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10 quick and easy tips for Windows 71. Change the wallpaper Right click an empty part of the desktop and select Personalize from the menu. Click Desktop Background and at the bottom of the window choose how frequently you want to change the wallpaper. Tick Shuffle to mix them up. Now the desktop wallpaper will automatically change according to the schedule. 2. Trim the window borders Do the borders of windows seem too thick? Right click the desktop and select Personalize, Window Colour. Click Advanced appearance settings if necessary (it depends on the theme). Select Border Padding in the Item list and reduce the border width to 0. You now get more space for the window contents. 3. Shrink the title bar Shrinking the title bar and buttons leaves more space for the window contents. Right click the desktop and select Personalize, Window Colour. Select Active Title Bar in the Item list and set the font size to 8. Is Ping a social network or sales tool?I'm sure there are regular meetings at the iTunes department of Apple and the topic up for discussion will be how to increase sales. It is, after all, any company's primary goal. A couple of years ago we had Genius, which examines your music library and then displays a panel on the right of iTunes of music you should buy. It's basically an excuse to display lots of Buy buttons and get people to buy more music. Now there's Ping. Thinly disguised as a social network, it examines your friends' music libraries, compares it with your own and then displays Buy buttons. It'll say "Joe Smith likes Lady Gaga" and it'll follow it with a button to buy the album or track, or "Joe Smith bought such and such a track," then it'll follow with a button to buy the track or album. I'm drowning in a sea of social networks, there are too far many and I wonder if I really need one that constantly nags me to buy stuff. Securely delete private files on the Apple MacSecurity is an important issue with computers and it seems like almost every day there is a problem with the computer or some internet service divulging personal information to all and sundry. As one security leak is plugged, another one pops up to take its place. You shouldn't worry too much about security, but whenever possible you should take measures to hide personal information and files. Have you ever thought about the security issues when deleting files on your Mac? Any file you delete is simply moved to the Trash folder and it isn't really deleted. Anyone with access to your computer can pull a file out of the Trash and then open it or copy it. To really delete a file you need to erase its contents before it is deleted. There is one simple way to do this, but it has major drawbacks. Fortunately, there is a better way that solves the problems, but it's not for novices. Read on if you're an expert user. Encrypt your emails to make them privateA lot of people are concerned about privacy issues these days and they wonder what people and companies do with the information they collect. Could it be used for illegal purposes, identity theft, spying, and so on? There are lots of measures you can take to ensure your privacy and encrypting your emails is one place to start. If no-one but the recipient can read the message you have sent, then that's one less security leak. There is more than one way to encrypt emails so that no-one can eavesdrop on them, but here is one simple method. All you need to do is to agree on a password with the recipient before you send it. Create your own libraries in Windows 7
Recycle files when you can't see the Recycle BinWhen there are one or more windows open on the Windows 7 desktop, the Recycle Bin icon may be covered up and you can't see it. This means that you can't drag and drop files in it from Explorer windows. You can minimise the applications and windows covering it or rearrange them on the screen so that it is visible, but there's simpler way. Click and drag the file or folder from the Explorer window to the right-hand side of the taskbar. When the mouse hovers over the right side (there's a narrow vertical bar), all the windows on the desktop are automatically minimised and then you can drop the item in the Recycle Bin. It's simple and very useful at times. Restore lost Firefox bookmarks in WindowsHow much do you rely on the bookmarks that you store in Firefox? Could you manage without them? What would happen if you lost some or even all of them? We spend a lot of time building up our favourite bookmarks in Firefox and an error could easily wipe them all out. You do have a backup don't you? Well, actually you do! Firefox automatically makes backups of your web browser bookmarks every day and it stores the last five days. This is useful if you've lost or accidentally deleted bookmarks you wanted to keep because you can easily restore them from the backup. You just need to know where Firefox stores the backups and how to restore them. Use Dashboard widgets on the desktopThe Dashboard is a handy feature in OS X on the Apple Mac and it provides access to a collection of widgets - mini programs - that perform simple, but useful functions. For example, there's a calculator, a dictionary, a calendar and so on. To access them you either click the icon in the dock or press the hotkey that's been assigned on the keyboard, such as F12. The screen dims, programs are put into the background and the widgets are placed on top. When you've finished, pressing F12 hides the Dashboard widgets and you can access your programs again. So you can either access your programs or the widgets, but not both at the same time. Wouldn't it be useful if you could access both? Having a handy widget on the screen at the same time as an application would be really useful. This is possible by changing a secret setting in OS X. Turbo charge the Windows clipboard
3 Top tips for Firefox in Windows, Mac and LinuxIn the latest version of Firefox there is a close button on every tab you have opened. If you would prefer a cleaner look you can completely remove the close buttons on each tab except on the current one. Enter about:config into the address box and then type tabs into the filter. Double click When you right click a link on a web page and open a new tab, is it inserted immediately after the current tab or is it added to the end of the tabs. It's actually your choice and you can have it either way. Double click Securely delete files in secure disk vaultsKeith wrote, "Got a question on your tutorial, Hide your files in secure disk vaults." If I want to delete either some of the data in a vault or the entire vault, is it necessary to use secure delete or since the data is encrypted, just delete the data?" Questions about articles on this site are welcome, so thanks for writing Keith. It's an important issue and if you simply delete a file and it ends up in the Trash, couldn't someone then recover it? Is it still encrypted or not? If it is then there's nothing to worry about, but if it isn't then it's a security problem. Protect your PC with a firewall in UbuntuA firewall is a means of filtering network traffic and it is useful because you can control the flow of data that is coming into and going out of the computer. For example, you can prevent hackers and malware from gaining access to the valuable files and information on your computer, and you can prevent malware, adware or spyware from sending information stored on your computer back to its owners. A firewall is a necessity when you then connect your computer to the internet. Anyone