In the video below, the place mentioned where to get boot diskette images is AllBootDisks. Compared to other web sites that offer the same downloads, this one has both the EXE and the IMG versions from MS-DOS all the way up to Windows XP.

The best part about all this is that everything is free. The only thing you have to pay for are some blank discs to burn and nothing else. See video below for details on how to make it all happen.

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How-To: Create a Bootable CD With ImgBurn

I’m not saying not to use Y! or WLive because they are arguably the two most-used when it comes to email and instant messaging. What I am saying is that these two companies could have designed their profile interfaces a whole lot better.

These two are so bad it even makes Facebook look easy – and Facebook is horrible to begin with.

See video for details, post a comment and tell us what you think.

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Rant: Microsoft And Yahoo Profiles (Video)

The video below will show you how to do it. It’s not exactly simple, but once you know where to go and how to do it, it’s fairly easy.

Where would this come in handy?

If you want to send a set of videos instead of just one, and have it all in one link, a playlist is the way to do it.

If you have your own web site or blog, embedding one playlist requires less code and loads faster for everybody who views it.

If you make a mistake from the set of videos you created, you can change your playlist while still retaining the original link/embed.

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How To Create YouTube Playlists (And Get Link Code)

The video below shows how to create Windows 7 Control Panel shortcuts by using more of a manual method, but it is 100% guaranteed to work.

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Creating Windows 7 Control Panel Desktop Shortcuts

Most of you out there are very familiar with the "Map Network Drive" feature of Windows, but when mapping an FTP location as a shortcut, the steps to take are slightly different.

Here’s how to do it in Windows Vista and 7, in video form:

Doing this the Windows XP way

Note: This is an instance where you truly notice the differences between XP and 7. Microsoft eliminated a lot of hoop-jumping in their interface, and you’ll see what I mean as you read through this.

1. Open My Computer.

2. Click Tools then Map Network Drive…

3. Click the link Sign up for online storage or connect to a network server. Don’t bother with the drive letter, folder or Browse button.

4. Click Next.

5. Click Choose another network location, then Next.

From here on out it’s the same as it was in Windows Vista and 7.

Enter in an FTP location:

Choose whether you want to login anonymously or with an FTP account:

Enter a name (or let Windows choose it):

Click Finish.

From this point there are some major differences.

Windows Vista and 7 make your FTP shortcuts very easy to locate. Any time you load Computer from the start logo, you will see them in the tree folder view on the left as shown in the video above. Alternatively you can simply click the start logo and type the name of the shortcut; it will show up as a clickable result.

In Windows XP you will not see FTP shortcuts from My Computer in default view.

These are your options to get to your FTP shortcuts in Windows XP.

1. Click My Network Places on the left from My Computer’s default view.

After clicking that you’ll see something similar to this:

2. Manually launch Windows Explorer and expand My Network Places.

You can do this three ways.

1. Win+E ("Win" being the "flag" key on your keyboard)
2. Start / All Programs / Accessories / Windows Explorer
3. Start / Run / type explorer / OK

When launched, expand My Network Places to see your mapped FTP shortcut locations, like this:

3. Enable My Network Places to be accessible directly from the Start menu.

Like this:

If it’s not there, right-click the Start button and select properties:

Click the Customize button:

Click the Advanced tab:

Scroll down the list and check off My Network Places:

Click OK twice after that.

As you can see, it’s not that XP couldn’t do "mounting" (which is actually just shortcuts) of FTP locations. Rather you had to know up front these shortcuts were placed in My Network Places, and also know that you could completely disregard the "Sign up for online storage" notice in favor of an "other" server.

Don’t have an FTP server of your own to try this out on?

I’m betting you do and you probably didn’t even know it. Chances are likely your ISP offers free home pages which is accessible via FTP. All you need to know is the FTP server name and configure an account for it. This information will be available at your ISP’s web site.

You probably won’t get more than 10 to 50MB of space, but hey, free space is free space. You might as well map a shortcut to it in Windows. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Your FTP folder for your home page space via your ISP is most likely public. Remember that. Don’t post anything there that contains personal information.

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Mapping an FTP Server in Windows Explorer (Video)

Why use paste special? Because it allows you to copy and paste text without carrying over all the formatting that may prove to be annoying to deal with.

In Windows (and assumedly Linux), paste special is easy. Simply use Edit/Paste Special from your application or choice, or use CTRL+SHIFT+V instead of just CTRL+V like you ordinarily would.

Bear in mind that paste special functions differently depending on which application you’re using.

See video below for details and examples of how it works.

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How To Use Paste Special (Video)

Nuvi Editor on the other hand is very easy. It makes for quick work of mapping locations, fine tuning with easy drag-and-drop functionality, and can physically send data to Garmin nuvi GPS devices directly. It can also edit your existing Favorites/Waypoints as well for further fine tuning of existing locations you’ve saved.

Garmin specific note: Nuvi editor will work with any Garmin nuvi model or StreetPilot that starts with a c5xx (such as StreetPilot c550 or c580).

I’ve been using this software for a while now and can say without any hesitation it’s the best and easiest there is.

See video below for an example of how it works.

Oh, and did I mention Nuvi Editor is free?

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Nuvi Editor (GPS)

There is a free utility called WinDirStat that will give you very good, very useful (important) information about your hard drive. For example, it’s really easy to answer simple questions such as “What’s the biggest file on my hard drive?” and “What file type is taking up the most space?” The color coding in WinDirStat makes this ridiculously easy to use, and the ability to launch command prompts or Explorer windows that directly go to files is also very trick. On top of all that, WinDirStat is tiny. The installation file is only 645K!

See video below for details.

If you try this and like (or not like) it, let people know by leaving a comment below.

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WinDirStat, Awesome Disk Usage Analyzer

But maybe you’re not running Windows. If that’s the case you can’t run WLW. Not easily, anyway.

Another very good blogging utility is an add-on for Firefox called ScribeFire. It supports just about everything WLW does, plus has a few extras. If you can’t run WLW for whatever reason, ScribeFire is what I recommend. Being it’s a Firefox add-on, it will work on any operating system that can run Firefox.

See video below for details.

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ScribeFire For Firefox

The Command Prompt in the Windows environment goes all the way back to MS-DOS since Windows was originally an environment that run "on top of" DOS.

The video below will work on any NT-based Windows (Windows NT, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Server 2008, Vista, 7).

For you super old-schoolers out there, "cmd" doesn’t exist in Windows 95 or 98 because the command interpreter in those environments was actually MS-DOS 7 based and not NT. If you wanted to run a prompt in those environments, it’s "command" and not "cmd".

Notes on the video below:

At the portion when you see the right-click inside the Command Prompt window, one option I didn’t cover (but should have upon reflection) is "Select All", which selects whatever is in the window. You can choose that, then press Enter to select it. This may be easier for you than the other methods listed.

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Windows Command Line Goodness (Video)