IT DEVICES

How to Make Flowcharts in PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a powerful application
 that can be used for just about any type of presentation. One great 
example of using PowerPoint is to present processes and decisions using 
flow charts and diagrams. Just about every version of Office has the 
ability to add standard flow chart shapes like Process, Decision, Data, 
etc., but Office 2007 and later versions also have a new feature called 
SmartArt, which are templates for visually showing ideas, processes and 
flows.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
The nice thing about SmartArt is that you can use it in combination 
with flow chart objects and they seamlessly fit in. For example, here is
 a quick flow chart I created in PowerPoint that took about 5 minutes.

To get started making a flowchart, you need to click on the Insert tab and then click on Shapes. Towards the bottom, you’ll see a section called Flowchart.

If you hover your mouse over any of the shapes, it’ll give you a 
quick description also, which is handy in case you forgot what shape 
represents what concept. Click on the shape you want to use and 
then either click anywhere on the slide to create the object or click 
and drag to create a custom sized object.

In order to enter text into the flowchart object, you have to right click on it and choose Edit Text.
 By default, Office uses a blue background and white text for all of 
these objects. If you would like to change this, you can either 
right-click on the object and then choose from Style, Fill or Outline as shown above or you can do the same thing up in the ribbon bar under Format Tools.

Just move your mouse over the different styles, fills, effects to see
 how they will look dynamically without actually having to change the 
current styles of the object. Note that if you insert an object and you 
want to change the shape to something else later on, you can click on 
the Edit Shape button you see at the top left of the screenshot.

Once you have a couple of objects on your slide, you can connect them using the connectors in the Lines
 section. The connector lines are the six ones in the middle highlighted
 in yellow. Click on one and then click on one object and drag your 
mouse to the other object to connect them.

You can also right-click on any object or connector and choose Format Shape to adjust widths, colors, styles, effects, etc.

Now you can spend a lot of time making your flowchart look pretty 
using all these formatting options, but an easier way is to find an 
appropriate SmartArt object. SmartArt consists of attractive looking 
templates that you can just drop into your presentation. Click on the Insert tab and then click on SmartArt to get started.

A dialog will pop up with a list of categories on the left, small 
thumbnails for all items in a category and a description of each item at
 the far right. To show you how fast you can add nice looking graphics 
to your slide, click on List, scroll down, click on the Trapezoid List, and then click OK.

Now with the object selected on your slide, go ahead and click Design under the SmartArt Tools section at the very top of PowerPoint. Here you should click on the very last style at the far right called Brick Scene.

You’ll also see a button called Change Colors to the
 left of the SmartArt Styles that will let you pick some excellent color
 combinations instead of the whole graphic being just one color.

Go ahead and pick the 4th from the left under Colorful and you’ll now have an awesome looking graphic you can use in your presentation.

Now you might not necessarily use that graphic in your flowchart, but you can click on Process
 and other categories that have more flowchart-like graphics. Some of 
the items allow you to include pictures, which is really nice if you 
want to add some visual appeal to your flowchart.

Overall, Office has a lot of built-in tools to create some great 
looking flowcharts quickly and easily. Microsoft also periodically 
releases more <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Free-New-SmartArt-graphics-available-f975fc21-e699-46d5-a150-888b5cd9e25a" target="_blank">SmartArt graphics</a> that you can download for free. Enjoy!

</div>
</div>

TIPS How to Make Flowcharts in PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a powerful application that can be used for just about any type of presentation. One great example of using PowerPoint is to...

How to Scan Your Network for Devices and Open Ports

10:48 AM Unknown 0

Earlier I had written a post on <a href="https://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/" target="_blank">how to detect WiFi leechers</a>
 on your network and mentioned a couple of smartphone apps you could use
 to scan your home network. The apps do a pretty good job of scanning 
your network automatically and giving you some details on each device.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
I didn’t go into much detail about the apps in that post since it was
 focused on catching unauthorized users on your network. In this 
article, I’ll talk in more detail about these two apps that can be used 
on Apple or Android devices and I’ll also mention desktop apps that you 
can run on Windows and Mac OS X.

