Computers and Technology Articles

I have batch converted 100Â’s of thousands of documents for many legal firms, government institutions to the couple for a home user has about recipes. Throughout this time I have found several things that are common and would like to share them with you.

What is the best tool to use to batch convert WordPerfect documents?

WordPerfect itself of course, who knows them better than WordPerfect? This is by far the best tool to use. I suggest you get the latest version of WordPerfect and use a converter called WordPerfect Document Converter that actually integrates with WordPerfect to use itÂ’s conversion engine, you can find it at www.bidgoodsvcs.com/wpcvt2.htm WordPerfect Document Converter integrates with WordPerfect to batch convert, you can download a full 30 day trial of WordPerfect from the Corel website www.corel.com which will give you plenty of time to get the job done. You should strongly think about having at least one copy for later conversions. The converter will also use MS Word but the results are much less satisfying.

Batch converting can be easy and straight forward if you follow specific guidelines

Converting Documents:

There are three phases to batch document conversion; before, during and after the converting of documents.

Before:

This is by far the most critical stage of the whole process, what you do here will determine just how well your documents are going to convert.

Take time to get properly set up, the more time you spend getting prepared the less time you spend trying to convert the documents.

Backup, Backup, BackupÂ…

DO NOT convert the originals always work on copies of the documents, you can replace copies but you canÂ’t replace originals, if something goes wrong you have lost the originals forever so always convert copies not originals.

Plan for the unexpected

Leave yourself lots of time for conversion issues, I can almost guarantee you will hit some and so leave lots and lots of room for you deadlines.

Check your fonts

Ensure you have the right fonts that the documents were originally created in installed on the conversion machine you are using, if you donÂ’t font substitution will occur and may really mess up the formatting of the document.

Break down into appropriate chunks

The first mistake most people make is trying to convert all their documents at once, it seems like the easiest quickest logical way but itÂ’s not, breaking the documents into chunks and converting the chunks is the easiest, quickest, logical way. I suggest about 1000 docs per session, this way you can deal with problem documents much easier when you hit them.

Determine what documents need to be converted which ones can simply be archived.

Once you have broken the documents down into chunks you can then prioritize what chunks need conversion first, find out what the important documents are and do them first.

DonÂ’t convert all of them, only convert the ones that are needed. Determine which ones should be and which ones can be archived. Many legacy documents do not need to be converted if they have not been used over a long period of time, these can be archived and converted on a need to basis. WordPerfect Document Converter has a built in date range feature that you can convert specific documents based on their date range, for example convert all documents created after January 1st 2000.

Determine extension conversion

WordPerfect documents are notorious for having weird extensions such as mydoc.frm.003, mydoc.020498.ctv, this presents a serious issue when converting to MS Word, you need to determine what extension convention you are going to use such as mydoc.frm.003.doc or mydoc.frm.doc or even mydoc.doc, just remember there may be multiple document base names such as mydoc example mydoc.frm.003 mydoc.frm.004. check through the extensions and determine the best way to rename documents.

WordPerfect Document Converter can be set up to handle these weird extensions as and name them properly for you.

Look for corruption, run through wplook.exe

Number one reason for document conversion failure is corruption, any corruption whether hidden or obvious will cause the document not to convert properly.

Two types of corruption;

Obvious

Corruption that you can see with the naked eye, garbled text, missing images and sometimes the document just wonÂ’t open.

Hidden

This is the most dangerous kind as you cannot usually see it and not know its there until you convert your documents, it will cause formatting issues, chunks of text to disappear and the converter to hang. The corruption generally occurs in what they call the prefix header of the document which you cannot see unless you look at it at the byte level. Hidden corruption is generally found in WordPerfect Styles and can creep from one document to the next if the suspect document is used like a boiler plate or template, you will need to fix this corruption or your documents may not convert properly at all.

How to Fix Corruption

Use WPLook to fix corruption

The files need to be cleaned up and all corruption removed before being converted, there is a tool called WPLook.exe created by Corel that will fix general corruption such styles and garbled text, WordPerfect Document Converter has a built in troubleshooter that you can use to fix general corruption in documents. If the documents cannot be fixed you may need an expert to repair them.

Test conversion

Take a sample of documents from different places in the folders of documents and convert them, look at them all and determine any issues, look for formatting issues or missing chunks of text.

Determine issues with conversion of documents general and specific,

Look for common issues in the documents such as font problems, tables not aligning properly text not appearing properly formatting is off.

