Computers, by themselves, are able to save time on a multitude of daily tasks but sometimes there are optimization tools that will make them more useful. This is a short article about tools that are available that will make your computer more valuable and will make it work harder for you.

• Google™ Toolbar is an invaluable free little tool available from Google™. This little toolbar will install on your Internet browser and will let you quickly type in a web search term and retrieve results from the Google™ search engine. A side benefit of using the Google™ Toolbar is that it will also block pop up windows on your Internet searches. You can also use it to spell check entries that you make on web sites.

• Copernic Desktop Search™ offers a free downloadable tool that will install on your desktop. You can set this tool up to index all of your Outlook e-mail messages as well as all other production documents on your computer. When using this tool you can simply type in a client’s name and if you’ve configured it to index all documents on the computer, it will pull everything on your computer that contains that client’s name. We find this tool to be invaluable at JewelCode. The primary value that we get is that we can search on a certain support term or other term that we know we’ve created a document or letter about to a client and we can then reuse that document because we found it quickly. This saves us much time on recreating things that we know already exist on our computer. It is also invaluable when someone sends a request that says that they lost something that we’ve sent them, we just pull it up quickly and resend it to them. When we don’t have our Copernic, we feel the pain.

  And, yes, Google™ has a desktop search tool that comes installed on most new computers but you should know that the desktop search from Google™ will index and make searchable passwords that are sometimes saved within a document as hidden text. Just be careful. We tend to uninstall the Google™ desktop search from all new computers we meet and install Copernic instead.

• Firefox® – Many bad guys use Internet Explorer to propagate viruses and Microsoft and the other virus protection software packages work hard to defeat the bad guys but we recommend another solution. If you are concerned about preventing virus infections by surfing the web then you should install the free Internet software, Firefox®, which was created by Mozilla. Viruses do not generally target this Internet browser. Another great feature of Firefox® is that it lets you open multiple Internet tabs so that you can have multiple windows open for your Internet work.

• NovaPDF Lite Version will let you print anything on your computer to a PDF. What is a PDF? This is a Portable Document Format. It means that any computer that has Adobe Acrobat Reader installed will be able to read your document. It also means that the document cannot be edited but is locked in a PDF format. This is extremely valuable for client information. PDF files can also be stored with passwords and encryption for the e-mailing of private client information. Whether you’re wanting to e-mail care plans to family members or to send out a copy of client notes to a colleague, using a PDF format will save you hassle and protect your information. E-mail is not a secure method of transmission unless you are encrypting your information and NovaPDF lets you encrypt it.

• Genie Backup Manager is great backup software for your important computer files. Set up the GBM software to backup all of your important files and purchase an external hard drive to write the data to. You set a time that the GBM software runs each day to do your backup. You can set it up to backup to more than one location so that you are sure that your data is protected. If your computer crashes, there is a good chance that you will not be able to get your data back and a good backup is the only safety net. We’ve been through it at JewelCode and were so thankful that we had our Genie Backup Manager software.