These network scanning tools allow you to not only see all the 
devices on your network and their IP addresses, but also view folders 
shares, open TCP/UDP ports, hardware MAC addresses and more. So why 
would you care about this information?

Though it’s a bit technical, the information can help you make your 
network more secure. For example, you may find folders that are being 
shared on your network by accident. Anyone who connects to your network 
via cable or wireless could then easily search for shared folders and 
copy that data to their computer.

When looking at open ports for a computer or device, you can easily 
see whether remote desktop is enabled, whether an FTP or HTTP server is 
running and whether file sharing is enabled or not. If you never connect
 to your computer remotely, then having <a href="http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-8/remote-desktop-into-windows-8/" target="_blank">remote desktop enabled</a> is just a security risk.

<h2>
Windows Network Scanner</h2>
Let’s start off with a free tool for Windows PCs called <a href="https://www.softperfect.com/products/networkscanner/" target="_blank">SoftPerfect Network Scanner</a>.
 I like this tool because it’s updated often, runs on Windows 10 and has
 a 32-bit and 64-bit version. The program also doesn’t require any 
installation, which means you can carry it on a USB stick or save it to 
Dropbox and use it on any computer you want.

When you run the executable file for your version of Windows (<a href="http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/how-to-find-out-if-your-windows-7-install-is-32-bit-or-64-bit/" target="_blank">determine if you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows</a>), you might see a message saying that Windows Firewall has blocked the program. Make sure Private networks is checked and then click on Allow access.

Once the program loads, you’ll need to enter your network starting 
and ending IP address range. If you don’t know this, don’t worry. Just 
click on Options, IP Address and then click on Auto Detect Local IP Range.

You’ll get a popup window with the detected IP addresses for IPv4 and
 IPv6 on any network cards you have installed, including virtual ones. 
For most home users, you’re only going to see one item listed under both
 IPv4 and IPv6. Unless you have IPv6 setup, you should click on the 
network card listed under IPv4.

Now you’ll be brought to the main interface again, but now the IP address range will be filled in. You’ll see the Start Scanning button at the right, which you can click to start a scan.

However, you should first set the scanning options before performing a scan. Click on Options and then Program Options. On the General tab, the only option you may want to check is Always analyze device.
 By default, the scanning program will only show you devices that 
respond to certain requests, so the final list may not show all the 
devices that are actually on your network because some devices simply do
 not respond.

The scan does take quite a bit longer (several minutes compared to 
several seconds), but it’s worth it if you really want to see every 
device on your network. The Additional and Workstation
 tabs are really only useful for corporate environments where you have 
many machines on the same network and you want to get information about 
each computer. The Ports tab is where we can to go next.

Check the Check for open TCP ports box and then 
click on the little paper icon at the far right of the text box. This 
will open another window that lists out some TCP port groups. You want 
to click on HTTP and Proxy and then press the SHIFT key and click on Database servers to select all three items.

Back on the main screen, you should see all the port numbers listed in the text box. Go ahead and also check all the boxes for open UDP ports.
 At this point, click OK to go back to the main program screen. Now 
click Start Scanning and you should see results slowly added to the 
list.

In my tests, the program was able to find 16 devices on the network when checking the Always analyze device
 option compared to just 11 items when not checked. Any item with a plus
 sign to the left of the IP address means that it has shared folders. 
You can click on the + sign to see the shared folders.

The Host Name column should give you an easy to understand name for the device. On the right, you’ll see a column called TCP Ports,
 which will list out all the open ports for that device. Obviously, the 
numbers don’t make much sense unless you know what they means, so check 
out this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers" target="_blank">Wikipedia page</a> that describes each port number in detail.

If anything has port 80 (HTTP) listed, that usually 
means it has some kind of web interface and you can try connecting to it
 via your browser by simply typing in the IP address. Port 443 is for secure HTTP (HTTPS), which means you can connect to it securely also.

