Tip #35: Burn disc images without third-party apps in Windows 7

NO - again, disc images are not photos of CDs.

(Photo credit Alison Ng)

Have you seen files ending with .iso, .img or .nrg before? Those are called disc images (no, not photos or pictures of CDs). A disc image is a snapshot of the contents of a CD or DVD, be it a data CD, audio CD or video DVD. You can think of disc images as zip files, which contain files copied from a CD or DVD. Disc images are convenient because they let you store whole CDs and DVDs on your hard drive for easy retrieval. You can also burn an image file onto a CD or DVD, in other words, make copies of a disc. Often, disc images are used to distribute operating systems such as Linux and the release candidate version of Windows 7 (during the testing period before launch).

If you've used disc images before, then you may know that in prior versions of Windows, you need to use a third party burning application like Nero or Roxio to burn the image onto a disc. New to Windows 7 is native support for .iso and .img images. In other words, you can now burn image files of these formats, without having Nero or Roxio installed.

Tip #34: Make your Windows PC "brand new" by reformatting it

Time and again I have heard people say that they want to reformat their Windows PC, but they don't know how to do it. And there are actually people who dare not reformat their PC because they fear that they might lose all their data. Mind you, the word "reformat" already makes it clear that you are going to wipe clean everything from your hard drive/partition with Windows on it and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows with nothing except the bare essentials like Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer (no Microsoft Office nor Works included, you will have to install that yourself). To put an end to this, I have decided it's about time I pen down this common computing practice in writing.

If your PC was purchased from an OEM like Dell, HP or Acer, you might have a recovery partition hidden in your hard disk which you can access by pressing a special key combination before Windows starts up when you turn on your PC. This method restores your PC to its original state as when it left the factory. Steps for this vary between OEMs, hence I will not go into detail on that here. Frankly speaking, I don't see why you would want to restore your PC to its factory default state with all the probably-useless applications your OEM has preloaded for you (things like HP MediaSmart, Acer GameZone, Dell Backup etc). If you do want them back, most of them can be downloaded from the OEM's website after you have reinstalled Windows.

To reformat your computer (without using OEM recovery methods), you will need:

Tip #33: Turn your Windows 7 PC into a Wi-Fi hotspot

One of the not-so-well-known features of Windows 7 is the ability to turn your laptop (or desktop with a wireless card) into a wireless access point, aka Wi-Fi hotspot. If you are using a USB 3G broadband such as those from Maxis, Celcom and DiGi, or the Wiggy from P1, this would let you finally be able to share your Internet connection with others wirelessly, like the Wi-Fi modems which Streamyx and P1 give.

Again, a gentle reminder, you need to be using Windows 7 in order to do this. First, to check to see if you already have the necessary driver/software for this. To check, click on Start, type "view network connections", and press Enter. You should see all the network cards which your PC has. Look for one which says "Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter". If you have this, it means you're just a few commands away from using your PC as a hotspot!

Tip #26: Snip an image of your Windows desktop

Since Window Vista, a utility called Snipping Tool was included to make the frequent task of taking screenshots of your desktop easier. Prior to that in XP, you would have to press the Print Screen key on your keyboard, open Paint or whatever program you want to use, paste and then save the print screen (how troublesome). With the Snipping Tool, you can immediately see what you captured, add annotations (markings, scribbles etc) and then either save it as an image file, or copy it to the clipboard to paste elsewhere.

The Snipping Tool is in Start > All Programs > Accessories; you can also just open the Start menu and type "Snipping Tool" (without the quotes), followed by Enter.