One of the features hiding in plain sight which many people do not realize is included with Windows 7 is the ability to easily hide all your desktop icons and gadgets. To do this, right click on an empty area of your desktop and go to the View menu and select either ‘Show desktop icons’ and/or ‘Show desktop gadgets’. As you can guess, to...

Right now a lot of people are tightening belts concerning money and one way to save cash is by using a pre-paid cell phone instead of post-paid. Here are some tips to maximize minutes and minimize hassle. 1. Check voicemail from another number On many pre-paid phones it chews up minutes checking your voicemail. Solution: Check it from another line. Call your...

Everyone’s heard tips on how to manage e-mail, deal with spam and so on – so here are a few other bits of info to help make your e-mail more manageable. Forwarded e-mail sometimes has a tendency to bypass spam filters You’ve been a good e-mail user but for whatever reason there are still spams that get thru to your inbox, even though...

Microsoft Skymarket coming for Windows Mobile 7 apps Don’t Like Palin’s Wikipedia Story? Change It 20 tech habits to improve your lifeThanks for...

Chances are there’s a local computer exposition that takes places a few times a year near where you live. I’ve attended several of these over the years and I can honestly say that yes, you should go to one if you haven’t. There’s usually only one reason to go to one of these: To buy computer stuff. What type of stuff will you see at an...

You can be the worst photographer armed with the cheapest digital camera and still get great shots if you’re willing to seek out subjects that look interesting. Here’s a few examples of what I’m talking about. (click any image for larger size) This is the prop car from Back to the Future, taken at Universal Studios in Orlando Florida in March...

A domain in relation to the internet is [Domain Name].[TLD], such as PCMECH.COM. The domain name itself is PCMECH. The TLD, a.k.a. Top Level Domain is the dot com. Or moreover, just com. Generally speaking you can have up to 60 characters in a domain name before the TLD, so if you wanted.. Hi-There-This-Is-My-Domain-Name-and-I-Really-Like-It.com ..you could get...

Some have found Adobe Reader to be annoying, bloated, and just a plain pain in the rear. There are alternatives like FoxIt, but if you want to abolish PDF readers all together and still be able to look at the occasional PDF, here’s a nifty service called PDFMENOT. This service allows you to either view PDFs that are linked somewhere on the web, or upload...

Many people like navigating by keyboard.  It can sometimes be faster and more efficient then using a mouse once you get the hang of it.  Here’s two useful shortcuts that may help in that regard. To open up Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), simply hold the Windows key and press E.  No matter where you are, this will open Windows Explorer. To...

Back in the days of olde (i.e. late 90s) web browsers were distinctively different in the way they worked as far as user commands were concerned. Today all of them act more or less identical to each other. I personally feel this is good because when going from one browser to the next there’s not too much of a learning curve, if any at all. My favorite...

I stumbled across a really handy feature in Windows Vista, which is the ability to display the time in multiple time zones using the system clock. This is easy to set up:Right click on the time in the task bar and select Adjust Date/Time. Go to the Additional Clocks tab. Select the check box to show the additional clock, pick a time zone and give it a...

More times than not, the built in program uninstaller in Windows Add/Remove program is more than enough, but if you are looking for a bit more functionality, take a look at MyUninstaller. MyUninstaller, in addition to the obvious function of uninstalling programs allows you do remove dead entries, view more detailed program information (including installation...