Computer Electromechanical And Optical Mouse-Keep Them Fit Without Problems

This post is going to help you in doing core maintenance of your wired electromechanical (trackball one) and wired optical mouse (with LED – Light Emitting Diode generating light and its detection) by giving you directions on their internal cleaning.

I don’t have an electromechanical mouse, so I won’t be able to show you the relevant pictures of its cleaning operation done from its back.

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// If you are facing problem with only dragging of your computer’s electromechanical mouse (the cursor going haywire) then you can do the following:

- Switch off your computer after its proper shutdown.

Pull out mouse cable from the back of the CPU and take it away at some distance so that the dirt and dust that you clean doesn’t go to the other parts of your computer. If that’s not possible as your mouse wire is fixed with other wires, don’t worry. Follow the same procedure as given next.

- Keep a sheet of clean newspaper/paper/cloth under the mouse and invert it so that the trackball part faces you.

There will be a circular plastic cap that will be stopping trackball from coming out yet allowing the mouse track ball to rotate. Check the direction of the arrows in which you have to move the circular cap to let the track ball come out. Normally, rotating the circular cap in anti clockwise direction removes trackball cap from its position and let the trackball comes out.

- After the trackball has come out, clean it thoroughly with a clean cotton cloth rinsed with isopropyl alcohol. You should clean the track ball until it appears clean and pleases you look wise without any dirt or grease on it. The purpose of cleaning track ball is to make it non-slippery and ultimate clean close to when it was new.

- Now with the cleaned trackball outside, you should similarly clean the three small sized wheels (has attached sensors to detect the mouse movement in a particular direction) that touch the periphery of trackball when it’s inside. You can use the cotton cloth rinsed with isopropyl alcohol to do so. While cleaning these three wheels, apply slight pressure and remove the dirt and grease etc. on their complete surface and wherever you could see inside the electromechanical mouse. You can also use a good quality brush rinsed with isopropyl alcohol to do thorough cleaning of optical mouse from inside.

- After the trackball and the mouse motion detecting wheels have been cleaned, you should fit the trackball back in the inverted mouse and tighten the circular plastic cap that holds the trackball in its position (Rotating in clockwise direction should do it). You can now connect the electromechanical mouse to the computer by connecting its connector back from where you pulled it out. After trackball and sensor wheels cleaning, your mouse movement should now be fine (if it was due to the dust and dirt only).

Now, On to internal cleaning operation of optical mouse that will help its users having problems in dragging, dropping, clicking and scrolling while using it. Yes, it can sometimes happen that you face all these problems simultaneously if you haven’t cleaned your optical mouse for months. My friends having electromechanical mouse with problems in right and left clicking can also get the clues of opening the mouse and cleaning the click assembly for the tips given next for optical mouse.

Kindly refer to the labeled picture of my DELL Vostro 400 optical mouse with top cover removed and all the main parts shown.

The shown picture will give you clear idea of what I am writing next. So, here is what you can do to do a complete cleaning of your optical wired mouse:

-  Shutdown and power off your computer whose optical mouse internal cleaning is to be done.

- Either remove the optical mouse connector from the back of the system so that you can take it way for cleaning or if you can’t do it, cover other parts of your computer so that they don’t get dirty.

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- Place the optical mouse on a clean paper sheet/cloth and invert it so that the LED portion (bottom side that rests on the mouse pad/desk) faces you.

- Normally there is a screw at the lower bottom that keeps the lower plastic cover of the mouse tightened with the upper cover. Also the top plastic cover of the mouse has two plastic female rectangular grooves that fit in the male grooves of the lower plastic body. Remove the screw by untightening it with a star screwdriver with the bit size matching the screw and slim enough to go inside to reach the screw without causing any damage to the mouse screw hole.

- After removing the screw, invert the mouse back to its normal position – the scroll wheel and the left click and right click buttons facing you. There will be a gap between the top and the lower cover of the optical mouse and you can now apply slight force to increase the gap along the whole body of the mouse. You can see the upper back portion coming up. Now to pull out the upper front portion apply some force in the backward direction so that the female grooves in the mouse upper inside portion comes out of the male lower portion.

