If you are one of the 80% of users who might be afraid to upgrade from Vista or XP because you feel it is completely different to what you are used to, you should read MakeUseOf’s new guide, “The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros”.

That being said, even those who have been using Windows 7 for some time likely to find a few useful tips here.

Download: The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies to Pro’s Now

In this 8 chapter guide, you will be able to switch from your current operating system to Windows 7 with ease. The guide covers everything you need to know from checking if your computer can run Windows 7 to utilizing all of the new features not found on other Windows versions. Plus a few handy tips.

By the end of the guide, you should know how to:

• Check if Windows 7 is compatible with your PC.
• Use the new task bar and desktop interface.
• Customize your user experience.
• Mange your documents and files properly.
• Use and install the missing essential software.
• Setup a home network and share documents and printers.
• Install and play games.
• and more

DOWNLOAD : The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies to Pro’s Now

Maybe it wasn’t one of those reasons and you just changed a setting on your computer and now it doesn’t work. Whatever you did (or didn’t do), when your computer stuffs up or think you may have a virus, what can you do about it; how do you fix it?

The good thing is that Windows has something called System Restore which allows you to restore your computer to how it was a day before, or even a month before.

So What Exactly is System Restore and What Does It Do?

You have probably first heard about System Restore on Windows XP. What it essentially does is restore your computer to a state that is back in time. The good thing about it is that it doesn’t delete your files. It does delete any programs or .exe files you have such as program installs you might have downloaded.

Using System Restore on Windows XP

Before you use System Restore, you must make sure that it is activated. To do this, simply right click on My Computer and select Properties. In the System Restore tab, make sure System Restore is turned on for all your drives (or at least C: Drive)

Once activated, your computer will automatically make system restore points regularly or when you install new software.

If you ever run into trouble on your computer, you can then restore your computer back to that stage. To do this, open system restore by going to Start ““> All Programs ““> Accessories ““> System Tools ““> System Restore. Once opened, you should see two or three options to choose from. The first option allows you to restore your computer to an earlier time, and the second option allows you to create a restore point. This is great if you are about to do something that you think may upset your computer. The third option will only appear if you have used System Restore before and this lets you undo the restore if it didn’t fix your problem or made things worse.

We want to restore our computer, so select the first option and click next.

On the next screen you will be presented with a calendar and all dates that have a restore point will be in bold. Select a recent date and choose a restore point on that date to one that you know your computer was working.

Once done, select next and agree to the warning message and then press next.

Your computer will restart and reboot and the program you are having should be fixed. If it’s not, you can go back to a previous date or undo the restore as I mentioned above.

Using System Restore on Windows Vista

To access System Restore, just follow the same steps as in Windows XP Start ““> All Programs ““> Accessories ““> System Tools ““> System Restore.

Here you can select the latest restore point or choose a different restore point. I would recommend choosing a restore point.

If you want to show all your restore points, click the checkbox on the bottom left. Simple select a checkpoint, press next and agree to the confirmation.

Using System Restore on Windows 7

Using System Restore is not much different to using it in Windows Vista.  You can access it by going to Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> System Tools –> System Restore.

Simply select a recovery position from the list and click Next and Finish on the next screen.

As I have not used Windows 7 before (apart from the RC and Beta versions), I believe there are a few more options other than System Restore that you can use to help repair your computer. However, most of these require your installation DVD. By reading a post on Microsoft.com, there are a few repair options to choose from which you can access when you press F8 when booting your computer to enter the recovery console. If you want perform a certain recovery option, visit this link for more information.

One final option is to use the Backup and Restore option which can be found at Control Panel –> System and Security –> Backup and Restore. Using this method, you can create a backup image of your computer and restore it at a later date – but this will be for another post.

So I hope you now know how to repair your computer yourself if you ever run into trouble. System Restore is a lifesaver (it has helped me hundreds of times) and could save you a lot of money compared to taking your computer to a local computer repair shop.

If you have any problems about using System Restore or general backup questions, feel free to ask in the comments or at MakeUseOf Answers.

