Of course, some of these tasks are already automated for you.  Providing you have a decent security software package, the virus and spyware scanning are already covered.  You may have a program that routinely checks for excessive temporary files, and cleans accordingly.  Perhaps you even have a program like Diskeeper to help stave off file fragmentation.

Each of these types of programs has a practical purpose on your Windows computer.  However, in order to view information on what all of them are doing, you have to go to each application and view the current activity or historical log files.  The average person may not keep tabs on each program.  Sometimes it helps to have a good overall picture of your computer so you know where to shift your focus.

Every so often, a program comes along that is helpful in getting you the information you need in short order.  PC Matic’s (found here) free scanning routine, rather the trial version of PC Matic, does a very good job of showing someone the inner workings of their Windows computer.  This scan looks over many aspects including the amount of junk files on your computer, security threats, missing hardware drivers (if any), and a host of other areas.

When you open up PC Matic, the only clickable area is the Free Scan, illustrated by a large gear shaped icon.  This is where you begin the assortment of scans run against your computer.

In this test sample, the scan took just shy of six minutes to complete.  Keep in mind, PC Matic does not run a very detailed spyware type scan during this process, just a high level, quick scan (so it is not a substitute for your current anti-virus or anti-spyware software).  Additionally, depending on the size of your registry, the amount of temporary files you have, and the overall speed of your computer affect the duration of the scan.

When the scan is finished, you will be presented with a dashboard covering all the sections of your computer that were scanned.  On the left hand side of the dashboard, you have a brief Summary area, Security, Performance, and Disk results.  Other than the summary box, any of the listings in the three other boxes are links to more information.

The colored boxes indicate one of four things.  Green mean the test passed without issue, blue is simply information, yellow is a warning, and red needs immediate attention.  Looking over the dashboard further, on the right hand side you will notice the Other and Reports areas.

One of the nice features of PC Matic is that each clickable item contains further explanation regarding the presented data.  For instance, if you were to click on the High Security Threat Test, you will see a list of potential or actual threats.

Paired up with this list is a brief summary of the data, or actions to be taken.  This may help alleviate some of the confusion people run into when running applications like this.

Moving on from the security section, one area to pay particular attention to is the Registry Test.  When you click on this link, a list of registry errors is shown.  If you notice a large amount of entries, they, among other things, can drag down your computer’s performance and should be addressed.

Perhaps you are having issues with certain hardware, such as a video card.  Even if you are not, if the Drivers test comes up red, you should look into it.  In this section, any hardware that is not up to date with current drives files, will be flagged red here.  Should you need to reference the driver version, it can be located under the Driver Details column.

No scanning utility of this type is complete with a temporary files (junk files) scanner.  PC Matic is no exception.  Clicking on the Junk Files Test will navigate you to the Junk Files section.  When you click on one of the red arrows, a list will drop down and display the folders where the unneeded files are currently residing.

Last but not least, and this is a particularly interesting test, is the top ten largest files on your computer.  Though you may not use the results of this test at all, this section is worth a look.  Odds are, the largest files on your computer are system files like pagefile.sys, and other files with dollar symbols in their names.  Granted, these are ones you do not want to delete.  When you do locate one you wish to remove, hover the mouse pointer over that file to see its location on your computer.

Once again, this version of PC Matic is simply a free trial scan.  The actual product, should you click on the Fix All link, is $49.99 for a 5 license version.  The scanner itself is a good way to find issues on your computer without the need to purchase the paid version.  There is a good chance your software tool set includes programs to fix these very issues.  If nothing else, the PC Matic scan is a good starting point to create a “to do” list for computer maintenance.

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PC Matic’s PC Pitstop Review

The first eye catching feature is its support for the web Open Font Format or WOFF.  In Firefox 3.5 they included support for linking to TrueType and OpenType fonts.