in the world can access a computer that is on the internet and without security software like a firewall, they could simply take your files or damage your computer. A firewall keeps out the internet hackers. If you are using Ubuntu Linux, do you know whether you have a firewall? Is it running? Is it blocking unauthorised incoming connections? Is it blocking unauthorised outgoing connections? These are important questions and you should know the answer - the safety of your files and personal data depends on it. The new 7in iPad - real or rumour?Over the last few days there has been an increasing number of rumours about the existence of a new iPad with a 7in screen. There is certainly no shortage of rumours about Apple products and this is partly because the company is so secretive. It works hard to ensure that no information is leaked to the public, so it's impossible to know whether there is any substance in these rumours. However, it doesn't stop everyone speculating and we can ask whether a 7in iPad makes sense. Does it fit in with the product range? Would it boost sales? What are the implications for app developers? Will existing apps work or will we have yet another category in the app store? Display thumbnails faster in Windows 7
Spotlight search secrets in OS X on the Apple MacSpotlight is an outstanding search tool on the Apple Mac and if you have ever forgotten where you saved a file or have lost something, more often than not it will find it for you. Just click the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the screen and enter a word or two to search for. Spotlight then lists the documents, folders, applications and other items that contain the word or words. This is how most people use Spotlight and it is OK for most search tasks, but what if a simple search doesn't turn up the item you are looking for, or that there are too many matches and you can't see the one that you want? You need a more complex search term, one that narrows down the results and locates the item you are looking for. Here are some secrets for more powerful searches using Spotlight. Genius for the app store is, well, geniushave never been a fan of the Genius feature in iTunes for several different reasons. One is that the Genius panel on the right of the iTunes window is just an advert. It's little more than an attempt to get me to buy more music at the store. Sometimes the recommendations bear no relation to the track I've selected in my library and sometimes among the tracks it recommends are tracks that I already have. It doesn't take a genius to check whether I already have a track before showing an advert to buy it. Genius playlists also seem uncannily like a Smart Playlists. Create a Smart Playlist by selecting tracks at random within a genre and then compare it to the playlist created by the Genius feature. If I choose a rock song and click Genius then I get 25 random rock songs with a couple of pop thrown in - there's always a couple of wildcards. I can do that with the Smart Playlist feature. Genius in the app store on the iPhone and iPod Touch is great though and I love it. Genius is actually useful at last. Customise the Windows 7 Send To menu
FaceTime coming to the next iPod Touch?September is usually the time of year that Apple introduces new iPod models, presumably to cash in on the pre-Christmas buying spree that takes place each year. However, there have been rumours that this year will be different and that the new iPod line-up will be announced mid-August. Among the rumoured new features are a front-facing camera that will enable iPod Touch users to call other iPod Touch Users and iPhone 4 users with FaceTime. FaceTime, of course, is the video calling facility in iPhone 4 and it's brilliant, but so few people have iPhone 4s that it's hard to find someone to chat to. Adding iPod Touch users will help, but Apple needs to go further. Use the Magnifier to zoom in on the screen
The other reason for using the Magnifier is if you want to work on something very small in a program that has a limited zoom facility, or if you need pixel-perfect accuracy. The Magnifier in Windows 7 is the best yet and it is worth trying out. Read any document or web article on your iPhone, iPad and iPod TouchSometimes you need to carry certain files with you, but you don't want to lug around a large and heavy laptop. These files may be documents you have been working on that you need for reference, information you need to learn, fun stuff for entertainment, or to keep abreast of the latest news. They may be spreadsheets or desktop publishing newsletters, web pages containing articles and so on. What are the alternatives to a heavy laptop when you need to take files with you away from your computer desk? Of course, the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch spring to mind and there are some useful document viewers available. They aren't perfect though and there is an alternative way to transfer documents to these devices and view them. In fact, you can easily view any document or information from any application using iBooks, the free app from Apple. (This tip works on Windows as well as the Mac.) Check the hosts file for malware on WindowsWhen you want to visit a website with your web browser, you type the URL into the address box, such as www.google.com. Computers don't work with URLs like this and instead they identify the computer you want to access by its IP address. This looks something like 66.102.9.106 and every computer that is connected to the internet has an IP address. The website sends back the information you requested, such as a web page, because it knows your computer's IP address. When you enter a URL the web browser must convert it to an IP address in order to communicate with the right computer. It looks this up at a domain name server. Well, actually, it first looks at a file on the hard disk drive called hosts. If it contains the URL and corresponding IP address then that is used instead and it doesn't look it up in the domain name server. The problem is that malware like viruses, Trojans, adware and spyware can hijack the hosts file and fill it with bogus entries. So a virus might add entries for websites virus removal tools that send the web browser somewhere else. This makes it impossible to download anti virus software. Configure Search in Gnome in LinuxSometimes you know a file is on the hard disk drive somewhere, but you just can't remember where it is. It may be a file you downloaded last week, a document you created last month or a photo you took last year. Tracking down the file isn't that difficult though, thanks to the Gnome Search tool. This enables you to find files easily and it not only finds full and partial filenames, it can also search the contents of files such as documents to give better results. There are some configuration options that are worth knowing about and they can help you to modify how Search works. Amazon Kindle 3 ebook reader
Speak contacts' birthdays using OS X AutomatorA recent article showed how to use Automator in OS X on the Apple Mac to announce any birthdays occuring today so you don't forget to send the person your best wishes. It examined your iCal calendar and looked for events with the word 'birthday' on today's date. This article shows a variation of this theme and this Automator workflow goes through your contacts in Address book and checks the birthday field (if you have added it), and if there are any contacts with birthdays this week, it announces their name. You can set it to automatically run every time you start your Mac or log in. This obviously isn't going to change the world, but if you want to know how to use Automator, you'll learn a few useful tips by looking at this workflow. Create services using Automator on the Mac