To add to MakeUseOf’s latest PDF collection, Bakari Chavanu from Mac Photography Tips has combined his knowledge to produce an 8000+ word, 59 page PDF eBook.

It’s jammed packed full of useful information for all type of photographers – from beginners photographers to advance photographers.

Inside, you will find information about:

• The different types of digital cameras to choose from
• What digital camera is right for you
• What to look for when buying your digital camera
• Accessories that you should have for your digital camera
• Features that you should know about your camera

But wait, there’s more. There are also 5 beginner exercises for you to complete to help you become a professional photographer, and helpful instructions and information about editing your photo’s to make them even more magical.

If you have a digital camera, want to become a professional photographer, or you are already a professional photographer, then you do not want miss out on downloading The Essential Guide To Digital Photography.

You do not want to miss out on this great eBook, so download it now for free.

Before I get started, I would suggest that everyone to take a read of their documentation. If you ever run into a problem or not sure what option to select or how to do something, the documentation wiki will help you out.

Installation

Installation of LimeSurvey is pretty similar to installing any other web script. Just download the latest version, upload the files to your web server, open config.php, enter your database information, set the relevant directory permissions and then run the installer located at http://yourdomain.com/limesurvey/admin/install to populate your database. That’s it. If you run into problems, simple read the installation instructions.

Creating Your First Survey

Once you have successfully installed your LimeSurvey self hosted survey, you can log in to your admin panel by going to your installation directory /admin.

To create your first survey, click on the image that’s next to the Survey drop-down box. The drop-down box lists all your surveys that you have.

You will then be presented with the setup screen for you to enter information about the survey such as why you are conducting it and the messages you want the participants to read. In the relevant tabs, you can also set who has access to complete the survey, when the survey is active, whether the survey is anonymous and many more features. It’s important that you carefully read this information as you may not be able to change it once you publish the survey.

Once you have made all your settings, hit the “Save Survey” button. It’s now time to add groups to your survey.

Adding Groups

LimeSurvey is organised in a hierarchical manner. The top level is the survey which survey’s have groups and inside these groups are the questions. So when you add questions to the survey, you first have to have a group. Groups are a great way to organise your survey, and get certain participants to answer questions in a particular group only by adding conditions. It is also a great way to break your survey up into pages or sections.

So to add a group, simple click on the plus sign that is next to “Question Groups” and fill in the form.

Adding Questions

Now we are up to the part where we add questions to our groups. To do this, press the plus sign in the question group toolbar. As you can see, as you move down the hierarchical levels, you get another row of options.

Right here is where you enter your question. First of all, chose a unique code for your question. For example, it could be just q1 or your_name if you just ask for the participant’s name.

Next, add the question’s text and help text to provide the user with a guideline to answer the question. The help box doesn’t have to include anything, but if the question is a bit vague, it’s always good to include it.

Now we are at the important step ““ choosing your question type. There is a long list of question types that you can select from:

Most of them are self explanatory, but if you don’t understand what a question type is, visit the documentation page for help. Once you filled out all the required fields, press “Save Question” to save the survey. Depending on the question type, you may have to add attributes to the question. This can be done by clicking on the image next to the warning message. From here, you can add options or conditions on a particular question. As you can see, LimeSurvey is quite powerful.

Just Follow The Process

Now you know the basics, you just have to follow the steps above to create your self hosted survey. If you run into trouble, please ask in the comments below and I will try my best to help you, or you can read the documentation which is really thorough.

Once you have activated your new survey, hand the link out if your survey is open to everyone. Then all you have to do is check your results by clicking on the “Browse responses to this survey button”. If you want to see the results of my recent survey, you can download the zip file which contains the raw PDF output from LimeSurvey at my blog.

Just so you know, MakeUseOf’s polls are powered by PollDaddy. What is your favourite survey solution?

But now, this is no longer an issue with this simple hack. You can now access your Thunderbird profile remotely on many computers around the world. So say goodbye to logging into Gmail to read your emails when you are away from your main computer and say hello to the new power of desktop computing.

