Create a System Restore Point
Before you install any new software on your system, always create a System Restore point. Some software can play havoc to your system causing all sorts of strange problems. System Restore helps you restore your computer’s system files to an earlier point in time when your system was working well.
It’s a safe way to undo system changes to your computer without affecting your personal files, such as e mail, documents or photos. Having a restore point can significantly reduce your downtime. Plus this functionality is built right into Windows so there is really no reason not to do it

Defragment and Check Your Hard Drive for Errors Regularly
In order to help maintain the integrity of your data there are two hard drive tests that you should run at least once a month. The first is to Defragment your hard drive. Over the course of regular use, your files get fragmented or spread out all over your hard drive. So while an MP3 or WMV file appears as a single file to you in Windows Explorer, small pieces of the file could literally be spread across the entire hard drive.
Gathering all of these distant pieces back together into a single contiguous file makes file access faster. Depending on how fragmented the data on your drive is, defragmenting it could make your system noticeably faster.
The other test we are going to perform is a Check Disk. This tool checks hard disk volumes for problems and attempts to repair any that it finds. For example, it can repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files and directory errors. Disk errors are a common source of difficult-to-track problems, and running this test regularly can significantly reduce your risk of problems.
Windows has a built-in defragmenter and check-disk utility. To access either of them just open Windows Explorer and right-click on the drive you want to examine. Select Properties and then click on the Tools tab. To defragment your HD go to the Defragmentation section and press the Defragment now button. To perform a check disk, go to the Error-checking section and press the Check now button.

Search- Word 2010 offers an enhanced ribbon user interface with increased options and ability to hide in order to give users more work space. Another feature we found useful is the redesigned search function. In 2007 when you did a search a small window would pop up and would highlight the word in a sentence. Conducting a search in 2010 now appears in a navigation pane on the side of the screen. The new search navigation pane lists all of the instances of the word in the document and also provides the full sentence that it is in.

Paste Preview- Word 2010 offers new functionality to the paste feature by allowing users to preview the location of their past before they actually paste it. In Word 2007 there was only the paste function with no ability to view what the paste would look like in the document before the paste was conducted.

Picture editing tools- Many users will find the increased picture editing tools in Word 2010 to be very useful when creating documents. The enhanced functionality allows users to not only crop pictures but also remove the background.

Excel 2010:
Differences between Excel 2007 and Excel 2010 include “Sparklines” and improved formatting tools. “Sparklines” allows users to put charts in single cells whereas before charts were only able to be placed on different sheets or on the sheet you were working on.

PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint 2010 includes new transitions and animations, increased video controls similar to the YouTube controls and the ability to edit videos. Office 2007 treated video the same as pictures and only allowed users to play a video. The video editing tools in 2010 include the ability to crop, set poster frames, set contrast and color to a video. Also new to PowerPoint 2010 is additional functionality that enables users to broad cast their presentations over the web in their web browsers.

Outlook 2010
In the 2007 release of Outlook the ribbon user interface was not fully integrated into the Outlook. Office 2010 revamps the user interface to have the ribbon feature throughout the entire application. Users will also be given another option when grouping their emails. The new Outlook has the ability to group emails by conversation, putting related emails into groups.

1. If you want to search a specific site (Microsoft.com) for a specific term (Windows) you can type the following (without the quotes) “site:microsoft.com Windows” and Google will only return results from Microsoft.com with the word Windows.

2. Do you ever find yourself hearing a word and wondering its meaning? Google can help with that too. Simply type “define:” before the word you want to search for and google will return all the definitions of that word. An example would be “define: technology”.

3. Google can also help you track packages, you can copy and paste your tracking code from any major carrier (USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL) and Google will recognize what you are trying to accomplish and give you the tracking details of that package.

4. We all use the calculator application on our PC but sometimes it’s faster to use Google. You can type in any math equation into a Google search and get the answer. For example, typing “30/5” in a Google search returns the answer of 6. Finally, no more remembering PEMDAS!

