BACKUP OUTLOOK 2007 EMAILS, ACCOUNTS, RULES AND SETTINGS

Outlook users all over the world fear migrating to another computer or simply reinstalling Outlook, primarily because backing up accounts, emails, rules and settings can be a nightmare sometimes.

One of the biggest problems I faced when I started using outlook some years back was that, although I was able to Import/Export emails, I was unable to restore account settings and rules etc.

Now that I have successfully faced my worst fears and migrated Outlook profiles, almost a few hundred times, I created this guide to save others the hassle.

EXPORT YOUR EMAILS FROM AN EXISTING OUTLOOK INSTALLATION:
1. Go to Main Menu of Outlook 2007, Click File and select Data File Management and Account setting window will pop up. The other way is to click on Tools menu and select Account settings from the drop down menu.
2. Click on the Data Files tab. You may have a single data file or multiple data files. These are the Data Files, wherein you store your email messages, tasks, calendar, tasks and other items.
3. Click on the Open Folder icon. Windows Explorer will be opened automatically and will take you to the location where this data file is stored. Now select the outlook.pst and archive.pst file you want to backup.
4. Now you can copy this file to any backup storage device. Make sure that your Outlook is closed before you backup these files.

RESTORE YOUR EMAIL DATA:
Restoring is as simple as to backup your data. All you have to do is copy the backup PST files into the folder that you located when you backed up your work initially.

BACKUP/EXPORT ACCOUNT SETTINGS:
1. Start > Run > type ‘regedit’
2. Locate the following path in your ‘Registry Editor’
3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

Now right click on the key outlook and select option: Export and save .reg files to your desired location. You can run the same file while restoring your outlook. This will restore your old outlook profile with all your email accounts settings and rules. You will need to enter your password as Password is not stored into .reg file.

It is difficult to locate the Personal folder files in the previous versions of Outlook; however it’s much simpler in Outlook 2007. Backing up and restoring data is easier, faster with the new Outlook 2007.

THE ULTIMATE FIREFOX OPTIMIZATION GUIDE

Firefox is almost everyone’s favorite browser and while it’s not absolutely perfect, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be. I’ve compiled a list of the best tips, tricks, tweaks and fixes from the world of geeks.
This guide primarily applies to Firefox 3.5 but most of the fixes should work with older versions.


1. Speed up browsing and tweak Firefox:

Use a Blank Homepage, Default Theme and Minimal Extensions for best performance:
Set your homepage to about:blank. Use only must-have extensions with the default theme. Use Adblock Plus and Flashblock to block unwanted ads and Flash.

Optimize Download Options:
a) In Options>Main, choose a folder for your downloads and save all downloads to it automatically. Tick "close the download window automatically when all downloads are finished".
b) Turn off download history from Options>Privacy, Custom settings for history.

c) In Options>Advanced>General>Accessibility:
• Tick Search for text when I start typing
• Untick Use smooth scrolling
• Turn off the spell checker if you don't need it.
• Untick the "Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup" option.
• Remove Unused Search Engines from the Drop-down list In the search box, select "Manage Search Engines", and remove any search engines that you don't use. Also turn off the "Show search suggestions" option, if you dont need it.

Clean up your bookmarks and avoid Live Bookmarks:
you probably have a lot of bookmarks in Firefox, you might also have a few dead links, or even duplicate bookmarks. Clean them up using the CheckPlaces Firefox extension, and uninstall it after you’re done.
Firefox checks Live Bookmarks for updates, every hour. Use a dedicated RSS Reader like Google Reader instead. Delete the preset Latest Headlines Live Bookmark.


2. Advanced About:Config Tweaks:


The following two sections are advanced Firefox configuration changes that are simple to make. Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar in an empty tab. Click ‘I’ll be careful, I promise!’.

You can use Firefox’s Safe Mode and select ‘Reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults’ to undo any changes you make. Also, entries you change are displayed in bold, and can be reset using the right-click context-menu.