The Idea

To access Thunderbird remotely, the idea is to setup Portable Thunderbird and run it in yourDropBox folder. If you have no idea what I am talking about, Thunderbird is desktop email client to access your emails and DropBox synchronizes your files and folders across multiple computers. Portable Thunderbird is a version of ThunderBird which you don’t have to install to work thus allowing it to work almost anywhere.

To get this to work, first you have to install DropBox on the computers you want to access your emails on and have the Portable Thunderbird files inside your DropBox folder. If you are not sure about how to install these programs, scroll to the bottom of this post.

How It All Works

For those who are unsure of how this works, let me briefly explain it. DropBox synchronises any files you have in your DropBox folder with the DropBox servers. Every time you make a change in the folder, your computer will automatically synchronise the changed files with the DropBox servers. If you setup a DropBox account on another computer, the DropBox servers will synchronise the files with that computer and ensure that every file and folder is up-to-date on every computer.

The portable version of Thunderbird has all the settings contained in one folder so you can basically move that folder around anywhere you want and it will still work. Since it is in the DropBox folder, it will be synchronised with all your computers that your DropBox account is assigned to. Therefore, if you download new emails on one computer, DropBox will automatically synchronise the new emails to all other computers, so when you open Portable Thunderbird, your emails will be there, no matter which computer you access it on.

Haven’t Used Portable ThunderBird Before?

Once you have your Portable ThunderBird inside your DropBox folder, all you have to do is to set up your email service provider and create a ThunderBird Profile.

If you use Gmail, this tutorial will help you set up POP/IMAP access.

Once you are set up, download all your emails and you are good to go. The only thing left is to install DropBox on other computers so you will be able to access your them in other locations. It’s as simple as that.

Used ThunderBird Before?

If you are currently using the regular desktop version of ThunderBird, you can easily move to the Portable version of Thunderbird in a few easy steps.

1. Create a profile for all the different email accounts that you use in Thunderbird
2. Find the location of your ThunderBird profile on your computer by going to Tools –> Account Settings –> Server and Settings which is underneath your email account’s name, and go to the location that you see under Local Directory

   

3. Once you open that location, you will see the files for each of your folders in your ThunderBird Profile.
4. All you have to do to move them to Portable ThunderBird is to copy them to the path where Portable Thunderbird is installed. For me, the location will be E:\Jack\Documents\My Dropbox\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders. Your link will be somewhat different at the start and different at the end depending on your setup.
5. Open up Portable Thunderbird and all your emails should appear.

The Pro’s Of Doing This

By using DropBox and Portable ThunderBird, the are a few benefits. These are:

• All your emails are automatically backed up
• You do not have to carry a USB flash drive around with you
• You have the ability to share your email with others easily
• If you access your emails on a number of devices, this method can merge them all to one location, meaning no duplicates
• Great way to manage your emails if you are a light user
• You can access your email on any DropBox-enabled computer
• You do not need to use your email provider’s web-based interface

The Downsides

As always, I better make a mention of the possible downsides with this method:

• You only get 2GB of space or whatever your DropBox limit is
• You risk having multiple inboxes and files if you have several instances of Portable Thunderbird open simultaneously
• You need to ensure DropBox is completely synced before opening Portable Thunderbird
• If DropBox isn’t installed, you can’t access your email on ThunderBird and have to use the web-based version, or install Dropbox first
• Remember to unlink your DropBox account on computers that you do not need to use anymore, otherwise people can read your emails
• I have also heard that using System Restore may remove Portable Thunderbird from your DropBox folder.

For Those Who Want Installation Instructions

First of all, download Portable Thunderbird from Portable Apps. It is a small 32MB file. Then download and install DropBox. If you havn’t heard about DropBox in the past until now, MakeUseOf has covered a number of articles on what you can do with DropBox.

To install DropBox, simple go to the DropBox website and hit the big blue Download DropBox button and follow the instructions. During the DropBox installation, you will be prompted to login with your existing DropBox account if you have one or create to create a new one. When asked for your DropBox directory, you can select any file location you wish.

