Q:
You've gone over how to create a shutdown shortcut for both Windows XP and Vista, but what about a restart shortcut? Is it possible to make one of those too?

A:
Oooh, great question! First of all, you're absolutely right. In recent newsletters, we here at WorldStart have told you how to create a shortcut to shut propecia and shedding down your Windows XP or Windows Vista computer. If you happened to miss out on those two tips, you can read here for XP and here for Vista. Both have similar instructions, but it's very important to follow along with the directions for the operating system you use. Otherwise, who knows what you might create!

Now, since you now know how to quickly shut your computer down, wouldn't it be nice to be able to restart it just as fast? You know, maybe your computer froze up on you and you need a speedy escape route. Or, perhaps you're just trying to restart your computer after a program install. Either way, there is, in fact, an easy way to create a restart shortcut for your computer as well. I'll go over the directions for XP first and then move on to Vista.

In Windows XP, right click on your desktop and go to New, Shortcut. In the wizard box for "Type the location of the item," enter this in: %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -r. (It may be best to copy and paste that into the box to make sure you have it correct). Click Next when you're done and then Finish to complete the process.

In Windows Vista, right click on your desktop and go to New, Shortcut. You will then see the New Shortcut wizard pop up on your screen. The first box will ask you for the location of your shortcut. In the box, type "shutdown.exe -r -t 01" (without the quotations). Then just simply hit the Next button to finish out the process.

No matter which operating system you use, you will now see a new icon on your desktop and you can test it out by double clicking on it. Once you do, your computer will restart for you, just like it would if you went to Start, Restart. You can also rename your shortcut by right clicking on it and choosing Rename. You can name it whatever you'd like. I went the simple route and named mine "Restart," but I'm sure you can come up with something a little more clever!

Either way, you now have a restart shortcut for your computer, just like you wanted. I bet your computer has the fastest shutdown and restart times in town and I don't know about you, but I don't think it gets any better than that!

Q:
You recently told us how to create a shutdown shortcut for Windows Vista and you mentioned one for XP, but I can't seem to find it on your Web site. Can you please share the instructions again? Thanks!

A:
I sure can! You're absolutely right, last week, I told you how to make a shutdown shortcut for Windows Vista (if you happened to miss it, you can read that tip here). I wrote an article for propecia and bodybuilding doing the same thing in Windows XP awhile back, but from the looks of all the e-mails I've received lately, a lot of you either missed that tip or you forgot all about it. So, per your request, here are the directions for creating a shutdown shortcut in Windows XP!

So, tell me, do you ever get tired of the repetitive process of shutting down your computer? You know, you have to go to your Start menu and then select Turn Off or Shut Down, whichever your computer has. Then you have to wait for it to actually shut down just to make sure it turned off properly. Well, how would you like to bypass all of that and make the process a little easier?

Well, you can do that by creating a shutdown shortcut for your computer. The shortcut will just be like another icon either on your desktop or in your Quick Launch area. To create one, right click anywhere on your desktop and go to New, Shortcut. A wizard will then pop up and walk you through the steps. In the "Type the location of the item:" box, enter this code: %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s.

Now, the s stands for shutdown. If you use that option, your computer will give you a brief waiting time before it actually shuts down. You can also choose to force running applications to stop ( f ) or choose to have no wait time before your PC turns completely off ( t xx ). So, if you would like to have both of those along with your command, enter this code instead: %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 00. Your computer will then shut down instantly.

Once you have the one you want, click Next. You can then pick a name for your shortcut. I just named mine "Shut Down," but you can use whatever you want. When you're done, click Finish and the new icon will appear on your desktop. You can add it to your Quick Launch area now as well if you want. When you're ready to shut down your computer, double click on the new icon and your computer will turn off. Cool, huh?! And the best part is, it's all done with one quick step. You should now be all set with quick shutdowns forever!

Q:
Is there a fix yet for the ZoneAlarm problem you talked about in Friday's newsletter? If so, please tell us what we can do. Thanks for all your help!

A:
I knew this question would be popping up all over the place throughout the weekend and I was right! My e-mail Inbox is just filled with queries about the ZoneAlarm issue. First, just to get everyone up to speed, if you missed the article in Friday's newsletter (July 11, 2008), you can read it here. Basically, there was a complication between the July 2008 Windows Updates and the ZoneAlarm firewall program. After many users installed the Updates, they were left without an Internet connection, because ZoneAlarm was unable to recognize the changes. You can read all about it in the tip above, but for now, let's get down to business!

ZoneAlarm has released a few fixes for the Windows Updates problem. There are three different things you can do to get your computer back to normal. I'll go over all three of them and you can then decide which one will work the best for you. They're all legit and fairly easy to do, so just pick the one you think will benefit your computer the most. Okay, here we go!

1.) You can download and install all of the latest versions of ZoneAlarm, including ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, ZoneAlarm Pro, ZoneAlarm Antivirus, ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware and ZoneAlarm Basic Firewall. You can click on those links to download each separate program. With all of those utilities working together, you will be able to get your Internet connection back and your computer will run the same as it did before. If you don't want to install all of those programs (which is understandable), you can try one of the other methods below.

2.) The second option is moving your ZoneAlarm Internet Zone slider to the Medium setting. To do that, propecia allergy go to the ZoneAlarm Firewall window and click on the Firewall tab. From there, simply move the Internet Zone slider to Medium. Yours is probably set on High, so you just need to take it down a couple notches.

3.) The third option is actually uninstalling the Windows Updates hotfix that caused the trouble in the first place. To do that, go to Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs. At the top of the Add/Remove Programs window, you should see a Show Updates checkbox. Check that box and then scroll down until you see an entry that says "Security update for Windows (KB951748)." (It should be one of the last items in your list). Once you've found it, click on the Remove button and the hotfix will uninstall.