<h2>
Mac Network Scanner</h2>
On the Mac, you have a couple of options. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lanscan/id472226235?mt=12" target="_blank">LanScan</a>
 is a free app on the Mac Store that does a very simple scan and 
displays the IP address, MAC address, Hostname and Vendor. The free 
version will only list the first four hostnames fully and the rest will 
only show the first three characters. A little annoying, but probably 
not a huge deal on most home networks.

You’ll also notice that it only found 12 items and that’s because it 
doesn’t have any options to scan each IP address regardless of whether 
it responds or not. A better network scanner for the Mac is <a href="http://angryip.org/" target="_blank">Angry IP Scanner</a> shown below. It’s open source and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.

By default, the program also scans open ports, which LanScan does not
 do. The only issue with this program is that you have to have Java 
installed in order to run the program. Java is a big security risk and 
is disabled on most Macs by default, so you would have to enable it 
manually.

<h2>
Smartphone Apps</h2>
I have two apps that I use, both of which are free, and one that can 
you download on Apple devices or Android devices. Both apps are 
excellent and pretty much give you the same info, but each has its 
pluses and minuses.

Fing is a free app that is available on the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.overlook.android.fing&hl=en" target="_blank">Google Play store</a> and the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fing-network-scanner/id430921107?mt=8" target="_blank">iTunes store</a> and
 has a great looking interface. You don’t have to worry about entering 
any IP address range with these apps because they figure it out on their
 own. Once you start a scan with Fing, you’ll get a nice looking list of
 devices with some basic info like hostname, MAC address, IP address 
etc.

If you tap on a device, you’ll get another screen where you can give 
the device a custom name (a feature I really like), enter a location and
 even add additional notes. If you scroll down, you’ll see an option 
called Services, which lets you see scan the device for open ports.

The only downside I have seen with this app is that it doesn’t list 
out all the devices on the network. It only caught about 12 devices on 
my network out of the 16 that the Windows program had found.

The second app I like using is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/network-analyzer-lite-wifi/id562315041?mt=8" target="_blank">Net Analyzer</a>,
 available from the App Store for free. You run a scan by tapping the 
Scan button at the top right and you’ll get a list of all your devices 
within a few seconds.

Using this app, I got 15 devices, which was pretty close to the total
 number of devices on the network. With Net Analyzer, you’ll also see 
some colored letters on devices that have certain services enabled. The 
green P means it is pingable, the brown B means Bonjour services are available (Apple devices), the red G means it’s a gateway device (router, etc), and a blue U means UPNP and DLNA services are available.

You can tap on a device to get more information and perform queries 
on the device. Tap the Query with Tools option shown below once you tap 
on a particular device.

On the next screen, you’ll see several options including Ping, Route, Ports, Whois and DNS. Tap on Ports, choose Common or All and then tap Start at the top.

As the scan progresses, you’ll see the ports that are open and active
 and also which ports are blocked. The app also has other tools that you
 can use to scan specific devices on the network to get more 
information.

Hopefully, these tools will allow you to fully see what devices are 
on your network and what services and ports are open.

</div>
</div>

Troubleshooting How to Scan Your Network for Devices and Open Ports

Earlier I had written a post on how to detect WiFi leechers on your network and mentioned a couple of smartphone apps you could use to sc...

How to Set or Mark a Partition as Active in Windows

10:47 AM Unknown 0

Do you have multiple partitions on 
your computer with different operating systems installed? If so, you can
 change the active partition in Windows so that when the computer starts
 up, it will load the appropriate operating system. This is called a 
dual-boot or multi-boot system.<div class="post-content entry-content">
<div class="KonaBody">
Changing the active partition is a fairly advanced task, so if you 
are planning on doing this, you probably didn’t need the explanation 
above! Only change the active partition if there is an operating system 
residing on that partition, otherwise you will have a non-working 
computer.