Now that you have your DropBox folder set up on your computer, it is now time to download and install Portable Thunderbird. Head over to Portable Apps, and download the program.

Once downloaded, run the .paf file and install it. However, when it asks for your installation location, don’t select your Flash Drive or your desktop; choose a folder inside your DropBox folder.

You have now set up and installed all of the required software to access Thunderbird remotely.

Other Ways Of Doing This

If you don’t think this method will suit your needs, Tina as wrote an article of 3 ways to sync your Thunderbird emails across multiple computers which you may find interesting.

What do you think of this “hack”?

Today, we will be focusing on Gmail or sometimes called Google Mail, and present MakeUseOf’s Ultimate Guide To Gmail written by Taty Sena from SimplyTatyDesigns.

Inside the 34 page eBook you will learn:

• The history of Gmail and how it began
• Why you should choose Gmail over another email provider
• How to use Gmail, manage and organize your emails
• Getting the most out of Gmail
• Instructions on how to use Gmail with other email providers
• Links to best Gmail tips and hacks.
• Access Gmail on a mobile device
• Gmail Buzz
• And much more”¦

This guide will help you to switch from your current email provider to Gmail and shows you how to make most of it. That being said, if you already use Gmail, why not have a quick look of last few chapters that have a few handy tips even for advanced users.

So get your Gmail game on and download MakeUseOf’s Ultimate Guide To Gmail now.

For those people who are wondering what the heck I am talking about, Nokia is a leading phone manufacturer in many countries, and especially in Australia (where I live). Most of the new Nokia mobile phones are using Symbian as their operating system which the recent version is known as S60.

If you want to find out more about Symbian, you can visit The Symbian Foundation Community web page or read about the Symbian OS and the Symbian platform on Wikipedia.

Now that the history is out of the way, I can focus on the main point of this post ““ mobile phone software for your Nokia.

Just like the well known Apple Store, Nokia’s store is called the Ovi Store. If you are a Nokia user (I have the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the E71), you may find that Nokia doesn’t have many great apps, however there are a few that do stand out.

Ovi Maps

Ovi Maps used to cost more than $300 for a one year license, but recently Nokia made the application free to a number of devices. So if you have a compatible handset with GPS, you should definately give Ovi Maps a go. Instead of spending a few hundred dollars on a GPS device, just buy a Nokia phone and you’ll get free voice navigation for life – that’s what I did.

However, the only downside to Ovi Maps is that it can take quite a few minutes for it to pick up a satellite signal. So if you need to know where you are quickly, but don’t really need voice Navigation, you should also try Google Maps.

Ovi Maps also offers a number of other services such as live traffic updates, weather, and other things.

The below image is a screenshot of the Ovi Maps home screen.

Google Maps

Google Maps usually pinpoints your location within seconds, unlike Ovi Maps. Google Maps for your S60 device doesn’t offer anything special compared to what you get on the browser version, but if you get lost or want to find directions to a place near by, Google Maps is the way to go.

However, if you want voice navigation, Google Maps won’t do that for you on your Nokia phone. If you’re tight on mobile internet data, I would suggest using Ovi Maps as the maps are installed on your phone, unlike Google Maps where you have to download them each time you use it.

Windows Live Messenger

WLM for Nokia was only released a couple of months ago and only works on a couple of devices. The 5800 XpressMusic isn’t one of them unfortunately ““ however I found a version on the Internet somewhere else and it works like a charm. (I can’t find the website where I got it off, if I do, I’ll post it in the comments). You can however download it from the Ovi store on some models.

If you use Windows Live Messenger on your desktop, you must get this app for your mobile ““ it’s just full of features and very easy to use.

Fring

If you use Skype, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, GTalk, Voip and other services, you must install Fring. Fring contains all these services plus more. It’s like your entire IM clients all packed into one small box. However I found that the quality of the voice calls are not as good on Fring as they are on Skype, and for Windows Live Messenger, you can’t show your contacts by email.

