On the other hand, there are too many stories of an update that fixes the bugs it was intended for, but also causes problems for certain users.  If that update was installed automatically, then the user would be trading one problem for another, and who’s to say that the second problem – the one caused by the update – isn’t actually worse?  So, there are good reasons to have automatic updates turned off as well.

Thankfully, this isn’t a setting that’s too difficult to configure in Windows.  The first step to configuring your automatic update behavior is to open the Start menu.  Do this by hitting the Windows key on your keyboard, or clicking the Start orb.

Now click All Programs to view all your installed programs, and not just those pinned to the start menu.

Finally, to configure your automatic update settings, click Windows Update (it should be fairly near the top of the list, before all the folders.

Once Windows update has launched, click Change Settings in the lefthand sidebar.

The recommended behavior is to download and install updates automatically.  If you do this, your computer will check periodically (every day or on a particular day of the week, at a time of day you set), and will install them once downloaded.

There are three other options available. You can also download all updates, but only install the ones you select.  The next step toward doing nothing is to check for updates, but only download and install the ones the user wants. Or, finally, you can never check for updates, which will turn off Windows Update entirely.

Now, assuming you have Windows Update configured to at least do some checking, downloading and installing, there are a couple other options.  First is how Windows Update treats recommended updates.  There are two types of updates: important and recommended.  If you have this setting checked, your recommended updates will be treated exactly the same as important ones, so if you have important updates scheduled to be installed automatically, this will be true of recommended ones as well.

You also have the option to allow any user to update Windows, or with this option unchecked, can keep the privilege for only the administrator.

The first of the last two options allows you to check for extra Microsoft software (such as Microsoft Security Essentials or Silverlight), and allow those to be updated as well.

Finally, in conjunction with the above option, you can choose to receive detailed notice when there is new Microsoft software available.

This will include not just updates, but also software not currently installed on your computer.

Once finished, click the OK button at the bottom of the window and you’re all set.  Windows Update will begin using your new settings immediately; no restart necessary.

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Because of this, the obvious choice for computer users wanting a simple way to download from Usenet via the NZB file format, is a program called SABnzbd+ (or SABnzbdplus, although we’ll simply refer to it from here on out as SABnzbd).

SABnzbd is a program that – much like uTorrent Server – runs entirely in your web browser.  It’s actually a Terminal program that runs in the background, that also happens to have an interface you can use, which runs in the web browser.  Here’s a step-by-step way to install and configure SABnzbd in Linux (specifically Ubuntu, although the same steps should work in Debian or Linux Mint as well).  As a sidenote, once you’ve installed SABnzbd, the configuration instructions will work for Mac and Windows users.

First, open up a Terminal.

Now type sudo apt-get install sabnzbdplus sabnzbdplus-theme-plush which will install SABnzbd and the theme (“Plush”) that you can see in the screenshots.

Once the download and installation is complete, you can launch SABnzbd via your menus or other launcher.

The first time you launch SABnzbd, you’ll be taken through the configuration wizard.  The first step is selecting the default language.  There are eight different languages available.  We’ll select English.

Next, fill in the server details for your Usenet account.

Much like you need an email account in order to access an email server, you need an account with a Usenet provider in order to download anything from Usenet.  There are many popular providers, such as Astraweb, GigaNews, NewsDemon and others.  Many popular services offer plans at around $10.00 per month, as well as the option to purchase blocks of GB instead.  A quick Google search will provide numerous results as well as a few pages devoted to comparing different services.

Next, you can configure whether or not anyone with Web access will be able to remotely access your running SABnzbd installation.  By default, this is turned off.

After this, you can enter in account information for NZBMatrix.com or Newzbin.com, two websites that make it easy to produce your own customized NZB files.  Both sites are good, but you could also use binsearch.info, which is completely free.  Once you’ve finished filling in these forms (or skipping over them as it isn’t required), you’ll be shown the basic SABnzbd interface.

From here you can watch over any downloading files you might have in progress, initiate new ones (by clicking Add NZB near the top), or configuring more settings, which is what we want to do now.  As it is, SABnzbd is ready to be used after going through the first-run wizard, but you’ll likely want to set up your download folder as well as a folder SABnzbd will watch for NZB files (any NZB file that shows up will be downloaded automatically).  Simply click Config at the top, then choose the Folders option along the left side.

If you have it set up as we do, you likely download files to your Desktop, which SABnzbd will now monitor.  When a NZB file you downloaded appears, SABnzbd will start downloading the files you want, and will then place them in your Completed  Download Folder (which we also have set to the Desktop, but can be set anywhere you choose).

