Uber Invoice Beta Launched

I’m sorry that I haven’t been updating the How To: PC blog over the past few months. I’ve been busy with my day job as well as several other projects. I’ve finally been able to get one of those projects to the beta phase, and I would like to announce that today.

I’ve launched a website called Uber Invoice, located at http://uberinvoice.com. Uber Invoice is a free website designed to enable you to quickly and easily create an invoice, and download it in PDF format. I came up with the idea after I did some contracting work for a client. I figured that in this day and age, a web-based tool for quickly building professional looking invoices for free had to exist. After spending some time searching the internet, I was unable to find such as service. So, I decided to build my own.

One of the awesome things about Uber Invoice is that you aren’t required to create an account to use the service. Since I came up with this idea, Intuit (creator of QuickBooks) and PayPal have both come out with free invoicing tools as well. However, both of their tools require you to sign up for an account which is a waste of time.

I am committed to making sure that http://uberinvoice.com will always provide free, easy to use invoice creating functionality.

Freeware of the Week: PuTTY

Everyone in the world who uses SSH already knows about PuTTY. It’s a great SSH/Telnet client. I don’t use it much right now, but when I had The Elitist hosted on a Linux box in my home, I used it all the time.

It’s a simple, yet powerful app. You can save your commonly used connections. Copying is as easy highlighting text, and pasting text is as easy as right-clicking. It supports colored text as well as a slew of other features that I’m not even aware of. Check out the homepage, and download it.

How To: Schedule Automatic Backups in Windows XP

I occasionally get questions from co-workers about how to setup their computer to run automatic backups. They ask me if they need to buy some kind of expensive third-party software. Windows XP actually comes with free backup software that will get the job done well enough for home users, or very small businesses. It’s called NTBackup. I find that many people know about its existence, or how to use it for that matter.

NTBackup come pre-installed on Windows XP Professional. Unfortunately, you have to install it yourself if you have Windows XP Home Edition. It’s not too hard to do though.

Requirements:

1. A place to store your backups. Can be one of the following:
• secondary internal hard drive
• external USB hard drive
• network location
2. Original Windows XP Disc (Only if you are using Windows XP Home Edition)
• If you don’t have access to your original installation disc, there is a great article explaining a couple of alternatives here.

Instructions:

Start here If you are using Windows XP Home Edition.

1. Insert your Windows XP Home Disc.
2. Browse to the Valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder.
3. Double-click NTBACKUP.MSI
• This will automatically install NTBackup.
4. Click “Finish” to complete the wizard.
5. Continue to the Windows XP Professional section.

Start here If you are using Windows XP Professional Edition.

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup
2. If you’ve never used NTBackup before, it will start in Wizard Mode, which looks like this:
• For the purpose of this article, we must use Advanced Mode. If NTBackup starts in Wizard Mode, click the Advanced Mode link in the middle of the text.
3. Click the “Schedule Jobs” tab.
4. Double-click a day that you would like to schedule the backup on.
5. Click “Next.”
6. What you choose next will depend on how much stuff you want to backup. Make a selection from one of the following options, and then click “Next.”
• If you want to make a complete backup of your computer that can be used to bring your computer back to its exact current state in the event of a complete failure, select “Back up everything on this computer.”
• If you would like to manually specify every folder that is getting backed up, select “Back up selected files, drives, or network data.”
7. If you selected “Back up selected files, drives, or network data” in the previous step, you must now choose which files and folders are to backed up. Click “Next.”
8. Choose a location to back up to.
• Note: You cannot back up to the same drive that you are backing up from.
9. Give your backup a name. Click “Next.”
10. Here you must select the type of backup to run. I would recommend “Normal.” Click “Next.”
• If you want more information on the different types of backups, check out this Microsoft TechNet article.
11. If you would like to verify the backup data every time the backup runs, check the “Verify data after backup” box. Click “Next.”
12. If you choose “Append this backup to the existing backups,” your backup will only append new information to the backup file, each time it runs. Otherwise, if you choose “Replace the existing backups,” the backup file will be completely replaced with a new one each time the backup runs. The latter requires more time to complete. Click “Next.”
13. Give your backups a job name.
14. Click the “Set Schedule” button.
15. Adjust the backup schedule to your liking, and then click “OK.”
16. Click “Next.”
17. If you get a “Set Account Information” dialog box, enter your username and password (if you have one), and click “OK.”
18. Click “Finish.”

How To: Install Ubuntu

In order to make full use of your computer for things like browsing the web, reading and writing email, etc. you must have an operating system installed. Most computers today come with Microsoft Windows pre-installed. There’s nothing wrong with Windows, however if you want to get adventurous and try something new, or if you’ve built your own PC, and you don’t feel like shelling out hundreds of dollars for Windows, definitely look into Linux!

