Situation: You’re going to install a Canon printer on a computer but you don’t have the driver CD for it. So, like anyone else, you go to Canon’s web site to download them. This should be an easy painless process, right? Wrong. Here’s what you have to do to download drivers for a consumer-grade Canon printer:Go to www.canon.com Click...

When formatting a USB stick in Windows (something many of us do from time to time), in XP you usually only have two file system options, FAT or FAT32. "FAT", by the way, means "File Allocation Table". If you were wondering which to pick, the answer is FAT32 because it overcomes certain limitations of FAT. However if you have a USB stick...

I do operate a personal YouTube channel where I periodically post videos of me playing guitar or synthesizer. Each music style attracts distinctly different audiences. The guitar folk are expecting a certain type of music while the synth folk are expecting something totally different. Here are some example personal videos of mine (I need to show by example so I...

Unless you use your dial-up modem for faxing or internet you probably don’t have much use for it. However there are some good software titles to make it useful again. PhoneTray is a product (and yes there’s a free version on that site) that will show Caller ID and also has the ability to "zap" telemarketer calls as well. Telemarketing...

Everyone who uses the internet must user usernames and passwords and that’s just the way it is. Whether it’s for email, instant messaging or any web site that has authentication of any type, passwords are par for the course. Years ago most people would have only a handful of usernames and passwords to remember, but with the explosion of social media,...

Your presence on the internet either falls into one of two categories: Known or Not Known. You’re most likely in the “Not Known” category. The advantages to being known gives you social perks. And if making money on the internet sounds good to you, your presence can equal cash later on. In this article we’ll talk about how to brand...

Craigslist is not "Web 2.0". Heck, it barely qualifies as Web 1.0. The design of the site is Spartan and for a first-time user can seem a bit intimidating due to the fact there’s just so much stuff on it. Fear not, CL is actually really easy to use. My personal opinion is that it’s far superior to eBay because there’s no sign-up...

There’s more than a few PCMech readers that are weather geeks (and some of you even have a PWS broadcasted on the internet). My preferred weather web site of choice is Weather Underground. The best part about that place is that it remains consistent, meaning no wild new changes, no "total redesigns", etc. They have a formula and it works. Part of...

Are certain computer parts better than others when it comes to building your own PC? Yes. Are certain computer parts better than others concerning Microsoft Windows? That’s another yes. If you stock your built PC with parts that are the right choice the first time, your Windows installation will run better and faster. [hidepost=1] When most people hear...

The advice to back up your data is something that is probably said at least once every 5 seconds by some random person on the internet. Every person who says this is 100% correct. You should back up your data often. However what isn’t ordinarily covered is how to back up your data that you have out there on the internet, i.e. external or cloud data....

In the days of old people would keep computers as long as 5 years or longer. However these days a new computer barely gets past 3 years before needing replacement – or so it seems. You can easily get 5 years out of a computer if you buy it correctly the first time. In fact, you most likely already own a computer that you can get a few more years out...

In the days of old people would keep computers as long as 5 years or longer. However these days a new computer barely gets past 3 years before needing replacement – or so it seems. You can easily get 5 years out of a computer if you buy it correctly the first time. In fact, you most likely already own a computer that you can get a few more years out...

In the days of old people would keep computers as long as 5 years or longer. However these days a new computer barely gets past 3 years before needing replacement – or so it seems. You can easily get 5 years out of a computer if you buy it correctly the first time. In fact, you most likely already own a computer that you can get a few more years out...

In the days of old people would keep computers as long as 5 years or longer. However these days a new computer barely gets past 3 years before needing replacement – or so it seems. You can easily get 5 years out of a computer if you buy it correctly the first time. In fact, you most likely already own a computer that you can get a few more years out...

In the days of old people would keep computers as long as 5 years or longer. However these days a new computer barely gets past 3 years before needing replacement – or so it seems. You can easily get 5 years out of a computer if you buy it correctly the first time. In fact, you most likely already own a computer that you can get a few more years out...

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it. [hidepost=1] This is not going to be a technical explanation of how the Linux file system works but rather it’s immediate differences between it and Windows. The...

Audacity is a freeware application that will run on Windows, Mac or Linux. It may not be the best looking app in the world but it is a true multitrack audio recorder and has pro-style filters in it to "clean up" audio effectively. If you plan on doing spoken-word recordings (such as for a podcast) and don’t have the cash for fancy microphones or...

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it. [hidepost=1] A “live” mode of Linux is if the distribution is capable of running solely from a booted CD or DVD. Ubuntu is a good example of this....

EXIF is the EXchangeable Image File format and is used by digital cameras to store information about the photos you take. Everything and the kitchen sink (figuratively speaking of course) is stored every time you take a photo. Here are two examples of EXIF data using the Flickr service:  View EXIF "meta" data  View EXIF "meta"...

In this series I’m going to covers the ins and outs of using Linux as your primary home computer operating system. It will cover in a realistic sense what you can and moreover cannot do with it. [hidepost=1] Picking the right distro Any any Linux nerd would tell you, “Linux is a kernel, not an operating system.” My typical response to that:...