How to Use an HTTPS-Encrypted Connection When Browsing

When you're browsing the Web, protect yourself by using HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) whenever possible. HTTPS encrypts the connection between your PC and the Website you're visiting. Though HTTPS doesn't guarantee that a site is secure, it can help prevent other parties from hacking into the network and gaining access to your account.
Many sites use HTTPS by default: When you purchase an item online or log in to online banking, for instance, your browser will probably connect to the site via HTTPS automatically. But you can go one step further by enabling HTTPS on Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail.
To use Facebook's HTTPS feature, log in to Facebook and click Account in the upper-right corner. Select Account Settings from the drop-down menu, and look for ‘Account Security' on the resulting page. Under the Account Security heading, click Change, check the box next to Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible, and click Save.
 You can easily enable HTTPS on sites such as Twitter and Facebook and on services such as Gmail to introduce an extra level of security.For Twitter, first log in to your account. If you're using the new Twitter interface, click your account name in the upper-right part of the screen, and select settings. (If you're still using the old Twitter interface, click the Settings link in the upper right of the window.) From there, scroll down to the bottom of the resulting page, check the box next to Always use HTTPS, and click Save.

To enable HTTPS on Gmail, log in to your account, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, and select Mail Settings from the drop-down menu. Next, under the Browser Connection heading, select the button labeled Always use https. When you're all set, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes

Insert Special Characters in Documents, E-Mails, and Web Pages

Earlier today I needed to use the word cliché in a blog post. (Well, two posts, if you count this one.) Just one problem: my keyboard doesn't have an "accented-e" key. How could I insert that special character at the end of the word?
Most word processors offer an "insert symbol" feature, but if you're working elsewhere--text editor, e-mail client, Web form, etc.--you probably won't find such a tool.
Thankfully, Windows makes it pretty easy to insert all kinds of special characters, including symbols, accented letters, and so on.
One option is to use the Character Map utility, which has been bundled into Windows for as long as I can remember.
To run the program in Windows Vista or 7, click Start, type character, then click Character Map. In XP, I believe you can find it in the Start menu under Accessories.
Within the utility, click the font that most closely matches the one you're using (Arial is the default choice, and usually suitable for most applications), then scroll through the symbol list until you find the one you want. Click it, then click Select, and then Copy. Now just paste it in (by pressing Ctrl-V) wherever you need it.
Of course, that's a bit overcomplicated if all you need is, say, an accented e. By holding down the Alt key and pressing 1, 3, 0 on my numeric keypad, Windows instantly inserts the desired é. For an em-dash (—), it's Alt-0151. (Note that if you're a laptop user, and your numeric keypad is overlaid on the main keyboard, you may need to hold down the Fn key as well.)

Google Docs Secrets: 21 Power Tips for the Productivity Suite

If you haven't looked at Google Docs recently, now's a good time to check in with it. The office suite, which works entirely within a browser window, has slowly but steadily continued to evolve into a highly usable set of free tools.

The lineup has come a long way since Google bought the collaborative Writely word processor in 2006. Unlike desktop software releases such as Microsoft Office, which get big updates every few years, Google Docs is a continually changing work in progress. Google introduces new features on a rolling basis, and add-ons continue to emerge both from the Google Labs and--for those who use Google Apps for Business--from the Google Apps Marketplace.

We've taken an extended look under the hood of Google Docs and uncovered 21 tips for getting more done by exploring some of the less obvious features in its word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software--with a few hints for Gmail, too. Our coverage ranges from editing photos in place in a text document to working with multiple currencies in a spreadsheet. We'll also share cool ways to use the revamped homepage document organizer and to maximize your editing space.
Before you get started, though, note that Google Docs works best with either Google's own Chrome browser or Mozilla's Firefox. Functionality tends to be slightly limited in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

1. Search Docs and Gmail Together

You can work with more than one currency in a spreadsheet by clicking the More Formats button on the toolbar. Wouldn't it be great to be able to search both Gmail and your list of Google documents at the same time? Luckily, the Gmail Labs have worked out a way to do this. To get to the Labs from Gmail, click Settings in the top right portion of the screen, and then click the Labs link.
Scroll down until you get to the Apps Search entry; there, click Enable, and then click the Save Changes button at the top or bottom of the list. Henceforth, any search that you request within Gmail will also search your documents, and the doc results will appear beneath the Gmail results.

