Recently I purchased a 2 TB external hard drive for backup. In my computer there are four “drives” (i.e. partitions) so using TeraCopy I copied all the drives onto the external backup drive. However, during the process one of the drives was cleaned-out – all the folders are now empty. The copy on the external hard drive is the same – all the folders have copied but they are empty of any files. Do you know why this has happened and how I can restore the files? (more…)

Most users of Word would be familiar with the Track Changes function which allows you to keep tabs on changes to a document and annotate such changes with comments. You may have also found yourself in the embarrassing situation of printing or (worse still) sending a document with the changes still visible in the document. Word 2007 and 2010 include a handy new feature that will warn you if you are going to print, save or send a document that contains the revisions still visible. Go to the “File” menu > “Options” > “Trust Center”. Click “Trust Center Settings” and “Privacy Options”. Tick the option titled “Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments”. Be aware, a warning before sending the file will only be presented if you email the file from within Word (e.g. on the File menu). If you attach the file to an email in a different program (such as Windows Live Mail or Outlook) then you will not be presented with this warning. I would suggest that you test this function once enabled to ensure that it performs as you expect, so that you don’t unwittingly rely on it for a warning when it may not produce one under certain conditions.

When I download photos from my digital camera into Windows 7 it automatically copies the photos into some mysterious location, rather than prompting me for the location to where I would like the photos stored. As a result I cannot seem to find the photos! When attempting to re-download the photos a second time a message appeared saying “No new photos detected” and does not allow me to re-download the photos. Previously with Windows XP I was able to tick the photos that I wished to download, and they were downloaded into the My Pictures folder, but it seems to be much more automated and confusing in Windows 7. How can I locate the existing downloaded photos and prevent this problem from occurring in the future? (more…)

If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch running iOS 5, then if you receive a notification while the device is locked you can swipe on the notification itself (rather than on “Slide to Unlock”) and the device will unlock taking you directly to the app which raised the notification. For example, if you receive an SMS or iMessage, then you can swipe on the notification (on the lock screen) and when the device unlocks it will take you to the Messages app with that particular message displayed. If your device has a passcode you will still be prompted for the code before the device will unlock.

Spontaneously, F, P, and Z characters appear in the middle of typing. For example: FPFFFFFFFPZFFFFFFFFFPZ. The letters may appear in upper or lowercase, and spontaneously. They appear to be related to the location of the cursor, and sometimes appear during a pause in typing but not always. The computer is running Windows Vista Ultimate. (more…)