How to get your free iPhone 4 caseEver since Apple announced at a press conference recently that it was giving away free bumpers for iPhone 4 owners, I've wondered how this was actually going to take place. Do you order one from the Apple website? Call in at an Apple store? Well, this morning I got an email from Apple notifying me that I could apply for a free iPhone 4 case. You do it using an app on the iTunes store. Go to the App Store on your iPhone and search for 'iPhone case'. You'll see the free app and you can install it on your phone. Delete Automator actions and services in OS XAutomator is a great utility for OS X on the Mac and it can be used to create workflows, applications and services that perform various actions. It's perfect for repetitive tasks that would otherwise be tedious to perform. You can create these yourself with no programming knowledge or you can download workflows, services and actions from the web. Suppose you create or install a service or add an action to Automator that you decide you don't need and you want to remove it? How do you do this? It's quite easy when you know how. Use Automator announce birthdays in OS XThis article for the Apple Mac isn't really about birthdays and it's really a simple introduction to Automator, a great utility that is bundled with OS X. Automator is a sort of progamming tool, but it is an unusual one because you don't need to know anything about programming in order to use it. Lots of actions are provided with it and you simply choose which actions you want to perform and the order in which they are to be executed. It's mostly done through drag and drop using the mouse and you rarely need to type anything in. Yet you can create applications that perform complex tasks and it is especially useful for repetitive tasks. The example application built in this article checks to see if there are any birthdays in your iCal calendar when you log on to your Mac and if there are, it speaks them out loud to remind you to send birthday wishes. It's trivial, but it shows how Automator works quite well. Share Cracker for Windows update
It uses free sources of stock market data on the internet and recently problems with thoses sources were causing problems in the program. This update fixes those problems. The download function now copes better with errors and the last 50 trades is now the last 50 days trading. It's more reliable and more useful too. Uninstall the old one from the Control Panel and download and install the new version. This won't affect the data files and if you're a registered user then this will be recognised. If you're not, they try it free for 30 days. Customise the dictionary in OS X on the Apple MacThe Dictionary is a useful tool on the Mac and it comes built in to OS X. It is more than just a dictionary though, and it is also a thesaurus and it can be used to look up information in Wikipedia too. You have probably not thought about the Dictionary much, but there are actually some useful tweaks and different ways of using it. It is worth taking a look at this mini application and learning the shortcuts and ways in which you can access it and customise it. You'll then get more out of it and it will be more useful to you. iTunes store drives me nuts, but what's the alternative?The iTunes store has some good features, but also some terrible ones that drive people nuts. For example, run iTunes on the Mac or PC and go to the App Store to look for some apps for your iPhone or iPod Touch. If you browse the apps, such as each category, the top free or paid, and so on, you'll find that there are no ratings. If thousands of people have given an app a 1-star rating then I don't want it. It's a dud. But you can't tell from the iTunes store unless you click on an app, wait for the page to load, then scroll down it to the ratings near the bottom. Clicking back and forth and scrolling pages trying to find an app with a half decent rating drives me nuts. Browsing on the iPhone/iPod Touch is actually slightly better because ratings are shown in the app listings, so why are they not there in iTunes on the computer? That's not the only problem. New iPhone FaceTime ads, but have you used it?The number of people with smartphones is a fraction of the total number of people with mobile phones. The number of people with iPhones is a fraction of the number of people with smartphones. The number of people with iPhone 4s is a fraction of the number of people with iPhones. The number of people with iPhone 4s that are currently connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot is a fraction of the number of people with iPhone 4s. And the number of people that you actually want to speak to face to face via a video call is a fraction of that. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of... well, you get the idea. Is it any wonder that I've have my iPhone 4 nearly three weeks and haven't yet made a single FaceTime call? Run programs as an administrator in Windows 7Windows is under constant attack by viruses, Trojans, worms, and all the rest of the malware. This isn't because Windows is insecure or risky in any way, it's just because it is the most popular computer operating system and so many millions of people use it on a daily basis. It's a huge target for malware creators. One of the ways in which you can prevent malware from getting on your computer or doing any damage is to use a standard user account. An administrator account is created by default when you first set up the computer, but once done, you should go to User Accounts in the Control Panel and create a Standard user account for every-day use. It's more resistant to attack from malware. Most software runs fine with a standard account, but occasionally you will come across a program that won't work unless it is run from an administrator account, which has full permission to access all parts of the system. Here are a few techniques for running administrator programs from a safer standard user account. Extend Gnome's Nautilus with scripts in Linux
Speed up your PC with video driver tweaksNo matter how fast computers become and no matter how many cores there are in the CPU or how many gigahertz it runs it, it never seems to be enough. Computers today are many times faster than they used to be, so why do they take so long to start up? And why don't they seem to run any faster than they used to? Of course, the reason is that modern software is much more sophisticated and complex than it used to be a few years ago. The extra computing power of modern processors is completely absorbed by the demands of modern software. So PCs don't seem any faster than they used to be. However, there are a few simple tweaks you can perform to speed up the computer a little. A free and flexible multi-file rename utility for the Mac
Download files in the background in LinuxDownloading files from the internet is easy and it is possible to set several going at once. The problem with downloading files using a web browser is that they download at the maximum speed that is possible. Sometimes that is exactly what you want, but this is not always true and if you are downloading at full speed and using all the bandwidth then it may be difficult or impossible to perform another task at the same time. Try watching an online video while a couple of downloads are taking place, or having a video chat with someone, or even just browsing the web. There may not be enough bandwidth left to do this properly. What you need is a way of limiting the bandwidth that downloads use and to let the run quietly in the background while you carry on using the web. This is easier than you might think. 4 home finance programs for Linux
