In today’s world of computerizing everything, we all find ourselves with lots of files on our computers. Everything from instruction manuals, to music, to financial software is ending up on our hard drives. Inevitably we find out that some of those files ended up in a location we really don’t want them. Maybe a hard drive is full and you need to move files to a new larger hard drive. Maybe you need to move old items to an external drive for archiving. Moving files from one location to another is fairly easy in small amounts, but the larger the number of files involved, the longer the process takes, and the trickier it gets.
Naturally, the more files you need to copy, and the larger the total size, the longer it will take to copy them. Sometimes a file might be in use and can’t be copied, halting a copy job in the middle, leaving you lost as to what’s been copied and what hasn’t. Also, the more files you have, the longer it takes to copy them; what if you need to edit one while you are copying them? Microsoft’s built in file copying utility doesn’t address these issues, and they long ago recognized they needed a utitlity with a little more umph to it. After a couple of rounds of trial and error, one of Microsoft’s techs came up with “Rich Copy”.
Rich Copy is available as a free download from this link to Microsoft’s website. For some reason it is labeled “HoffmanUtilitySpotlight”, so you will see the program referred to as this cryptic name once in a while. After you download and install it, you’re ready to start copying massive amounts of files.
Below the menu’s, you will see three entry boxes. You can graphically browse to the location you want to files from and to, in order to fill in the first two boxes. These selections will include all files and folders below the selected location. The third box, Options”, can be filled in by clicking on the button on the far right-side. Before getting overwhelmed by the many checkboxes, the default options work in 90% of situations, so you can leave almost everything as it is in most situations. The major factor in speeding up the copies and taking full advantage of the program is to adjust the “Thread number”.
“Threads” in computers refers to the number of actions a program can handle at the same time, in this case it means the number of files that can be copied. For reference, a standard file copy is single threaded and copies one file at a time. RichCopy is multi-threaded and can be configured to handle 3, 5, 10 or even more file copies at a time. The only limit will be how fast your computer process information. The three thread options detail how many different folders/directories to scan for files to copy, how many directories to copy from at the same time, and how many files to copy at the same time. Even more significant, if you have separate folders, you can open Rich Copy a second (third, fourth, …) time to copy those files and folders at the same time. Keep in mind that the more files you ask your computer to copy, the more work you are asking your computer to do.
As an added bonus, this software can remember what files it has copied from one location to another. If you go back and ask it to repeat a file copy, it is configured to scan for what files are already in the destination location and only copy those that don’t exist or haven’t changed. This is great if you get interrupted in the middle of a copy, or want to update an archive every few weeks.
In terms of power, the only limit to this software is the speed of the computer you are running. Once you are familiar with the basics, you can start working with some of the methods RichCopy uses for comparing files that have changed, and how it handles the results of those scans while it is copying. If you are going to be repeating a folder copy several times, you can even write scripts that will allow you to run a folder copy without having to reconfigure RichCopy each time.
If you have any questions about where and how to use this utility, you can always contacts through InfoStream’s website.
Just like every other piece of equipment, computers get dirty. Now, dirty can mean a couple of different things. Some dirt is physical, and can be cleaned out with a damp rag. The more complicated dirt is the messy files that fill up a computer over time and never get cleaned out. Files like temporary internet files, deleted files in the recycle bin, and old applications that are no longer needed. While it is possible to manually go through and clean out all of these items, there is a tool that will allow you to take care of most of this through one easy interface. CCleaner does all of the hard work for you, once you tell it what to do.
The first step, of course, is to download and install it. You can get a copy by opening a browser and going to 
The Registry section reviews all of the entries in the registry, finds “orphaned” items and removes them. It offers to make a backup of the registry before it deletes them, which I highly recommend. Remember, the registry manages everything about the computer, so if it makes a mistake it could stop something from working. Backups are necessary to recovery from that. After it has backed up the registry, you can have it remove the recommended files.
spaces on your hard drive. A word of warning when uninstalling software: if you uninstall something you later find out you need, you will need to reinstall it from scratch, so make sure you have the original disks or the downloaded install files if you aren’t absolutely sure you won’t want it back. If you aren’t sure about a particular program, do some researching before you uninstall it! The Startup section shows all of the programs that open when you start the computer or open Internet Explorer. It hides all of the critical Windows programs, so you can disable or delete items here without worrying about breaking the system. The System Restore section allows you to remove old restore points of your computer, but these files aren’t very large so I would not work with this too often. The drive wiper cleans up all of the “empty” areas of the drive. In general they aren’t truly empty, just identified by the computer as unimportant and available for overwriting.
Backups are the most important safety net to protect your computerized information from being destroyed. One way to imagine their importance of is to picture how things would work if that data were suddenly gone. Based on your stomach’s reaction to that chilling thought, you now have an idea of how important your data is.
The truth is that while this is a huge step and eases much of the load, there is one more critical step before you can get that well-deserved sleep. Now that you have the backup, have you proved that it is enough protection in an emergency? Have you performed a test restore that shows that you have all of the pieces in place to recover from a catastrophe?
If you don’t have the correct answers for all of these questions, then it’s time to go back to a lab and test your disaster recovery plans. Additionally, DOCUMENT everything that happens in those labs, correct the sticky areas and test it again. When a server has crashed, everybody’s blood pressure goes up. If you have documented everything, you won’t be asked for any creative computing restores when you are least able to handle it.
Here’s a scenarios most of us have faced. Somebody has asked a question about their computer, about how a specific file should be formatted, or how to configure a setting on the OS. You are in a different location, and you would be able to help them if only you could see their screen. There are several options available to you (Go2MyPC, LogMeIn, VNC), but most solutions require a lot of initial setup in order to function by somebody with a lot of technical knowledge.
Every computer on a typical network is assigned a unique series of numbers specific to that network that identifies it separately from all other computers and devices (printers, routers, switches) on that same network. This is also true of anything connected to Internet as well. This series of numbers is referred to as the IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol.
One of our greatest advertisements is your satisfaction. If you are happy with our service, we would love it if you would tell others about us. (If you are not happy with us, please tell US). With that in mind, let me tell you about our new promotion.
Would you like an hour of free computer support? Maybe you have some minor computer issues you need cleaned up, or just want to learn some new tricks for your computer, or even a tune up and speed up of that computer. It could be a training-planning seminar or a review and maintenance of your software. Or if you have something else in mind, let us know and we’ll take care of it.
Here’s a little challenge to stimulate the brain cells. The following quotes are from various movies. To give you a little help, we’ve given you the year of the movie’s release. They all have something to do with computers and technology. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify both the name of the movie, and the person who said the line.
Here’s the scenario. You’re working on a document with a co-worker. Or your computer support engineer is showing you something on your computer. They’re at the keyboard typing in an important sentence and then, POP, the phrase he was typing is suddenly switched to a bold, italicized font. A few seconds later, they rolled through a few menus, and inserted a clip art. And they didn’t touch their mouse once!
