Windows Tools, Help & Guides

I’ve done a major rework on the PC Security Handbook and the second edition is now available as a free download. Below is a changelog of some of the changes you’ll see in the new edition. As always, feedback–whether positive or constructive–is always welcome.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ever had the need to upload a screenshot of your PC quickly?  Sure the native Windows Snip Tool is good and SnagIt is even better.  But what if you just need to quickly take a shot and upload it without any editing or pasting into Paint first?

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever run into a situation where you need to have an urgent modification on your word documents or excel sheets but found your Microsoft Office just doesn’t work for you at that particular moment? Or the Microsoft Office trial version just expired and you are looking for some similar services at zero cost?

Introduction

With the release of Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft have started to offer a free Cloud-based Office Web Apps which consists of four main applications – Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. With Office Web Apps, you can now create, view, edit, share and collaborate on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents in the cloud, and all these can be done from virtually anywhere with a supported browser (yes, even a smartphone browser.) You do not have to install any plugins of software to enjoy the service; Office Web Apps only requires you to have a Windows Live ID–that’s all. Not only that, with Office Web Apps, you can have your precious 25GB of free storage space provided by SkyDrive filled up with your documents or notes, edit and share them on the fly, isn’t that sweet? Read the rest of this entry »

This is the second part of our series on the Windows Media Center. Did you miss the first part?

In this section we’ll take a look at the ways Windows Media Center can organise and present your movie collection.

Media Browser:

The “bare-bones” WMC movie component is pretty good, but a bit stark.  Fortunately the clever developers out in the world have come up with software packages to add functionality, flexibility, and better looks.

There are several to choose from but my choice for an enhancement to the WMC movie component  is “Media Browser“.  It sits as a separate icon in your WMC start page and handles your music collection as well, but we’ll focus on the movie parts for now. The front page is below. It’s fairly straightforward, adds a lot of functionality, it looks good – and it’s free.

Read the rest of this entry »

Virus, spyware and other types of malware are here to stay. Our main problem is becoming a little paranoid about the subject. One of the reasons that drives to this situation is that many people–even skilled ones–are not aware of the symptoms of having a malware infection.

This post is just a basic list, I am preparing a more advanced article about the same topic so take this one as an introduction.

The best way to know if your computer is infected by some sort of malware is by using an antivirus to detect infections. So, what is the point in this list? Sometimes, the security utilities have problems detecting some sort of virus, as happens with the more sophisticated viruses out there.

Slow performance could be seen a sign of infection, but as there are so many reasons that can drive to this behaviour is not included in the list.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you think your girlfriend/boyfriend is cheating on you? Are your children visiting webs and you don’t know anything about?

Many features we find in modern software are very useful, but sometimes, is complicated to know what they actually do.

InPrivate Browsing is of this kind. The name itself drives to confusion. If you haven’t read about it, you might think is a sort of protection over your privacy on Internet.

To complicate the things a bit, the browser even comes with two new modes with similar names, InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering.

This is what Microsoft tell us about InPrivate Browsing:

Read the rest of this entry »