.  Set them up as you wish, and click Save on the bottom of the widget.

Now we’ve got some nice dynamic content on our blog that’s automatically updated from the net.

Choose Blog Extras

By default, WordPress shows previews of websites when visitors hover over links on your blog, uses a special mobile theme when people visit from a mobile device, and shows related links to other blogs on the WordPress network at the end of your posts.  If you don’t like these features, you can disable them on the Extras page under Appearance.

Build Your Audience

Now that your blog is looking nice, we can make sure others will discover it.  WordPress makes it easy for you to make your site discoverable on search engines or social network, and even gives you the option to keep your site private if you’d prefer. 

Open the Privacy page under Tools to change your site’s visibility.  By default, it will be indexed by search engines and be viewable to everyone.  You can also choose to leave your blog public but block search engines, or you can make it fully private.

If you choose to make your blog private, you can enter up to 35 usernames of people you want to be able to see it.  Each private visitor must have a WordPress.com account so they can login.  If you need more than 35 private members, you can upgrade to allow unlimited private members for $29.97/year.

Then, if you do want your site visible from search engines, one of the best ways to make sure your content is discovered by search engines is to register with their webmaster tools.  Once registered, you need to add your key to your site so the search engine will find and index it. 

On the bottom of the Tools page, WordPress lets you enter your key from Google, Bing, and Yahoo! to make sure your site is discovered.  If you haven’t signed up with these tools yet, you can signup via the links on this page as well.

Post Blog Updates to Social Networks

Many people discover the sites they visit from friends and others via social networks.  WordPress makes it easy to automatically share links to your content on popular social networks.  To activate this feature, open the My Blogs page under Dashboard.

Now, select the services you want to activate under the Publicize section.  This will automatically update Yahoo!, Twitter, and/or Facebook every time you publish a new post.

You’ll have to authorize your connection with the social network.  With Twitter and Yahoo!, you can authorize them with only two clicks, but integrating with Facebook will take several steps.

If you’d rather share links yourself on social networks, you can get shortened URLs to your posts.  When you write a new post or edit an existing one, click the Get Shortlink button located underneath the post’s title.

This will give you a small URL, usually 20 characters or less, that you can use to post on social networks such as Twitter.

This should help build your traffic, and if you want to see how many people are checking out your site, check out the stats on your Dashboard.  This shows a graph of how many people are visiting, and popular posts.  Click View All if you’d like more detailed stats including search engine terms that lead people to your blog.

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking to make a private blog for your group or publish a blog that’s read by millions around the world, WordPress is a great way to do it for free.  And with all of the personalization options, you can make your it memorable and exciting for your visitors.

If you don’t have a blog, you can always signup for a free one from WordPress.com.  Also make sure to check out our article on how to Start Your Own Blog with WordPress.

How to Manage AutoArchive in Outlook 2010

If you want to keep Outlook 2010 clean and run faster, one method is to set up the AutoArchive feature. Today we show you how to configure and manage the feature in Outlook 2010.

Using AutoArchive allows you to manage space in your mailbox or on the email server by moving older items to another location on your hard drive.

Enable and Configure Auto Archive

In Outlook 2010 Auto Archive is not enabled by default. To turn it on, click on the File tab to access Backstage View, then click on Options.

The Outlook Options window opens then click on Advanced then the AutoArchive Settings button.

The AutoArchive window opens and you’ll notice everything is grayed out. Check the box next to Run AutoArchive every…

Note: If you select the Permanently delete old items option, mails will not be archived.

Now you can choose the settings for how you want to manage the AutoArchive feature. Select how often you want it to run, prompt before the feature runs, where to move items, and other actions you want to happen during the process. After you’ve made your selections click OK.

Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes

Ultimate Boot CD can help you get going again and possibly diagnose the issues causing failure. Chock full of dozens of small utilities, this is a program worth downloading, even if you never have to use it. In .iso format, you’ll need ImgBurn (or the like).

Ultimate Boot CD

via MajorGeeks