2. Work With More Than One Currency in a Spreadsheet

To set the base currency format for a spreadsheet, click File and then Spreadsheet Settings. Alter the Locale setting to the relevant country (United States for the dollar, for example).
Regardless of the Locale setting you choose, you can mark cells or ranges of cells to be formatted in a different currency. To do so, highlight those cells and click the More Formats button on the toolbar (It's the button labeled '123'.). Then scroll down to the More Currencies pop-up menu and make your selection.

3. Create Drawings Within Presentations

When creating a presentation, you needn't switch to the separate drawing component to make a sketch. Instead, click Insert and then Drawing. These commands will open the drawing interface in a floating window. When you're finished, click Save and then Close to insert the drawing into the presentation, where you can reposition and resize it.

4. Fix Pictures in Position

You can fix images into position within documents, forcing text to flow around them.By default, the Google Docs word processor inserts pictures in such a way that they move with the text; this arrangement is known as Inline positioning. To fix the picture to the page so that it remains stationary while text flows around it--and so that the only way to move it is by clicking and dragging it--first select the image and then, at the bottom, click Fixed.

5. Quickly Back Up All of Your Documents Offline

If you'd like to save all of the documents that live on Google's servers to your hard drive, start by hovering the mouse over any file in the Google Docs homepage file listing. Next, choose Actions and select Download in the menu that appears.
In the resulting dialog box, click the All Items tab. You'll be see many items of each file type that you can download; if you're happy, click the Download button. The files will be downloaded together in a .zip file.

6. Gather Spreadsheet Data Using Forms

Don't want to leave your work only in the cloud? You can back up your Google Docs files locally.Sometimes you need to gather data from coworkers, customers, or other individuals. Forms provide a quick way to satisfy this need, offering simple multiple-question interfaces that you can e-mail to people or include on Web pages.
To get started, open a new spreadsheet and select Form; then choose Create a Form. In the window that appears, type your first question into the Question Title field. You can provide explanatory text in the Help Text field if you wish, if you do, that text will appear above the question on the form. In the Question Type dropdown field, select the type of answer you're looking for--multiple choice, plain text, or whatever the case may be. If you're requesting numerical data, select Text.
To enter another question, hover your mouse over Sample Question 2 and click the pencil icon. Then repeat the steps described above. To add more questions, click the Add Item button at the top left of the window.
Once your questions are complete, e-mail the form to its intended recipients by clicking the Email This Form button. Alternatively, open the More Actions dropdown list and select Embed to obtain HTML code that you can insert into a Web page.
Any data that people enter on your form will appear at the top of the spreadsheet. You can manage or delete forms by using the Form menu within the spreadsheet

9 Microsoft Office Tips Everyone Should Know

Convert your PDF files: PDF to Word is a neat Web service that converts PDF files to Word format so that you can edit them. Alternatively, you can download Nitro PDF Reader, an app that comes from the same company and offers similar features.
Maximize your macros: Use the built-in Macro function to record and automate repetitive tasks. First enable the Developer tab (in Office 2007): Click the Office button in the upper-left corner, choose Word Options, and check Show Developer tab in the Ribbon. Then switch to the Developer tab in your document, and you can record your own macros (global as well as document-specific) and assign them to keys or toolbar buttons.
Thumbnails view in Word helps you scroll through your documents. Navigate with your thumbnails: Click the View tab and check the Thumbnails box to add a bar on the left side of the window that you can use to skip quickly from page to page.
Strip out text formatting: First copy the text you want (by pressing Ctrl-C); then open the Edit menu (or click the drop-down menu under the Paste icon on the Word 2007 ribbon), choose Paste special, and select Unformatted Text. This removes all of the original special formatting such as hyperlinks from copied Web content.

How to Own Your Office

Bring menus back: If you still haven't learned Office 2007's ribbon system after three years of exposure to it, maybe you should just get rid of it. UBitMenu is a third-party Office add-on that restores the old menu setup. What's more, it's free for private use.
Encrypt your Word docs by using the General Options tab of the Tools drop-down menu. Keep your docs private: Make a Word or Excel document more secure by using encryption and saving it with a password. You can even specify different passwords so that some people can edit the document while others can only read it. Select Save As, click the Tools drop-down menu, and choose General Options (Security Options in older versions of Office).
Find a lost e-mail message: By default, in its All Items searches, Outlook 2007 doesn't include e-mail messages in the Deleted Items folder. If you're looking for a missive that you think you may have deleted, select Tools, Options, Preferences, and click Search Options. Check the box under ‘Deleted Items' that says Include messages from the Deleted Items folder in each data file when searching in All Items, and you may be able to pull your missing mail out of the trash.
Eliminate notifications: To disable Outlook's notification sounds and system-tray messages, go to Tools, Options, Preferences, E-mail Options, and click the Advanced E-mail Options button. Uncheck all of the options shown under When new items arrive in My Inbox.
Insert a new worksheet in an Excel spreadsheet: To open a new worksheet in an existing Excel spreadsheet without having to dig through any menus first, press Shift-F11.

