Computer management
Bad Windows tweaks
The Internet is full of information, a lot of it wrong. This applies to the myriad of suggested tips that you find on how to make Windows run better. Several years ago, I wrote:
The Internet is full of suggested tweaks to Windows. Many of these get repeated over and over by various sites without anybody [...]
What to do if the mouse dies
In a couple of older posts, I discussed how to exit your computer if the mouse dies. But perhaps you have some work going on that you do not want to lose and need to do some operations before turning off the computer. Windows comes with an accessibility feature called MouseKeys that will let you [...]
Discussion of firewalls and open ports
For a good discussion of what firewalls do and how to test your protection go to this “Gizmo” Richards article. Richards writes:
Firewalls play a vital role in defending your computer from attack and form an essential part of your computer’s security setup.
But is your firewall actually doing its job? Are you sure it’s effective?
These are [...]
Be careful of driver update scams
Hardware drivers can be a source of trouble and keeping them updated is not always easy for home PC users. Playing on this difficulty are some Internet scams that pretend to help you update. At Windows Secrets, Scott Dunn gives some advice about checking your drivers.
Finding those pesky product keys
A lot of PC users seem to lose track of their product keys for Windows or Microsoft Office or other expensive software. This can be a real problem if you need to reinstall something. One of the nice features of the Belarc Advisor previously mentioned is that it provides a record of your product keys. [...]
Find out all about your system with Belarc
My experience is that most home PC users have only a vague notion of what’s actually on their computer. It’s a good idea to have a record of what software you have installed, what updates have been made, and what hardware you are running. There are several ways to go about generating a report of [...]
Microsoft Vista Compatibility Center
Want to know what software or hardware will work in Windows Vista? Microsoft finally has a site where you can check if something is compatible with Windows Vista. It would be a good place to visit before you upgrade an existing system to Vista or to find out if your programs and peripherals are going [...]
How to set up a new account in Windows Mail
In a previous post, I promised a slide show on how to set up an email account and here it is. Before you start to set up an account, remember that you need the email address, your password, the email service’s POP3 and SMTP addresses.
How to set up Windows Mail accounts
view presentation (tags: windows email [...]
Some email terms
A reader sent me a message yesterday concerning an email problem he is having. One of his comments was that he didn’t understand what was meant by “POP” and I suspect a lot of average PC users don’t know the term. POP stands for “post office protocol”. Most of the time, it isn’t necessary [...]
Determining what runs at startup- Autoruns
There are a variety of ways to find out what starts running on your computer when you turn it on. The utility Autoruns from Sysinternals (now part of Microsoft) is probably as comprehensive as any. I’ve mentioned it before but a new version is out.