Also, there are a few things to note about marking a partition as active:

<ol>
<li>A logical drive or extended partition cannot be marked as active, only primary partitions can be changed to active.</li>
<li>You can only have one active partition per physical hard disk. Trying to do otherwise will cause all kinds of problems.</li>
<li>If you have several physical hard disks on your computer, you can 
mark a partition as active on each disk, but only the active partition 
on the first hard disk detected by your BIOS will start up the computer.
 You can go into the <a href="http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/change-boot-order-xp-vista/" target="_blank">BIOS and change the order to detect hard disks</a>.</li>
</ol>
In addition to the above notes, there are additional things that have
 to be in place in order for the system to boot. Just setting a 
partition to active does not ensure that the system will boot properly.

<ol>
<li>The active partition must have a boot sector that was created by the operating system</li>
<li>The active partition should contain the boot loader and boot files 
for the OS and must know the location of the OS on the physical hard 
drive</li>
<li>The actual operating system has to be located in the correct spot on the hard drive</li>
</ol>
When the computer boots up, it will look for an active partition on 
the primary partitions first. The boot sector, located at the beginning 
of the active partition, will run the boot loader, which knows the 
location of the operating system boot files. At this point, the 
operating system will boot up and run.

<h2>
Set Active Partition via Disk Management</h2>
Open Computer Management by going to the Control Panel, clicking on System and Maintenance, and then clicking Administrative Tools.

You can also click Classic View and then choose Administrative Tools. Now click on Disk Management under Storage.

Another option is to go to your desktop, right-click on Computer or This PC and choose Manage.
 You’ll see Disk Management in the left hand menu like shown 
above. Right-click on the primary partition that you want to mark as 
active and choose Mark Partition as Active.

<h2>
Set Active Partition via Command Line</h2>
If you screwed something up in Windows and marked the wrong partition
 as active, you will no longer be able to boot your computer. In the 
case where you cannot mark a partition as active using Windows, you’ll 
have to us the command line.

Depending on your version of Windows, getting to the command line can be a bit tricky. Read my post on <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/restart-safe-mode/" target="_blank">restarting Windows in safe mode</a> to get to the system repair options for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10. If you’re running Windows 8, read my post on <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-8/how-to-boot-to-windows-8-system-recovery-options/" target="_blank">booting to system recovery options</a>. Once there, you have to go to Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options, and then click on Command Prompt.

First get into the command prompt using a boot up disk and type diskpart at the prompt.

At the DiskPart prompt, type in list disk. You will see the list of disk currently attached to your computer. Now type in select disk n, where n is the disk number. In my example, I would type select disk 0.

Now that we have selected the correct disk, type in list partition to get a list of all the partitions on that disk. To select the partition we want to set as active, type in select partition n, where n is the partition number.

Now that we have selected the disk and partition, we can mark it as active by just typing the word active and pressing Enter. That’s it! Now the partition is set.

Most people are familiar with using FDISK to mark a partition as 
active, but that is now an older and outdated command. You should use 
DISKPART to manage disk and partitions on a modern Windows computer.

<h2>
Set Active Partition via MSCONFIG</h2>
In addition to the above two methods, you can use MSCONFIG to set the
 active partition. Note that this method only works for primary 
partitions on the same hard drive as MSCONFIG won’t detect partitions on
 other hard drives. Also, the other partition can only have Windows 
installed in order to set it as active.

If you’re not familiar with the MSCONFIG tool, read my previous <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/cool-websites/guide-to-msconfig-windows/" target="_blank">guide on using MSCONFIG</a>. Open MSCONFIG and click on the Boot tab.

You’ll see the operating systems listed and the active one will have Current OS; Default OS after the name of the operating system. Click on the other operating system and then click on Set as default.

There are other methods to set an active partition like using a Linux
 live CD, but these are much more complicated and normally not 
necessary. Even if the built-in system recovery options don’t allow you 
to get to the command prompt, you can always use a secondary computer to
 <a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-8/create-bootable-system-recovery-usb-drive-in-windows-8/" target="_blank">create a bootable USB system recovery drive</a>.