I’m a big fan of both Microsoft Windows as well as Linux. Linux does offer certain advantages over Windows, especially for home users. First and foremost, it’s free. It’s also very stable, once you have it configured properly.

Linux comes in many different forms, called distributions, or “distros” for short. I’ve tried out many different distros including Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Gentoo, and others. I have to say that Ubuntu is definitely the easiest to install and friendliest for newcomers.

The main goal of this article is to get your PC up and running in Ubuntu with the ability to browse the web.

Basic requirements:

1. A blank CD-R, and a computer that already has internet access and a CD burner OR if you don’t have all of those things, you can always buy a Ubuntu 8.10 DVD from Amazon.
2. A computer

Instructions:

Watch this video for an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide. Read the instructions below for a quick reference.

I apologize for the bad audio and dual mouse arrows. This is the first instructional video, and I’m still working out the kinks.

Start here if you want to download Ubuntu from the internet

1. First thing you will need is a CD image burning application.
   1. My favorite is ImgBurn. Download here, and install.
2. Download the Ubuntu ISO file, from the Ubuntu download page.
3. Burn the ISO to a blank CD.
   1. If you are using ImgBurn, find the ISO file you just downloaded.
   2. Right-click the file.
   3. Click “Burn using ImgBurn.”
   4. Make sure there is a blank CD-R in your drive.
   5. Make sure the correct drive is selected.
   6. Click the large “Write” button.

Start here if you have competed burning your Ubuntu CD, or purchased an Ubuntu DVD

1. Insert your Ubuntu disc into the CD drive of the computer you want to install Ubuntu on.
2. Restart your computer.
3. You should soon see a screen prompting you for your language. Simply navigate the menu with your keyboard arrows, and choose your language.
   1. If you do not see this, it is likely that your BIOS is not setup to automatically boot from CD. I might be writing up a guide for this soon. In the meantime, check out this article for assistance.
4. You will see the Ubuntu logo and a progress bar as the operating system loads.
5. You will now see the installation wizard.
6. Click Next
7. Select the city closest to you in order to set your time zone. Click Next.
   • Note: it is important to accurately set your time in Linux.
8. Select your keyboard layout. If you live in the US, don’t worry too much about messing with these settings. Click Next.
9. If you aren’t familiar with hard disk partitioning, it’s best to leave the settings in the “Prepare disk space” section at their defaults. This will overwrite everything on your hard disk with your new Ubuntu installation. Click Next.
10. Enter your name and a password for your user account. Click Next.
11. Click Install.
12. Once the installation has finished, you will be prompted to restart your computer. Click Restart now.
13. When prompted, remove the Ubuntu disc from the tray, and press enter to finish rebooting.
14. You’re done! Your computer should automatically boot into Ubuntu.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions. Please bookmark my blog for future how to articles spanning the gambit of technology.

My New Blog: Visual How To Articles

Hello everyone!

My name is Chad, and I am a systems administrator in California. I’ve been blogging for a few months now, and I am enjoying it a lot. I’ve decided to start this new blog to share my expertise with others. I’m going to roll out several how-to articles on the subject of easily utilizing everyday technology to make our lives easier and more fun. In addition, I will post a variety of smaller articles about technology in general.

You can check out my other blog The Elitist, which is more for my personal musings, rants, and experiences. Warning: The Elitist contains mature language.

Feel free to contact me with questions on Google Talk: x3haloed.

Freeware of the Week: Notepad++

I have mixed feelings about the usefulness of my selection for this week, but I have yet to find any better apps for this purpose.

Official website; download page.

Notepad++ is a cool text editor that I use from time to time to edit scripts. I like it because it understands a number of scripting and markup languages, and it adds helpful formatting and collapsible text areas. I use it most for Visual Basic Scripting (VBS), HTML, and PHP.

Freeware of the Week: Norton Removal Tool

So, I’m not sure that this really qualifies as “freeware,” but it’s definitely one of the most useful tools in my arsenal. I’ve mentioned it before in my article Norton Antivirus Is Useless Bloatware. Install AVG!.

I absolutely hate Norton. It’s slow, it’s buggy, and it just plain sucks. The one piece of software from Symantec that’s actually useful is the Norton Removal Tool. It does it’s job well, removing every trace of Norton. I don’t have to use it much anymore, now that I work on the same computers everyday. When I used to work on a lot of computers as a PC tech, this was on my flash drive, and I used it all the time.

Grab the Norton Removal Tool from the official webpage.