Automatically Change Your Default Printer Based on Your Location

Windows 7 & 8 can automatically change your default printer based on which network you’re connected to.

The normal use case, of course, is to switch printers depending on whether you are at home or at work, but this feature is especially useful if you use one of the many print-to-PDF solutions—you can continue to print things even while you aren’t connected to any network.

Go to the Devices and Printers panel, and then just click on one of the printers, which will enable more buttons on the toolbar. Now you can select the “Manage default printers” button.

In here you can change the radio button to “Change my default printer when I change networks”.

And now you can select a network in the first drop-down, and then select the printer you want to assign to that network in the drop-down box.

You can also select the “No network” item in the drop-down box for anytime you aren’t connected—this is good to assign a PDF printer as default when you're offline.


Note: this does not work for Home edition of Windows 7, and only applies to laptop PCs!

Transferring your iPhone or iPad to a new Mac

1. Plug the iOS device into the PC you normally sync with. Load up iTunes, wait for it to be recognised in the bar on the left of the window, right-click and select Backup. Make sure you also Transfer Purchases to keep any apps or media you’ve bought directly on the device itself. 
2. Your backup now needs to be moved to the Mac, along with your music. Using a local network or external hard disk, copy everything in your iTunes folder to your Mac. For apps and other settings, locate your backup and copy the whole folder across. The precise source and destination folder paths are:
    Windows 7 or 8
     c:\users\username\appdata\roaming\applecomputer\mobilesync\backup
    OS X
    /library/application support/mobilesync/backup
3. Without connecting your device to the destination Mac just yet, fire up iTunes on it, go to Edit | Preferences | Devices and tick the box to Prevent iPods, iPhones and iPads from syncing automatically. Only then should you plug in the device, and authorise it when iTunes makes that request.
4. Right-click on your device in the left menu and select Transfer Purchases. Then finally right-click and select “Restore from Backup”. Provided you put all your files in the right place earlier, the sync should run and your files should remain intact. If there are any problems, you still have the backup on your old computer.

What to do when you spill water on your laptop or mobile

1. Remove battery and/or power lead as quickly as possible
2. Turn it upside down so any liquid can drain out the same way it came in.
3. Gently wipe, don't use a hairdryer as it will only push the moisture deeper into the device
4. Fill a bag with the rice, place the device in and leave it for a three or four days, ideally in a warm location.
5. Prey for a happy ending!

Create Drive Letters for specific folders, useful for Dropbox style services

When you open My Computer you see floppy disk drives, hard drives and DVD drives. Lots of space is wasted in that window and you have to click several times to reach the location that you wanted to. If you do have folders on your hard drives that you use over and over again you might want to consider creating folder drives which would make them appear as drives in My Computer.

The main benefit is of course that you can access those folders much faster without having to click several times. Windows has a build in command line tool that can do this but I prefer to use XSubst which has a graphic user interface and offers the same functionality.

The user selects an available drive letter in Xsubst and clicks on the Connect button afterwards. This opens a Browse for Folder window. Just select the folder that you want to display as the drive letter that you have selected before. Those links between the drive letter and folder are not permanent unless you press the Permanent button in XSubst.

The permanent setting and the drive letter can be removed again in Xsubst as well. I use Xsubst mainly for two folders that I access several times a day, saves me some time every time I access them this way.

Look Up or Back Up Google Chrome Saved Passwords

Google Chrome saves passwords used in web forms and log ins. You can manage these saved passwords as well as view them (to jog your memory) from within Google Chrome’s Options menu.

1. Launch Google Chrome. Click on the Wrench icon in the top-right and Click Options.
2. Click the Personal Stuff tab. Scroll down to Passwords and Click Managed saved passwords…
3. This will display all of the passwords that Google Chrome has saved. When you first view them, the password values will be masked. But you can display them by selecting an entry and Clicking Show.

Backing Up Google Chrome Saved Passwords

Close all Google Chrome windows. Then, navigate to the Google Chrome AppData folder in Windows Explorer. Usually at: C:\Users\[yourusername]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

Locate the Login Data file and copy it to your preferred backup location.

Outlook Quick Parts - insert frequently used text automatically

If you write certain things again and again when e-mailing contacts, you can save time using Outlook Quick Parts.

1. Create a quick part by highlighting some typed text that you'd like to save as a quick part.
2. Click the Insert tab and choose Quick Parts in the Text group of the Ribbon. A drop-down menu appears.
3. Choose Save Selection to Quick Parts Gallery. The Create New Building Block dialog box appears.
4. Type a new name for your Quick Part if you don't like the one you see.
   The suggested name might be fine, but you may prefer something else. You can also assign a category and description to your Quick Part, but that makes very little difference in how you use it, so you can leave that alone.
   Click OK
   After creating a Quick Part, you can make it appear in an e-mail body in a flash: Click Quick Parts in the Ribbon and click the Quick Part you want. 