Skype

Although I don’t use Skype much, it’s a great app to have on your phone. Especially if you have a large dataplan, you can get away with cheaper calls (if you have Skype credit). When I tried it out on the Skype Call Testing Service connected to my WLAN network at home, the call quality was pretty reasonable and it used about 2-3 kb/s on the call which isn’t too bad.

BrightLight

If you have the XpressMusic phone, you will know how bright the flash light is on the camera. So to make good use of this camera’s flashlight, install BrightLight. Just flick the switch and your light is on. It’s a really good substitute for a torch.

FlashLight

If you don’t need a bright light, FlashLight is a useful app. Basically you can set the colour for your entire screen, whether it be white, red, blue, yellow, pink or green ““ any colour you want. I use it all the time for sneaking around the house because it produces enough light to see where I am going and not too much where it will wake everyone up (like BrightLight does).

Energy Pro

If you want to see how much energy your phone is using, or the transfer rate of your mobile internet, Nokia Energy Profiler will do the trick and a whole lot more.

ScreenSnap

If you had been wondering how I have been taking the above screenshots on my 5800XpressMusic, I have been using ScreenSnap. It’s really simple to use, just run the application and press your phones camera button and it will take a screenshot of your phone.

What Are Your Favourite Apps?

The above are my favourite mobile phone software apps for my Nokia S60 device. Have I missed out on any that should be in the list? If I have, please let me know in the comments.

Also, if you think Make Use Of should cover more posts about Nokia and Symbian; please say so in the comments.

Wix is a free, Flash website builder that allows you to create a flash website easily through a drag and drop environment.

Today, I am going to show you how easy it is to create a professional-looking Flash website for free.

Creating an Account

First of all, you have to create an account, and it’s pretty straight forward. Just click on the big yellow Start Now button and enter your details. Once you have successfully created your account, it’s time to creating your first website.

Creating Your First Website

Let’s begin creating your first website with this flash website builder. As you can see in the image, I have already created one, so I am going to create another one just for demonstration purposes. All you have to do is click “Add new site” which is under “My Account”.

Choosing A Template

The next step is to choose a template that will be the base design of your website. So far, Wix has 271 templates that you can choose from which are assorted into categories. A few of the categories you can choose from include:

• eCommerce
• Business
• Consulting
• Design
• Food and Drink
• Art
• Must
• Personal
• Websites
• Portfolio

Just browse through the templates, and when you find one you like, move your mouse over it and click on “edit”. You can also view it to get more of a feel for what it looks like.

Customising Your Flash Website

Once you click on edit, a pop-up window will appear which is where you’ll edit your website. I picked the “My Personal Portfolio” template. It is now time to customise your template and add content and customise pages.

The editor within this flash website builder is quite powerful, easy to use and learn. The left hand side has all the features that you can add or change such as how the page looks (background colour and styles), the images and video’s that you see, the text, and widgets (such as displaying an RSS feed). The top bar has your basic editing options such as settings, preview, save button, undo/redo etc. The bottom displays the customisable options for the selected elements, and the right hand side navigates through each web page.

It will take me a while to explain everything that you can do, so I am just going to go through some of the basics.

Changing The Text

The first thing that you want to do is to change the text to what you want. To do this, simply click on the default text that is already on the screen and click edit.

Changing the Background Colour and Style

On the left hand side, select “Page Parts” and select “Background” to change the background, or select “Page Frame” to add a nice looking border around the page. You will the be presented with a box where you can choose a style. You really have to play around with all the styles and options to find one that you really like.

Adding Pages

It is important to note that a new page gives you a blank template, whereas a mini-page uses the parent frame design and adds a new link to the navigational structure. To add a new mini-page, click on “mini-page” in the navigational element and select add. This will create a new mini-page and automatically update the links. To create a new page, on the top right hand corner of the editor, click “Add Page”.

It is now up to you to design your site, and add your text, and make it look how you want.

Publishing Your Website

Now that you have created and finished designing your website (having saved it of course), it is time to publish your website. To publish your site, just hit the green “Publish” button on the top of the site.

