How to Recover Accidentally Deleted Picture or File

How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally

Have you ever accidentally deleted a photo on your camera, computer, USB drive, or anywhere else? What you might not know is that you can usually restore those pictures—even from your camera’s memory stick.

Windows tries to prevent you from making a big mistake by providing the Recycle Bin, where deleted files hang around for a while—but unfortunately it doesn’t work for external USB drives, USB flash drives, memory sticks, or mapped drives. Luckily there’s another way to recover deleted files.

Note: we originally wrote this article a year ago, but we’ve received this question so many times from readers, friends, and families that we’ve polished it up and are republishing it for everybody. So far, everybody has reported success!

Restore that File or Photo using Recuva

The first piece of software that you’ll want to try is called Recuva, and it’s extremely easy to use—just make sure when you are installing it, that you don’t accidentally install that stupid Yahoo! toolbar that nobody wants.

Now that you’ve installed the software, and avoided an awful toolbar installation, launch the Recuva wizard and let’s start through the process of recovering those pictures you shouldn’t have deleted.

The first step on the wizard page will let you tell Recuva to only search for a specific type of file, which can save a lot of time while searching, and make it easier to find what you are looking for.

Next you’ll need to specify where the file was, which will obviously be up to wherever you deleted it from. Since I deleted mine from my camera’s SD card, that’s where I’m looking for it.

The next page will ask you whether you want to do a Deep Scan. My recommendation is to not select this for the first scan, because usually the quick scan can find it. You can always go back and run a deep scan a second time.

And now, you’ll see all of the pictures deleted from your drive, memory stick, SD card, or wherever you searched. Looks like what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas after all…

If there are a really large number of results, and you know exactly when the file was created or modified, you can switch to the advanced view, where you can sort by the last modified time. This can help speed up the process quite a bit, so you don’t have to look through quite as many files.

At this point, you can right-click on any filename, and choose to Recover it, and then save the files elsewhere on your drive. Awesome!

Download Recuva from piriform.com

Restore that File or Photo using DiskDigger

Update: it looks like since we first wrote about this, DiskDigger became shareware, which gives you a prompt for every file you save. It’s up to you whether you want to try it—best bet, try Recuva first. You could alternatively use the slightly older, but still totally free, portable version of the application from portablefreeware.com. Thanks, Mary!

If you don’t have any luck with Recuva, you can always try out DiskDigger, another excellent piece of software. I’ve tested both of these applications very thoroughly, and found that neither of them will always find the same files, so it’s best to have both of them in your toolkit.

Note that DiskDigger doesn’t require installation, making it a really great tool to throw on your PC repair Flash drive.

Start off by choosing the drive you want to recover from…

Now you can choose whether to do a deep scan, or a really deep scan. Just like with Recuva, you’ll probably want to select the first one first. I’ve also had much better luck with the regular scan, rather than the “dig deeper” one.

If you do choose the “dig deeper” one, you’ll be able to select exactly which types of files you are looking for, though again, you should use the regular scan first.

Once you’ve come up with the results, you can click on the items on the left-hand side, and see a preview on the right.

You can select one or more files, and choose to restore them. It’s pretty simple!

Good luck recovering your deleted files!

How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally - How-To Geek

PixBuilder–Free, Easy-To-Use, Comprehensive Image Editing Tool

PixBuilder Is An Easy-To-Use, Comprehensive Image Editing Tool

By Fawad

Last month, we covered a very comprehensive image editor named Artweaver Free, which has full support for layers, a wide variety of brushes and effect filters, enabling the users to edit images with great detail. In fact, we found it so useful that we compared it directly to Adobe Photoshop, but even though it was a great application, there was a catch; just like Adobe Photoshop, it was difficult to use for a newbie. So, we found PixBuilder to take care of that problem. It is an image editing application for digital photo editing, image processing and resizing. Read on to know more about PixBuilder.

The program allows you to perform color management functions, such as manage Brightness, Contrast and Color Balance. You can draw shapes and effects, or use the built-in drawing tool for creating shapes and applying effects to them. The application sports high quality effects to blur, sharpen and emboss your images. Just drag and drop the image over the main interface to add it to the application for editing. The image appears in the middle, image editing tools appear in the left panel, while the Zoom panel, Color panel, Tools panel, Undo panel and Channels panel appear on the right side of the image.

The Tools menu at the top allows you to choose different image editing tools, such as Pencil Brush, Eraser, Gradient, Clone Stamp, Crop, Text Tool etc.

The Effects menu has effects like Dithering, Quick Blur, Gaussian Blur, Sharpness, Emboss, Unsharp Mask etc. Customized Matrix can be used to further enhance the effects of an image.

Options such as Curves, to adjust the color curves of an image, allow you to easily edit the image with real-time preview of how the image will look, once you are done with applying an effect.