-  Now the top portion of the mouse will come outside and you can see the left click button, right click button assembly (mechanical + electronics in the form of a box) on the PCB (printed circuit board) lower portion. You can now use a good quality brush rinsed with isopropyl alcohol to clean all the parts of the mouse including the top plastic casing, scroll wheel and sensors, LED assembly (after removing the PCB from its latches) and the left click and right click buttons sensors assembly. You can also clean the optical mouse connector also that fits into computer so that it makes better contact with your computer’s mouse connector.

- Allow few minutes for all the parts to dry and then physically confirm that they are not wet. BTW – Isopropyl alcohol is not good conductor of electricity, so even if it is slightly left on the PCB, it won’t harm your mouse and PC when powered ON. After, all the cleaned parts have been physically confirmed for drying, pack them back using now the reverse logic of disassembling them. The most important is to make sure that the upper plastic cover with female grooves fits in the male grooves of the lower mouse portion and the left click and right click buttons click is OK. Don’t forget to make sure that the LED glass cover at the bottom (below the PCB) is fitted properly.

- After you have tightened the screw (invert the mouse to do so) of the lower plastic cover with the upper cover, the mouse should be connected back to the computer.

From the steps given, this cleaning operation looks difficult but when you start doing it with some patience and logic, you will find it easy. It’s not rocket science

I am sure that after you have done the internal cleaning of your optical mouse as per the steps explained above, your optical mouse will start working normally – right click, left click, drag, drop, double click, scrolling – every mouse operation working fine as it used to work when the mouse was new.

Oh, in case, your time is invaluable and you don’t want to spend time (few minutes) in opening, cleaning and packing your computer mouse back, buy a new one! A brand new good quality wired optical mouse should not cost more than $ 20.

Did these mouse cleaning steps for electromechanical (with track ball) and optical mouse (with LED generation and detection) helped you? I hope yes!

How To Solve xvidcore.dll Not Found Error In Microsoft Windows Vista Environment

Coming directly to the topic of this post, It’s on solving the error message “xvidcore.dll not found” appearing on Microsoft Windows Vista PC. I am writing the solution to this problem as it occured on my Dell Vostro 400 PC loaded with Vista OS and I solved it. Thought of sharing as it may help you in saving some of your time.

Some particulars of this “xvidcore.dll” not found error:

The error “xvidcore.dll not found” was popping up when I was exploring a folder with video file/s (any format – .avi, .mpeg and .flv). When the video files were more, the error kept popping up again and again. Quite annoying as I had to click on OK multiple times to close these popups. I had no problem in playing any of these video files with video players.

Now, this xvidcore.dll error started popping up suddenly and it was not appearing from the day I started using my PC, i.e., more than one and half years back. I am still wondering why it started bothering me as I never installed anything relevant to xvid (Codec – Code/Decode Or Compressor/Decompressor for video files) on my PC. May be it was in built into some other application.

I searched for xvidcore.dll using the Windows Vista Search feature (including the search for hidden files) but as expected it couldn’t be found. The search window showing xvidcore.dll not found on my Vista PC is shown next:

I did a google search for the error “xvidcore.dll not found error” and found that I need to install Xvid codec from xvid.org. I downloaded Xvid-1.2.1 codec for Windows Vista from:

http://www.koepi.info/Xvid-1.2.1-04122008.exe

(Explanation to some of you who are wondering about the URL change from xvid.org to koepi.info. Clicking on “Xvid for Windows” hyperlink at the URL: http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html leads to the URL – http://www.koepi.info/xvid.html with page having Download link for Xvid 1.2.1 codec).

I downloaded the xvid codec setup file and installed it choosing the Windows XP compatibility mode as shown below:

After successful installation of Xvid codec, I once again explored the folder with the video files and wow there was no popup of “xvidcore.dll not found” error. Oh! what a relief from the “xvidcore.dll not found” bugging popups. Well, I searched again for “xvidcore.dll” on my computer and found that the file was now  there along with some other files relevant to xvid in the System32 under Windows folder.

The screenshots shows the start of installation of xvid, its finish and location of xvidcore.dll file as found by Vista Search after xvid codec installation:

Now, if you too are facing the error of “xvidcore.dll not found” (sorry for repeating it numerous times), then you can use the procedure in this post to save your time.

