12 November 2017 | Computers |
In the olden days, your puter had a BIOS.
Nowadays, the BIOS is rapidly giving way to UEFI, which provides all kinds of benefits.
At the same time, hard drives have sort of evolved, so now we’re supposed to use GPT instead of MBR.
Well, okay… First of all, what does all that mean?
And second, how on earth do you convert your MBR drive to the new GPT format without having to reinstall Windows?
It turns out Microsoft has made the process really easy!
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31 October 2017 | Computers |
The Windows 10 “Fall Creators Update” version 1709 was released not long ago.
Chances are, if you don’t have it already, you’ll be getting it soon.
Naturally, there are some new features and stuff, but nothing that most people will get all excited about. It’s just yet another “incremental update” instead of a major upgrade.
Given my past articles on improving the privacy and security of Windows 10, what do you need to know about this new 1709 version of Windows 10?
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10 October 2017 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Video |
USB is totally awesome, and USB 3.0+ is even more awesome.
With real-world data transfer rates of 400MB/s or more, copying files to external USB sticks and drives has never been more fun.
Only one problem, and I’ve noticed this A LOT: People are using USB3, but they’re sitting there putting up with relatively slow copy speeds from, say, a USB3 key.
It’s often rather difficult to achieve copy speeds in excess of a measley 40MB/s…
What gives?
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21 September 2017 | Computers |
Back in the day, Firefox was the web browser to use.
Then came Google’s Chrome, and suddenly ~50% of internet users are using that, instead.
There were many good reasons for this switch, including the fact that Google did a lot of work to make Chrome very fast.
It’s taken them awhile, but it appears that Mozilla has finally caught on.
Version 55 of Firefox comes with some new tricks that just might bring it “back in the game” – and a very neat beta feature…
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1 September 2017 | Computers |
You’re using Windows 10, minding your own business…
Suddenly, after clicking something near the system tray in the lower right corner of your screen, you are met with the weirdest desktop you’ve ever seen.
Your Start Screen tiles are displayed on your desktop, desktop icons are missing, and generally things just “look weird”.
Fear not!
You just accidentally enabled Tablet Mode. It’s pretty easy to both a) turn it off, and b) make it easier to turn off in the future.
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25 August 2017 | Computers |
Those of you who use Windows are probably aware of Malwarebytes, which happens to be my favorite anti-malware protection app.
Back in December, I wrote about the improvements in the software in Malwarebytes 3: You might need to manually upgrade.
What you might not have known is that Malwarebytes has been available for Mac for about 2 years now.
The trouble was that it was pretty basic…
Well, it turns out that Malwarebytes for Mac has grown up – a lot!
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18 August 2017 | Computers |
You may recall a post I made a couple of years ago:
Another privacy fix, this time for Windows 7, 8, and 10
At some point after that a new update was released – and it’s not clear when since the dates on the Windows update web pages don’t seem to correspond to reality.
This new update is the same thing as the Diagnostics Tracking Service you disabled earlier, only that doesn’t matter because they changed the name and enabled it by default. SIGH…
Now they call it the “Diagnostics and Telemetry service” on their web site, but it’s listed as Connected User Experiences and Telemetry in Services on your puter.
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30 July 2017 | Computers, Do-It-Yourself |
Let’s say you upgrade the graphics card in your puter.
You fire it up, and it appears that Windows 10 is booting.
The hard drive light is blinking away, and you might even hear a startup sound, or you can see that your ethernet port light is blinking away madly.
Only trouble is, your screen is blank!
What to do, what to do?
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29 July 2017 | Computers, How Does it Work?, Video |
You’d think that connecting an LCD screen to your puter would be straightforward. You’d be wrong! It all gets pretty confusing.
There are several types of connectors and cables, and it’s difficult to know which one to use.
Often, you can even use an adapter cable to connect one type of connector to another, like HDMI → DVI.
This video is a summary of the various details of the most popular current cable types.
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23 July 2017 | Computers |
People love to customize their puters. You want a certain color, a certain background wallpaper, and some people go so far as to use a theme that will even change icons.
You may know about changing your removable drive icons, especially if you read my ancient article Autorun Fun: Customize or Repair Autoplay for an External Drive.
What you may not know is that the same simple technique can be used on fixed drives.
You can customize the icons for all of your drives – even internal hard drives – in just a few easy steps!
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In the olden days, your puter had a BIOS.
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