If there is a common issue you can write a macro have it set up in the converter to run on each document to fix this issues.

We are now ready to convert the documents.

Start the conversion but keep an eye on it, if you have missed some corrupt documents the converter may hang and not convert.

If the converter hangs determine what document it is hanging on and either fix or remove the document. Restart the converter and you will be prompted to continue the session, continue the session and when prompted to replace existing files click on ‘No to All’ and the converter will pick up where it left off.

Once you have converted all the documents you need to determine that the conversion was successful.

After the Conversion

Determine any issues

Go through and compare them to the originals in WordPerfect to see if there are chunks missing or serious formatting issues, remember converting documents to any other format than what they were created in will nearly always result in formatting issues, itÂ’s a known fact and we have to live with.

Check to ensure all files converted

Go through and compare the file structure to ensure now documents or folders of documents were missed in the conversions.

Backup:

Once you have finished always back them up and do your manual modification work on copies, once again remember you can always replace a copy but you can never replace an original.

Congratulations! You have just successfully converted your WordPerfect Documents to Word.

As you can see converting documents can be easy and straight forward if you follow the above suggestions.

Is your computer getting sluggish lately? Is it not performing as it should be? In most cases the solution is to perform a registry clean up which is the best way to get your computer running as it should be. The best way to keep your computer at optimum level is to have a healthy Windows registry.

What is Windows Registry?

The Windows registry is found in all Windows version and is the reference source for your computer.

When you attempt to open a program like a spreadsheet, for example, the computer questions the registry to locate the program. The registry contains references and values pertaining Windows, the programs installed, profiles, document types and system hardware. The registry, therefore, notes what goes into and comes out of the computer.

Using the computer over and over again causes the registry to get littered with obsolete entries and eventually fragmented and damaged. The effect of this makes the computer very slow at boot up and very often freezes while working on it.

This is where the registry clean up comes in order to increase your computer performance.

How to perform a Registry cleanup?

In order to perform an effective cleanup you must use a registry cleaner. It will free your computer from those invalid entries and release it from unwanted programs scattered all over your system. Registry cleanup will address these errors while scanning for invalid DLL files and Active X components.

How often should you perform the registry clean up?

Just like anything else, your registry needs a regular, frequent cleanup. You can perform cleanup more than once a week in order to keep your computer in optimum level. Before tampering with the registry, make sure you make a backup of it otherwise you risk of losing information.

However one should purchase a licensed top-quality registry cleaner that will help you increase your computer performance. If you do not perform a registry clean-up your computer will remain sluggish.

We can find that files are larger and larger, while our hard disk space is smaller and smaller since we can’t enlarge its volume. Some people are fond of classic music, some pop music, some jazz etc. We like to use iPod to listen to our songs. Every time, we use iTunes to transfer songs to iPod, however, iTunes can’t recognize whether there are songs with the same names or same size. As a result, your valuable space of iPod may be occupied by those useless duplicate songs. It’s affirmative that there is also a large number of music in your hard disks and duplicate music in your iPod. You cannot remember whether you have downloaded the songs before or not.

Duplicate songs may have different titles, different formats, and different download dates. It is unpractical to manually search one by one and you cannot find them all. It’s very common that we download songs into our mobile music player and copy songs to our computer. We usually classify our songs into different categories, such as light music, rock music, and jazz music. And sometimes we classify according to singers’ name. When we are not sure which folder we should put songs in, we just put them somewhere. As we are free to manage our folders, we copy them somewhere not the same folder, which will create many copies of songs.

With Duplicate File Cleaner, you can easily manage your favorite songs. There are three scan modes in Duplicate File Cleaner. Its usage is easy and simple.

Follow the steps and remove your iPod duplicate songs:

1. Run Duplicate File Cleaner, and click Music tab.

2. Select Drives or Directories you want to scan on the left side of the interface.

3. Select Scan Filter for Duplicates on the right side of the interface. You could Add/Edit/Remove the scan filter manually. Click “Scan Now” to proceed.

4. Once scan completes, click “Export” to save List of Duplicate Files.

5. At the end, you can select how to deal with the duplicate files, and the default option is moving them to Recycle Bin.

Even though Linux has an enviable reputation when it comes to security, there are spyware threats that target Linux systems. While there may not be as many spyware programs that run on the Linux platform, it is only a matter of time before this changes. Without a question, as more people switch to Linux, there will be more of an incentive to try and find ways to install and launch threatening applications. Fortunately, you can find software programs that will help you detect and remove spyware on Linux platforms.

