While it’s obvious that one should keep the files on their work computer neat, tidy, and organized, not many people apply the same principles to their home workstations. Truth be told, it’s a little odd.  Keeping all your files where they can be easily found should be second nature to most people. Using the Windows search tool is a terribly...

There is simply no denying the popularity of the Amazon Kindle. The eReader from tech giant Amazon.com has quickly gained aficionados from across the globe, thanks to the system’s easy to use downloading system and the relatively inexpensive price of the device. As Amazon has no physical stores of its own, it has primarily focused on making the device...

WinFF is a graphical front-end for FFMPEG. While true you could use HandBrake to compress video files, using WinFF is better when you want more options and more control. Also remember that WinFF contrary to its name is not Windows-only as it also will run in Ubuntu, Debian and several other Linux distros. Check out the video below to see how it works;...

I received an email from the developer of the Ultrafunk Popcorn email client yesterday:Hi Rich, I accidentally stumbled upon your posts about the Popcorn mail client on PCMech.com, and although I have no idea if you have any interest in it anymore, I thought you might like to know that after 3 long years, it has finally been updated quite a bit to work much...

As I’ve said time and time again, the best part about running a Bukkit server is all the plugins you’ve got at your fingertips- it goes without saying, though, that some are more useful than others. Here’s a few more addons you might want to look into if you’re looking to see your server climb the ranks- or even if you’re just...

Normally, I always recommend UNetbootin whenever you want to write a bootable ISO image of a Linux distribution to a USB stick. Whether you use UNetbootin’s internal menus to do it or download an ISO elsewhere and use UNetbootin to write the image, it works… …most of the time. There are some instances where it will do that “work yet not...

In the Linux desktop graphical environment, there are many desktop session types, but the two that are most known are KDE and GNOME. This article is about GNOME. For a good long time GNOME was really good. Then version 3 came along and, well, it’s not-so good as it seems to be completely hit-or-miss whether it will work on your PC or not regardless of how...

Honestly, the website I’m about to tell you about is really something everyone who’s ever been into PC gaming should be aware of – yet there are still some people who don’t actually know the site exists. That should change. Gaming’s pretty tough on your PC. Games software, particularly modern games software, requires a fair bit of...

When you buy tech products online, you do run the risk of having ads physically mailed to you in a very sneaky way. It is unfortunately the case that the moment you buy something from certain vendors (like Dell), a few weeks later the ads start coming in the mail. Did you ask for these ads? Of course you didn’t, but they’ll be sent to you anyway...

Let’s say for the moment you want the most fastest, best possible CPU for your new PC build. While not exactly a smart way to shop, an easy way to see the best that’s available is to purposely seek out the highest-priced desktop processors from AMD and Intel and see what comes up. For AMD, there’s the AMD FX-8150, and on the Intel side...

Here’s something that may blow a few minds- YouTube is, by far, not the only available video hosting and sharing website on the ‘net. There’s a whole host of (admittedly rather stunning) alternatives to YouTube out there. While most of them don’t necessarily have the advantage of YouTube’s huge user base, they make up for that...

Inbox Zero in a nutshell means that at the end of the day that every message in your email inbox that was important was attended to, and then deleted or moved to an archive folder. If check your email fairly regularly during the day, either from your PC, work computer or smartphone, you can use your email as a simple task reminder; how it’s done is very...

There are more than a few people out there that absolutely hate the 2011 version of Windows Live Essentials and wish they could go back to the 2009 version. Well, you can – but it’s a bit of a commitment. You can’t run both 2009 and 2011 versions of the Windows Live Essentials suite at the same time, so you have to commit to running only the...

The biggest plus about gaming on the PC isn’t the LAN capabilities, nor is it the interface or the power of a souped-up gaming rig. Without a doubt, the biggest plus is the modding community. Lately, a lot of developers (Bethesda in particular) have been providing fans with the means to create new expansions and addons for their games. Naturally the lack...

It came as no surprise to me when I came across an article that stated a study shows how interesting screwed up things are on the Wikipedia web site concerning “edit wars”. Anyone who knows Wikipedia knows that the information there is not always accurate. In fact, there are many times when article information presented is just flat out wrong (Note:...

The answer to the question posed in the title of this article is yes, but only under a certain condition. It is safe to run your computer with no antivirus if the computer never connects to the internet at any time. Yes, that sounds ridiculous, but I have a point to make with this. Most people are under the belief that if you’re not running Windows and...

Today, we’re going to take a look at a few terms that are fairly often applied to software and what each term means. Vaporware: Vaporware basically describes an application that simply…isn’t. It’s software that’s neither developed nor officially cancelled and exists in a strange sort of limbo between real and nonexistent. This term...

I’ll answer this question up front – no, it doesn’t. Aside from what I talk about in the video above, there’s this strange belief that any computer that’s old is worthless, and that those who use them must be equally worthless. Obviously, that’s not true. Those who know how to wield older computers and operating systems...

Many people don’t bother buying games for computers these days on the assumption their computer isn’t fast enough – even if the computer is brand new. Are they right? Most of the time, yes they are. One could quickly come to the conclusion of, “I’ll just run older games then!” That’s not always an option because of...

Sometimes you might find that the applications you’re using simply refuse to play nice with your Firewall, and even trying to allow exceptions into the software doesn’t seem to help matters. The temptation to simply turn off your firewall and be done with it might be pretty high. After all, all it does is complicate your network experience,...