Access Internet Explorer 8 developer toolsOne of the nice things about Internet Explorer 8 is the handy collection of developer tools that comes with it. Of course, these are used mostly by website developers for various tasks when testing the pages they have created, but some of the simpler developer functions are useful to everyone. For example, you can disable the images on a web page and you might want to do this to speed up the web, to hide adverts, or to save on ink when printing out a hard copy of a web page. There are a few other items that you might find useful to know too, such as how to choose the compatibility mode for awkward web pages that aren't displaying correctly. So how do you access the developer tools? Remotely access your computer using TeamViewerHave you ever been in the situation where you are at work and you want to access something on your home computer? Or perhaps you are at home and need to access something on a work computer. Has someone asked for your help in fixing a problem with their computer? It's not easy if you have to do it over the phone and they are trying to describe what is happening and you are trying to tell them what menu or button to click. In all these cases the solution is to use remote control or remote access software. There are several applications to choose from, but one of the most interesting is TeamViewer It's interesting for three reasons, the first is that it is free for personal use, and the second is that it works on the Apple Mac and iPhone, Windows and Linux PCs. You can use a Windows PC to access a Mac, a Mac to access a Linux PC, a Windows PC to access a Windows PC and so on. All combinations are possible. The third reason is that the software is very easy to use and doesn't need installing. Automatically clear Apple Mac Mail's Junk folderNo matter how hard you try, it is is almost impossible to avoid spam - those junk emails that you don't want. Everyone gets at least some spam and some people get a lot. Mail on the Mac is a handy tool for keeping in touch with friends, relatives, work contacts and fortuntately it has some good features for automatically dealing with suspected spam and it moves them into the Junk folder. You should select this folder occasionally and look at the messages that it contains just to make sure valid emails haven't been mistaken for spam. Unless you delete the messages in the Junk folder though, the number will grow and they will eventually cause problems. You need to empty the Junk folder occasionally to avoid this. You can do this manually or automatically. iPhone 4 reception problemsThere have been lots of news stories and blogs about reception problems and signal strength with the new Apple iPhone 4. Read this Mashable article or this Engadget story for example. There's even a video clip showing the problem and it looks serious. I was out with my iPhone when I first read this, so I immediately tried it. All the bars were showing and even using two hands to completely cover the phone, I couldn't get the signal strength indicator to change at all. The signal must have been too strong. I tried it later at home where the signal is weaker and managed to get the signal strength bars to drop by wrapping my hand around the base of the phone. It wasn't a natural way to hold it though. I got my BlackBerry out and wrapped my hand around it and the bars dropped as the signal was blocked just the same. So this isn't an iPhone problem, it's a mobile phone problem. Try it with some other mobiles and you'll probably see a similar effect. The death of Microsoft? Not likely!The news that apple has sold 3 million iPads has led to lots of people predicting the death of Microsoft and that the Windows PC era is over. It's just a matter of time before Microsoft plumets into oblivion. The iPad is the computer we'll all be using from now on and it will completely replace the desktop and laptop computer. This couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone that has bought an iPad will know that when you take it out of the box and turn it on, the first thing it tells you to do is to plug it into a computer and sync with iTunes to activate it. And what's the cheapest way to do this? Using a Windows PC! Won't iPad sales therefore boost Windows PC sales? Avoid web scams with WOT - Web of Trust
Create virtual hard disk drives in Windows 7When you have just one hard disk drive, every file you create or download from the internet gets stored on it and after a while it becomes a disorganised mess. It gets harder to find files and when you are working on projects, you can't find the items you need or where you last stored something. A second or even third hard disk drive is a big help and you can store music, video or documents on it, you can create and store various projects, you can have folders that are easy to find, and so on. Extra disks are great, so how about a free one or even two? Windows 7 lets you create as many virtual hard disk drives as you need. New features in Safari 5 on the Apple MacThere have been some well publicised new features and improvements in the Safari 5 web browser for the Apple Mac, such as the controversial Reader mode, support for lots of great HTML 5 functions, a faster page engine powering the browser, DNS prefetching and caching, Bing search and more. This article takes a look as some less obvious features - changes to the menus and preferences. Safari 5 isn't hugely different and some new items aren't obvious. Looking through the menus you might think that nothing has changed, but they are easy to see when you compare them side by side. Tweak Windows 7 for solid state drivesSolid state drives (SSDs) are disk drives with no moving parts. They don't contain magnetic discs spinning at thousands of revolutions per minute and instead they contain memory chips. They are more similar to USB flash memory sticks than traditional disk drives. They are becoming more popular because they are much faster than standard disk drives and the price is falling. If you have one of these SSDs, there are some things you need to be aware of and some tweaks that you might need to make to Windows to get the best out of them. Try these hidden features in Finder on the MacThere are lots of hidden features in OS X on the Mac and they make using the computer just that little bit easier or more enjoyable. Sometimes you can use the computer for months or years before you discover them and you can still be surprised by a hidden feature you didn't know even if you are an experienced user. It is a shame that manuals are no longer provided with a new computer and it's really a matter if going over everything on the screen looking for things and left, right and double clicking on everything you find just to see what happens. Here are a few things you may not know about Finder in OS X. Two useful free tools for WindowsThere are lots of free utilities for Windows and some of them are excellent. The problem is that hardly anyone knows about them because they are tucked away on some website in a corner of the web that people seldom visit. They deserve a bit of publicity so here are a couple of great utilities that you can download and use for free. The first is