Freeware Anti-spyware Products for Linux Users

As you may be aware, anyone can make changes to the Linux operating system, as well as write programs that are compatible with it. Therefore, when you are looking for freeware options, you can look for new operating system versions as well as more conventional tools and resources. Chances are, as spyware for Linux becomes more prevalent, you will find more occurrences of both solutions.

Professional Anti-spyware Removal Programs for Linux

If you visit the McAfee site, and several others, you will find they are already carrying antispyware programs for Linux. For the most part, if you know how to use similar programs for Windows, you should have no problems learning how to run the Linux versions. Therefore, learning how to safely remove spyware will be much easier than you had anticipated.

Today, every computer user needs to know how to safely remove spyware regardless of the operating system being used. While some platforms are riskier than others, shifting consumer patterns will inevitably lead to a shift in malware targets. Therefore, if you do not have spyware protection for your Linux computer, it is best to acquire it as soon as possible.

Mouse is a very useful accessory in a computer system. It helps to select a particular item in the computer system with ease. There are various types of mouse in the market nowadays. Mechanical, optical, laser, inertial, 3D, double etc are few examples.

An optical mouse uses photodiodes and LED (light emitting diode) technology that is usually present under the mouse, to detect the movements, than moving any of its inner parts, as in a mechanical mouse. The latest technology optical mouse uses an optoelectronic sensor that takes continuous images as the mouse moves. With the cost of computing components decreasing with time, it has become possible to pack the mouse with more powerful image processing chips that have many special functions.

This helped the mouse to detect the movement at any surface, unlike mechanical mouse that need a soft and an even ground to perform. This further led to translating the motion of the mouse to the motion of the pointer on the screen, thus ruling out the need of a mouse pad. This led to the increase in the use of such mouse as it became more user - friendly and easy to use.

Optical computer mouse illumines the surface on which it works. This is done with the help of LED. The image processing area of the chip helps in the shifting from one frame to the other. This is then translated into motion with the help of an optical flow-estimation algorithm.

The laser mouse is another type of mouse that makes use of an infrared laser instead of LED to light the surface under it. This helps in increasing the image resolution and thus can point more accurately and at a much faster rate. This type of mouse also has a power usage that allows it to be more efficient than the other mouse types.

With technology improving at a faster rate, the computer mouse has emerged as a wonderful accessory that has not one but many advantages on its side. Using the right type of mouse for the correct requirement will help in being cost effective as well.

Does portable computing sound like the thing for you? More and more home users are joining the legions of business people that find laptops to be a viable alternative to bulky desktop workstations. In fact, some laptops are designed to be a desktop replacement. Before you plunk down that credit card, though, you’ll need to find out what will work best for your needs.

Home Users:

The typical home laptop user needs a laptop that offers a variety of different features and is not overly concerned with portability. Even the largest, bulkiest laptop is far more portable than other computing solutions. The best option for a home user is a midsize laptop or a desktop replacement model. These are bulkier solutions, though they offer the widest range of options and are usually the most affordable. Remember, as the size of the laptop decreases, the cost of the laptop increases.

Business Users:

Business users usually demand the utmost in portability, unless the laptop will be only for limited office use and nothing more. For the on-the-go businessperson, a thin and light model is the best option. These are smaller and lighter than other computing options, though they have smaller viewable space. In addition, the keyboards are smaller and the capabilities are somewhat lessened. Ultraportable devices are incredibly slim and small, though they have even more reduced power and features. For frequent drivers or air travelers, these are excellent options.

Power Users:

Power users can find a range of options to fit their needs. For instance, many thin and light combinations have more than ample power to keep you going strong, as well as other features that can make them attractive options. For those in need of powerful graphic capabilities, a desktop replacement option is still going to be the best deal.

What You Want:

Regardless of the actual style you purchase, there are a few items that you’ll need to make sure that you get in the laptop. For instance, you need a minimum amount of RAM, as well as a minimum processor speed and hard drive capacity. Remember, too, that the more you have of any of the items, the higher your end price will be.

RAM: Your laptop should have a minimum of at least 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, though 3 GB models are available and offer better performance. At least 2 GB RAM is suggested for laptops with Windows Vista.

CPU: A model with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor is the best option on the market, though a Quad Core is an even better choice if you can foot the bill. 2 GHz is a good processor.

Hard Drive: A minimum of 120 GB is needed for your hard drive, though the more the merrier, especially if you save a lot of videos, movies and large digital photos. Models with 250 GB are available for a little more cash.

