If you shop online at all, you need to have your address listed correctly. If you don’t, sooner or later something you ordered in the mail won’t make it to your residence. Sometimes the dumbest things can cause the things you order delivered not to be delivered, even if it’s as simple as separating one address line from another because you...

Gamers do the VoIP (Voice-over-IP) thing a lot because it’s easier to talk rather than type because the hands are busy playing whatever game is being played. While there are many ways to do VoIP (Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, etc.), the problem is that most VoIP servers cost money. A 15-user Ventrilo server for example is 6 bucks a month. Cheap, yes, but whenever...

I’ve always maintained a neutral stance where the console wars are concerned. Each device has both advantages and disadvantages, merits and detriments. The largest advantage of the Xbox 360, hands down, has to be a lovely little issue known as the Red Ring of Death. Most everyone who doesn’t have a new model has probably suffered from this at least...

Even though I use Google Chrome as my primary browser these days, I admit with no hesitation that Firefox completely obliterates every other browser in the plugin/add-on/extension department. To this day, nothing else comes close to the extension options that are available for Firefox. Some people when browsing just want a simple-as-possible on/off toggle for...

Dot matrix printers may still be used in business (they’re particularly good for printing double and triple-copy receipts, as in the white-yellow or white-yellow-pink kind), but in the home they’ve been gone for decades, replaced by inkjet and laser. I’m pretty sure nobody will argue with me when I say the dot matrix printer was one of the...

Well, I finally caved. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I went and created a Tumblr account and familiarized myself (at least vaguely) with how everything worked. And you know what? It’s actually pretty cool. What Is Tumblr? If I had to describe Tumblr to you, simply calling it a ‘microblogging site’ would fall far short of the...

Some good news from the FCC – they just put into effect tighter rules against telemarketing and spam texts. The rules basically state that written permission (which means on paper or electronic) is now required before reaching out to bothering people with prerecorded or direct sales calls. My question to you, the reader, is this: Do you receive junk calls...

Google Earth, which easily wins the award for Best Free Standalone Mapping Tool That’s Ever Existed, introduced a feature in version 6.2 (the latest as of this writing) that’s easy to miss but is very cool – the ability to easily share out screenshots. You’ve heard not only myself but other authors from PCMech go on about how Google Plus...

Valve’s Steam platform has more or less revolutionized the world of PC gaming. Currently the world’s largest digital distribution platform for games, it boasts over 35 million active users, with thousands upon thousands of titles, achievement lists, friend lists, media sharing, and communities. All in all, it’s pretty awesome. But it’s...

Whenever I list anything that’s classified as a toy for the computer geek crowd, I try my best to show things that are actually usable, even if only to a small degree. Geeks, after all, are a practical bunch. With that said, here are 5 toys that are both cool and usable. 1. USB Memory Brick ThumbdrivesWhere to get it: Here These are both functional and...

CCleaner (formerly known as "Crap Cleaner") is a free Windows cleaning utility that I’ve been using for years, and is the only one I’d recommend to anyone. I use CCleaner on both my tower PC running Win7 64-bit and my netbook running WinXP 32-bit. Said up front, no, CCleaner hasn’t paid me me to say any of this; I just like the...

Computer problems messed with me on the laptop, so this week I took to my iPhone to record this week’s “Inside The Insider”. I talk about what’s in this week’s issue of The Insider, as well as send a big “thank you” to everybody who signed up in the last week.Thanks to everybody. And, if you’re not yet an...

This is rather old news in the tech world, but I still feel it bears mentioning. Google Chrome comes equipped with a pretty interesting tool, known as “Incognito Mode.” Pretty sweet name, no? A lot of folks think that, with Incognito Mode enabled, they’re pretty much invisible to other people on the net. Same as if they were using Anonymizer,...

Designing a web site, said very honestly, is a pain to do because it’s never been easy. Granted, today it is a lot easier, but it’s still not simple. If you like the idea of having a website but hate the idea of designing it, Twitter might be just the thing you were looking for. With most small businesses, the primary purpose of having a web site is...

For the longest time, my home page was the anti-home page, about:blank. That address is nothing but a blank white screen and I used it because my browser started up faster that way. These days however, my home page is StartPage. The trials and tribulations of what to set your home page to Content providers and search engines have been trying for years to come up...

The Internet’s a grand and marvelous thing, isn’t it? A near-infinite collection of facts, figures, and information. The most advanced communications tool ever developed by humankind. The center-point of the Global Village. A source of income, a creative outlet, and a whole virtual world, right at our fingertips. It’s also absolutely horrid if...

Mozilla recently released version 10 of the popular Thunderbird email client. While Thunderbird works in Windows, Mac and Linux, it’s arguably one of the best free email clients right next to Windows Live Mail on the Windows platform. Version 10 incorporates the same "add-ons will be compatible as new versions are introduced" way of handling...

KMail is one of those email clients that’s really easy to miss, mainly because it’s been around for so long. People hear KMail and think, "Oh, right – that’s the KDE mail client thing in Linux that’s been around forever." Yes, it’s been around a long time, but it’s arguably in the top 3 graphical email clients...

You’re back from a long day at the office and life sucks. Your back hurts, your wrists feel like stiff, numb boards of wood, and your eyes feel like they’re just about ready to pop out of your skull.  As an added bonus, you can’t move your neck without sharp pain shooting through your body. Computers are great, but the health problems that can...

This is an example of where the internet did things wrong. There are a lot of things it does right, but the stinkers stick out, and this is one of them. Originally, any system that required a user ID asked you what you wanted for a screen name. Simple systems only allowed letters and/or numbers. Advanced ones allowed letters, numbers, dashes (-) and underscores...