PC Usage Viewer and the second is ADS Scanner. Both are from Pointstone Software. Can Apple make video calling work on iPhone 4?It has been possible to make video calls for a long time and mobile phones with video capabilities have been around for years, but when did you last make a video call? You've probably never made one. In fact, your current mobile phone may not even have video call capabilities. It's not because of any technical limitations, it's just that mobile phone manufacturers tried it and nobody wanted it. I remember the TV ads promoting mobile phones with video calling, but the devices never took off. Mind you, 10 years ago the mobiles and networks were a lot less capable than they are now. Apple's new iPhone 4 has built in video calling capabilities called FaceTime, so can the company do what everyone else has tried and failed at? Do the networks and mobiles now have the capabilities to make this a feature you'll really use or will it continue to be ignored? Safari 5's new reader view is bad newsWhile Steve Jobs was talking up the latest iPhone at WWDC, Apple quietly released a new version of the Safari web browser for Windows and the Mac. This wasn't a point release indicating a few minor bug fixes, but a whole new version. Version 5 has some fantastic new features like the new Reader view. It's a brilliant idea that works like a dream for some, but it is also very worrying and it may provoke criticism from others. It might even get taken out. Hide files in secure vaults on the Apple MacWe all have files and information stored on our computers that we would rather keep secret. This may be a note with your bank details such as account number and branch address, or your password to get into your online banking account. You may store home or work accounts information, or files that are needed for your tax return. There might be login details for the miriad of sites that seem to require logging in before you can access them, there may be subscription details for magazines you subscribe to, and so on. Just think about it for a minute; if someone got hold of your computer, what files and information would they have access to? Wouldn't it be a good idea to secure those files in an uncrackable disk vault that only you could access? You can and you already have the software tools on your Mac. 3 ways to remove Adobe AIR apps in LinuxAdobe AIR is a runtime environment that enables you to install useful applications on your computer no matter whether it is running Linux, Windows or OS X. It's quite interesting and there are some great applications that run on AIR, such as Twitter clients and games. There are some not so good ones too and for every good app you find, you might have to try two or three poor ones. So how do you uninstall Adobe AIR apps? This tip shows how to remove Adobe AIR apps you don't want in Ubuntu Linux, which isn't quite as obvious as Windows or Mac OS X. Improvements to Disk Utility in Ubuntu 10.04There have been many changes to Ubuntu with the latest 10.04 release and the most obvious one is the new user interface theme. As you use the latest operating system though, you will find lots of tweaks here and there are aren't immediately obvious. For example, Disk Utility (on the System, Administration menu has been given a make-over and it has a new look and new features. The design is more modern and it is a much more useful utility. Let's take a tour of the new Disk Utility software... Hide the panels in Linux for more screen spaceWindows has a taskbar in which it displays the applications that are running and windows that are open. The Mac has a Dock that does a similar job and Linux has panels. Linux panels are more like the taskbar than the Dock and they both have broadly similar functions, but panels that look like the Mac's Dock are available for Linux too. Just as the Windows taskbar and OS X Dock can be automatically hidden when they are not actually being used, so can Linux panels. Ubuntu has two panels - one at the top of the screen and one at the bottom, and on a small screen like a laptop or netbook, they take up far too much vaulable screen space. You should set them to auto-hide so they disappear when they are not bing used. Then there's more space for your application windows. Reduce startup times in OS X and boot your Mac fasterHow quickly does your Mac start up these days? Is it still as fast as the day you bought it or does it seem to take longer to get to the desktop than it used to when you first bought it? Lengthening startup times are a common problem for all users and a Mac that was really quick when it was new can take twice as long to boot up after a year or two's heavy use. Why is this and what can be done about it? Here are a couple of tweaks that you can perform to speed up the boot process and restore the Mac's original performance. OSX/OpinionSpy spyware in Mac appsThere is no doubt that the Mac is more secure than Windows computers, but this isn't because the operating system is more secure, but because hardly anyone bothers to create spyware and viruses for the Mac. It's mostly security through obscurity. It's not the whole reason of course, but the small number of Macs relative the Windows PCs plays a big part in its security. As the Mac's popularity increases, we'll see more security threats and you'll need to be on your guard. Intego, a security company, has recently found OSX/OnionSpy Spyware in many Mac apps at popular Mac download websites. Read the security memo here and see the list of infected apps here. Fix Win 7 using System Recovery Options part 2A previous tip showed how to access the Windows 7 repair utilities that are accessed though the Advanced Boot Options menu. You can read the article, but to cut a long story short, press F8 just before Windows loads, choose Repair Your Computer, log in and you'll end up at the System Recovery Options dialog. In this article, some of the other options in this dialog will be covered. They are really useful for repairing faults with Windows that prevent you from starting the computer normally. The first option on the menu, Startup Repair, has already been explored, so let's take a look at the second. Set up Gwibber for social networking in LinuxGwibber describes itself as a microblogging client. It's a Linux program that basically enables you to keep track of what's happening on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg and a few other social networking websites. Instead of having to visit each website with a web browser and log in to see the updates, or to run separate programs to access each one, you can see all your accounts in one simple program window. You can post messages from the program, it automatically shortens website URLs that you paste in, it has a search facility and so on. It's a great utility that is well worth trying and it's free. Fix Windows 7 using the System Recovery OptionsWindows 7 is a reliable operating system and it rarely goes wrong, but it is best to be prepared for the worst and to know exactly what you need to do to fix common problems. If disaster strikes and Windows won't start up, what can you do? If you don't know what to do now, how will you cope when it really does go wrong? Everyone needs to learn a few basic skills for repairing Windows and fixing problems. We'll take a look at what you need to know in a series of articles and this is the first. In this one you'll find out where the tools are that you need. Time to upgrade VirtualBoxVirtualBox is a great software application that enables you to run other operating