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| Everyday Tips from the ComputerMom |
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Happy New Year! Hope you all had a warm and wonderful holiday and a safe New Year's Eve!
I don't know about your house, but our house has a bunch of new high tech toys in it, so I'm going to share with you some of the tools I use to set up and transition from old to new. This issue is a bit more technical than usual, so I hope you find it useful, or, if you don't, remember you can call me to help out!
On a related note, many of you know that I collect working older systems, refurbish them, and give them away as upgrades to some of my less affluent clients. With Windows XP coming to end of support I am actively looking for donations of any systems with Vista or Windows 7. If you or someone you know has replaced a system with a valid Vista or Windows 7 license this holiday I will happily take it off your hands, remove any personal data, and hand it off to a worthy new home.
Here's to a happy and prosperous 2014!
Regards,
Julie Marto
508-359-8176
www.thecomputermom.com
www.facebook.com/thecomputermom |
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Automated Computer Transfer Software
Moving from an older PC to a new one, or from a PC to a Mac, can be a tedious process. Along with the obvious documents, pictures, and music files there are settings, favorites, email accounts and contacts, financial software files, etc. that need to be collected from the old computer and put into the right place in the new. Rarely is this move a cookie cutter operation - it almost always should be customized for your individual needs. The following automated programs are a good way to get the process started, although there is typically a bit of cleanup to be done at the other end:
- Microsoft's Windows Easy Transfer - this software from Microsoft automatically collects your files and settings from an older computer and puts them in the right place in your new computer via a network or an external hard drive. Until the latest version I found this to be an excellent tool that I used frequently. Unfortunately Microsoft has chosen to really limit how this software works in Windows 8.1 - it will no longer transfer from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 8.1, and will only work with an external drive. So, unless Microsoft changes their minds and brings back the missing features, I will be looking for alternatives going forward. In the meantime if you are migrating to Windows 7 or Windows 8.0 this is a great program to use.
- Apple's Migration Assistant and Windows Migration Assistant - these programs transfer data and settings from an older Mac or a Windows PC to a new Mac relatively automatically, usually over a network. These programs take a very long time to run, sometimes up to 12 hours, but overall they work well and are a great place to start.
- LapLink's PCMover - I haven't been a big fan of this in the past, as it tries to move applications as well as your data and settings, and I have found anybody who used it to move applications has ended up with a big mess on their hands. However, they are currently offering Windows XP and Vista users their transfer software free of charge to move to Windows 8.1, so the price is right. If you choose to try this software make sure you only attempt to transfer data and settings - programs just don't move over cleanly!
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 What's my email password??
Congratulations, you are the proud owner of a shiny new iPad, or Android tablet, or smart phone, or some such portable device that's going to change your life! Now you just need to set it up! The most likely things you will do with your new portable toy is surf the web and check emails - who needs a big computer to do that? Well, if you are like a lot of people you entered your email password into your email program or into a web page years ago, checked "remember password " - and then promptly forget the password yourself. Now your new tablet is asking for your password to set up your email account, you've tried a couple of likely prospects with no luck, and when you look for it all you see are a few asterisks, if that!
I run into this problem with my clients all the time, and I have a little trick that I will share with you. Depending on the situation, I download one of two free programs from a company called NirSoft. The first, MailPassView will show m e any stored passwords in Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail. The other program, IEPassView will show me any stored passwords in Internet Explorer.
One word of caution - as this is officially "hacking software" many antivirus software programs, including Norton, will alert these programs as bad guys and try to delete them, so disable your antivirus software for the few minutes you will need to run these password recovery tools. |
 Upgrading your Android phone? Don't forget to transfer your call logs and texts!
Google does a very good job backing up and synching your mail, contacts, and calendars to the cloud, but the call logs and texts are usually stored in the phone and lost when you upgrade. To solve that problem I use a small and very straightforward app called Mobile Backup II. This free app backs up the call logs, texts, contacts, and calendar on your Android phone to your phone's internal storage or SD card. Then you can transfer the backed up files to your new phone and run the software again to restore them.
This program is especially useful for the younger set, who tend to have their entire lives documented with extremely crucial text messages!
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