5. This time of year it can be important to be able to get the weather forecast quickly. Google can help you with this as well. Simply search Google for “weather” and then your zip code and Google will return the five day forecast for your area.

Most people have a personal system for organizing themselves. Regardless of industry or responsibility the need for personal organization is obvious. Email is no different. When trying to organize your email ask yourself how you organize files and try to keep the same system for email. For example, if you do a lot of project based work, perhaps you want to organize email by project, or by client. If you handle mostly internal work maybe it is best to organize by year. The idea is to break down your mailbox into smaller sections.

By creating these smaller sections you are not only better organizing yourself but also speeding up searches. If you are an Outlook user, try creating subfolders under your Inbox and organize them by the system you have developed. Creating a subfolder in Outlook is easy. Click on the Inbox and then RIGHT CLICK and select NEW FOLDER. Give the new folder a name and that’s it. Move email into the new folder by highlighting multiple emails (CTRL + A) and then dragging them into the new folder. Remember though, creating subfolders help to organize your email but do nothing to keep the mailbox size down.

You should always check the size of your mailbox to make sure it is not growing to an unhealthy size. To accomplish this in Outlook 2007 (Note: You must be connected to an Exchange server), click on the Folder Sizes link below your mailbox. You will see a Total Mailbox Size in KB. If the number is approaching 7 digits your mailbox is getting close to being too large. If a mailbox becomes too large it can become corrupt and unusable.

If your mailbox is too large there are a few options. You can delete unnecessary email and clear out your Deleted Items folder. This may be the quickest way to save space but will most likely not save the most space. You can also set up archiving on your local Outlook. This is an easy way to save a lot of space but the drawbacks are that the archived email will sit locally on your machine and therefore will not be properly backed up. There are other solutions designed to be company-wide, such as automatic archiving – which archives a copy of each email before it gets delivered to your mailbox. This ensures the email is archived regardless if it is deleted from the mailbox. The best first step is to delete any unnecessary emails – especially ones with large attachments – and make sure you have cleaned out your Deleted Items folder. Try and keep your mailbox under 500MB (500,000KB) in order to keep your data safe.

If you have any questions regarding archiving email or would like to suggest a future subject please call us at (610) 828-5500

NetCare’s managed suite of services, designed for companies who wish to maintain internal servers, have been enhanced to include 24 x 7 Level 1 helpdesk support, unlimited local / remote data backup, a client based firewall, and hosted Exchange email as part of the standard service. NetCare is now priced on a per user basis. While other providers charge per device and benefit from a more complex client environment, CTN has moved to a per user model allowing companies to easily understand their IT investment.

“NetCare is our proactive approach to IT management which combines sophisticated software tools and our expert team of professionals to completely manage a company’s technology environment whether they have 5 users or 500,” said Drew Morrisroe, President & CEO. “With the enhanced NetCare services, we can now completely host a client’s network, fully manage their internal network, or offer them a hybrid of both. Many of our clients want to speak to a live person at night or on the weekend in the event that they cannot log in or access their email. By providing a 24 x 7 live Level 1 helpdesk, we can now meet this demand.”

NetCare will continue to include CTN’s virtual CTO (Chief Technology Officer) service. The role of virtual CTO was significantly enhanced in January of 2009 by the hiring of Chuck Virtu. Chuck has spent over 12 years managing the technology of a large financial services company, before becoming the CTO of an independent firm. Prior to this, Chuck provided pre- and post-sales support at IBM. Chuck commented, “CTN’s virtual CTO service provides smaller companies critical high level management and strategic planning that large companies enjoy. By leveraging the services of the virtual CTO experienced in managing technology, companies can be assured they are making decisions that return the greatest value. In my years as a technology manager, I received many proposals from managed services providers that were confusing and of dubious value. NetCare has been enhanced to clearly show the value of the service.”

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