When I am on the phone with a customer, we usually need to look at files on the customer’s computer. I usually say “Right-click on the Windows button and click ‘Explore’”.  By right-clicking on the Windows button (The ‘Start’ button for XP users) you will see a popup menu like the below image. 

Click ‘Explore’…this opens your File Explorer window. (see below)

This view is usually hard for customers to navigate.  The Favorite Links is not always helpful, we need to get to their ‘C:’ drive where all the files truly exist.

Then click the ‘Folders’ bar. (look at red arrow above)

Click the little icon (shown by the red circle above).
This minimizes the folders in your user specific folder.  We need to get to the C: drive…this is our goal.

Now we are looking at the computer’s folders.
You can see that under the ‘Computer’ icon, there is our ‘OS (C:)’.
This ‘OS (C:)’ is where all of your computer files exist…this is the place to be.

Elm Software recommends (and installs by default) all of its products in the C:\Elm Software folder.
This is where you will find information on all of our software products.

Shortcut Tip:  To open your file Explorer with your keyboard you can:
Press-hold the Windows button and the letter ‘E’.
The Windows button is usually between the Ctrl and Alt keys on the bottom left of your keyboard.

All of Elm Software’s products are designed for Microsoft Windows.  With that said, you can run our software (or any Windows based software) on newer Macs that have Intel chips and run Mac OS X.   Below are three possible solutions to allow Windows programs to run on your Mac.

• Parallels
• VMWare Fusion
• Bootcamp

Parallels and VMWare Fusion are approximately $79.95 USD.  They sometimes run rebate promotions bringing down the price by $20 USD or so.  Visit Apple and do a search for either Parallels or Fusion and you will see their current promotions.

Parallels and VMWare Fusion are, in my opinion, better than Bootcamp because of the experience.  Parallels and VMWare Fusion add an icon to your Mac dock.  Clicking on the icon brings up a window showing ‘Microsoft Windows’ (like the image below).  This is faster and very easy.

Bootcamp is a free solution from Apple.  Bootcamp allows you to use Windows on your Mac but you have to either start your Mac using the Mac operating system or the Windows operating system.  This is less convenient than the two options above but is free.

Also, with all three solutions you will need a Windows CD (XP or Vista are recommended).

Going forward, I hope that our software will be able to use open source efforts like mono-project to make windows based software easier to run on Macs and Linux computers….but for now the above is what we recommend.  Hope this helps.

Sometimes Windows is unable to uninstall a program from the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ or ‘Program and Features’ (for Vista users) list.  In these situations, Microsoft has a free download to help remove the program from the ‘Add/Remove program’ list.  Note this does not uninstall the program from your computer, it just removes the information from the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ list in your computer’s Control Panel.

Product information page: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301

The download link is on the page above.

When installing you will see Microsoft Office in the installation…this makes it feel like it is for Office products only.  This is not the case, it can remove any program’s installation information from your computer.

 

This is what the program looks like when it runs…just select the program that is not uninstalling and then click ‘Remove’.

This program is great when you need it.

Please use it with caution.

Thought I would evangelize Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer today.
Windows Live Writer is a free program by Microsoft for bloggers everywhere.

Windows Live Writer runs on your computer (not in a browser) and links with your blog site.  It downloads your blog’s theme so that you can immediately see how the blog will look while writing inside of Windows Live Writer. I like it because it feels like I am typing in Word and it is easy to add pictures and add great effects and then click Publish and everything gets uploaded correctly.  Windows Live Writer is still being worked on but Microsoft has made great improvements to this free program and I know it is widely used among bloggers.  Windows Live Writer works with Wordpress and BlogEngine.Net (which this blog site uses).

• Easily assign categories and tags to your post.
• Add pictures easily and with visual effects (make the picture look like a polaroid for example)
• Create photo album easily
• Add maps, videos
• Add plug-ins to extend Windows Live Writer
• Set publish dates or publish blogs immediately

Download Windows Live Writer
(the latest version is 14.0.8050.1202)

This post is for everyone who wants to create PDFs…the PDF solutions below are easy and best of all free.

Solution #1

In our new program Tabula Rasa Professional Edition, you can draw event design/layouts.  To get these drawings to a PDF, we recommend that you download a free PDF print driver.  The best free PDF print driver that we have come across is by CutePDF.  The free download is small (1.54 MB) and easy to install and has no spyware or popup screens of any kind.

This is the full url: http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/Writer.asp

After the CutePDF driver is downloaded/installed, you will see ‘CutePDF Writer’ as an option in your available printers list.

Select ‘CutePDF Writer’ and click ‘OK’…you will then be prompted to specify where the pdf is created on your computer.  Note: CutePDf does not place advertisement watermarks.

We recommend this technique for printing out Tabula Rasa Professional Edition canvas drawings so that they are easily sent to your clients, vendors, site coordinators.  This solution works for every program that you own that has the ability to print.

Solution #2 for Office 2007

Microsoft has made available a free 2007 Microsoft Office Add-in that saves documents to PDF.
Just click the link above and download and install.
After it is installed, you will see a ‘PDF or XPS’ option in the ‘Save As’ pop-out menu.

This add-in adds this ability to the following eight Office programs.

• Microsoft Office Access 2007
• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
• Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
• Microsoft Office Visio 2007
• Microsoft Office Word 2007

We are proud to announce the launch of Tabula Rasa Professional Edition (Tabula Rasa).  Tabula Rasa is event design + event seating software in one.  We created this with helpful feedback from our extensive wedding and event professional customers.  We hope that you download the 30-day free trial and see what you think.

Tabula Rasa is latin for ‘blank slate’.

Visit www.elmsoftware.com/tabularasa for information on how to download and watch an extensive feature tour.

This is also our first blog post…we will try to post interesting blogs about our products and helpful computer tips in general…if you have any ideas of what you would like us to write about, please contact us.