Over these two popular font formats, WOFF has two main advantages: it is compressed so it will load quickly and it contains meta information that allows developers to see where the font came from.  In theory, this will open up a wider range of font options for web designers.

The beta version also has improved handling of embedded native videos using the <video> tag. Users will be able to right click any supported video and click “Full Screen” to view the video in full screen. 

The other new features focus on performance improvements.  Now it can handle multiple JavaScript scripts running asynchronously.  It also starts quicker and the overall responsiveness is faster perhaps due to the improved JavaScript engine.

Other new features in this release of Firefox include the follow:

• Support for the new HTML5 markup language
• Support for lightweight themes
• Support for hiding the menu bar automatically
• Built-in support for Personas (change theme with one click)

With more than 140 bug fixes this should be a more stable release than the current 3.5 version.  As an added stability feature, it will alert users of out of date plugins.  There is also a change on how extensions are integrated to prevent crashes due to bad code.

To try the latest Firefox 3.6 Beta, get the installer from www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-beta.html.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done!

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What’s new in Firefox 3.6 beta?

However, for those businesses that have database savvy personnel, and even those who do not, converting information between database types can prove difficult at times.

For database administrators and database programmers, knowing the particulars surrounding the syntax and operation of a brand of database is important to their job.  However, just because one person understands SQL queries, does not necessarily mean that they know how it translates into Oracle.

In this instance, an Oracle aligned person and SQL trained person may both have to sit down and discuss how to move data between SQL and Oracle, or vice versa.

Thankfully, there are quite a few translation and conversion software packages available to help overcome this obstacle.  One such software title, the ESF Database Migration Toolkit (found here), is capable of converting between major database types, such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL, MySQL, IBM DB2, and InterBase.

This program can also convert to and from Microsoft Access, Comma Delimited files, and Microsoft Excel.  All of these and more can be found when you open up and use the ESF conversion wizard.

Before getting too deep into the migration wizard, make note of the Settings button at the bottom of the window.  You will see this button more than once throughout the migration process.  The Settings button opens up a separate selection of options that you will not in the wizard itself.

Within the Settings selection, you can instruct the wizard to take certain actions, depending on the environment to which you intend to migrate.  For example, in the General tab, the “If Table Exists” area allows you to let the wizard know what to do in case there is a similar table in your target database.

Also, the “Replace Table / Field Name Characters” lets you covert a variety of non-alphanumeric characters to a specific one, should you have the need.  The CSV/Text tab contains other details you may need if converting to a CSV file type.  The other tabs, Oracle, PostgreSQL and IBM DB2 contain options to change fields to upper case, lower case, or nothing (no change).

Moving on with our data conversion, the second page contains the selections for our data source.  Depending on what data source you choose, the fields for initial information collection will change accordingly.

If you choose Microsoft SQL, if will prompt you for the server, port number, user name and password.  Should it be an Access file, for instance, just click on the Browse button to find your file in Windows Explorer.

Having completed the Data Source section, we move on to picking a destination.  The only difference here is the intended target.

The next step in the migration process offers greater control than in the previous sections.  At this point, in the Select Source Table(s) and View(s) screen, you are looking at a list of the current database’s tables.  In this screen, you can preview the tables, choose to overwrite the target database, as well as select other options, by clicking on the small button in the Transform (third) column.

Should you venture into the Transform options, you will be able to manipulate the table, to a degree, prior to a completed migration.  By default, Append Data is selected should the migration process discover existing tables.

If you select Overwrite Table, you can now alter the Type, Size,  and be able to allow Null on any of the listed fields.  You may also choose to bring over foreign keys, indexes, and auto-incrementing data.

When ready, you can click on Ok to return to the previous screen.  Now you should be ready to complete the database migration.  After you click on Next, you have only to click on the Submit button.  A synopsis of the migration sequence will appear in the Log area of this screen, which can be copied to the Clipboard for reference purposes.  You can now open up the database information in its new format.