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// Let me know if I explained the steps well and did this post was of any use to you.

So bye to “xvidcore.dll not found” error message and welcome to your comments!

How to be almost sure of not uploading or downloading virus infected files

Hi,

Computer viruses are designed to cause damage to your computer data. So you mustn’t be downloading files that are virus infected. In business or personal communication, it is very embarrassing if the receiver tells you that your files are virus infected.

Yes, I hear you saying that come on, I use an antivirus. How can the files be infected as I update my antivirus and scan all my files on computer regularly. I know almost all of the online and offline PC’s have antivirus protection on. Let me be very clear with you, even if you are using an antivirus, whatever it’s name be, there is no 100% guarantee that it will detect 100% viruses. Sad but true! If you believe that your antivirus is 100% completely taking care of known and unknown viruses, then it’s wrong!

While, you can use two antiviruses – one on your regular hard disk and one working from a bootable disk/CD/DVD etc. as and when required, there are still chances that you might be sending or downloading an infected file.

The solution is to use a scanner that has the power of detecting all the viruses. What if it combines more than 38 virus scan engines from different companies. Wouldn’t it be great! At least you would be almost sure that you are not going to send or have received an infected file.

Virustotal.com is an online site that lets you upload up to 10MB file for getting it scanned from 38 virus scan engines of different companies developing antiviruses. Yes it’s true, after uploading the file to be scanned, you get a report in few minutes depend on the traffic at the site) and thus you can be dead sure about a file infection or clean status. You can send the file from your browser interface or even by email.

The address of virustotal is:

http://www.virustotal.com

I got idea of writing this post after one of my friend (first) using Mcafee antivirus sent a file to another friend (second) who was using Symantec’s Norton antivirus and the second friend found the file infected.

My first friend’s Mcafee antivirus was updated and he had scanned the whole computer including the file to be sent. He hadn’t got any virus alerts in any of the files on his PC. It was the second friend’s antivirus that reported the file as infected. So, I advised my first friend to scan the files being sent or being downloaded, from now onwards through – virustotal.com.

While there are numerous advantages of virustotal – Scanning power of 38 virus scanning engines, free, online availability at any hour and simple usage etc., it has certain limitations also, these are:

- It requires an Internet connection to upload the file and get it scanned for viruses.
- It can only scan 10 MB of a single file and not files above 10 MB.
- There is no guarantee that a file detected as clean by 38 virus scanners is not infected.
- It only detects viruses and doesn’t clean.
- Sometimes there can be delay in uploading the file and getting the results, depending on the traffic.

According to me, virustotal.com is a free and highly useful site that can save you from embarrassment of sending an infected file or using one that causes damage yours highly useful data. It doesn’t take too long to get the results (few minutes most of the times) and the chances of file being infected after it has been declared to be clean by 38 virus scanners is almost nil. What do you say?

So, next time you are sending or receiving a file to/from a known or unknown person, don’t forget to scan it through virustotal.com

Do you know of an offline virus scanner that combines power of 38 virus scanners? Yes, then let me know so that I can scan all my computer files not from a single virus scanner but from 38 virus scanners.

Absolutely Free PC Tool To Delete Files And Folders Permanently

Junk files and folders needs to be deleted from time to time on a Windows PC. If the user deletes the files/folders by pressing Delete command, then files and folders are transferred to Recycle Bin and not deleted permanently. These files and folders can be Undeleted or Restored back to the PC from the Recycle bin by selecting these files or folders from Recycle bin and then using Restore feature in the Recycle bin.

After selecting the junk/not needed files and folders, if the Windows computer user presses Shift+Delete (press Delete key after keeping the Shift key presses) the files and folders are deleted and not available in Recycle bin also. Can these files and folders deleted by Shift+Delete be restored back? Yes!

There are various free software that can restore files and folders deleted by Shift+Delete. A simple google search for

Shift+Delete files restore freeware

would list some of the no cost programs that will undelete the files and folders deleted by Shift+Delete.

