Mark Soper
Maximum PC Member Since: May 21, 2007
Total Posted Content: 428 Articles
Total Posted Comments: 238 Comments on 183 Articles
Maximum PC Member Since: May 21, 2007Total Posted Content: 428 Articles
Total Posted Comments: 238 Comments on 183 Articles
Updated 7-1-2009
Mark Edward Soper has worked with computers and related technologies since 1983, and specializes in technology education through training, writing, and public speaking. He is the author of eleven books, most recently The Shot Doctor: The Amateur's Guide to Taking Great Digital Photos and Unleashing Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center, and has co-authored nine others, all on various technology topics.
Mark has taught computer troubleshooting and other subjects to thousands of students, has CompTIA A+ and Microsoft MCP certifications, and has also provided online self-help content for Skywire Software, technology screening questions for ReviewNet, and currently teaches for IvyTech Community College of Indiana's Southwest Indiana campus's Workforce and Economic Development department. He has also contributed to many books in Que's Upgrading and Repairing and Special Edition Using Windows series, as well as the forthcoming Windows 7 In Depth.
Mark has also written over 160 magazine articles for publications such as Maximum PC, Smart Computing, PCNovice, PCToday, WordPerfect Magazine and The Word Perfectionist, and has also written articles for websites including InformIT.com, BusinessWeek.com, and CIO.com.
Mark lives in Evansville, Indiana, and blogs at www.markesoper.com, www.maximumpc.com, InformIT.com, and Amazon.com. He is a popular speaker for area organizations including the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Southwestern Indiana PC Users Group (SWIPUG), Greater Owensboro Territory Information Technologists (GOTIT), and Greater Evansville Territory Information Technologists (GETIT). Mark has also appeared several times on Justin Williams' Plugged In radio show, on the long-running Let's Talk Computers radio show, and on other TV and radio programs.
Mark is the president of Select Systems & Associates, Inc., a technology writing and education company located at 318 Main St., Suite 225, Evansville, IN 47708.
Mark's other recent books include:
Maximum PC Microsoft Windows Vista Exposed: An Insider's Guide to Supercharging Windows Vista Mark provides a close look at Windows Vista's new and improved features, providing the no-holds-barred commentary that has made Maximum PC famous.
Leo Laporte’s PC Help Desk*
An extensive update of Mark’s popular PC Help Desk in a Book, adding coverage of multimedia peripherals, Windows XP SP2 improvements, WPA security, DVD playback, and overclocking ; also available as Leo Laporte’s Guide to Safe Computing*, which includes a second book on PC security on CD (*with Leo Laporte).
Upgrading and Repairing Servers*
A comprehensive guide to x86 and x64 server technologies, including motherboards, BIOS, chipsets, processors, memory, storage, backup, and network. Configuration, benchmarking, and troubleshooting tips and guidelines (*with Scott Mueller and Barrie Sosinsky)
Upgrading and Repairing Networks, 5th Edition*
A comprehensive guide to Ethernet and wireless Ethernet business and home networks, security, routing, gateways, TCP/IP, dialup, Windows Server, Linux, and UNIX networking (*with Scott Mueller and Terry W. Ogletree)
For Mark's other books, see the InformIT website.
Posted Content
How-TosHow-To: Edit RAW Photos on a Budget (or for Free!)
Posted 11/05/2009 at 01:30:00pm
RAW mode, a feature of virtually all digital SLR cameras and an increasing number of high-end point-and-shoot cameras, enables your camera to capture all of the image data in your photographs in full quality without distortion caused by JPEG data compression. RAW files enable you to repair white balance and color temperature problems, solve exposure problems, and adjust color intensity and other settings far better than you can with JPEG files. Unfortunately, you must use software that supports RAW files to optimize your picture and export it to a format you can use for other purposes, such as JPEG or TIFF.
Thankfully, you don't need to spend a fortune on software to edit RAW images. Or be a hardcore digital photography buff, either.
How-TosHow-To: Turn Your Windows 7 PC into a Wireless Access Point
Posted 11/02/2009 at 11:00:00am
If you've ever been in a situation when you absolutely, positively, need to share a network connection wirelessly, and you have a PC with a wireless adapter that runs Windows 7, Connectify (from wireless mesh networking company Nomadio, Inc.) is the answer. Connectify (currently in beta) turns almost any Windows 7 PC with a working wireless network adapters into a fast and secure wireless access point.