Budget Buying Concerns:

If you’re looking for a laptop on a budget, you can find quite an array of options available. The key is to find a reliable brand, as well as the right features in the computer, and not any more features than you need. Buying reconditioned models can seem attractive and can be a good idea in some ideas, though buying new is always the better choice with laptops.

Gamers:

Unlike older laptops, gamers can make good use of today’s laptops. In fact, many companies are manufacturing and marketing models specifically to this market segment. Combining high end on board graphics card, state of the art sound systems and large (17″) screen sizes, these are a great option for the gamer on the go, or one without the space to dedicate to a bulky desktop computer.

Businesses:

Many businesses are ditching their desktops and providing laptops for in office use for their employees. For these businesses, desktop replacement models offer the best options. These provide the same power and performance as a desktop model might, but they also provide portability. However, they are far too heavy and bulky for regular travel.

Sony Mp3 Players have earned the status of being one of the best players on the market. The Sony Mp3 Players are quite versatile for style, looks, and of course accessories. With the Sony mp3 players you can choose from either the Hard drive player, Flash Memory player, MP3 CD player, or the Mini Disc player. Sony mp3 players come in a good affordable price range from $100 to $300.

Lots of the Mp3 players with hard drive storage can hold up to 13,000 songs. This is perfect for those who need large storage capacity. Some players even provide rechargeable batteries, USB cords, LCD screens, and AC power adapter for charging when needed.

The Flash memory, Sony mp3 players have large storage capacity too. But flash players are smaller than hard drive players. Flash memory players range in size from around 512 MB to over 1GB. This means about 300 to 700 songs. Rechargeable batteries come with this player for up to 50 hours of music. Rechargeable batteries are so very handy and do not take long to recharge back up.

The CD Walkman is a great choice when you are considering buying a Sony mp3 player. The CD Walkman is reasonably priced for your budget, and it probably can hold all your audio music needs from you homemade CDs. And always check to make sure the CD player or mp3 players meets you needs. The CD Walkman comes with rechargeable batteries, skip protection, and some even com with accessories, software, and some with even water resistant cases. Perfect for around the pool or at the beach.

With Sony Mp3 Players you should include the Mini disc player. Lots of the Mini Disc players have functions that allow you to view and store photos as well as MP3s. This can be done with todays technogoly. Simply with combining a digital camera and an Mp3 Player. This is such a cool feature in the mp3 technology world today

Are you one of those thousands speculating “Can I speed up my computer”? There are several reasons why a computer performs at less than designated speeds. Just because the computer has slowed down does not mean it is time for a newer, better configuration system. There are ways to overcome speed problems in computers and keep your computer’s performance top class - it just needs a little knowledge and discipline to make this into a reality.

Temp directory needs to be emptied often. This is because whenever Windows loads up, the temp directory is scanned for files. When there are numerous files, it obviously consumes extra time. Emptying the temporary internet files will help in speeding up web browser applications. During start up, several programs may start in the background, most of which are not needed. Remember, identifying and eliminating those can speed up my computer.

The computer’s hard disk could be having physical damages or sector damages. A scan run on the hard disk will help to identify this problem. Then an option to repair can be chosen to fix the issue. Fragmenting hard disk will also speed up my computer.

There are third party tools available for improving the computer speeds by identifying disk damage and fixing it; tweaking software applications for optimum performance and regulating the operating system for ideal functioning - in general fine tuning the entire system.

Turning off visual effects and adjusting memory usage and processor scheduling will help to improve overall speed of your system. These options are available under ‘My Computer’ and can be set for maximum application speed. Active Desktop option is a concern area as far as system speed is concerned. It is indeed very attractive and real time to have active desktop turned on - to show real time stock/weather news etc. But generally, people do not have time to look at it and it acts as quite a distraction from work. Switching the active desktop option off gives a big boost to speed up my computer.

Cleaning and Preventing the system from unused and redundant entries is the most important factor to keep its speed up. Investing in good registry cleaners software and getting it updated periodically will pay off. This registry cleaner software can do all the works for you that you normally have to do it yourself like cleaning the temporary files, defragmenting, disk clean up, optimizing your system and more. It will be very useful to install registry cleaner to help you identify all the unnecessary files that are dumped and delete it.

Too much unused entries in the registry that are accumulated gradually can lead to a blue screen that could appear unexpectedly anytime, the worst time is when you are doing your job. You could lose all of the unsaved tasks if the blue screen appears.

