There are many times an accounting program could be useful, especially for someone similar to me. I own and operate a lawn mowing business, a computer repair and support shop, and write a weekly column. To collect the income, I have a checking account, a savings account, and recently opened a PayPal account. I found that keeping track of my income, expenses, and...

Last week, I was attempting to view a few pictures on a Windows 2000 machine (to be more precise, it was more like 150 pictures on a Pentium 2) and selecting a limited amount to save to another machine. Windows 2000 has a distinct lack of multimedia capability, in this regard. To view all 150 pictures, I would have to squint at the thumbnails (after it loaded),...

Lets face it, most of us use different passwords to different things, just in case one were to get compromised, not everything would be compromised. We usually have different passwords as well as usernames. Some servers require certain security features in a password, such as “You must have at least one number, upper case letter, and at least X number of...

There are hundreds of games out there. Games of all different types: first person shooters, RPGs, arcade, sports, military combat; probably a hundred or more variations of each. But, being quite big on airplanes, when I was looking for a Flight Simulator, I found I had only one commercial program available: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. It had a lovely price...

Most of you know that the disk tools in recent Windows versions have had serious issues. Disk manager works, but only to a very limited extent. The drive defragment tool takes forever to do, and often offers little performance gain after the long wait.This week, I chose to review WinDirStat, based on the linux version, Kdirstat, which is a program that can...

In this week’s Open Source Spotlight, I will be reviewing a program called VLC (not to be confused with last week’s VNC). It is a simple, open source, media player with no ads, no spyware, is not bloated with junk that no one needs, yet has some pretty awesome features. It is available for about every Operating System out there, even PocketPC and...

Welcome to the new Open Source Spotlight! I hope to add software to this column that will help you on a daily tasks, and make life a little easier, as well as help you keep money in your pocket. Why spend $200 on a software package when you can get almost the same thing for free? I will also try to find programs that were developed to be cross platform making...

The question of whether to build a computer or to buy a pre-built computer has been asked more and more in the last year or two. With OEM manufactures such as Dell, HP, and Gateway, running advertisements all over your newspaper, TV, and internet using various marketing techniques, people seem to drool at the “blazing speeds and performance” that...

Computer technology is changing so rapidly, that in many cases, the computer you purchased six months ago is quite “old” today. In an industry that moves at blazing speeds, we like to release processor updates from time to time. This article is geared mainly towards those who are not computer gurus and don’t follow the industry everyday. If you...

Have you ever wanted to be able to access your files from almost any computer in the world? Ever had a big file that you needed to transfer that was either too big for a floppy or too small to waste an entire CD on? One solution is to have a dedicated web/file server that costs thousands. If you do not have thousands to spend, what options do you have left? This...