The question relevant to the post is how to delete files and folders permanently so that they cannot be restored back at all. One case where this would absolutely be needed would be of a work from home person who sells his/her old PC because he/she bought a new faster PC. As the buyer wants OS to be there on the sold PC, the seller has to only delete his/her personal files/folders.

If confidential files and folders are left in a state where they can be restored back by someone else and seen then you can easily imagine the risks involved. No one would ever want this to happen, even format command that does high level format does not delete data permanently.

To delete files and folders permanently to a state that they cannot be restored back again, a freeware tool is: CyberShredder.

It can be downloaded from:

http://cylog.org/files/utilities/cshred112.exe

To test it, I made some test files and folders on my Windows Vista Business PC, deleted them by dragging them to CyberShredder and then tried recovering through the Free files and folders restore tools but couldn’t do so.

Free Undelete tools that I tried for recovering the files and folders deleted by the CyberShredder were:

- Recuva File Recovery at:

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

The direct download link:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_recuva/download/916fe790eccd3a1f9946d93fc834ed7f/

- Brain Kato File recovery downloaded from:

http://www.aumha.org/downloads/restoration.exe

(Was checked in Administrator mode as it didn’t work in normal user mode. Found thousands of files and folders in seconds that could be restored by it.)

- Pandora Free File recovery program downloaded from:

http://download.cnet.com/Pandora-Recovery/3000-2094_4-10694796.html

(Read the description and review of the software and then click on Download Now)

- Tokiwa Free DataRecovery program from:

http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/DataRecovery_EN.zip
(Used full scan to search the deleted files and folders, the scanning took a lot of time – few hours)

Well, I installed these above mentioned four data recovery programs one by one and did the respective testing for data recovery after deleting with CyberShredder. None of these four free data recovery programs could recover any of the data deleted by CyberShredder. Thus, according to my testing, files and folders deleted by free program CyberShredder cannot be recovered.

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// Caution: Use CyberShredder with utmost care as data deleted once by CyberShredder cannot be recovered. The best would be to initially make some dummy files and folders yourself for having hands on of this tool. In Cyber Shredder, check Confirm File Deletion in Settings to get a warning before permanent deletion of files and folders dragged in CyberShredder. Once you are familiar with using CyberShredder, have backed up your data and then verified its integrity, then go ahead with permanent deletion of files and folders with CyberShredder.

In addition to my testing, I also researched on the Net and found that files/folders deleted using CyberShredder cannot be undeleted using any of the commercial data recovery tools as CyberShredder uses unbreakable writing algorithm for deleting data that makes recovery impossible.

I am sure that this post of mine would definitely help some of the computer users to permanently delete files and folders from their PC using CyberShredder – A Free, permanent file and folder delete tool.

How to assign or change a drive letter in your hard disk?

While assembling a computer, usually drive C attains main role and others become subsidiary, while using pen drives the OS automatically assigns an alphabet and later delete it. Do you know you can assign a name using A to Z alphabets? Disk Management snap in software in windows XP provides this feature. A and B letters are assigned for your floppy drive C is assigned disk containing OS. If you don’t have floppy drive you can use A and B for other drives. But you may install floppy drives some day so we will leave out A and B and see how to assign other alphabets.

To assign all favorite letters to a disk drive (or) part of (or) a volume for the first time do as said below. First start log in as user.

1. Then click start=> control panel option, it will list sum of option then select Performance and Maintenance. (Note: This option will be enable only on control panel. So we should open it.)
2. Now click Administrative tools and then double click on computer management. Now some of option listed on the left side of it then selects Disk management.)
3. Now right click on the drive, as you want to create letters, and then click on change drive letter and paths.
4. From that click Add
5. Now default computer mark the type of letter from “Assign the following drive letter” Now you can make changes only by selecting some other type of letter.

We see how to change the type of letter for a drive on its parts
1. Select start=>control panel a window will be open then select “Performance and Maintenance” from that window.
2. Now click on “Administrative Tools” after that double click on computer management. Now you get sum of option from the left side of window here we select the Disk management.
3. Right click on the drive (or) the part on we want change the letter type after that select “change drive letter and paths” from it.
4. Now click on “change” option carefully
5.Now select the type of letter from “Assign the following drive letter” option and give ok to it
6. Carefully give yes when a dialogue box open with the message of whether change the type of letter. Now you got to selected letter types enabled on the drives.

