Chances are, you’d want to game with your Xbox controller instead of the archaic mouse-and-keyboard setup. Maybe you’re frustrated with the traditional controls and want to try something different. Could be you’re playing a game that originated on a console, and you want to capture that authentic feel. Hell, maybe you just bloody well feel like...

Any of you reading this have been here before: You’re in the middle of an important project whether it be personal or business, and you encounter an error or an unexpected problem getting something done on your computer. Murphy’s Law seems to dictate that the more important the project is to you, the more complex or trying the problem seems to be. If...

The title of this post is taken from the tag line of Microsoft’s free WebMatrix offering: It includes IIS Developer Express (a development Web server), ASP.NET (a Web framework), and SQL Server Compact (an embedded database). It streamlines Web site development and makes it easy to start Web sites from popular open-source apps. The skills and code you...

Office Live is the free (yes, free) version of Microsoft Office for the web. It is located at office.live.com. The only thing required to use it is a Windows Live account, which for most people means "Hotmail account". This is what it looks like once logged in:   You see your current documents, plus the ability to create new ones on the right. You...

When it comes to Microsoft Office, it’s not necessarily a question whether to use it or not, because those who use it will continue to do so no matter what other options (like this, this, this, and this) are available. Those who use Microsoft Office simply won’t use anything else. The real question is whether or not current MS Office users will take...

As web browsers continue to evolve, a design element that is brought up often is how much space menus take up. The current trend is to focus as much attention as possible of doing what’s called "reducing visual footprint", which in a nutshell means to make menus as small as possible while trying to remain informative and useful. To see where...

When it comes to webmail, be it Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, we don’t ask for much. Truly. All we want is the ability to send an receive messages with minimal fuss. Many don’t even bother using the built-in address book or calendar features because as long as the mail keeps flowing, that’s what matters. Being that mail flow is the most...

I know this has been tossed around quite a bit already but I couldn’t resist showing this here. For as long as mobile devices have been around that are powerful enough to do it, somebody will have the thought of, “Hey, let’s see if Windows 95 runs on this thing!” Why? I have no idea. Linux is obviously the better choice, but...

Let’s face it, XP is old. Really old. However in the business world, Win2000 and WinXP still have a strong foothold on the desktop. But thankfully XP is finally losing its grip. By the end of 2010 it’s speculated that 50% of business will be using Windows 7. This is largely due to the fact that more IT admins have given Win 7 the thumbs up as a...

For a few years now, the way in which Yahoo! and Windows Live does public profiles is nothing short of ridiculous. There are way too many options, way too many things to turn off, and the real sad part is that most of you who read this didn’t know about all the crapola that comes with a profile from Y! or WLive. This is mainly due to the fact that both...

Did you know Bing has a language translator? Neither did I until yesterday. I found it quite by accident. Bing really needs to promote this utility more. A lot more. It truly is great. Bing uses a side-by-side layout with highlighting so you can easily see what’s being translated from what. In addition, auto-detect is the first choice on load of the site...

Microsoft Security Essentials is an antivirus/anti-malware/anti-spyware application. It is free and runs on the Windows operating systems XP, Vista and 7. This review is not going to concentrate on how much stuff MSE can detect but rather boiled down to a simple question: Does it get in your way? I’ll explain that further. Applications specifically...

This is not a review of Windows 7 the operating system, but rather www.windows7sins.org. I suggest reading thru that web site before reading this article. Some will agree with every point made on that site while others will say, "Um.. I don’t think so." Here’s my two cents on each "sin". 1. Poisoning education I disagree solely...

No, this does not mean that Yahoo! the site is going away. Far from it. It means that Y! has officially offloaded it to Microsoft. Yahoo! has made it very clear these days (and their CEO even said so) that they are not a search company, so now Y! is all about content. This is part of the reason why Y! has been making major changes over the past few years –...

If you’ve bought enough computers over the years, chances are you’ve had at least a few of them that dropped in value so fast it made your head spin. Before listing the worst, the best concerning resale value has always been laptops. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Lenovo, Macbook, Dell Inspiron or what-have-you. The laptop will always retain...

New software from Microsoft, Hohm, is a free web-based tool that you can use calculate how to save on energy costs in your own home. Defined: Microsoft Hohm is a free web based application (running on the Windows Azure platform) that enables consumers to better understand their energy usage by utilizing advanced analytics licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley...

Microsoft has just announced some beta anti-virus/spyware/malware protection software called Microsoft Essentials. It’s free and free is good. This software is only available to people running a legal copy of Windows. This is fine. My copies of XP are all legal as is my Windows 7. After jumping thru several hoops trying to download this thing, I sign in...

Bing is the new search engine web site from Microsoft. This is their attempt to put their name on the map concerning internet search, or said differently, Microsoft is trying to compete with Google. Again. Bing is the replacement for Live Search. You can try it right now if you like. Just go to www.bing.com. Or, if you’d prefer a tour first, that’s...

The fact Microsoft is offering Windows 7 free for an entire year to anybody who wants it is definitely a change for the better. It used to be that whenever any software maker released a product, they would do so, wait for the mountain of complaints to come in, then provide fixes. Concerning operating systems, that’s typically how commercial releases worked...

Microsoft Office will have a 64-bit edition for version 2010. This is a big deal because that’s Microsoft flagship product. More on that in a moment. At this point in the desktop computing world, we’ve easily reached the limits of what 32-bit processing can do. No matter what OS you’re running, there really isn’t any more we can squeeze...