To discover how easy Connectify Me makes the process, join us after the jump.
NewsWindows Live Wave 4 Beta May Wash Up on Shore This Week
Posted 10/05/2009 at 04:31:40pm
ArsTechnica passes along a rumor that the next release of Microsoft's Windows Live, Wave 4, may reach beta status this week. Details are scarce, but Softpedia points out that Windows Live Hotmail Wave 4 Milestone 1, which offers a number of new features, has been live since mid-September.
When will Windows Live Wave 4 Beta shed the beta tag? ArsTechnica has run a Japanese blog entry about Wave 4 through a couple of online translators, with the rather fractured results pointing to a spring to summer 2010 target. Stay clicked to MaximumPC.com for more information.
NewsWindows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta Adds Windows 7 Support and More
Posted 09/29/2009 at 04:34:18pm
With Windows 7 coming down the pike in less than a month, it's time for Microsoft to update its Windows Home Server product to support new features in Windows 7, such as Libraries and image-based backup. Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (announced in July and now available in beta via Microsoft Connect) provides the Windows 7 support Windows Home Server needs, but that's not all that's new.
Windows 7 and Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 are designed to play nicely together, thanks to updates that support Windows 7 libraries and WHS backup that's Action Center aware (so Action Center will no longer nag a Windows 7 user that backups aren't happening when WHS does its backup thing). To find out what else is new in Windows Home Server, and for the latest on when "beta" comes off the title, join us after the break.
NewsAdobe Adds Photomerge, Recompose, More in Photoshop Elements 8
Posted 09/24/2009 at 04:49:45pm
This week, Adobe announced its eighth generation of Photoshop Elements for both PC and Mac, and this time Mac users need to wait only a month for the latest version.
Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows and MacOS includes a number of new photo-editing goodies including Photomerge Exposure, Recompose, and better quick fixes for common photo problems. For more about what's new, why MacOS users won't mind waiting a bit longer for their version, and how to try PSE8 for free, join us after the jump.
Adobe's new Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows adds a number of features for easier photo editing, including:
Photomerge Exposure, which builds upon the powerful Photomerge feature in earlier versions of PE to enable you to combine the properly-exposed areas in two otherwise-identical photos into a "single, perfectly-lit photo." The example Adobe demonstrates uses two photos of friends posing in front of a floodlit building, one with and without flash. It'll be interesting to see how Photomerge Exposure does with a pair of RAW images optimized for bright and dark areas.
Recompose, which allows you to intelligently stretch a photo to fit in a particular frame without distorting the main subject. The example Adobe uses converts a landscape-format photo into a square photo, but inquiring minds (like mine) are wondering about converting 4:3 photos into 16:9 photos (and vice-versa).
Smarter, faster quick fixes for exposure, teeth whitening, bluer skies, contrast, and more with better previews.
Read on to find out what else is new in Elements 8.
NewsCanon's New EOS 7D: Bigger, Faster, Smarter, Stronger 
Posted 09/02/2009 at 09:46:42am
Canon fired the latest salvo in the hotter-than-ever digital SLR wars this week, introducing its new EOS 7D. The $1699 (body-only) EOS 7D includes some now-familiar features, such as APS-C image sensor size (1.6x crop factor), 3-inch LCD with Live View, and Full HD Video.
The 7D boasts an 18MP image sensor and ISO expandable to 12,800, but that's just the beginning of what makes it bigger, faster, smarter, and stronger than previous mid-range Canon DSLRs. For the rest of the story, join us after the jump.
