Global IT Outage: What it means for you
The global IT outage on Friday, July 19th 2024 was a humdinger. We're told it's nothing to worry about, but what's really going on? I'm afraid the rabbit hole goes a bit deeper than you think. Join me for a look at the Crowdstrike "bug" and what it means for you......
Delete an old Windows folder the easy way
Every now and then, you upgrade your puter. Let's say you add an SSD. You copy your old hard drive's contents to your shiny new SSD, and use your old HDD as a data-only drive. You boot from the new SSD, and poof! You're done. Well, sort of... Your new E: drive is now...
Microsoft gives you Windows 10 whether you like it or not
Ooooh, man... Well, it's finally happened: Microsoft is basically tricking users into installing Windows 10. That's right. You now have to be VERY careful if you don't want Win 10 to automagically download and install. By now, we're all used to M$ making decisions for...
Fix Language Bar missing after Windows 10 update
If you speak more than one language, then you probably also write in more than one language. In that case, you're probably using Windows' Language Bar. In Windows 10, it appears in the system tray (lower-right corner of the taskbar by the time and date) as a 3-letter...
Scroll inactive windows: The best reason to upgrade to Windows 10
For those of you who have been avoiding the free upgrade to Windows 10, there is one very good reason why you might want to rethink your plans. The most obvious reason is that apparently, Windows 10 will no longer be a free upgrade after July of this year. And one way...
Windows 10: Can’t uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials? No problem!
You upgrade to Windows 10. All seems to be going well. There's only one problem: Every time you reboot, you get an error message about Microsoft Security Essentials. "No problem!" you think. I'll just uninstall it. Nope! Worse yet, Windows 10 is very confused, since...
Time to ditch QuickTime for Windows
Here's a fun one: The Department of Homeland Security (??) announced that QuickTime for Windows has 2 nasty security flaws. They also say that Apple is no longer providing updates for QuickTime for Windows, so they are recommending that QuickTime be uninstalled from...
The Windows 10 Summer Update will include… Linux?!
This summer, Windows 10 will be 1 year old. Microsoft recently announced that they'll be releasing another "major" update for their latest OS around this time. Most of the new features are nothing terribly earth-shattering. Probably the most impactful change to most...
The SSHD: Hybrid hard drives that are both big and fast
You've probably heard of SSDs (solid state drives). These are hard drives that use a type of very fast and very robust flash memory for data storage instead of a spinning magnetic disc. SSDs are very fast, and until recently, their storage capacity was limited...
Change the display language in Windows 10
In the olden days, you were quite often locked to one language in Windows, unless you had Windows 7 Ultimate. These days, with Windows 10 you can change the display language in most cases. There are a few exceptions, like if you buy a puter with an OEM version of Win...
Windows + Linux dual boot: How to shrink a Windows disk the easy way
Let's say you want to dual-boot between Windows and some flavor of linux. You might think that you need some kind of fancy partitioning software like Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Suite to free up disk space for the linux partitions. You might also think that your...
How to download videos from the internet
Everybody watches videos online. I mean, who hasn't heard of YouTube, right? If you have a "less good" internet connection, or if you just want to be able to watch some vids offline when it's more convenient, it's very handy to be able to download videos from various...
Fix the grey X on shortcut icons in Windows
There you are, minding your own business, when suddenly you realize that all the shortcut icons on your desktop have changed somehow... You look closely, and finally you realize that all the little "shortcut arrows" that indicate an icon is a shortcut have been...
Optimize PNG and JPG images the easy way
So, you've got some images. You need to plop them on a web site or something. Abnormally, you'd be a Photoshop Master. By using approximately 750 secret keystroke combinations and seemingly random clicks, you'd have yourself some images that have been optimized for...
Make the Windows 10 Upgrade Notification go away
You've got Windows 7 or Windows 8, and you've decided not to upgrade to Windows 10. Carry on, then! If you have Windows 7, you will still get security updates until 2020. If you have Windows 8.1, you're safe until 2023. There's only one problem: That damn GWX (Get...
Quick Fix: Laptop ethernet doesn’t work
Most people these days use WiFi. I'm not one of them, because the idea of being bathed 24/7 in multi-gigahertz radio waves just isn't that appealing. If you're like me, then that means you're using the ethernet jack on your puter. And if your puter is a laptop, you...