If an entry does not exist, create it by right-clicking on an empty space, selecting New, and choosing the type of entry as listed.

Advanced Browser Settings:
You can use these recommended values or tweak them as per your system, preference, and browsing habits.
• accessibility.typeaheadfind.enablesound [Boolean]: Change to False to avoid a sound alert if no match is found when you search for text.
• alerts.totalOpenTime [Integer]: Reduce time to show Download Complete alerts to 2000 (2 seconds).
• browser.bookmarks.max_backups [Integer]: Reduce number of bookmark backups to speed up shutdown from 5 to 2.
• browser.cache.disk.parent_directory [String]: Move your Firefox cache to a disk or partition different from your Windows drive by specifying the folder path here.
• browser.download.manager.openDelay [Integer]: Don’t open Downloads window for very short downloads. Set to 2000 (2 second delay).
• browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo [Integer]: Reduce number of closed tabs you can undo from 10 to 4.
• browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo [Integer]: Reduce number of closed windows you can undo from 3 to 1.
• browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab [Boolean]: Change to False, so that Firefox doesn’t accidentally shut down when you close the last tab.
• browser.urlbar.maxRichResults [Integer]: Reduce maximum number of results in Awesome Bar from 12 to 6.
• dom.popup_maximum [Integer]: Reduce maximum number of simultaneous popups from 20 to 3 or 5.
• security.dialog_enable_delay [Integer]: Reduce delay to wait before installing a new extension to 1000 (1 second). Setting to zero is not recommended because of security risks.

Advanced Network Settings:
These changes are recommended for broadband users with at least a 256 kB/s connection.
• network.dnsCacheEntries [Integer]: Increase number of DNS entries cached from default 20 to 512.
• network.dnsCacheExpiration [Integer]: Increase number of seconds DNS entries are cached from default 60 to 3600.
• network.dns.disableIPv6 [Boolean]: Disable IPv6 if your ISP doesn’t support it (most don’t).
• network.http.max-connections [Integer]: Increase maximum number of simultaneous connections to 48 or 96.
• network.http.max-connections-per-server [Integer]: Increase maximum connections per server from default 15 to 24.
• network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server [Integer]: Increase maximum persistent connections per server from default 6 to 12.
• network.http.pipelining [Boolean]: Change to True to enable HTTP Pipelining.
• network.http.pipelining.maxrequests [Integer]: Increase from default 4 to 8.
• network.prefetch-next [Boolean]: This specifies whether Firefox pre-fetches web pages (and associated cookies) even before you visit them. It is most frequently used to pre-load the first result of a Google search. If you want to improve security and don’t want Firefox to load pages you never actually visit, change this to False. See the FAQ for more information.


3. Stop annoying static and flash ads, save bandwidth and speed up the time it takes to load pages:
Install the Adblock Plus Extension and block unnecessary advertisements.


4. Optimize flash video playback:
a) Upgrade to Flash Player 10
b) Increase the cache size, right click on a flash video while its playing, click "settings" then click the folder icon and increase the local storage volume to unlimited (drag the slider to the right).

5. Speed Up Firefox Load (start-up) Times

Firefox can be noticeably slower to load up the first time in each computing session compared with Internet Explorer. This is because Internet Explorer's core files are already loaded up with Windows at bootup. For the most part not much can be done about Firefox's load up time, aside from perhaps reducing the number of Add-ons you have installed. I don't consider it a big deal, but if you find it annoying, you might want to try Firefox Preloader, a program which attempts to preload portions of Firefox into memory at Windows startup so that Firefox is quicker to launch. Microsoft's own Windows Prefetch feature in XP, or Windows SuperFetch feature in Vista also tries to do this to some extent for all applications, but experiment to see if FFPreloader further improves Firefox load times on your machine.