systems on your computer. It enables you to run any version of Windows on a Linux PC or on your Apple Mac, or to run Linux on a Windows PC or a Mac. You can even run Windows on a Windows PC, such as Windows 7 on Vista or vice versa. It's perfect for running Windows software on your Linux PC or Mac, or for testing software before installing it on your Windows PC. A couple of weeks ago, version 3.2.0 of the software was released and it has some new features that make it worthwhile upgrading Change the window title bar button positions in LinuxThere are lots of different themes for the Gnome desktop in Linux. Several are supplied and there are more online. They customise the look of the user interface and they change the colour scheme and graphics used for buttons like the close, minimise and maximise in the title bar of windows. Some themes have the close, minimise and maximise buttons on the left and some have them on the right. Which do you prefer? Maybe you have selected your favourite theme, but the buttons are on the wrong side, well, not exactly the wrong side, but not the side you would prefer. How do you change them? It's actually quite easy when you know how. Access hidden features in TextEdit on MacTextEdit on the Apple Mac is a simple text editor, or is it? Despite looking very straightforward and easy to use, there are some advanced and hidden features that are not obvious from looking at the menus. For example, how do you change the background colour of the document? There isn't a menu option to do this and showing the Color dialog isn't much help either. It's actually easy when you know how. Selecting text looks obvious and you just click and drag the mouse over it. However, can you select a rectangular block of text on the page? Yes, you can if you know the secret keypress that's required. There's more to TextEdit than meets the eye. Use Console to solve problems on the MacWhen you have a problem with your Mac it can be difficult tracking down the cause. It could be something to do with the hardware or software, but of the two, it is far more likely to be a software fault. The hardware doesn't go wrong nearly so much as software, but even assuming that it is a software fault doesn't always help that much and it can be difficult knowing where to start searching for the cause of some problems. Of course, if you are running an application and it crashes or doesn't do what it is supposed to, then it's usually the app. However, some problems are more difficult to track down though and one tool on your Mac that can help is Console. Clean up Windows viruses with AVG Rescue CDSome viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and other undesirable software we collectively call malware is hard to remove. It has a memory-resident component that watches what you do and if you try to run software that might be used to remove it, it blocks your actions. If you try to uninstall it, it reinstalls itself. It's a battle that is tough to win. It is easier to remove malware if it isn't actually running, but it automatically runs whenever Windows starts. The solution is not to start Windows. Free AVG Rescue CD can be used to start an infected PC and it runs a customised version of Linux that boots straight into AVG anti virus software. This can then be used to scan and clean up an infected Windows disk. It doesn't install anything and even though it's Linux, it's not that difficult to use. Upgrade your PC to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid LynxUbuntu 10.04 has been out for about a month now, but if you haven't yet upgraded to this latest version then now is a good time to do so. It's never a good idea to be the first person to try new software because firstly there is always lots of other people trying to do the same and delays and queues are inevitable, and it might also contain bugs. The number of people trying to download Lucid Lynx as it is called, has now fallen, so you won't have any bandwidth problems and if there were any initial problems, then there has been time to fix them. It should therefore be a good time to upgrade your Linux distro (or even add it to your Windows PC). Use PDF security features on the Apple MacIt is sometimes useful to save documents not in their native form, but in PDF format instead. This is Adobe's Acrobat file format, but it is so widely supported by all operating systems that it is a good way to distribute documents. It ensures that people can view your document correctly no matter what computer, operating system, software or fonts they have. In some cases, you might want to limit the people that can access a document and it is possible to password protect it so it can't be opened. In other situations you may want to let people open it, but not to be able to copy the text and images out of it. You might even want to prevent people from printing it too. All these things are possible with the security features in PDF files, but accessing them isn't quite as straighforward as you might think. It depends on how you go about it. What makes Flash crash?Adobe's Flash has had a lot of bad publicity lately, mainly from Apple, but also from Microsoft too. Both companies report that it is the cause of many of the crashes that users experience on both Windows and Mac OS X. Ed Bott has written a couple of interesting articles too and 'How secure is Flash? Here's what Adobe won't tell you', and 'Sorry, Adobe: Flash is the new Vista' are well worth reading. In one of those articles he says that Flash crashes once or twice a day on his wife's computer. He didn't say whether his computer was OK, but presumably it was or he would have said. I don't have any problems on my computer and Flash doesn't crash. The question is, what makes Flash so unstable on some computers, but not others? Test the internet in Linux using ping and hostIf you are having problems with your internet connection and you want to run a few tests to make sure that it is working OK, there are a couple of commands that you can type in at the Terminal that will help. The first is 4 free Adobe AIR games for Windows, Linux and MacAIR stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime and it is a cross platform runtime environment that enables applications to be written once and then run on different operating systems. AIR is available for Linux, Windows and Apple Mac OS X, which means that you can run the same apps on all three systems. Here are four free games that you can play on any operating system. Installing these applications is straightforward and if you already have AIR then they'll install straight away, but if you don't have AIR then AIR will automatically be installed first. The applications are the same on each operating system. Clean Windows with Avira AntiVir Rescue SystemOccasionally, Windows computers become infected with viruses, Trojans, and other malware for various reasons. It doesn't happen as often as some people make out, but it does happen once in a while. Sometimes it's because the operating system hasn't been updated with the latest patches, the PC might not have anti virus/spyware software on it, the security software might be out of date, or simply because novice users, such as kids, don't understand what they are doing. Some types of malware are difficult to remove, but Avira AntiVir Rescue System can help because it's a Linux live CD that you can boot from and use to repair Windows PCs. It can also be used to rescue files from a Windows PC that won't boot too. Oh, and it's free! Check the logs in Windows 7 and VistaIf you are