It would be safe to say that this type of software is an incredible time saver.  At $219.00 for a copy of the Standard Edition, this software easily pays for itself with the buyer not paying out extra funds for consulting work, or purchasing data conversion services.

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ESF Database Migration Toolkit – Quickly convert between databse types

However, there are instances when you accidentally empty the Recycle Bin when it contained things you wanted to keep.  Perhaps you inadvertently used the Shift and Delete keys combination to remove a group of files, only to remember that one of those files was of some importance.

There is also the chance that your teenage son or daughter wanted to make space for their ever growing MP3 collection and  chose data at random to accomplish their goal.

There are many other occurrences where files are deleted, not in the Recycle Bin, and need to be retrieved.  We realize that things went missing.  But now we have the need to get them back.  Locating data recovery software is much easier for the average computer user than it used to be.

Truth be told, the Recover My Files software (http://www.recovermyfiles.com/) is a little on the pricey side.  At $70, the price tag may have people looking at other less expensive, or freeware type solutions.

Consider the alternatives though.  A data recovery service may cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the amount of files you need to get back.  Some, not all, of the “free” solutions may be difficult to use and produce inconsistent results.

While there is doubtfully any perfect file recovery software, one of the biggest draws to Recover My Files is its purported ease of use.  Let’s dig through recovering some files to see how easy this process really is.  We will begin by assuming that the software has been downloaded and installed.

When you first run this software, you are automatically greeting with a wizard type interface to help you get started.  You are presented with four choices.  For this example, we are simply retrieving deleted files.  Make note that you also have the option of recovering files from a hard drive that has been formatted.

Each selection in the above screen shot will have a description on the right hand side of the window giving you details as to what files the chosen action looks for, and if it will take a longer amount of time to do so.  The selections which include the word “Complete” will take much longer than the selections with the word “Fast”.  That said, the “Fast” options are less detailed.  Ok, now we need to tell Recover My Files where to look.

Unless you have done something to your Windows installation, you will most likely have a C: drive.  Odds are, this is where you deleted something from.  Of course, Recover My Files files will make note of other drives and include them in this list.  But here we know that we deleted something from the C: drive.  Now we need to pick the files types, if you want to.

The next screen may be a little confusing for some, because not everyone may know all the file types they are looking for.  This is not a problem though, you can pick as many, or as few, as you desire.  The file type icons are present to the left of each file type, and this will aid in recognizing ones that you use.  File types like BMP, JPG, DOC, and ZIP are pretty common, and are already selected.  When you are ready, click on the Start button at the bottom of this screen.

Now you can sit back and wait while Recover My Files performs the search.  While the time counter is ticking up, you will also notice that the “Found Files” will increase as well.  If for some reason, you wanted to halt the file search, there is a Stop button at your disposal.

The search is done, and now the results screen is in view.  On the left-hand side of this window, you will see a list of file types, and the number of files for each type that was found.  On the right hand side of the screen, you will initially see a list of all of the deleted files.  Instead of looking over the entire list of what was missing, you may click on one file type, on the left side, to narrow the view on your right.

Something to keep in mind during this process is file integrity.  Thankfully, Recover My Files tags each recoverable file with a rating.  If it labels a file as Very Good, then you should have no problem retrieving it.  Should it tag a file as Poor, there is a possibility that the file may not come back in the same condition, or at all.

You can now select the files you wish to recover by using the check boxes on the left, to recover all the files of a particular type; or you may check off the individual files on the right hand side.  Once you have your selection completed, click on Save Files, to save in a defaulted location (Save Files), a location of your choosing (Save Files As), or save them to a CD or DVD.

Though this process may seem a little long at first, actually walking through it does not take nearly as much time as one may think.  There are several other options, such as the ability to select deleted files by a specific time period.  For a quick path to “undelete” data though, Recovery My Files does a good job of taking the stress out of this type of operation.

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Recover My Files – Software to recover deleted files