Optimize Your PC, Security Apps 101, Find Folders Fast

Want to clean and optimize your PC? You've probably heard of CCleaner, arguably the world's most popular tool for doing the job. Developer Piriform just released CCleaner 3.0. The big news in this update? A native 64-bit version for use with like editions of Windows.


Like the last release, CCleaner clears out temporary files, cleans the Windows Registry, erases browser histories, and so on. Version 3.0 also sports new icons, various interface improvements, better support for Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9, and newly added support for programs like AVG AntiVirus 10.0, Audacity, LogMeIn Hamachi, BitTorrent, and Windows Game Explorer. I particularly like the way it intelligently scans for cookies you'd want to keep, like those for Google and Yahoo.


In short, the ultimate system-cleaning tool just got better. It's still free, thankfully, though you can purchase a priority-support license for $25.


As with any tool of this kind, I strongly recommend making a full system backup and creating a new system-restore point before using it. Better safe than sorry!


Avoid Security Software Overlap
Reader LK wants to know if Microsoft Security Essentials (which I've championed in these pages many times) can be installed alongside other anti-virus and/or anti-malware programs.


Short answer: no.


Longer answer: Definitely, definitely, definitely no.


You might think that where security software is concerned, more is better. But you'd be wrong--especially if you're talking about programs that do the same thing, like fight viruses or spyware.


For example, if you were to install MSE on a system that already had Norton Internet Security, the latter might think the former was a kind of spyware--or vice-versa. What's more, one security might not slow down your system that much, but two almost certainly will.


My advice: if you're planning to switch security tools, do exactly that. Uninstall one, reboot, and then install the other.


Use 'Recent Places' to Find Frequently Used Folders Faster
In my line of work, I'm constantly opening and saving files in myriad folders scattered across my hard drive. It seems like every time I face an Open or Save As dialog box, it means I have to spend considerable time navigating between folders.


That's why I'm a big fan of Windows 7's Recent Places feature, which appears under the Favorites heading when you open an Explorer window. Take a look:


Recent Places is not quite the same thing as the Recent Documents option you may have seen in the Windows Start menu. When you click the former, it shows you a list of the folders you've accessed recently. Click into the one you want, choose the file you need, and presto, you're done. No need to waste time navigating various drives and subfolders.


If you don't see the Recent Places option (or any kind of lefthand pane in your Explorer window), you'll need to make it visible. You can do so by selecting Organize, Layout, Navigation pane

Recover a Stolen Laptop with Free LockItTight

In the last month, two family members and one friend have had laptops stolen right out of their homes. Sadly, none of the systems were equipped with remote-monitoring software, meaning the chances of recovery are just about zero.
To me this serves as a wake-up call; I'm in the process of evaluating various laptop-recovery services to see which one I should deploy on my own machines.
Short-term, I'm equipping my primary, can't-live-without-it laptop with LockItTight. Like similar services, it relies on a small, hidden client program that performs location tracking, Webcam captures, file recovery, and even keylogging. Unlike similar services, LockItTight is free--for one PC, anyway.
After you sign up for and activate your account, you download and run the LockItTight client (which is compatible with Windows XP and later). And that's pretty much the last you see of it; you won't find any evidence of it in the system tray or Programs menu. (Neither will tech-savvy thieves, which is exactly the point.)
To tweak LockItTight's settings and/or find out what your laptop's been up to, you sign into your account via a Web browser. By default, the client will simply report the laptop's position (usually via Wi-Fi, which in my tests was accurate to about 500 meters), but you can also enable screen capture, Webcam capture, key logs, clipboard logs, remote file retrieval, and remote file deletion.
Pretty neat, eh? Alas, if there's no Internet connection, there's no data for LockItTight to gather--so there's no guarantee this will help you locate your stolen system. (If it does, make sure to let the police handle the recovery.) But it's a damn sight better than nothing.
The other catch: LockItTight Free limits you to one device and will report its location only every two hours. If you want more devices and more frequent reporting, you'll need a paid account. LockItTight Standard, for example, costs $1.99 per month per device, and reports location every 12 minutes. It also boosts the screenshot and Webcam capture resolutions.