To change the already existing letter, use following
1. Click start=>control panel. Now you get new window. Select performance and maintenance option from that window.
2. Now click on Administrative tools after that double click on computer management. Now select the disk management option from the left side of the window.
3. Right click on the drive (or) part as you want to change the letter type, then “change drive letter and paths”
4. Now carefully click the “remove” option
5. Now you got a dialogue box, which contains the warning message. Click Yes on it. At this time you got the certain type of letter will be removed.

Like this you would apply this option for your drive.

How to print all files in a folder in a single command?

We can print one document in Windows XP. But how to we print all files in the folders? Ok. If one folder has 10 files we can open all files and then give print command. If 100 files are there and you have to take a printout of all of them what can we do? Here only notepad comes to our help here we can write a batch file and command it to print from a right place. Lets see briefly how is this done.

First of all open note pad, through Start, All Programs, Accessories, Notepad then type the following code without fault.

@echo off

dir%1/-p/o: gin>

“%temp%\listing”

Start/wnotepad/p”%temp%\listing”

Del”%temp%%\listing”

exit

Save the file as printdir.bat, then save it in c:\windows folder. A small tip: – you can save this file in any name but you must give the extension as .bat only. Now you have successfully created a file to print. Now, let’s see how to print all files in a folder,

1) First double click the My Computer icon.
2) Select Folder options from the Tools menu
3) Then Click File types tab, it will be in the upper side of the screen.
4) You will find a file type below” Registered file types”
5) Select it and click Advanced Tab
6) This opens Edit File Type. In this you can see a button “New” click it
7) New action dialog box opens
8)Type print directory in action tab
9) Browse for c:\windows\printdir.bat through browse button at application used to perform action
10) Click ok and close all the dialog boxes

If lot of files is to be printed we can create a folder and put them inside it, now right click on the folder and select print directory option in it, if you select this all files in the folder will be printed.

What is Downloading, Uploading Installing and Un-Installing

Downloading, Uploading, Installing and Un installing are most favorite words in the usage of computer and Internet. Let’s see about this.

Downloading:

We are copying a file from a network or an Internet to our computer is called downloading. We need not to do so much work for this. In Internet it displays, if you want this facility click here to download. If we click the link it will ask the place to store the file then we select the directory. The file will start to download. It shows the message it contain the rate and time.

Uploading:

This is the reverse process of downloading. That is we can copy the files from can computer to a network or the Internet. Generally the process is run by F.T.P. some of the Internet website provide the way to upload the files through their browsers.

Installing:

Mostly the peoples confuse both downloading and installing. Installing means process of our computer is preparing for run a program. Generally its have a setup program to run when we are executing the setup program it ask some questions. We give to answer for this questions then it start copy the files to your computer for run the particular program. If we want to run the program we may click the icons in the desktop. Otherwise select the program from star/program menu.

Un Installing:

This is also the reverse process of installing while installing the program. It will copy the files in your computer. When we don’t want the program it’s hard task find and delete the files. Because of that the developers are create one exe file for uninstalling with that program.

We can see the file in program directory. Otherwise we can uninstall the file by select the Add/Remove Program option in control panel. Here all the installed programs are arranged in alphabetical order. We can select the program from the list, which is wanted to uninstall.

Computer Crash reasons

You may have heard of the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ but haven’t experienced it yourself. It is better to know the reasons behind this crash so that when it happens you are in a position to fix it. If you see on the screen “Fatal error: the system has become unstable or is busy”, “enter to return to Windows or press Control+Alt+Delete to restart your computer. If you do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications”. This is the infamous blue screen of death. This could happen due to any of these following reasons:

