If you are ever troubleshooting DLL’s on your system, this registry entry can help save you time. It allows you to right click on a DLL file and select the option to register or unregister it. Just copy this into a text file and save it as “dllreg.reg”, run the file and try it. [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.dll] “Content...

One of the coolest features of Gmail is the ability to send email (or at least appear to) from any email account you own. Under the Settings tab, you can add any email account you own. After confirming it you can now change the “from” email address in any message you send. Combine this and email forwarding from any other account you own and you...

Introduction Within the last several years, what used to be called a niche market in the PC industry has grown tremendously.  That market, whose main consumers are PC modders and PC gamers is pretty large today, and many products are developed especially for this group computer enthusiasts.  We have all seen these products which include, for example, neon...

For this week’s Freeware Frenzy, I will take a look at GMail Drive Extension v1.0.9. This is a simple program that lets you take advantage of the 2+ GB in your GMail account. Let’s be honest, lots of space is nice, but who has 2GB of e-mail? So with this program, you can use that space for file storage. I should tell you up front though that because...

Many folks in the computer repair business rely on a quality place to order their computer parts from.  Many on PCMechanic prefer Newegg.com, as do I.  We have grown used to their quality, service, and speed.  Newegg sets the bar very high for other shops to match. I have made all part orders for customers on Newegg over the last two years, and...

Pretty much every motherboard supports the “wake on lan” feature. This allows a network signal called a “magic packet” to boot the target computer from another computer on the LAN. If you have (or support) multiple computers it can be a lifesaver; or at least a nifty way to save power. All it requires is you know the MAC address of...

I’m sure you have encountered a text file before where when you view it in notepad, there are no line breaks, only a square looking character. This is because different OS’s handle how the Enter key translates to plain text differently. - Windows inserts a carriage return + line break - *nix inserts just a line break - Mac inserts just a carriage...

Even though it is not often advertised by Windows, or maybe because my Windows 98 habits die hard, I like to schedule my work XP machine to reboot weekly. Here is how it works. (Note: if you have 2000, you will need to install the resource kit for this to work) 1. Create a batch file in your C drive (I call it “auto_reboot.bat”) 2. Add this line: ...