In case you have not heard, Vista Service Pack 1 has been officially released my Microsoft. The update includes all of the security updates since the release of Vista, a huge amount of performance updates/bug fixes and a few other things.  For a list of everything, check out the release notes here. I have updated my system to SP1 with no issues. I suggest you update as soon as you get a chance.

There are many ways to backup your data, some free and some for a fee. If you are looking for a way to automate some sort of backup process, take a look at Microsoft’s free backup solution called SyncToy. SyncToy is a super easy to understand backup utility where you find a directory of files you want to backup, and make it backup to a directory you want. Once you select all the places to backup files, you can backup everything with the click of a button. For a more comprehensive understanding of SyncToy, please visit: http://bigpcgeek.com/howtobackup.htm

If you are like me, you are on the go often and always need to access files on your home computer. Log Me In’s free software program Hamachi, has solved this issue for me. Hamachi is a VPN system or a Virtual Private Network system and it does just that, create a virtual private network that allows you to connect to your computer at home. When you install Hamachi on your computer, it creates it’s own IP address that you use to connect to along with a password. In order for Hamachi to seamlessly work, you will have to install Hamachi on the current computer you are using to connect to your home computer and connect to the network you created so your own personal laptop would be best. You don’t want to install Hamachi on a public computer and then chance someone else being able to get into your home computer. For a more comprehensive discription of how to use Hamachi, please visit my web page @  http://bigpcgeek.com/howtovpn.htm To download Hamachi, please visits http://www.logmein.com

Hamachi is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux but is harder to figure out for OSX and Linux because a lack of a GUI or Graphical User Interface.

Hamachi is for a fee and free with limitations. If you like the software, you should pay for it.

If you have Windows Vista, you may have used that Power symbol button to turn off your computer or you may have not. The button is actually Microsoft’s improvement to Hibernation we all know so well from Windows XP. When you click the button Vista actually writes everything your are doing from Ram to your hard drive and puts the computer into a very low power state. The great idea behind doing this is so you can quickly return to your session without waiting for the computer to boot up.

So here is the process: You click the Power Button from the Start Menu, your computer writes your session to your hard drive, and finally the computer turns off. Once you do this, there is a bit of lag time where you can’t do anything because your system is being written to your hard disk but once it is finished, you are ready to go. when you want to turn on your computer, just hit the power button and log in if necessary. You will notice your computer will be ready in a few seconds, much faster than your normal boot up.

If you want to limit your child’s computer time, Windows Vista has a great tool built in that will stop them dead in their tracks. From the control panel, you are able to create a whole schedule that only allows specific users access to their account when you specify. When logged in, the user will get a 15 and 1 minute warning before they are automatically logged off. There is a whole bunch of other parental controls that includes collecting information about the usage of the user and what games they can play. If you have a problem with your child and computer usage, look into turning on the parental controls.

I have noticed while making tech house calls, that many people who have Vista don’t use it’s built in search from the Start Menu. You will be amazed how cool and quick it is. As soon as you start typing the the program, everything with that name in it starts to pop up and you can select the program or type the whole name and hit enter. If you are a slow typist, I can see why you would not use this feature but if not, you are missing out on some Vista efficiency. The cool part about Instant Search is that it gets faster the more you use it. Next time you click the start menu, try to type what you need. For an even quicker result, get in the habit of hitting the Windows key on your keyboard and then begin typing.

With identity theft on the rise and more parts of our lives moving to the computer, it is becoming increasingly important to protect our data. Most people are familiar with encryption and the idea of an encrypted file means that someone without the password cant tell what the encrypted file is, but few know that there are still ways to tell what is in those encrypted files.

If you have a hidden encrypted file but then un-encrypt it to view or change it, Windows will load the file in Ram memory, but if you are out of Ram, the file will be written to the hard drive. Swap file and paging files are some of the few ways Windows saves files and although you may think the file is not there, it is until it is overwritten. This is one way how forensic computer science works, it can be tedious but with proper tools, recovering secret files on computers is pretty easy for someone who knows what they are doing.

Telling people this is a double edged sword, I want the people who have a legit reason to hide their personal info to know this but I don’t want predators and thieves to know this. Windows Vista Ultimate and Vista Enterprise as well as the newest version of TrueCrypt offer what is known as full drive encryption. Full drive encryption means your whole C system drive is encrypted when you turn your computer on and off and everything within the drive is encrypted on the fly. Assuming you have a good password, someone looking anywhere on your C drive will see a blog of data with no apparent pattern. Windows Vista calls this BitLocker Drive Encryption which requires a new type of motherboard with TPM which saves a file on it or requires a USB key to boot your computer. TrueCrypt makes you create a CD. This makes any attempt of data recovery on your hard drive useless unless you create too simple of a password.