Wix gives you three publishing options. The first option is to publish it on Wix. This will give your website the URL of http://www.wix.com/yourusername/wixSiteName. The second option is to send it via email, and the third option is to embed it in an existing document. With this option, you can easily embed your site into Facebook or Blogger, but if you want to use it on a webpage of yours, just grab the embed code and paste it in a HTML document somewhere.

Although you can update your Wix site and pay a monthly fee to remove ads and use your own domain name (as seen below), there is a simple hack that allows you to have your newly created Wix site on your own domain name.

All you have to do is create a new HTML document, and inside the body tags embed the code. Simply change the background colour to match your Wix site and upload the HTML document to your appropriate website directory. Visit your domain name, and your Wix site should load.

So there you have it. With a bit of time customising a design, adding some content, you can create a professionally-looking, free flash website in no time at all. If you want to see my websites I quickly created, check them out here, and here.

Have you created a website with Wix.com before? How did you find it? Do you have any other web app to recommend?

No more driving to the library to find a book that’s not even there. No more reading the entire book only to find it doesn’t help you at all. Finding how to do something on the internet is as simple as typing what you want into a search engine and the results are right at your fingertips.

But where do we find all this information? Although search engines such as Google and Bing are good, you may want to narrow your search and have a look at these great “How To” tutorial websites.

eHow

eHow is a great site to find out how to do something quickly. The tutorials aren’t overly descriptive and most of them are less than 10 steps, but they do get straight to the point. Want to learn how to play tennis? Just type the keyword “tennis” into eHow’s search engine and you will get heaps of results on how to hit a tennis forehand, or even how to build a court in your backyard.

Not only are there just text tutorials, eHow also provides many video tutorials.

eHow is a great website to learn the basics of just about anything. From The Internet, to Parenting, to Education, to Electronics and Business.

wikiHow

wikiHow currently has about 76,000 articles in its database, so there is a high chance that it covers a “how to” that you want to know. Similar to eHow, wikiHow’s content is created by the community. Say I want learn how to create a website. I did a search on “how to create a website” and I got some good results.

Instructables

Want to learn how to build something physical from scratch? Then you should definitely check Instructables out. The instructions are much more in-depth then the previous sites mentioned, and they have some nice tutorials on how to build things you wouldn’t normally build.

For example, there is a tutorial on How to Build a Multi Touch Surface. Although it will cost you $2,500, it is still something pretty cool to have.

About Video Tutorials

Often when I want help with something, Google often refers me to About. Their tutorials are pretty comprehensive. A while back I wanted to learn how to add a log in page for a website I was developing and it had a nice, easy to read and follow tutorial. They have many more tutorials at a more beginner’s level, such as how to use Skype.

Finding a particular topic is a bit more difficult on About due to the large number of pages it holds. I searched for “learn to sing” but I didn’t find any accurate results. I did with eHow though. But if you want help with computers or tech, you should find some useful information.

YouTube

Most people might think that YouTube only has videos to entertain us. But in fact, YouTube has some pretty useful tutorials. For example, want to learn how to play the guitar? There are hundreds of useful tutorials. Depending what sort of tutorial you are looking for, YouTube is a good choice if you want visuals as well. You may also want to read these How To Video Sites That Don’t Suck for more sites similar to YouTube.

Other Great Sites & Tools

There are so many sites that could included in this list, but instead of reviewing them all, I am just going to link to them and you can make your own mind up about them. Every site has their pros and cons and focus on different topics. So depending on what you are searching for, each site will be different.

Wired How To Wiki ““ Great tutorials about computers, technology and gadgets

PC World How To ““ Tutorials related to buying, using and fixing technology products

VideoJug ““ A video tutorial website “˜to get good at life’

5min ““ 5 minute video tutorials

SuTree ““ How to and tutorial video’s

Previous Make Use Of Tutorial Articles Lists

• Video Tutorial websites to brush up on your tech skills
• Sites to learn about graphical designs
• Websites to learn CSS programming online
• How to learn Mac Programming
• 5 more great DIY websites

Do you have a favourite tutorial and “˜How To’ website that you regularly visit? What were you trying to learn and what site did you get the most help from?