having problems with Windows 7 (or Vista), what can you do about it? The first thing to do is to try to find the cause of the problem. It could be a badly written program or driver, or it might be old software that simply isn't compatible. How do you find out which program or driver it is among the many that you have on your computer? One way is to look at the logs. Windows keeps a log in which it stores a record of various events. Among the events stored are errors and by examining the logs, you might be able to spot the problem. If you are logged on as an administrator, then viewing the logs that Windows creates is very easy. Start Windows 7 and Vista programs with the attributes you wantAlmost everything you need to do in Windows can be done by pointing and clicking, but there are still some things that are only possible from the command prompt. This is similar to the old MS-DOS command prompt, but it's not DOS of course, just a look-alike. If you open a command prompt window by clicking Start and entering cmd into the search box, you'll find that you have access to some useful commands. For example, you can run regular Windows programs by typing Don't restore viruses and malware in WindowsViruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and other types of malware are a constant threat on Windows. There are lots of security products though, so avoiding these nasties shouldn't be a problem. Some people do find their computers infected though and then they have to set about cleaning them up. One thing that is often forgotten is that System Restore, a sort of automatic backup that Windows regularly performs, can back up malware too. If you use System Restore to restore a backup, you might restore the system back to a time when you had a virus or other malware! If you ever get infected, one of the cleanup tasks that you should perform is to clear out the System Restore backups. Here's how to do it. Turn off Aero-Snap in Windows 7 if it irritates youOne of the new features in Windows 7 is Aero Snap and it is a way of resizing and repositioning windows automatically. For example, if you click and drag the title bar of a window up the screen until the mouse goes off the top then let go, the window is automatically resized to fill the screen. If you drag the title bar of a window off the left side of the screen, it snaps back and fills the left half of the screen. Drag it off right, and it snaps back to fill the right half of the screen. Sometimes it is useful, but sometimes though, it just gets in the way. It can do things that you don't want. For example, drag a window off left to fill the left half of the screen, then drag the window top border down a bit to resize it. You'll find that the bottom border comes up, which isn't what you want. If Aero Snap gets in the way and you want to turn it off, here's how to do it. 4 Twitter clients running on Adobe AIR for Windows, Linux and Mac OS XAIR stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime and it is a cross platform runtime environment that enables applications to be written once and then run on different operating systems. AIR is available for Linux, Windows and Apple Mac OS X, which means that you can run the same apps on all three systems. Here are four Twitter clients that enable you to keep up with the latest postings on Twitter, to post your own tweets, and follow your friends. Of course, you can always log on to the website with a web browser, but a Twitter client offers lots of benefits, like a clean and simple user interface, URL shortening, text compaction to squeeze more into those 140 characters, and photo sharing. Make use of Finder's title bar icon on the MacSome features in the operating system are really obvious and they can be seen straight away, but there are other features that are not so noticeable. In fact, there may be functions that have been there from the start and you just haven't found them yet. After months or even years of using an operating system, you might discover a shortcut and then wonder why you never used it before. Here's one little feature in OS X Snow Leopard on the Mac that you may have missed and it is all to do with the icon in the title bar of Finder windows. Have you ever noticed this icon? Have you ever tried to click it? Right click it? Click and drag it? What happens? Scan for Wi-Fi networks on your Apple iMac or MacBookWireless networks are everywhere - in your home, at work, and in public places. If you have an iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, you have a device that is caable of connecting with a Wi-Fi hotspot. Wi-Fi is one of the best inventions for years. However, there are certain problems that can arise, such as poor connectivity, weak signals and intermittent access. Now it may be because you are too far from the wireless access point and the signal is too weak, but it could be because of interference. When there are two or more wireless networks, their signals can interfere with each other and cause reception problems. There are two things you can do and if you are in a public place or work, you may have access to several Wi-Fi access points and you should connect to the one with the strongest signal. If you are at home, you should change the channel that your wireless access point (router with built in Wi-Fi) uses. Pick a channel that's as far away from your neighbours as possible. Let's see how to scan for wireless networks. Share files between Windows Linux and Mac OS XIf you work on several computers, you will find several problems. One is that the files you may want to open are not on the computer you are sitting at. Of course, it is possible to carry your files with you using a USB flash memory drive, but it's not an ideal situation and the devices are easily lost or stolen. Even if you have the files you need, they may be in the wrong format. Some applications can convert from one format to another, but importing a foreign format isn't always 100% successful. It would be best if the same applications or the same format could be used on every computer you have. There is also the problem of ensuring that the files you access are actually the latest version and you haven't left them on another computer. There is actually a very simply solution to all these problems and you can keep the latest files on every computer you use and access them with ease. Older articles, tips and tweaks for Windows, OS X and Linux
Print file and folder/directory listings in Linux Even more stuff...
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Windows 7 introduced quite a few new features and one of the most interesting is libraries. A library is a special kind of Explorer view. In XP and Vista we had a private (My) Documents folder that only we could access and a Public or Shared Documents folder that anyone could access. There were also private and public/shared Music and Pictures folders. Windows 7 has all these folders too, but when you click Start, Documents in Windows 7, an Explorer window opens and displays the Documents library instead of the Documents folder. The difference is that you see not just the files in your private Documents folder, but also the Public Documents folder. It is a combined listing of the contents of both folders. The same is true of the Music, Pictures and Videos libraries and in each case what you see is the contents of your private Music, Pictures and Videos folders plus the public ones too. This is really quite clever and very useful, but even better is that you can add extra libraries and create your own.