In order to keep your encrypted drive from being unlocked, you must come up with a strong password that cant be guess and when looked at appears to be random characters. The best way to do this is create your own algorithm that you will remember. Something like remember a long word or phrase but swap every other letter with a number and add 5 on one, multiply by 5 on the next, divide by 5, subtract 5 and so forth. You could do this for the letters too, when you want to spell "a" in a phrase, add 5 letters which is "f." When doing it for the number part, when you need the letter "a" and if it is at the beginning of the phrase, start at 0 and add 5, so you would put the number 5. Try not to do things like add 5 every other password because 5,a,10,b,15 is a pretty easy repetition. You could do something like add 3 and multiply by 2 every time which will give you different numbers every time with less of a pattern. Can you tell I am passionate about the subject? Sorry for rambling on…

If you have Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise, you have a cool feature called "Complete PC Backup and Restore" which allows you to create a full image of your system drive for backup or if you have a hardware failure. Unfortunately, if you have Vista Home Basic or Premium, this feature is not available to you. This is a really cool feature because it allows you to put your full Windows OS, installed programs, and data on another drive without having to do the usual restore and installation of all that software you have added since your first install. The time it will take to do this will be considerable faster than a full reinstall of Windows. You can use this to backup your hard drive or even use it to upgrade your hard disk to a bigger one.

Here is what you need to have if you have a defective disk or want to upgrade: 3 hard drives and your OS disc or 2 hard drives and a heck of a lot of DVD’s and time and your OS disc. (Don’t waste your time trying to backup your computer on 20 DVD’s, it is not worth your time.)

1. The first drive, the drive Vista is installed on has no use other than being the system disk.

2. The second drive will be the backup which you will need to have backed up prior to your OS drive failing. Don’t risk it, make a backup before you have an issue. This is the easy part, go into the Backup and Restore Center via the Control Panel and hit Back up Computer. The rest should be self explanatory.

3. The Scenario: Lets say at this point your OS system hard disk has failed or you want to upgrade your current drive to a bigger one. You will want to take out the failed drive or current working drive out of your computer. You will no longer need your OS drive.

4. Connect the new drive, make sure the drive with the backup on it is connected, and finally boot your computer with your system disc (Windows Vista install DVD). I should make a point that you cannot use any controller cards for this, all drives must be connected directly to the motherboard. You may also have to change the boot settings in your bios to boot from the Rom drive.

5. Windows Vista will now boot into the same screen that you see when you are going to install Vista, don’t worry. The first step is to click next when it asks what language you want, then select REPAIR WINDOWS! Do not select install Windows. Click next on the next step and click Restore Entire computer. Vista will then search for the backup you created on the drive, click next and Vista will install the image on your new drive.

You computer should now be the same as it was. A few more things you should know: If you put a bigger drive to replace the old one, you will have to expand it with Vista’s drive utility. If you have an OEM version of Windows, you technically are not supposed to change the system hard disk and it will say your copy of Vista is already in use. If you ask me, this is a crock and I would follow the steps to activate over the phone and talk the Microsoft about activating your OS. Retail version of Vista should be able to work with a new hard drive. If not, I don’t know why Vista would even have this feature. Really, this feature is amazing but it makes no sense to have available if you have a OEM version. If you build your own computer, you know what OEM means, if you buy your computer with Vista on it, you have OEM. Non OEM is when you buy Vista by itself in retail packaging in a retail store. I had an OEM version and was unable to activate my OS just after changing the hard drive. I promptly called Microsoft while following the steps to activate over the phone and answer all the questions they ask you honestly. I did this and they activated my copy.

All over various blogs and YouTube there is mention about a game called Crayon Physics. Crayon Physics which can be found here, is a game where you draw shapes with crayons to solve puzzles. Currently, the game is free and only the first basic version of the game is available for download. Don’t get me wrong, this game may sound really basic but it is really fun and addicting. The author promises an updated version soon where you can draw any shape other than squares but I would try it out in the mean time. This game is Windows only. It is fun to see what you can do with Crayon Physics.

With Google threatening Microsoft’s Office with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Microsoft is taking a step towards cloud computing. As mentioned before, cloud computing is the idea of using the applications on your computer from the web. In other words, you don’t install software on your computer, you edit your documents online via a web browser. So far, Microsoft is far from it. I am not really a big cloud computing advocator, but I am not sure what Microsoft is trying to do with Office Live.

Office Live online has a few same features as Google Docs & Spreadsheets. For starters, Office Live servers as a place where you can store files online and collaborate with few or as many people as you want. You and others you allow can edit online Office documents. Microsoft, as usual is late to the plate. I am not sure at this point, but I don’t think there is a way to embed a word doc or spreadsheet in a web page like Google Docs and you also need to have Office on your computer to use the service. Requiring Office on your computer is a huge disadvantage when compared to Google Docs because it is completely free where the Office suite is very expensive. I would not expect anything from Office to be free anytime soon since it is a huge money maker from Microsoft. To be honest, I don’t see many people using this service. I see business people using this service because documents are often revised many times before they are made public. At this time, I am not sure what versions of Office, Office Live is compatible with, anyone trying this service with an older version of Office or from Office on the Mac, let me know. Try it out at http://www.officelive.com/default.aspx