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How-To: Turn Your Windows 7 PC into a Wireless Access Point
Posted 11/02/2009 at 10:46:26am
Connectify uses WPA2 encryption (which uses the very strong AES encryption algorithm), which matches the strongest encryption standard available in wireless networking. Thus, as long as the PCs that need to connect with Connectify support WPA2, you'll be able to connect. Keep in mind that you're still running 802.11b or very early 802.11g hardware which don't support WPA2 on client PCs, you'll either need to update the drivers or replace the adapters on those PCs.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
How-To: Turn Your Windows 7 PC into a Wireless Access Point
Posted 11/02/2009 at 10:42:48am
You can use Connectify the same way you'd use any other wireless network router, so if you set up shared folders with read/write access and the appropriate user settings on both laptops, you could use Connectify - but you could also set up an Ad-Hoc wireless connection as well.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Microsoft Blocks AutoRun/AutoPlay Vulnerability in XP, Vista, and Windows Server [Updated!]
Posted 09/01/2009 at 03:29:18pm
This comment is a must-read for anyone who wants to prevent AutoRun-based malware. Thanks very, very much for what you're doing in Afghanistan.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Microsoft Blocks AutoRun/AutoPlay Vulnerability in XP, Vista, and Windows Server [Updated!]
Posted 08/31/2009 at 02:00:23pm
I've added an in-article link back to the original article about changes to Windows 7's AutoPlay/AutoRun and have also written a new section for the current article that contrasts these features. If you want more control over AutoPlay than Windows XP provides, you will like the level of control in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus – Backup and Restore
Posted 08/26/2009 at 10:23:43pm
You can restore files from Windows Vista system image backups with Windows 7's Backup and Restore dialog. You restore them the same way you would restore backups made with Windows 7.
As far as restoring files made with the Windows Vista file backup, these are stored in ZIP format, and can be opened after you take ownership of them (you'll be prompted by Windows 7 for the appropriate steps).
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus: Recovery Environment
Posted 08/10/2009 at 05:21:30pm
It's amazing how easy Windows 7 makes this type of repair. And, thanks for the reminder that you can use your Windows 7 DVD as a repair disc (although I prefer to make a separate one).
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus – Backup and Restore
Posted 08/05/2009 at 04:06:53pm
The restore system image option in Windows 7 Backup is really designed for situations in which you have replaced a failed hard disk with the same size (or larger).
Since you have a working 80GB installation of Windows 7 and a new hard disk, what you want to do is use a disk-cloning utility provided by the vendor of either your old or new hard disk. For example, if you had a Maxtor or Seagate hard disk (either as the old 80GB drive or the new 320GB drive), you could download MaxBlast 5 or Seagate Disc Wizard and use it to clone your drive (these programs are based on Acronis TrueImage). If you are not using Seagate or Maxtor drives, check with the drive vendor for a Vista-compatible drive cloning utility (Vista-compatible utilities will work with Windows 7 drives as well). Be sure to follow the vendor's suggestions for how to connect your drives, and make sure you have selected your new 320GB drive as the target drive. Depending upon the utility to use, you might be able to clone your old drive to a larger partition on the target drive (this depends upon the utility - and you might need to select a custom setting), or you might wind up with an 80GB partition on the new drive that you can expand to fill the drive by using Disk Management in Windows 7.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus: Virtual Windows XP (AKA XP Mode)
Posted 07/15/2009 at 11:32:08am
Aside from being stuck inside the Windows XP desktop, the biggest limitation I see with Virtual PC 2007 + Windows XP is the lack of support for USB storage devices. The inability to access card readers, flash drives and backup drives that use USB ports with VPC2007+Win XP is a big limitation for many users.
I'm glad Virtual PC 2007 + Windows XP is working well for you, but a lot of business users need a more powerful virtualization solution.
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus: Virtual Windows XP (AKA XP Mode)
Posted 07/14/2009 at 09:09:46pm
Take a look at page 2:
Q. How do I get XP Mode?
A. There are two files you need to make XP Mode a reality:
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
Windows 7 Feature Focus: Virtual Windows XP (AKA XP Mode)
Posted 07/14/2009 at 02:16:08pm
XP Mode requires hardware virtualization (HV), and I find that Intel's "some have it, others don't" attitude about HV pretty frustrating. Although Intel's fastest CPUs beat AMDs, virtually all recent AMD desktop and laptop CPUs except for the ultra-cheapo Semprons support HV. That's one of the reasons my next laptop will probably be an AMD-based model. For more information about HV support in Intel and AMD processor families, see the end of this early story on XP Mode: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/some_windows_7_editions_offer_free_virtualized_windows_xp
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.