Reformatting and reinstalling the system will surely speed up my computer but it is not the first thing you want to do as it takes a lot of time and of course wrong way of formatting can lead to another problem, you have to take your computer to the technicians and pay $50 for their services.

If the question is, “How Can I Speed up My Computer Without Having to Spend Too Much Time and Money?”, the best answer is, ” Yes, registry cleaner will do all the things automatically for you”.

Our society now has become fast paced and individuals feel the need to cope up thus the popularity of laptops. These machines allow individuals to carry out their daily tasks even when they are not at home or in the office. Most companies nowadays allow their employees to telecommute or bring their work at home. However, because laptops are mobile, the danger of data loss is higher compared to the desktop pc.

To avoid paying a lot of money and saving yourself from trouble of losing all your important data, backing up your files once a week is recommended. Back up your files using CD-RW or DVD-RW or you can backup your files online.

But if the worse has happened and you have already lost your files because you accidentally dropped your laptop, because of hard drive failure, accidental deletion, virus attacks and corruption, or physical damage from fire or other disasters, I suggest you seek professional help immediately.

Contacting a data recovery service as soon as possible is the most logical thing to do. Trying to recover the data yourself may do more harm than good.

Data recovery services are fast, reliable, and safe. You may research your neighborhood for data recovery service companies that specialize in laptop data recovery.

If you canÂ’t find a laptop data recovery company in your local area, you can always search the internet. There are a lot of great companies that offer data retrieval services for laptops and they allow shipping of your laptop to their laboratories and once they have retrieved your data, your laptop and files will be sent back to you.

Generally, data recovery process for a desktop hard drive is rather the same compared to laptops. The only difference is quite obvious; a laptopÂ’s hard drive is typically smaller and a bit more difficult to handle. Engineers would have to be more careful because one wrong move may bring all those important data down the drain.

Once you have contacted a data recovery service that would retrieve your files, their engineers or technicians will assist you and ask you a series of questions regarding the problem. You will then have to send your laptop to their laboratories or if you choose to have an on-site service, meaning they will be the ones who will come to your home or office, you could do so but usually for an additional fee. They will then evaluate your laptopÂ’s case and suggest what kind of data recovery you will need.

Data recovery service for laptops usually wonÂ’t cost you anything if the data recovery attempt is not successful. Evaluation of your laptop is also usually free and if they are confident that they can retrieve your data, they will give you a quote on how much you are going to pay.

During urgent situations, these laptop data recovery companies can also do an emergency data retrieval for your laptop. This process usually lasts between 24 to 48 hours.

Data recovery for your laptop can be really expensive. Companies charge depending on how severely damaged your laptop is or how long it will take them to retrieve your files.

However, the amount that you are going to pay them is worthwhile if the data stored in your laptop are important especially if these data are work related.

If you are looking for a Windows registry cleaner you will probably have realised that most of them are not free. It is important to use a registry cleaner to keep your computer running at its peak performance level, and these software tools really do make a difference to the speed of your PC. As well as the paid tools, there are a few freeware registry cleaners available for you to download. These tools tend not to be as feature rich as the paid versions, but if you are on a tight budget they are just the thing to speed up your slow computer. The following article takes a look at two of the main free registry cleaners.

Perhaps the best known free registry cleaner is the Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. This is a completely free tool, there is no trial version. Some of the main features include the finding of orphaned registry keys, creating a backup of any changes it makes to the registry and a promise to improve your PC’s speed and performance. The Eusing software is financed by donations, but you don’t need to pay anything. It has a very good reputation and this looks to be the best of the free windows registry cleaners available.

Another free registry cleaner is CCleaner. This has a nice looking user interface, which covers four sections of system maintenance - Cleaner, Registry, Tools, and Options. The main sections are the Cleaner and Registry panels, which is where your unwanted files are cleaned up and your registry is analysed for possible errors and fixed. This tool is easy to use, it takes a few mouse clicks to clean your registry, and comes with a good reputation. Like the Eusing tool, CCleaner is supported by donations and is free from any adware or spyware.

CCleaner and Eusing Free Registry Cleaner are the two best known free registry cleaners. If you do a search for free registry cleaners you will probably find there are a few more. Be careful though, as some of the paid registry cleaners offer very limited free versions of their product. You usually need to pay to get the full version. If you are determined to use a free registry cleaner, the two applications reviewed above should be ideal for you. They both come highly recommended. Although they don’t have as many features as the paid tools they are still decent software applications.