When you set up your Microsoft account across your devices and services, the things that matter most to you – like people, documents, photos, and settings – follow you on whatever devices you’re using. Your Microsoft account lets you flow freely from task to task and make the most of every moment. It not only gives you access to Microsoft services, but also makes them work together in a way that’s all about you.

You can also login to your OneDrive account and click the icon in the upper left as shown below and use the online Microsoft Office for free. Note – you can do this from anywhere.

 (click icon to go to OneDrive)

After clicking the icon shown above, you have free access to any of the Applications shown below.

The link here allows you to sign in or to create a new account. You can use this account to sign into OneDrive and get 5GB of free storage even if you don’t sign in to your PC with a Micsoft account but use a local account instead.

You can even do this without a PC and use OneDrive on your mobile devices.

Yes you can!

As you may already know, you can sign into a Windows 10 PC with a Local Account or a Microsoft Account. To tell which one you have just open your Settings by pressing the Windows key and the letter I and click the Account icon. If you see something like the following on your screen you have a Microsoft Account.

If you are using a Local Account you will see something similar but it will say Manage my Local Account.

It’s possible to have a Local Account and still use OneDrive. If you are using a Local account and want to use OneDrive, just press the Windows key and type OneDrive. If it opens, you are already using it. If it asks to to sign in, you have two choices as follows:

1. Use an existing Microsoft account to sign in to OneDrive
2. Go to the Microsoft sign-in page here and click Signup now as shown below
   

   

3. Once you’ve created the account you can use the username and password to sign into OneDrive.

Note: should you want to change from a Local account to a Microsoft account you can use these same credentials.

Here’s what a software company says about the Windows 10 privacy settings:

During Windows setup many of these settings are pre-configured and in many cases it remains unclear to what extent Windows 10 will send out usage data. Do you really want to allow Windows 10 to access your calendar, emails, your location and many other settings? With Ashampoo AntiSpy for Windows® 10, you decide! Access all of your settings with ease.

Ashampoo AntiSpy for Windows® 10 gives you an overview of all critical system settings and allows you to disable each one at the click of a button. Two included presets allow you to disable any reporting to Microsoft or rely on recommendations by our security experts.

You can search out these settings yourself or let a free program do it for you. Download the free tool here and your settings will be changed automatically. The downloaded program requires no installation, just double-click it to open it, click the Action menu at the top as shown below and select Set all recommended settings,  and you’re are done.

Below is a video of how the Wells Fargo SurePay works. There’s a link here for you to get more info.

By Stephanie Mlot November 3, 2015 10:00am EST 46 Comments

Crashplan can be used for the following for free. It involves installing Crashplan on your PC and any other PC’s that you would like to include. The software is available from here and their plans are compared here.

• Backup your files and folders to an external hard drive
• Backup your files and folders to any PC on your home network
• Allow another PC on your home network to backup to your PC
• Backup to a friends and vice versa PC over the Internet

If you want to backup to their Cloud, you must subscribe for $5/month. You can see their pricing here. Although the video below was created on a Mac, it’s similar on a PC.

If you are looking for a free data backup this may be right for you. If I had to choose between Carbonite and Crashplan I’d choose Crashplan, mainly since you can backup external drives without any extra cost.

There’s another tutorial here.

There are various methods as follows:

• Using the Windows Snipping Tool
  • You can create a shortcut to this program as follows:
    1. Open the Start menu, click All Apps and scroll down to Windows Accessories and open the menu
    2. Right-click the Snipping Tool and choose More, Open file location and click Properties
    3. Right-click the Snipping Tool program
    4. Select the Shortcut tab and click in the Shortcut key box
    5. Press any key combination to select your shortcut. In the picture below I selected Shift+F5

• Using a program such as SnagIt
  • SnagIt has a setting that lets you choose the default hot key. It’s usually Printscreen. You may have to open its preferences to select this.
• Use a free program such as Jing available here or Greenshot available here. From reading about them Jing looks much better.
• Pressing Winkey + Printscreen captures the entire screen and places a copy on the Clipboard and in your user profile under Pictures, Screenshots.
  • If you have dual monitors and will capture both screens. SnagIt and the Snipping Tool can do this also.
• You can take screen shots without any installed program as follows:
  • Pressing the Printscreen button will copy an picture of the Desktop to the Windows Clipboard
  • Using Alt+Printscreen will copy an picture of the active window only to the Windows Clipboard
• To make it more interesting both Dropbox and OneDrive have options to save the screenshots to their folders
  • This only works if you do not have any screen capture running on your PC – but – you can only enables this in one of the programs only
  • For OneDrive, right-click the icon in the lower right, click Settings and go to the Auto save tab. The setting is at the bottom
  • For Dropbox, right-click the icon and click the gear in the upper right. Go to the import tab and choose your settings.
  • See the video below

Note: If you do not see the OneDrive or Dropbox icons, click the Up Arrow to expose all of the icons as shown below.

Final notes:

To test your Printscreen method, perform a screen capture, Open the Paint Program and click the Paste icon.
For a free Clipboard Manager try the ArsClip program from here. Look for the link as shown below.

• HP finished dead last
• Lenovo is 3rd after Apple and Samsung

These are only the results from one repair company but might be an indicator nonetheless.

Results from Consumer Reports are further down the page.

You can see a summary of the report below or view the whole article here.

This is not an endorsement to use Rescuecom.com to repair any of your equipment. Do your homework before calling anyone.

Below are Consumer Reports’ current ratings for 13″ and 14″ Laptops

Notice once again the absence of HP.

I’ve been using this laptop since 12/24/15 and haven’t seen any other that I’d like to have and I’ve tried quite a few.
In my opinion, this does everything that the Microsoft Surface Book does at half the price.
It’s only available at Bestbuy and not even on Amazon.
Its main features are as follows:

• Back-lit keyboard
• 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i5,  8 GB Ram, 256 GB Solid State Drive
• Stylus support. Includes a stylus that fits into a small opening and is rechargeable with no batteries.
• Touch screen
• Discreet 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce 940M Graphics
• Bluetooth
• Character recognition – translates handwriting
• Can be rotated 360 degrees and used as a tablet
• Under 4 pounds
• 1920 by 1080 resolution for easy screen reading
• 14″ Display with more than 10% more screen real estate than a 13.3″
• HDMI and Mini-Display Port – can connect to dual external monitors
• 3 USB 3.0 ports
• Card reader
• OneLink connection for use with a docking station

Went on sale today, 1/3/2016, for $899. Went to Bestbuy and received a $100 refund.

Although you can’t buy it from the Toshiba web site, there’s support for it here.