If you want the best to two worlds: the power and features of Microsoft Office and the collaboration tools of Google Docs, then bind them together with OffiSync. OffiSync Supercharges Microsoft Office, enabling users to significantly improve the way they create, collaborate and share their documents by integrating Microsoft Office with Google Docs, and Google...

Every laptop and netbook should have an on-screen volume display, but unfortunately some don’t. The end result is that whenever you change the volume via the keyboard (usually a Fn+F8 for up and Fn+F9 for down) you have absolutely no idea what the volume level is other than by ear. Why is an OSD volume meter so important on a laptop? Because it’s...

As many readers may know, I am not a big believer in anti-virus programs as an essential program for computer protection, however I ultimately had to cave due to customer VPN requirements and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. But enough about me and onto an interesting article with some statistics about the effectiveness of AV programs. From the...

Every so often retailers run specials where they give away something for one reason or another. For example, Starbucks gave away a free coffee on election day to those who voted. It is hard to keep up with these giveaways as usually you only hear about them through the grapevine. So to take a break from the norm, I thought I would pass along an article which...

As you probably know, Facebook has been in the news recently being hammered for their apparent lack of concern regarding user privacy. While Facebook is responding to these issues, it raises the question: would you use a Facebook alternative where your data is controlled by you? Such a task is the goal of an in-progress open source project named Diaspora. The...

I think it’s safe to say that netbook fever has died down to a dull roar at this point and that people are looking more towards traditional (as in 13-inch and above) laptops again. While netbooks continue to improve concerning speed, battery life and so on, people tend to like the larger screens better. Price Range Five years ago the price range that gave...

Unless you’re a phone tech (and I know there are more than a few of those who read PCMech), you know what touch-tone dialing is, but don’t know what DTMF is. DTMF is dual-tone multi-frequency. It is what replaced pulse dialing as the standard for how telephone calls are placed, and is what allows touch-tone dialing to work. Each time you press a key...

As a way to make pages load quicker in your browser, many sites utilize a paging method (next/previous page, jump to page X, etc.). This makes sense from both a server side (decreased bandwidth usage) and the client side (increase load time), but it requires user intervention to load the next page. Firefox users who want to have this content automatically...

Many Facebook apps are granted additional access to your data, with some even being allowed to post on your behalf. Taking that quiz or filling out your family tree may have seemed like a fun idea at the time – but before you know it, that app is spamming updates to all your contacts or sending you unwanted emails. What many people don’t know is that...

These tips are for use in supported browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc.), meaning they probably won’t work in Opera or other alternative browser. JavaScript also needs to be enabled in order for these to work (you would know if you turned if off). Yahoo! MailSearch mail: s Forward message: f Reply to all: a Turn the reading pane on or off:...

I received an e-mail that stated the following verbatim: Allied Fiber is Constructing a Nationwide, Network-Neutral, Dark Fiber Cable System Linking U.S. Subsea Landing Points, Major Data Centers, Colocation Interconnection Facilities, Rural Networks and Wireless Towers to Meet Increasing Market Demand Construction Underway to Complete the 1300 Route-Mile Phase...

Something I do quite a bit is email links to interesting articles I come across to people I think would find it interesting. While you can manually copy and paste the URL and paste it into an email, I use the built in browser function:Firefox: Right click on the page and select “Send Link”. Internet Explorer: From the Page menu, select “Send...

If your browser of choice is Internet Explorer 8 and you use Gmail as your email client, it makes sense to integrate the two. Using the Gmail Accelerator, a new option is added when you right click on links and/or highlighted text which reads “Send to Gmail”. This function does exactly what you would expect:Creates a new Gmail message Sets the...

There was a time when Hotmail and Y! Mail allowed the use of inline images when composing an e-mail, but then took away that functionality for whatever reasons. Gmail to the best of my knowledge has never had a native way of using inline images when composing a new message. Using a little copy/paste magic, you can insert inline images when composing a new mail...

If you run a website and have to tweak DNS records every now and then, you probably know that the changes can take up to several days to go through the entire internet. While this can be inconvenient, it is especially annoying if you want the changes to go through for you immediately. If you are using OpenDNS, you can force this change to go through almost...

This is a response to this article. Watch this video first.Velcro’ing anything in your car that blocks an airbag means if it deploys, the iPad will be flung at a speed so fast it could literally lodge itself into the skull of the passenger, killing the person instantly. If you’re driving solo and the bag deploys, it could deflect off the seat and...

Many of us use Gmail or Yahoo! Mail as our primary e-mail service. Many of us also use Firefox as our primary web browser. When you click an e-mail in Firefox, the default mail application loads, which in Windows could be Outlook Express 6 or Windows Live Mail. In OS X it would be Apple Mail and in Linux it would be Evolution (usually). Changing this behavior so...

One thing I have been pleasantly surprised with lately when the need to contact support for one thing or another comes up, is the usefulness of the “live chat” with a support rep. I have used both Dell and our business ISP’s several times and been able to quickly resolve my issues. The wait time is usually only a few minutes and you don’t...

Gmail users utilizing the web interface who would like to give their interface a new look each day should play around with the Themes available in the settings. While this is not a new feature of Gmail, applying a theme other than one of the simple “color only” ones usually changes quite regularly. For example, I am currently using the Planets theme...

Yesterday I wrote about an new Sysinternal’s tool, so it is only fitting that today I write about a new tool released by Nirsoft, RouterPassView: Most modern routers allow you to backup the configuration of the router into a file, and then restore the configuration from the file when it’s needed. The backup file of the router usually contains...