Now, we mentioned binsearch.info earlier, and now’s the time to see what it’s all about.  Head there in your web browser, then perform a search.  Usenet has all kinds of shared files (just like torrents or other file sharing sites).  Here we performed a search for Ubuntu 11.10, in hopes of downloading an installation ISO.

We then looked a the list, until we found what we wanted.

We checked the box beside the entry, so everything there (all 789 MB, including repair files if necessary), will be downloaded.  To create the NZB file, we simply click the Create NZB button located at the top and bottom of each page.

The NZB file is then create and downloaded.  In our case, it was downloaded to the Desktop.

As we set up SABnzbd to monitor our Desktop, the file is immediately acted on, and our download started.

SABnzbd will now begin downloading your files, only grabbing the repair files (par2), if necessary.  If all the standard files downloaded without error, the par2 files are ignored, which is a nice feature as most Usenet accounts are set up based on how much a person downloads, so any savings is a bonus.

That’s pretty much all you need to know about downloading and configuring SABnzbd.  As stated, this guide is written for Linux users, but the configuration part of it will work for Mac and Windows users as well; only the installation process will be slightly different.  Windows and Mac users can head over to sabnzbd.org and download the correct installer for their system.

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We’ve written about how to change the default save location in Word 2007 and 2010 and how to use a third-party tool to change the default save location for any library (the tool also allows you to create new libraries and add folders to libraries).

However, to change the default save location for libraries accessed in programs other than Word, you don’t need any third-party software. You can even add your own custom folder to a library and specify it as the default save location. We will show you two ways to do this.

The first method is to open Windows Explorer, right-click on any one of the libraries, and select Properties from the popup menu. For this example, we will use the Documents library. The same steps apply to any of the other three default libraries, or custom libraries you have added. The names of the dialog boxes to which we refer reflect the chosen library.

The Documents Properties dialog box displays. Each of the four default libraries has two folder locations: one from your user folder (e.g., C:\Users\Lori) and one from the Public profile folder (e.g., C:\Users\Public). To add a custom folder to the selected library, click Include a folder.

The Include Folder in Documents dialog box displays. Navigate to the custom folder you want to use as the default save location, select it, and click Include Folder.

The custom folder is added to the list of Library locations. Select the custom folder and click Set save location.

The check marks moves to the custom folder indicating it is now the default save location. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

The second method is to open Windows Explorer and open the library that contains the folder you want to use as the default save location, or to which you want to add a custom folder as the default save location. Click the Includes: X locations link in the header of the right pane in Explorer. The X locations link shows how many folders are currently included in that library. Moving the mouse over the link displays the names of the folders included in that library.

The Documents Library Locations dialog box displays. To add a custom folder to this library, click Add.

On the Include Folder in Documents dialog box, navigate to the custom folder you want to use as the default save location, select it, and click Include Folder.

The custom folder is added to the list of Library locations. Select the custom folder, right-click on it, and select Set as default save location from the popup menu.

Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

If you use Dropbox, you can also set your Dropbox folder as the default save location. A folder on an external hard drive or on a network drive can also be used as the default save location.

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For instance, if I want to visit ESPN.com to see today’s basketball scores, I would type espn.com into my web browser.  You’ll notice that the address changes to espn.go.com, and eventually the website loads.  However, you can also access espn.com by typing 68.71.216.176 into the URL bar.  Of course, espn.com is a lot simpler to remember than 68.71.216.176 (imagine having to remember the IP address for dozens of websites you visit), so DNS servers are used.  Whenever someone types in a website address, the browser checks with a DNS server to find the actual IP address (which is hidden from the user), and uses it to access the website.

Often, when websites or the Internet itself is under “attack” what is actually happening is that DNS servers are being bombarded with millions of requests, so they slow down to a crawl.  The “Internet” is still out there, and if you knew the IP address of the website you wanted to visit, you could, but without DNS servers to quickly convert espn.com to 68.71.216.176 you can’t.

Some Internet Service Providers don’t have the world’s greatest DNS servers, so you may want to use something like OpenDNS, or Google Public DNS, for better performance.  This will help speed up the loading of web pages, not by making your Internet faster, but by hopefully speeding up the DNS response time.  This, in turn, allows your web browser to start loading the web page more quickly.

Here’s how to do that in Windows.

First, open up the Control Panel by clicking the Start orb in the lower left hand corner of the screen, then selecting Control Panel from the right sidebar of the Start Menu.

Next, click on the Network and Internet section.

Once it loads, click on Network and Sharing Center.

From the left sidebar, click Change adapter settings, which will show you a list of all network adapters (Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth), you have installed on your computer.