1. Hardware Problem: Computer consists of different hardware such as Printer, mouse, flash drive etc. Windows assigns an IRQ number for each of these hardware. When due to some reasons more than one hardware use the same IRQ this will result in a crash. In order to find if you have any hardware conflicts you can goto the ‘Device Manager’ in your computer properties. (Start-Settings->Control Panel –> System->Device manager), an yellow exclamation mark will be placed against the hardware that has a conflict. You can resolve this by selecting the device, uninstalling and reinstalling it again.
2. RAM memory: When you upgrade RAM memory, if you have two unmatched RAM cards or a RAM card that is not compatible with your motherboard, then a “Fatal Exception Error” will occur when you start the computer. If you are technically savvy then you may try to fix this by going to BIOS settings and editing the ‘Wait state’ of RAM or you can replace the cards with the same speed and capacity.
3. Hard Disk Drive: After using the computer for a few months or years, the hard disk gets fragmented with temporary files, or fragmented files. This will result in slowness of hard disk and may even result in computer crash eventually. You can maintain your harddisk by defragmenting your hard disk frequently and deleting unwanted files.
4. Video Card: If you see “Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors” then it is due to the video card. To solve this reduce the video display resolution. You can do so by going to the control panel and display settings. Choose the correct screen resolution to match your monitor and change the color settings to 16 bit or match it with your monitor.
5. Virus: Most of the computer crash is due to Virus infection in your computer. You should install or enable windows firewall and install an Anti virus application to prevent unwanted virus applications infecting your computer.
6. Printer: Sometimes you may notice that the computer crashes whenever you try to print something. This is due to low memory buffer in the printer. Therefore when you send a lot of data to the printer or if you have multiple applications open and you print at the same time, this may happen. Unplug the printer from power outlet for 10 minutes and connect back again. Close other programs and try to print again.
7. Software: If a particular software is not installed properly or is not complete then it may result in a crash when you try to start that software. You have to uninstall such software properly. Otherwise some entries may still be in the registry referring to that software and result in instability of the computer. You can use registry cleaning software to clean your registries frequently.
8. Heat: Computers have inbuilt fans to cool down the processors. You can control the CPU speed from your BIOS settings. If the speed is set to higher than the normal CPU speed, this may result in overheating of the CPU which will result in Kernel Error.
9. Power Supply: Use UPS to regulate the power supply to your computer. This will reduce the chances of your computer crashing.

A tutorial on msconfig – System Configuration

msconfig is the Microsoft System Configuration Utility. In Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is called as ‘System Configuration’. This is a tool that comes with the Windows Operating System. For Windows 2000 users this tool can be downloaded from microsoft website. This is used to configure and maintain your Windows System. In this tutorial we can see how to use this tool.

To start this tool goto Start->Run and type ‘msconfig’. A new window with five tabs will open.

1. General Tab: This tab has three sections. Normal Startup, Diagnostic Startup and Selective Startup. When Windows functions normally we use Normal Startup. When the system doesnt function properly, we can use diagnostic startup to diagnose the issue and to troubleshoot. If we want windows to start with specific programs then we can choose Selective Startup.
2. Boot Tab: This tab shows the operating systems installed in the computer. Additionally we can choose options such as ‘safe Boot’, ‘Boot log’, ‘Time out delay’. If you are a new PC user then it is best to leave this tab without any changes.
3. Services Tab: This tab lists all the services installed in this PC with the details such as whether the service is running or stopped etc. From here you can enable or disable services. You can check the ‘Hide all Microsoft services’, to hide all essential windows services so that you don’t change them by mistake. From here you can identify unknown services that take up your memory and stop them wherever necessary.
4. Startup Tab: Startup tab shows the list of programs that starts automatically when Windows starts. All system tray programs and programs that run in background will also be listed here. You can see which of these services and programs you don’t need at startup and remove them accordingly. This will speed up your windows startup time.
5. Tools Tab: In the tools tab you can see, System Information, Programs, System Restore etc.

iPad Features.

IPad is the next device from Apple in line with IPod, IPod Touch and IPhone.

IPad has a large touch screen and makes internet browsing, emailing easier and much more interesting. Almost 140000 applications are available on IPad from day one. Listed here are the features of IPad. IPad maynot be available commercially in your countries. But it is sure to come with a bang.

Features of Apple IPad

Safari

The large Multi-Touch screen on iPad lets you see web pages as they were meant to be seen — one page at a time. With vibrant color and sharp text. So whether you’re looking at a page in portrait or landscape, you can see everything at a size that’s actually readable. And with iPad, navigating the web has never been easier or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger. Scroll through a page just by flicking your finger up or down on the screen. Or pinch to zoom in or out on a photo. There’s also a thumbnail view that shows all your open pages in a grid, to let you quickly move from one page to the next.