Again, any of those three methods will reinstate your Internet access and you'll be able to do everything as usual again. You should also know that this issue only affects Windows 2000 and XP computers. Windows Vista is not affected. One more thing: if you're still having trouble after you go through this tip, you can contact ZoneAlarm's technical support here. After today, I hope you're all back up and running like you should be!

Q:
I installed the Windows Updates for July yesterday like you told us to and now I'm having trouble getting connected to the Internet. It seems as if the Updates changed something on my computer and I can't get it to work right. Do you know anything about this? If you do, please help!

A:
I was going to talk about this today anyway, so I'm glad you asked! And from the looks of all the e-mails I've received, you're definitely not the only one having trouble. As you all know, in yesterday's newsletter, I told you about the Windows Updates for July 2008. Like I always do, I urged you to install them as soon as possible, because they're a guaranteed way to keep your computer safe. Well, due to the content of some of the changes this month, a few issues came up, but don't worry, we're going to take care of them today. Let's go!

First of all, I'm willing to bet that if you had trouble with the Windows Updates, you're also using the ZoneAlarm firewall program. Am I right? Soon after the Updates were released, it was found that they caused a conflict with ZoneAlarm. It caused so much propecia age havoc that many users were unable to connect to the Internet. What a nightmare!

One of the Updates included changing the way your computer handles DNS requests. After your computer adjusted to the update, ZoneAlarm was left out in the dark, because it couldn't recognize the change. Therefore, the only thing ZoneAlarm knew to do was block traffic. And that obviously caused all kinds of problems for many people. It seems as if Microsoft didn't notify firewall manufacturers about the DNS update, so they didn't have time to prepare for it. Yes, it's unfortunate, but there are a couple things you can do in the meantime.

To begin, you should never disable your firewall completely. So, even if you're having trouble with ZoneAlarm, do not turn it off. Instead, it's a good idea to change your Internet Zone Security setting from High to Medium. Doing that should allow you to get back on the Internet for the time being. Then once Microsoft and ZoneAlarm come up with a patch, you can change the setting back to High.

If you simply want to wait until a patch is released, you can disable ZoneAlarm, but make sure you have another firewall to use in its place. You can either download a new one, get one from another vendor (such as Norton or McAffee) or you can use the Windows Firewall by going to Start, Control Panel, Security Center, Windows Firewall. Just make sure you have some type of firewall set up on your computer. Otherwise, you're putting yourself at risk for even more trouble.

That's pretty much all the information I have for you right now, but it does sound like both Microsoft and ZoneAlarm are working on a fix for this issue. I will continue to keep you updated as any more news comes through. Hang in there, my friends. Everything will be back to normal soon!

Some of you may know about hibernation techniques in Windows, but let’s take a look at the positive effects of using hibernation in your computer's life. You might know that each hard drive has an optimal life of some thousands of hours and each time we restart our computers, the hard drive gets exhausted. The hard drive dies down a bit each time, because although the PC manufacturing industry has developed greatly, hard drives are still pure hardware parts, which means they do all of the physical work in our computers.

Hard drives consist of several layers. Some of the layers have sensors and data finders and upon restarting your computer, these layers are involved in checking the boot sectors and hard drive surfaces in order to find important necessary data to run all of your Windows files. This is exactly the process you see after your restart your computer each time. You certainly have seen that even in its best shape, it takes some seconds and in some cases, nearly a minute before you can see your desktop picture.

The harmful effects of continuous restarting of your computer is not only limited to the time it takes before your Windows programs load, but it’s the matter of continuous cooling and heating of the hard drive, the CPU (central processing unit) and the graphic card fan. The ups and downs of these parts make your computer's life shorter.

Now, hibernation has introduced a remedy and a short cut. Instead of completely turning off the computer and disconnecting the power, hibernation saves all of your current information on a hard disk. Upon restarting, the desktop and computer return to the exact phase they were in before you placed your computer into hibernation.

This basically means you are saving battery power and lengthening you hard drive's life, as well as, other physical parts that normally have cooling systems like graphic cards. If you compare the seconds it takes to hibernate and restart from hibernation to those of normal turning on/off, you’ll see hibernation is great for computer maintenance. Hibernation is specifically great for laptop users, because you can save your valuable battery power far more.

Think of hibernation as taking a fast snapshot of everything present on your desktop and then printing them in a matter of seconds. Please note that if you decide to use hibernation for the rest of your PC’s life, you can ensure that you have considerably added time to your hard drive and the battery life of your computer.

Of course, there are certain times when we just have to restart our computers normally, like after installing new software that requires restarting, but for other times, hibernation is the power and time saving friend.

I'm sure this situation has come up for you as well. For example, you are very busy browsing the Internet and have opened several pages and folders on your desktop. You're also listening to your favorite music when a sudden family matter requires you to leave home for a couple of hours. Now, what a headache! If you turn off your computer and then restart it later, you’ve lost all the work you have already completed. This is a time when hibernation comes in handy so you can save your work. It will also save you time down the road.

In case you don't already know how to hibernate your PC, here is a quick lesson.

If your keyboard has sleep button, you can assign a hibernation command to it by clicking on Start, Control Panel, Power Options and choosing the Advanced tab. overnight propecia (XP users have to go to Start, Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance and then choose Power Options).

Once in the Advanced tab, look down to where it says “When I press the sleep button on my computer” and choose Hibernate from the pull down menu.

The other way you can go into hibernation is by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to open the Windows task manager. From the top menu, click on Shut Down and select Hibernate.