There are lots of other laptop-recovery services out there, so I recommend doing some research before deciding which one to entrust with your laptop's safety. That said, I definitely recommend choosing one of them. Because there's nothing worse than sitting there wishing your stolen machine had a way to "phone home." With a remote-monitoring system like this, it can

Backup to Another PC

WNCDude asked the Networking forum about backing up one computer to another over a local network.
What you suggest provides a reasonable degree of safety. It also saves you money, since you don't have to buy an external drive or a subscription to a cloud-based backup service.
But it's not a perfect solution. A burglar might steal more than one computer, and a fire could destroy all of them.
Another option is to keep all of your relevant data on one computer and access it on the others. You'll still have to backup that one computer, of course.
Either way, you'll need a folder on at least one computer that the other PCs can not only access but write to. Here's one simple way to set this up (there are many):
Windows 7 and Vista: Right-click the folder you want to share and select Properties. Click the Sharing tab, then the Advanced Sharing button. Check Share the folder. Click the Permissions button. Check Full Control, Change, and Read in the Allow column.

XP: Right-click the folder you want to share and select Properties. Click the Sharing tab. Check Share this folder on the network, then Allow network users to change my files.
You can now do a direct backup from one PC to the shared folder on another. Just about any backup program you choose should be able to handle this.
The other approach is to keep all of your documents (and possibly your music, photos, and so forth) on one computer. Once again, this involves a shared folder that other people can write to.
You can keep all of your documents on one computer simply by remembering to create and save your files on the network folder. But if you don't trust your memory (or your ability to create new habits), you can tell Windows to use this remote location as your My Documents folder.
Yes, that works. But this suggestion comes with a serious caveat: If the other computer is turned off or otherwise inaccessible when you're using yours, you're going to have problems.
If you want to go ahead, here's how to set it up:
Vista, Windows 7: Click Start, then your logon name at the top of the Start menu's right column. Right-click Documents or My Documents, then select Properties. Click the Location tab. Click the Move button and select your network destination.

XP: Click Start, right-click My Documents, and select Properties. On the Target tab, Click Move, and select your network destination.
You might also want to consider syncing your files through an Internet-based service like Dropbox. That will illuminate the "turned off" problem, and provide another layer of backup

How to Encrypt a Hard Drive

Hard drives and USB flash drives are treasure troves of personal data. They're also among the most common sources of data leaks. If you lose a flash drive, external hard drive, or laptop containing sensitive personal information, you will be at risk. Fortunately, en­­crypting your hard drive can give your data an extra layer of protection be­­yond setting up a system password. Encryption will conceal your drive's data and make accessing the files almost im­­possible for anyone who does not know your encryption password.
LaCie’s Rugged Safe hard drive has a fingerprint reader that you can use to unlock your data securely.The Ultimate and Business editions of Windows 7 and Vista come with BitLocker, a tool that lets you encrypt your entire hard drive. If you don't have the Ultimate or Business version, another alternative is to use TrueCrypt, a free, open-source tool that can encrypt your entire disk, a portion of a disk, or an external drive. For its part, Mac OS X includes FileVault, a tool for encrypting your Mac's home folder; Lion, the next major Mac OS X release on the horizon, will be able to encrypt a whole hard drive.
Another option is to buy external hard drives and flash drives equipped with en­­cryption tools. Some of these drives have built-in fingerprint readers for additional security. For more about secure flash-drive options

Flash Drive 101: Protecting Your Drive from Viruses

Flash drives are virus magnets. This is a generally accepted truth, but today I learned it firsthand.
As you may recall from my previous post on copying files to flash drives, my wife needed to take a PowerPoint presentation with her to school. The drive was malware-free when it left here--but it came home with a virus!
I found this out when I popped the drive into my PC--and Microsoft Security Essentials immediately detected (and removed, thankfully) an extremely dangerous worm. No doubt it had landed there when the missus plugged the drive into one of the school machines.
This was a catastrophe barely averted. This particular worm propagates over network connections, so it could have spread very quickly to every system in my house. That's why it's crucial to have reliable anti-virus software installed on all your PCs.
Okay, but how do you protect your flash drive when it's "out and about"? How can you keep it from getting infected in the first place--or at least remove any sneakyware before it comes home with you?
My tool of choice: SUPERAntiSpyware Portable Scanner. The program requires no installation; you just copy it to your flash drive (see the aforementioned post if you don't know how to do that), then run it whenever you want to check for and remove infections.
You should also consider running Panda USB Vaccine, which disables a flash drive's Autorun.inf file--a common carrier for malware (including the one that hit me today). Doing so will prevent the drive's Autorun box from appearing when you plug it into your PC, but that's no biggie--you just have to open the drive manually. 