No matter which you wish to change (you might want to do both Ethernet and WiFi, for example, even if you usually use one over the other), right-click and choose Properties from the dropdown menu.

Now, click on the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) from the list, then click the Properties button.

The radio box we want to choose on the new window is the option to Use the following DNS server addresses (located below Obtain DNS server address automatically).

Now, there are numerous options available.  As mentioned, OpenDNS is free, as is Google Public DNS.  If you want OpenDNS, there are two servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (you can use both or either).  Google Public DNS uses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as its DNS servers.  There are other free public DNS servers, of course (just use Google to search for them), but OpenDNS and Google Public DNS are among the standards.

When you’re finished, simply click the Validate Settings Upon Exit checkbox (if you want), then the OK button, and you’re finished.

Now, there’s no guarantee that Google Public DNS or OpenDNS will be faster than your ISP’s default DNS servers.  To check this, the best bet is a program like DNS Performance Test (available here) or Namebench (located here).  Of course, a one-time test may show different results from what you experience in real-life usage, so your own experiences and instincts may give you a different result.  Regardless, if you do decide to try out a new DNS server, you now know the steps to take to put that in motion.

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There are actually 6 different versions of Windows 7, but we’ll only worry about 3 because the rest are not really available for consumers to buy. There is Windows 7 Starter, which is usually on netbooks. Windows 7 Home Basic is available in emerging markets and not here in the US. And Windows 7 Enterprise is sold through volume licensing to companies and institutions.

In this post, I’ll talk about the differences between Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Note that if you buy the most basic version of Windows, you can still upgrade at any time using Windows Anytime Upgrade. Basically, the Home version includes Professional and Ultimate, but those extra features will only be installed when you purchase it. You can run Anytime Upgrade from within Windows itself.

To get a quick overview of the differences, you can always go to the following page from Microsoft:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

I find their comparison a bit too simplified and not very clear cut, especially if you want to know all the extra features of each version. This chart just goes over some very basic points, most of which are useless like “improved desktop navigation” and “Internet Explorer 8″.

I’ll try to give a more complete listing of what features are missing or added to each version. Let’s start off with Home Premium first since that forms the base of all other versions.

Home Premium

Here are the various points about Home Premium:

• For starters, Windows 7 Home Premium is only supported until January 2015. By contrast, Windows 7 Professional is supported until January 2020. Oddly, Windows 7 Ultimate is only supported until January 2015 also.
• Max memory for Home Premium is 16 GB. For Professional and Ultimate it’s 192 GB (64-bit Windows)
• Home Premium can only support up to 1 CPU. Professional and higher can support a max of 2 CPUs.
• Home Premium cannot backup to a network location (only local backups). Professional and Ultimate can backup to the network.
• Home Premium can only be a client for Remote Desktop (can only be connected to from another machine). With Professional and Ultimate you can use Windows as a host for remote desktop and connect to other machines.
• Home Premium and above all support HomeGroups

Professional

In addition to the points mentioned above, Professional also has the following features and services:

• Support for Dynamic Disks. This allows software implementation of RAID, which could be useful for a system with multiple hard drives.
• Encrypting File System – Allows for filesystem-level encryption. Not as secure as BitLocker, which is only available in Ultimate.
• Location Aware Printing
• Presentation Mode – Lets you change the behavior of Windows while giving presentations, i.e. control volume, display different wallpaper, prevent screensaver from appearing, etc.
• Group Policy – Allows you to control just about all aspects of the Windows operating system locally or via Windows Server 2003/2008
• Offline Files and Folder Redirection – Again, more a feature of a Windows machine joined to a domain
• Ability to join a Windows domain – Home Premium cannot join Windows domains
• Windows XP Mode – Allows you to run Windows XP SP3 inside Windows 7. Used for compatibility with older programs.
• Software Restriction Policies

Ultimate

There are only a few extra features in Ultimate that are useful for consumers. Most of the additional features in Ultimate are for IT Professionals.

• BitLocker Drive Encryption – As opposed to EFS, which uses file system level encryption, BitLocker uses full disk encryption.
• Ability to switch between 35 different languages instantly
• AppLocker – Ability to block software from running on the computer
• BranchCache – Allows for fast file access across a WAN
• Direct boot from VHD – Ability for a computer to boot from a VHD file with or without a host operating system
• DirectAccess – Keeps mobile users connected while on the go
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) enhancements

So even though Ultimate sounds great, it’s really not useful for the average consumer. Even to a degree, Professional also is not super useful for the average user. It’s probably best to get Home Premium and then upgrade to Professional or Ultimate if you ever need to. Hopefully, Windows 8 does not have even more versions to choose from!

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