</div>
</div>

Troubleshooting How to Set or Mark a Partition as Active in Windows

Do you have multiple partitions on your computer with different operating systems installed? If so, you can change the active partition in...

How to Rip DVDs to Your Hard Drive in Windows and OS X

10:46 AM Unknown 0

If you have a lot of older DVDs 
sitting around in your house, you might be wondering if there was a way 
to rip them to your computer for free? Even though I stream most of my 
movies online today via iTunes, Netflix, HBO Go, etc, I still have about
 200 DVDs that I had bought over the last two decades, which I still 
like to watch sometimes.
Instead of just getting rid of them or having to use a DVD player to 
watch them, which I don’t even own anymore, I decided I would rip them 
all to my NAS (network attached storage device) so that I can watch them
 anywhere or any device.

Now it’s worth noting that technically it’s illegal to rip DVDs 
because of copyright protection, but the MPAA probably won’t be suing 
you unless you sell or distribute the ripped DVDs. As long as you keep 
them to yourself, you shouldn’t have to worry about any legal issues.

Another issue to take note of is that some DVD drives have encryption
 protection on the drive itself and therefore can’t be circumvented by 
any kind of software. In those types of cases, you’ll need to get an 
older DVD drive that doesn’t have that type of built-in copyright 
protection.

In order to rip a DVD to your computer, you basically need two 
things: a program called HandBrake and an open source library for 
unscrambling DVDs called libdvdcss. You’ll find tons of other articles 
in Google about ripping DVDs using other programs and methods, but this 
method is free, uses safe, clean and malware free software and works on 
both Windows and Mac.

<h2>
Step 1 – Install HandBrake</h2>
The first thing we need to do is download and install <a href="https://handbrake.fr/" target="_blank">HandBrake </a>on
 Windows or Mac. If you go to the main page, it automatically determines
 which version of the program you should download onto your computer.

For Windows, it downloads a common x86 and x64 installer for 32-bit 
and 64-bit Windows and will install the appropriate version for your 
computer. For Macs, there is only a 64-bit version. Go ahead and install
 it in the default location for Windows or Mac.

It should be a fairly quick install and you don’t have to choose any options, etc. At the end, go ahead and click Finish and HandBrake will now be installed. Now go ahead and run HandBrake, click on Help and then click on About. You only need to do this step if you are on Windows.

At the top, you will see the version of HandBrake and whether it is 
the 64-bit version or the 32-bit version. Make a note of which version 
you have because you’ll need to know for the second step.

<h2>
Step 2 – Download libdvdcss</h2>
The open source decoding library is actually managed by the VideoLAN 
company, which creates the VLC media player software. Note that we do 
NOT need to install VLC media player. A lot of online tutorials state 
that you need to install HandBrake and VLC together, but you actually 
don’t have to do that.

Depending on the version of HandBrake you have installed on Windows, here are the links to the appropriate versions.

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/win64/" target="_blank">Windows 64-bit libdvdcss</a>

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/win32/" target="_blank">Windows 32-bit libdvdcss</a>

<a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.12/macosx/" target="_blank">Mac OS X libdvdcss</a>

Just click on the link for the DLL file and it will download it to your computer. For Mac, click on the libdvdcss.pkg file and download that.

You’ll notice that this version of libdvdcss is actually pretty old 
(around 2012), but it’s the latest version for Windows and Mac. They 
have a lot of newer versions for Linux, which you can see <a href="http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/" target="_blank">here</a>.
 I’m sure they will come out with a newer version eventually, so if you 
download the 1.2.12 version and this post is a couple of years old, make
 sure to browse through the newer versions and see if they have folders 
for Mac, Win32 and Win64 like they do for the 1.2.12 version.

Go ahead and download the correct file (either the .pkg for Mac or 
the .dll file for 32-bit or 64-bit Windows) and then move on to step 3 
for your operating system.

