Google Drive is a cool and free cloud storage space but until now I didn’t use it too often. I”m to lazy to log in and drag and drop files there regularly. With Gackup you just put all of your files into some designated folders and this free software does it automatically, as often as you want. This is how you do it.

Step One: Go to Gackup.com and download the free software by click on the “Download Gackup Beta” dialogue. Don’t worry about the beta thing. It worked just fine for me.

Step Two: Once you run the program you will be prompted for a Google account and once you choose one (if you have more, like me) the app will ask for your permission to view and manage the files on your Google Drive.

Step Three: The app will finally start and you will see how much free space you got in your Google Drive account. Click on the “Local Files” tab and select the target folders that you want to backup (second picture below). You can select as many as you like as soon as you know how much space they take up. First time I tried my backup I got a warning that there is not enough space on my GD. Better this than to start copying and find out later.

Step Four: Click on the “Backup” tab, name the job (it will create a folder on GD with that name), select if you want this to be done manually or automatically at a desired frequency, then click on “Save Settings” and finally hit the “Backup Now” button which will start the uploading process. It will take some time, depending on the file sizes that you want to backup and your connection speed but then…you’re free, right?

You want a screen capture of a longer scrolling web page? Well, the Print Screen button from your keyboard won’t help too much, unless you are willing to spend a lot of time to manually scroll the page and take multiple screen captures until the page is done. I don’t even want to think about stitching those together. However you can do it automatically with PicPick.

Step One: Download the free software by clicking the green “Download Now” button on the Filepuma.com site.

Step Two: If you simply run the software it looks almost exactly like the old Paint from Windows. However, if you look at the Notification Area Icons you will see a Paint-like active icon. If you click on it you will get a list of options. You have to pick the second one, “Screen Capture”. You will get another list and from that one you have to select “Scrolling Window”. Be sure to be on the scrolling window before you do that.

Step Three: Just click on the scrolling window and wait. The window will start to scroll automatically, then you will immediately see the capture opened in PicPick. You only need to save it. You can see the result below.

 

When you have a software or hardware problem and you are not a computer geek you have to ask for help. You start a session of Q&A with a friend or a professional online but first you also have some answers to provide, about your configuration. You can get them easily, in just a few steps with My-config.com.

Step One: Download the free software by clicking on the green “Download Now” button from Filepuma.com.

 

Step Two: When you run the software, it will start a detection process of your system and after a few seconds you will be taken to the ma-config.com site. Yes, it’s just a site but “magically”, you will see the name of your computer just below “My configuration – Summary”. If you scroll down, that’s what you’re going to see, a summary of your own system (second photo).

Step Three: If you want more data about each component or operating system you have to click on any of the “+” buttons on the right side of the list. You will see another window where you can check any of your desired characteristics to be shown in the configuration list.

Step Four: What are you going to do with it? You either want to save it or share it with the person who offered to help, right? No problem. All you need to do is click on the “Share” button on the upper part of the window.

Step Five: You will get to the Sharing center where you have a lot of options for that issue. If you just want to keep this matter to yourself you can click on the PDF icon to the right of your computer name. If you want to share it, you have to click on the switch to the left of your computer name. Immediately, the sharing options on the right will be activated. You can get the direct link, the BBCode or the HTML code for embedding, you can share it with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or mail. That really covers every possible option there is.