PixBuilder is a very comprehensive image editing application, and the full list of its functions can be seen on the product page. It works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download PixBuilder

PixBuilder Is An Easy-To-Use, Comprehensive Image Editing Tool

5 Ways to Shrink Your Outlook PST File Size

5 Ways to Shrink Your Outlook PST File Size
by DEBORAH SAVADRA

If you’ve been working with Microsoft Outlook for long, and particularly if you’re working in a Exchange Server environment (which set some pretty strict limits on file size), your Outlook .pst file may be getting too large. While you may not want to adhere to the fabled Inbox Zero standard, doing a little mail maintenance periodically will help Outlook run better. Here are five strategies for paring down your .pst file’s size.

Groom your Deleted Items folder

You’re really good about deleting Inbox messages you no longer need, right? But if they’re not being removed from your Deleted Items folder, they still count toward the total Outlook file size.

You can empty the Deleted Items folder one of two ways: manually or automatically. To do this manually, right-click on your Deleted Items folder, choose Empty Folder, and they’re gone.

http://lawyerist.com/cut-your-outlook-pst-file-size/

If you’re confident enough to say that, when you delete an e-mail, you never want to see it again, choose the automatic option. Go to the File tab and choose Options, then click Advanced. Under Outlook Start and Exit, you’ll see a checkbox next to “Empty Deleted Items folders when exiting Outlook.” Check that and click OK to save the setting.

Eliminate duplicate e-mails

Every time you forward an e-mail (particularly with attachments) to staff members, you are effectively doubling the size of storage necessary for that information, since by default a copy of that e-mail with its attachments now resides not only in your Inbox but in your Sent Items folder as well.

If there’s no longer a compelling reason to keep the forwarded version of that e-mail, go ahead and delete it out of your Sent Items folder. One trick to make this easier is to sort the e-mails in your Sent Items folder by recipient. It’s easy – just click on the To header in your Sent Items folder:

(You can simply instruct Outlook not to save forwarded messages in your Sent Items folder via a setting in the Mail/Save Messages section under Outlook Options accessible via the File tab. By default, however, any message you send, forwarded or not, is saved in the Sent Items folder.)

Save individual e-mails

Many Outlook users don’t realize they can save individual Outlook e-mails outside the Inbox in a variety of formats. Simply open the e-mail, go to the File tab, and click Save As.

You can save the e-mail as a plain text document, or you can save it in the Outlook Message format (.msg), which will preserve the formatting of the original e-mail.

Since any attachments to that message are saved in a temporary folder in Windows, it’s probably a good idea to right-click on any attachments and save them separately in the same folder on your hard drive (and make sure it’s backed up frequently).

Archive to Adobe Acrobat

If you’re ready to close a particular matter, and you got all the relevant e-mails sorted into a subfolder under your Inbox, you can use Adobe Acrobat to create an archive file that you can save your electronic records. The latest version of Adobe Acrobat include some pretty cool tools for archiving e-mail. In any version, the result is a conveniently searchable archive in a format virtually any computer can use.

Archive via Outlook

Once you’ve been using Outlook for multiple years, you may want to get into the habit of archiving your Inbox and Sent Items folders annually (or even more often if necessary).

It’s possible to automate this archiving, but since that tends to slow down the computer if you’re dealing with a large volume of e-mail, you may want to set this up manually and go to lunch. To start archiving a particular folder, go to the File tab, and under Cleanup Tools, choose Archive.

Choose the folder you want to archive (and be aware that all subfolders under that folder will be archived as well), choose the “older than” date, hit the Browse button if you want to specify a particular location and/or file name, then click OK. Depending on the volume of e-mail you’re processing, this is going to take a little while, so take a break from the computer.

Once the archive is complete, you have a separate .pst file with the older e-mails intact. If you ever need to access them again, simply go to the File tab, click Open, then choose Open Outlook Data File.

The “stitch in time” approach

If you can work some of these strategies into your regular routine, you’ll be far ahead of colleagues who suddenly can’t send or receive e-mail because their Outlook file has gotten too large. A little maintenance here and there will save you from a similar fate.

New Digital Conversion Devices

Everything Old Is New Again

By FARHAD MANJOO

REMEMBER the paperless office, that dream of perfect organization that was peddled by tech companies years ago as a way to sell computers?

The dream may still be elusive, but tech marketers knew what they were doing when they decided that paperlessness would appeal to customers. Whether at home or at the office, physical documents are a pain to keep straight. They take time to organize, they take up space, they can’t be searched and they’re easily lost or destroyed.

And it’s not just paper documents: everything created before digital media can add to the problem. The average American household has about 3,000 non-digital photographs and slides squirreled away in closets, according to ScanCafe, a photo-scanning service. And then there are all those books, cassettes and videotapes.

The last time my wife and I moved, we spent at least half our time packing and lifting books. E-readers may be revolutionizing the publishing industry, but their ramifications for the moving business, not to mention chiropractors, will probably be just as significant.

Because hardly anyone wants to throw away that old stuff, the solution is to convert all those snapshots, videos, music, books and documents to more portable, compact and durable digital versions.