<h2>
Step 3 – Install libdvdcss & Configure HandBrake – OS X</h2>
For Mac users, you will want to start by running the libdvdcss.pkg
 file on your Mac. When you double-click on the file, you might get a 
message saying the program was downloaded from the Internet and 
therefore blocked.

In this case, you have to go to the Downloads folder and manually right-click on the package file and choose Open.

You’ll be asked for your Administrator password, but you should be able to install the package at this point. If not, go to System Preferences and then Security and Privacy. At the bottom, you’ll see that the app was blocked, but you can click Open Anyway to run it.

Once the package has been installed, you’ll see a message stating that the install was successful. Click the Close button and let’s now open HandBrake.

We have to configure one setting in HandBrake and then you’ll be good to go. Open HandBrake and then click on HandBrake at the top and Preferences.

Now click on the Advanced tab and then uncheck the Use libdvdnav (instead of libdvdread) box.

That’s all you need to do for the OS X. Skip down to the Step 4 – Rip DVD in HandBrake section below to learn how to rip the DVD now that you have everything setup.

<h2>
Step 3 – Install libdvdcss & Configure HandBrake – Windows</h2>
For Windows users, you have to copy the libdvdcss.dll file to the 
HandBrake directory on your computer. First, open one explorer window 
that points to your Downloads folder or whichever folder has the DLL 
file. Next, open another explorer window that points to C:\Program Files\HandBrake or C:\Program Files(x86)\HandBrake, depending on which version of HandBrake was installed.

The (x86) path is for the 32-bit version of HandBrake and the other 
is for 64-bit. HandBrake will only be installed in one of those paths, 
not both. Now just drag and drop the DLL file into that folder. Note 
that you don’t have to rename the file by removing the -2 at the end of 
the file name. That was required in older versions of HandBrake, but not
 anymore.

You might get a message stating you need Administrator Privileges
 in order to copy the file to that directory, so just click Continue and
 it should work. Once you have that file copied or moved to the 
HandBrake folder, go ahead and open HandBrake in Windows.

At the top, click on Tools and then Options. Click on Advanced and then check the Disable LibDVDNav (libdvdread will be used instead) box.

That’s all you have to do in Windows. Go ahead and restart HandBrake and then move on to step 4 to actually start ripping DVDs.

<h2>
Step 4 – Rip DVD in HandBrake</h2>
Now that we have the unscrambling program installed in HandBrake, we 
can actually start a DVD rip. Go ahead and pop in the DVD in your drive 
and open up HandBrake. Go ahead and click on Activity Log to open the log window.

Now click on Source and then click on the DVD option
 that should be at the bottom. The program should automatically start 
scanning the DVD and then load up all the title and chapter information.
 If, for some reason, you get an error and nothing loads, you might have
 to close HandBrake and open it again, but this time right-click on the 
desktop shortcut and choose Run as Administrator.

As long as you get the title and chapter info loaded, that means the 
encryption was able to be circumvented and you should be good to go. You
 will also see this information in the Activity Window as the following 
highlighted lines:

Depending on the DVD encryption, it can take anywhere from a few 
seconds to minutes in order for the program to decode the encryption 
keys, so be patient. If you see the following in the activity log and 
the chapter and title info don’t load, then you have to delete the libdvdcss-2.dll
 file and try to copy it again. Make sure to close HandBrake first and 
right-click on the shortcut and choose Run as Administrator when opening
 it back up after copying the file.

Hopefully, this tutorial is detailed enough for anyone to follow. It 
does take a few steps, but nothing is very complicated. You luck with 
vary depending on the DVD drive you have and the type of DVD encryption 
you have to bypass. If you have any questions, feel free to comment

Troubleshooting How to Rip DVDs to Your Hard Drive in Windows and OS X

If you have a lot of older DVDs sitting around in your house, you might be wondering if there was a way to rip them to your computer for f...

How to Make Flowcharts in PowerPoint

How to Scan Your Network for Devices and Open Ports

How to Set or Mark a Partition as Active in Windows

How to Rip DVDs to Your Hard Drive in Windows and OS X

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