Build a Powerful PC Repair Suite, For Free (Windows)

With most PC repair/tune-up software’s, such as tune-up utilities and system mechanic, costing almost $40+, most PC users prefer to put up with a slow, buggy, and ‘weighed down’ computer rather than shell out hard earned money. But there is a way to get most of the features offered by costly repair software for free. The software’s below will repair and optimize your computer, in much the same way.

Piriform’s CCleaner is a very effective tool in removing unnecessary files from your hard drive to free up disk space. simply select the categories you want cleaned, such as certain browser files, the temp directory, and log files for various applications, and it's done. CCleaner also contains a registry cleaner, which is fairly effective in removing unneeded registry entries which could potentially slow down your system. CCleaner also has a start-up manager and program uninstaller.

Piriform’s Defraggler differs from other defrag tools, by enabling you to quickly and simply defrag the files you want to, without having to process the whole drive, unless you want to. Simply launch Defraggler, select the file, folder or the entire disk and defragment it in just a few seconds. No more struggling with the lack luster Windows defragmentation tool.

Piriform’s Recuva is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses. This application is simple to use, with a wizard that guides users along the recovery process, and a fast engine that can scan drives at an amazing speed compared to other programs of the kind. Recuva offers two scan options: first, a rapid scan, which can be helpful with recently deleted files; and a complete deep scan that may take some more time, depending on the drive size. After searching and detecting the deleted files, Recuva offers a comfortable way to select the ones you want to rescue. These files may be pictures, music, video, documents, compressed files (.zip and .rar), and other file types.

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware: There are loads of malware removers available nowadays and most of them are lightweight applications, which usually means they’re fast and don’t have many features. One such lightweight application is Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware.

Like all these similar pieces of software, Malwarebytes is fast and doesn’t use a lot of resources, but unlike most, Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware provides live protection and full scans for all drives. Another great thing about this program is that its database is updated on a regular basis – at least every two days, which is already very often for such a program, but sometimes they update even more frequently.

Malwarebytes’ Anti-malware is somewhat customizable and has several extra utilities for manual malware removal. The program is available in many languages and works just fine with other anti-viral and anti-spyware software.

GFI backup 2009 Home Edition: is a free, easy-to-use and complete solution, designed for secure backups of all your important documents, pictures, and more. Suitable for beginners and experienced users alike, this tool allows you to back up all your documents, photos, music, emails and programs, via a simple but smart wizard-driven interface.

Using GFI Backup, you can back up your data to virtually any storage device, including local and external disk drives, LAN, CD/DVD, removable devices, remote FTP servers, etc. Restoring your data can be done in minutes, using the common ZIP format, allowing you also to split and span the archive over multiple hard-drives.

This freeware backup solution includes the Sync Task feature, which enables you to synchronize folders from different media. GFI Backup can also be configured to send error or warning notification emails and summary reports for each finished backup task.

Free Online Classified Ad's and Inbound Links

Here is a list of over 80 free, press release sites where you can post free classifieds. Most of these sites are great for SEO, link building and Reputation Management. While most of them have been tested, I was unable to test every single one.

Finding Royalty Free Stock Images

At one point or another, graphics designers find themselves looking for high quality royalty-free stock imagery and vector graphics. And while it is possible to find both using search engines, it can be an extremely lengthy and repetitive process.

Cyclo.ps allows you to search and compare stock images from multiple sites simultaneously, namely Flickr, Shutterstock, BigStockPhoto, Fotolia, stock.xchng, Cutcaster, Photos.com, and stockvault.

You can also sign up for a free account with Cyclo.ps and save images from your search results to your Cyclo.ps account for future use. An account also enables tagging and thumbnail printing.  For vector graphics, there’s always the good old Deviant Art.

XP Performance Tweaks

Do you want to make the very best use of your computer's RAM? There are thousands of websites offering performance tweaks and you could spend the next week or more researching the ones you might like to perform, or you can save yourself a lot of bother and read this article. There are hundreds of XP tweaks, but you only need the handful listed here to obtain a significant performance boost. The rest of the tweaks you might find will only give you minor and often indiscernible performance benefits.
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