BT Wi-Fi - opt out if you use a BT Home Hub Router

https://www.bt.com/wifi/secure/index.do?s_cid=con_FURL_btfon

All BT Broadband customers get free, unlimited wi-fi. In order to use BT Wi-fi, your BT home hub needs to be opted in to share your home broadband with other members of the BT Wi-fi community. This is what creates a wi-fi network for you to use when you are out and about.

All BT Total Broadband or BT Infinity customers who have joined since March 2009 will already be members of BT Wi-fi unless they have opted out.

Should you choose to opt out you will have to reset your router a few days after opting out to stop your router being available on the BT Wi-Fi network

Opt Out of Tracking on iPhones with iOS6

iOS 6 comes in a default “tracking on” position. You have to affirmatively switch it off if you do not want advertisers to see what you’re up to.

The tracking control in iPhone’s settings is NOT contained where you might expect it, under the “Privacy” menu. Instead, it’s found under “General,” then “About,” and then the “Advertising” section of the Settings menu.

The tracking control is titled “Limit Ad Tracking,” and must be turned to ON, not OFF, in order to work. That’s slightly confusing — “ON” means ads are off! — so a large number of people will likely get this wrong.

Sync Google contacts with your iOS device

1. Open the Settings application on your device.
2. Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Select Add Account...
4. Select Other
5. Select Add CardDAV Account
6. Fill out your account information in the following fields:
     Server: Enter "google.com"
     User Name: Enter your full Google Account or Google Apps email address.
     Password: Your Google Account or Google Apps password.
     Description: Enter a description of the account (e.g. Personal Contacts).
7. Select Next at the top of your screen.
8. Make sure that the "Contacts" option is turned to ON.

After you've completed setup, open the Contacts app on your device, and syncing will automatically begin.

Outlook - Tasks - missing "click here to add new task"

View-> Current View-> Customize Current View-> button Other Options...->
 option: Show new item row

Find the Microsoft Outlook Temporary folder

To find the Outlook Temporary folder (a.k.a. OLK folder),where Outlook saves temporary data such as attachments. Open the Windows registry using regedit.exe and look for the Registry key OutlookSecureTempFolder using the map below:

Depending on the operating system, version of Outlook and user logged in, the OLK temporary folder is created in a different spot. The good news is it’s simple to find no matter the version of Outlook including the latest versions, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 and even Outlook 2013.

This information can be very useful. For example, let’s say you open an attachment, make a bunch of changes then close it before you have a chance to save it or your PC crashes, then you can probably find the file in the Outlook Temporary OLK folder and recover your work.

Windows 7 users, install Service Pack 1 before April 9th 2013

Attention all Windows 7 users! Microsoft will no longer support security and performance fixes on your computer if you don’t have Service Pack 1 installed by April 9. Service packs contain Microsoft’s software updates, and typically are part of the updates that many people have their computers set to automatically receive. Since Service Pack 1 came out nearly two years ago, there is a good chance it is already installed on your computer, but if it’s not, the update will expire April 9.

To find out if SP1 is already installed on your computer,
Go to the Start menu
Right-click on Computer
Choose Properties
At the top of this window, under the label Windows Edition, Service Pack 1 will be listed if already installed
If you do not see it listed,
Go back to the Start menu
Select All Programs
Choose Windows Update.
On the left hand side, click Check for updates.
After it is done checking, look at the list of available updates.
If you see Service Pack for Microsoft Windows (KB976932), click OK.
Proceed to Install Updates and follow the instructions on your screen.

BEFORE YOU UPDATE, BACK UP YOUR FILES!

Direct Email Replies to a Different address in Outlook

When you send out an email, normally the only address someone sees when they hit the reply button is the one that you sent it from. Outlook has a feature that let’s you add as many return addresses to the message as you want. This is useful for situations where you have a different email address at home than at work, or when you want replies to be seen by several colleagues.

This option is only accessible from the Composition window where you write a new email. It can be found on the Options tab under “Direct Replies To”.

The Properties window will open up and under the Delivery options category there is a “Have replies sent to” check box  The button should be automatically checked, so in the white box to the right of it just add in any additional email addresses or mailing lists you’d like the replies to go to.

Now when someone uses the Reply button to respond to your email it will automatically go to all of the addresses you added.