The calculator app in Windows 7 isn’t what you’d exactly call exciting because, well, it’s a calculator. However there are significant improvements over WinXP’s calculator that are really easy to miss. For much of what you will see in the video below, you probably use specific web sites (or maybe even smartphone apps) to get the same...

There’s been a whole swath of stories like this one about the Microsoft + NBC split where MSNBC as you know it will cease to exist and be replaced by NBCNEWS.com instead. Before continuing, for those wondering if the cable channel brand of MSNBC will continue to live on, the answer is yes – at least for now. When Microsoft and NBC decided to team up...

There’s a reason the MP3 audio format completely obliterated WMA (Windows Media Audio) as the preferred choice – it works everywhere. On PCs, on laptops, on smartphones, in many car stereos, etc. The more places a specific media format can be used, the better it is. With video, the same is true, except instead of MP3 you use MP4. If you’re...

Most of you use flash memory in the form of USB sticks, SD cards and CompactFlash cards. Unfortunately there isn’t any test you can run that will absolutely say whether a flash stick or card is going to fail, so you have to use common sense. Here are 5 easy ways to tell if your flash-based memory is failing. 1. It does not recognize immediately when...

If you have a laptop running Windows 7 where the wireless card disconnects for seemingly no reason, it may be your power options settings causing the problem. Before continuing, when I say “disconnects”, I don’t mean that the wireless card is having problems connecting. I mean that at some point after using your laptop for a while, the wireless...

Even as I begin to write this, there’s a bit of irony here because very soon people may start sharing movies old-school style by trading ripped discs with each other. I’ll explain that further in a moment. To “rip” a disc simply means to make a copy of it, either to a file (like an ISO) or another disc. When DVD writeable drives starting...

In this article I’m going to specifically concentrate on Google Chrome and Opera memory management. Google Chrome 20 The first question Chrome users would have concerning this is: “Whadya mean Chrome has memory issues? IT DOESN’T!” Not at first. But it eventually will. Chrome is like IE in the respect that runs each tab as a separate...

There are in fact many web browsers out there, but the four that people have actually heard of are Windows Internet Exporer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera. Before starting, yes there is such a thing as a web browser that hardly uses any memory at all, and that’s the text-based type like Lynx, elinks and so on for the Linux environment. People...

Every now and then you’ll be on the computer in the middle of doing something important, and you get a message. This could be a text message, email, instant message, or what-have-you. But you can’t be engaged in that conversation at the moment because you have things that need to get done. It is at this time you need to employ methods to kill that...

Recently I did a video on how to get Firefox via FTP, and decided to try the same for the Opera browser. I found out that yes, you can download Opera the same browser-less way if you wish, but more importantly I discovered that yes, Opera does have a 64-bit version. I unfortunately cannot post a direct download link to the 64-bit version of Opera – but...

In the Linux environment, it’s easy to install Firefox without a browser. An example would be sudo apt-get install firefox. In Windows however, the way you do the no-browser way is via FTP. Why would you need to know how to do this? As it states in the video, if you’re ever put into the situation where you cannot load the Firefox web site to download...

Dave writes:I use iGoogle on a daily basis as my homepage. Today I noticed a message at the top that it is going to be discontinued in 16 months. I really like iGoogle as I can get multiple RSS feeds layed out very nicely from websites that I cannot get to at work. Are there any sites out there that do what iGoogle does as far as the gadgets and feeds?You...

If you’re like most computer users, you have a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply); these are available at all office stores. Most of you know these things as “the huge brick-like power strip that beeps really loud when the power goes out”. Chances are that most of you have an entry-level UPS with 6 power outlets on it, with 3 being able to run...

This question isn’t as easy to answer as you might think. When you’re away from home, don’t have a laptop with you and want to check your email for whatever reason, the only two options you have to get to access the internet (without calling in a favor from a friend or family member) is to use your smartphone or use a public computer. The...

For those of you that still use Windows 2000, either at work or at home, you know that Firefox 12 was the last version to work in that environment. If you want to install Firefox 13, WinXP is the minimum required Windows OS. Much to the dismay of many Win2000 users, Google never released a version of Chrome that worked on a native level in Win2000 as they...