Recently, I’ve been testing conversion devices and services, and results have been mixed. I found that a few conversion systems work marvelously, but that transforming one’s old stuff into new stuff can be a painful process.

Of all the media that clogs your house, old paperwork may be the easiest to tackle. All you need is a scanner to turn the documents into digital files.

One economical option is the flatbed scanner, which usually costs less than $80, but beware of the low price. A flatbed requires laying each sheet of paper face down on the scanning eye and waiting 10 to 20 seconds while it is transferred to your computer. Unless longevity runs in your family, don’t bother.

A better option is a sheet-feeding scanner, which allows you to insert a stack of paper. The best of these is the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500, which I found to be a dream to use. It is about as big as a shoebox and can hold 50 sheets of paper in its scanning tray; press the button and the machine will scan up to 20 pages a minute on both sides.

The S1500 comes in two similar models, one for Windows PCs and one for Macs, and each will convert your documents into searchable PDFs. After a few weekends with this scanner, you can throw away your file cabinet. The only downside is the price: at about $400, the S1500 is much more expensive than more pedestrian scanners. But if you’re drowning in paper, you may find it is a lifeline worth the price.

I had a much harder time turning my movies and music into digital files. There are several gadgets that promise to do this, but I lost many hours of my life wrestling with them. To convert my cassette tapes, I tried the Tape 2 PC, made by Ion Audio, and the Tape 2 USB II, made by Grace Digital Audio, each of which sells for $120. Then there is Ion Audio’s Quick Play Flash, a $70 unit that converts vinyl records to digital files. And I tested the VHS to DVD 5.0 Deluxe, an $80 device by Honestech that connects your VCR to your computer, allowing you to turn videotapes into DVDs. All of these were easy to set up and operate. The Quick Play Flash, in particular, was a breeze because it transforms vinyl albums into digital files without connecting to a computer: you plug in a USB thumb drive to save your music. All the devices also delivered conversions that were relatively faithful to the original; there was some degradation in the conversion process, but the resulting sounds and pictures were not bad.

Yet every video- and music-conversion machine I tested suffered from one major, nearly fatal flaw: they took forever to work. That’s because they operate in real time. To convert a 60-minute cassette tape, you must play the tape for a full 60 minutes while your computer records the music. The same is true of the conversion processes for vinyl and videotapes.

For most people, real-time conversion is not realistic. My wife has a collection of about 150 cassette tapes that she saved from her high school years. If I spent 10 hours every weekend trying to turn her collection of old R.E.M., U2 and Tori Amos tapes into MP3s, it would take me nearly four months to finish. If your music collection runs into the thousands and you want to do real-time conversion, you had better quit reading this and get started right now.

A more sensible alternative is to send it away and have the professionals do it. Many such services are available for photographs, videos and music. I tried two that specialize in photographs and movies, and found both delightful.

The services, ScanCafe of Burlingame, Calif., and DigMyPics of Gilbert, Ariz., have many things in common. They accept almost any photograph or video format you can throw at them: slides, negatives, snapshots, videotapes and even Super 8 movie film. And they not only scan your images, but also employ technicians to correct flaws by balancing colors, removing scratches and undoing red eye.

The turnaround for each is roughly similar. DigMyPics estimates that it takes about two weeks to scan a typical order of 1,000 snapshots; ScanCafe requires about three weeks. And both services offer a nice bonus that saves you the trouble of reviewing your snapshots one by one before you send them in: after they’ve scanned your pictures, you can check your images quickly by scrolling through them online and deciding which ones you do not want. Neither firm will charge for scanning the discarded images, unless you discard more than 20 percent of the total pictures. The major difference between the two services is cost. DigMyPics conducts all its operations in the United States, while ScanCafe outsources part of its scanning and editing to Bangalore, India. Because it saves on labor costs, ScanCafe is significantly cheaper than DigMyPics and other services, charging 29 cents an image for standard snapshots. At DigMyPics, the price is 39 cents, so if you are scanning 1,000 pictures, ScanCafe will save you $100.

Is it safe to ship your photographs and movies to a scanning service? In 2008, a laptop at the DigMyPics plant exploded, sparking a fire that destroyed the building and many customers’ images. Annette Crossen, who owns the business with her husband, Scott, said that the company has since rebuilt its operations, and among other precautions, the plant is now under constant surveillance and has more-advanced fire-protection systems. If customer pictures are damaged or lost, DigMyPics offers restitution up to $100. Naren Dubey, the chief executive of ScanCafe, said that his firm ships customers’ pictures to India in durable containers that are resistant to damage and monitored against theft. And ScanCafe offers up to $1,000 in restitution in case of damage or loss. “We’ve never had to pay out that guarantee,” Mr. Dubey said.

Video overview of Dropbox

Ask Leo: A brief overview of Dropbox

Get a dropbox account here: http://db.tt/ZJ0hVxQ

Click here for transcript: http://ask-leo.com/a_brief_overview_of_dropbox.html