In recognition of the recent events in Japan, many major carriers are offering free communications (calls and/or texts) to Japan for a limited time. While other carriers may join at any time, Engadget is currently reporting that the following carriers are participating: AT&T Sprint Verizon Comcast While this is a limited time offer (you should [...]
Test Your Rock-Paper-Scissors Skill Against A Learning Algorithm
March 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Everyone out there is probably familiar with the head to head game Rock-Paper-Scissors. While statistically no one player has an advantage over the other, computers can analyze player behavior and predict what they will choose. This simple page demonstrates this artificial intelligence in action: Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating [...]
PowerGUI: A Utility For Power Users And PowerShell Script Developers
March 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Having taken batch scripting about as far as I think I can, have recently started playing around with Windows PowerShell which allows you to write scripts to do just about any OS level task. While tutorials are helpful, I have found simply creating scripts via old fashioned trial and error works best for me. A [...]
Easily View And Change Drive Letters Of Any Device
March 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Whenever you install a new drive (hard disk,optical, etc.) or plug in a removable device such as a flash drive or camera, Windows assigns the device a drive letter. If you have previously used the removable device, for the most part, you should get the same drive letter. If you have the need to change [...]
Easily Measure Your System Boot Time With BootRacer
March 9, 2011 by 2 Comments
If one of the performance metrics you keep your eye on is your overall system boot time, rather than keeping a count in your head or whipping out a stopwatch, take a look at the freeware utility BootRacer. This tool takes the simplistic approach of doing "one thing well" and features: Automatically calculates your Windows [...]
Test Your Google SEO Knowledge
March 8, 2011 by 2 Comments
For those of you who design websites or like to tweak your HTML source to be optimized for Google’s search engine, you can test your knowledge using this Google SEO Quiz. This brief quiz covers questions much more deep than the "what is the most important tag" variety. If you find yourself in need of [...]
How To Create A Slipstreamed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Installation Disc
March 7, 2011 by 3 Comments
For those of you who do a lot of Windows 7 installations, creating a slipstreamed installation disc with the newly released service pack 1 already included can really save you a bunch of time. The process of actually creating a slipstreamed disc is very easy and for step-by-step instructions, check out this article. To get [...]
An Extensive List Of Free Android Apps
February 15, 2011 by 1 Comment
For those of you with Android phones looking for some free apps to load it up with, take a look at Gizmo’s Freeware list of "Best Free Android Apps". Like all of the lists on Gizmo’s site, the applications are organized into categories with a brief write-up on each. There is something on this list [...]
How To Set Your Computer To Reboot And Then Hibernate
February 14, 2011 by 1 Comment
I am a huge fan of using hibernation over a system shutdown when I am done using the computer for the very simple reason that I can immediately pick up the next day right where I left off. When you do a system shutdown, not only does your system take longer to start up, all [...]
How To Set Firefox Tabs Opened From Links To Appear At The End
February 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment
The default behavior in Firefox 3.6 for new tabs which are opened by clicking on a link is for them to appear immediately to the right of the tab that opened it. While this can work for keeping your tabs somewhat organized, it can throw off tabs you want to always have in front. With [...]
Does Disabling Aero Really Improve Performance In Windows 7?
February 12, 2011 by 2 Comments
The title of this tip is taken from a recent post The Windows Club which addresses this very question. The article is short and sweet and a recommended read for anyone who has ever pondered this question. To get right to the “meat” of it: Now it is very important to understand one thing! The [...]
Learn To Spot A Fake Consumer Review
February 10, 2011 by 2 Comments
Consumer reviews can definitely be helpful as they provide a way for anyone to give feedback on their experience with a product or company without having to have a platform (i.e. PCMech) to share it. Unfortunately, this system can be easily "gamed". Because of this, you have to always be wary of fake reviews which [...]
Periodic Table Of Google API’s
February 9, 2011 by 1 Comment
It isn’t news to anyone here that Google has a lot of products and services it offers. But while most people only really know about their end user products (i.e. search, Adwords, Chrome, Analytics, etc.), Google also features loads of API’s (application programming interfaces) which developers can use to incorporate Google technology into their products. [...]
Do Green Drives Really Save That Much Power?
February 8, 2011 by 9 Comments
It is no secret that I am a big time supporter of reducing our impact on the environment, so I enjoy reading tech related items on the subject. One article that caught my eye recently was an Ars Technica post titled "Ask Ars: are "green" hard drives really all that green?" This article is a [...]
A Simple Tweak Which May Boost Firefox Performance
February 7, 2011 by 5 Comments
I read a tip on Lifehacker recently where a reader offered a very simple tweak which may boost your Firefox performance. Essentially, if you have multiple languages set in Firefox, it will slow down the rendering engine (as each language gets processed separately). By default, US installations will have 2 languages configured: English and English/US, [...]