Did Facebook Give me a Virus?

Facebook told QueenPendragon that her PC was infected. The message looked very much like rogue malware trying to trick her into downloading something vicious. She asked the Antivirus & Security Software forum for advice.
I have to admit that when I first read QueenPendragon's story, I assumed she caught a rogue.
I was wrong. The message actually came from Facebook.
You'll be happy to know that Facebook doesn't intentionally infect your PC, or scan your hard drive looking for malware. (Why should they? They already know so much about you.) But Facebook does look for suspicious behavior in how you access the social networking site. For instance, if you appear to be sending out a great many messages in a short amount of time, there's reason to believe that a botnet is sending them out through your computer.
In those situations, Facebook may block your access to protect other users, and recommend you scan your hard drive.
The company has a legitimate concern. Remember the Koobface Trojan? You'd get a message through Facebook, appearing to be from a friend, trying to get you to play a particular video. Only the video wouldn't play until you updated Flash. And that "Flash Update" turned your PC into a botnet-controlled zombie. Obviously, it's in Facebook's interest to keep that from happening.
Facebook's solution to a perceived threat is for you to scan your computer with a special online scanner that McAfee makes available specifically through Facebook. I tried the McAfee scanner out, and found it harmless, in that it doesn't load a lot of junk onto your PC (although it may require you to update Flash).
You might want to augment it with a scan by the security software of your choice (when you have reason to be suspicious, the more scans the better), but you'll have to run McAfee 's to get clearance from Facebook and have everything working

Change the Way Windows 7 Displays Taskbar Icons

If you've recently made the move from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, one big change you've probably noticed is the way the operating system displays icons in its taskbar (the row along the bottom of the screen).


Specifically, it shows icons only, without any text labels identifying what they are. The screenshot above is what you typically see.


Although some icons are pretty self-explanatory (like those for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, etc.), I like to have the accompanying labels--at least for programs that are currently running. Fortunately, it's an easy matter to tweak this option in Windows 7. Here's how:


1. Right-click an open area of the taskbar, then choose Properties.


2. In the Taskbar tab, find the Taskbar buttons pull-down menu.


3. Choose Combine when taskbar is full or Never combine, then click OK.


The first option, which is what I use, keeps the text labels visible until the taskbar gets so crowded as to make that impractical, at which point Windows will ditch the labels and merge multiple instances of running program (like, say, a bunch of Firefox windows) onto a single taskbar icon.


Here's an "after" shot so you can see the taskbar with text labels

Organize Your Windows 7 Taskbar Icons Into Bins

Got too many icons cluttering your Windows 7 taskbar? That's definitely a possibility these days, especially now that Internet Explorer 9 lets you pin your favorite sites there. If only you could somehow organize those icons, somehow group them together into batches that consume less space and make it easier to find what you're looking for.

Bins is a taskbar manager for Windows 7. With it you can organize your icons into, well, bins, effectively shoehorning four programs, links, or whatever into the space usually occupied by one icon. Take a look:

The program requires Windows 7. After installing it, just drag any taskbar icon onto any other taskbar icon. This will produce a little popup area--the "bin"--into which you drop the icon. Repeat the process with other icons, adding up to four to each bin you create.
When you mouse over one of your bins, the pop-up area appears with full-size versions of the icons. If a program is running and you mouse over its icon within the bin, you'll see the usual Aero Peek window (for some programs, anyway--on my system this didn't work with iTunes).
This probably sounds a little more complex than it actually is. I think most users will figure out Bins in a matter of minutes. That said, the program is still in beta, and has the occasional bugs to show for it. For now, it's free, but the developer plans to charge a few bucks for it once it's done

Officially Unlock Your Windows Phone 7 Phone For $9

The Windows Phone 7 hacking brigade known as ChevronWP7 are due to release their officially sectioned app, allowing users to install homebrew apps, any day now. Chris Walsh of Chevron has revealed the $9 price tag 
In another tweet, Walsh also mentions that Mango and Nodo software updates will close the door on piracy. This does not affect homebrew app development for the next rendition of WP7, although you can't publish Mango apps just yet. It is being done to stop any would be software thieves who planned on loading copies of paid apps though ChevronWP7's lab.
Once Chevron's app releases which is "coming very soon," programmers can create and publish Windows Phone 7 apps without paying $99 to get into the Microsoft App Hub developer program