The clipboard in Windows is a very useful facility and it enables you to copy all sorts of information, such as images, text, hyperlinks, files, and a whole lot more, and then paste them elsewhere. A very common use of the clipboard is for copying some text in a word processor like Word or WordPad and then pasting it somewhere else in the document. Almost every copy and paste operation in almost every Windows program makes use of the clipboard. It also works between programs too, and this means that you can copy some text or an image in a web browser window and paste it into a spreadsheet or document or photo editor. Of course, the program you are pasting the item into needs to be able to use whatever it is you are pasting, such as text into Notepad and not an image, but generally the clipboard is a great feature. Here are some ways to enhance its functionality.
When programs are started, Windows adds their icon to the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Some applications, such as web browsers like Internet Explorer, are able to open multiple windows. To make it easier to switch from one window to another, a thumbnail image is displayed just above the taskbar when the mouse hovers over a taskbar icon. You can speed up or slow down the display of these thumbnails by changing a value stored in the registry. Most people will find that the default setting is fine, but if it isn't to your liking then here's how to change it.
When you right click the mouse on a file or folder on the desktop or in an Explorer window there is a Send to menu with various items on. For example, you can send the item to a compressed (zipped) folder, which will create a zip file. You can send it to another disk drive or the Documents folder, and you can email it. You can add your own favourite items to this right click Send to menu and then you can send files and folders to other places or to other applications. A really useful item to add to the Send to menu is Notepad. It can be used as a general file viewer and you can then click any file and send it to Notepad. Notepad will open so you can view the item. It's great for viewing files like HTML web pages, .inf files, .reg files, .XML files, .ini files and anything else you care to view. All these files and more are actually plain text files even though they do not have a .txt extension and Notepad is perfect for viewing them. Just right click and send the file to Notepad.
Each version of Windows has had a Magnifier tool and it has been around for ages. It can be used to magnify a portion of the screen and zoom in to make it bigger. There are two obvious reasons why you might want to do this and one is if your eyesight is poor. You can enlarge the screen, or a portion of it, so you can see what you are doing.
Paper books are dead and the future is with electronic books or ebooks. Well, maybe paper isn't quite past its sell-by-date yet, but there is no doubt that in the future we will be increasingly reading books and magazines on electronic devices. We can read books on the computer, on mobile phones, on tablet computers and, of course, the dedicated ebook reader like the Amazon Kindle. There is a new version of this popular ebook reader and this third generation device is even better than previous models. It not only has a better specification and holds more books, it is also cheaper too. If you've not thought about an ebook reader before, then Kindle 3 might change your mind (Amazon doesn't actually call it 3, but it is actually version 3).
Services on the Apple Mac are actions that you can perform on a selected object. For example, if you select a file in Finder then there's a service that enables you to create a new email with the file as an attachment, or select an image and there's a service that lets you set it as the desktop background. select some text on a web page in Safari and you can create a new Sticky Note with it. The services that are available depend on the item that is selected, such as text, a file, and so on. Go to an application's menu in the menu bar and you'll see an entry called Services. Select it and a list of services that are available is displayed. Sometimes you may see no entries because there aren't any services that apply, but sometimes there are lots to choose from and they can be very useful. In this automator article we'll see how to create your own services and add them to the Services menu.
Share Cracker is a powerful tool for anyone that invests in the London Stock Exchange. It displays stock market information, including the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE All Share and AIM share prices, various stock market indexes such as the FTSE, AIM, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ. Using this information, you can easily see the best time to invest in shares and when to hold or sell.
Nautilus is the file and folder browser used with Linux systems that use the Gnome desktop and it basically carries out the same functions as Explorer in Windows or Finder on the Mac. Nautilus can be extended and new features can be added to it by using scripts. A script acts like an add-on or plug-in and it can potentially perform all sorts of useful tasks. In this article we will show where to find useful scripts, how to add them to Nautilus, and how to access them from within Nautilus. The example script is a simple one and it opens a Terminal window in the current folder. It's often necessary to do this to execute some command line function, so a couple of clicks and Terminal opens just in the right place. It's brilliant.
There are often occasions where you end up with lots of files with obscure and meaningless filenames. For example, files downloaded from a digital camera or mobile phone, files downloaded from the web, and so on. It is very tedious renaming each file individually and giving them more descriptive filenames. Wouldn't it be much easier if there was a batch rename utility that could do the job for us and rename files sequentially, or based on the date or time? If you have always wanted such a tool then here's where to get a great one for free.
Although many people use online banking to monitor their accounts, move money around and pay bills, it is impossible to get an overall picture of your net worth when your money is at several different institutions. You can see your savings, you can see your cheque account, you can see your credit card account, and so on, but you really need an offline program to bring all the information together to show you your total net worth. You also need software to enable you to set budgets and to show whether you are sticking to them or spending too much. Until there's some way of pulling all your data together online, these traditional home finance programs are indispensible.
Most websites on the internet are great and they provide useful information or services or products. Sites like Google Mail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are trustworthy, shopping sites like Amazon are really safe and PayPal is used by millions of people for payments. However, not all websites are safe and sometimes you may find yourself on a website and wondering whether it is safe to purchase something or whether it is safe to download and install some software, or whether a service is OK to sign up to. Just how do you find out whether a website is trustworthy. That's where WOT - Web of Trust - comes in handy. It tells you which websites are safe and which aren't.