Mail

See and touch your email in ways you never could before. In landscape, you get a split-screen view showing both an opened email and the messages in your inbox. To see the opened email by itself, turn iPad to portrait, and the email automatically rotates and fills the screen. No matter which orientation you use, you can scroll through your mail, compose a new email using the large, onscreen keyboard, or delete messages with nothing more than a tap and a flick. If someone emails you a photo, you can see it right in the message. You can also save the photos in an email directly to the built-in Photos app. And iPad works with all the most popular email providers, including MobileMe, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL.

Photos

With its crisp, vibrant display and unique software features, iPad is an extraordinary way to enjoy and share your photos. For example, the Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap the stack, and the whole album opens up. From there, you can flip through your pictures, zoom in or out, or watch a slideshow. You can even use your iPad as a beautiful digital photo frame while it’s is docked or charging. And there are lots of ways to import photos: You can sync them from your computer, download them from an email, or import them directly from your camera using the optional Camera Connection Kit.

Video

The large, high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching any kind of video: from HD movies and TV shows to podcasts and music videos. Switch between widescreen and full screen with a double-tap. Because iPad is essentially one big screen, with no distracting keypad or buttons, you feel completely immersed in whatever you’re watching.

YouTube

The YouTube app organizes videos so they’re easy to see and navigate. To watch one, just tap it. When you’re watching in landscape, the video automatically plays in full screen. And with its high-resolution display, iPad makes the latest HD YouTube videos look positively amazing.

iPod

With the iPod app, all your music is literally at your fingertips. Browse by album, song, artist, or genre with a simple flick. To play a song, just tap it. iPad even displays album art at full size. Listen to your music with the powerful built-in speaker or with wired or Bluetooth wireless headphones.

iTunes

A tap of the iTunes store icon lets you browse and buy music, TV shows, and podcasts — or buy and rent movies — wirelessly, right from your iPad. Choose from thousands of movies and TV shows (in both standard and high definition), along with thousands of podcasts and millions of songs. Preview songs before you buy them. Or just sync iPad with the content you already have in your iTunes library on your Mac or PC.

App Store

iPad runs almost 140,000 apps from the App Store. Everything from games to business apps and more. And new apps designed specially for iPad are highlighted, so you can easily find the ones that take full advantage of its features. Just tap the App Store icon on the screen to browse, buy, and download apps wirelessly, right to the iPad.

iBooks

The iBooks app is a great new way to read and buy books.* Download the free app from the App Store and buy everything from classics to best sellers from the built-in iBookstore. Once you’ve bought a book, it’s displayed on your Bookshelf. Just tap it to start reading. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays everything in sharp, rich color, so it’s easy to read, even in low light.

Maps

Finding your way is a completely new experience on iPad. Tap to view maps from above with high-resolution satellite imagery, up close with street view, or with topography in a new terrain view — all using Google Services. Search for a nearby restaurant or landmark, then get directions from your current location.

Notes

With its expansive display and large, onscreen keyboard, iPad makes jotting down notes easy. In landscape view, you see not only a note-taking page but a list of all your notes. iPad even circles the current note in red, so you can see where you are at a glance.

Calendar

iPad makes it easy to stay on schedule by displaying day, week, month, or list views of your calendar. You can see an overview of a whole month or the details of a single day. iPad even shows multiple calendars at once, so you can manage work and family schedules at the same time.

Contacts

The Contacts app on iPad makes finding names, numbers, and other important information quicker and easier than ever before. A new view lets you see both your complete contacts list and a single contact simultaneously. Need directions? Tap an address inside a contact and iPad automatically opens Maps.

Home Screen

The Home Screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can customize your Home Screen by adding your favorite apps and websites or using your own photos as the background. And you can move apps around to arrange them in any order you want.

Spotlight Search

Spotlight Search allows you to search across iPad and all of its built-in apps, including Mail, Contacts, Calendar, iPod, and Notes. It even searches apps you’ve downloaded from the App Store. So no matter what you’re looking for, it’s never more than a few taps away.