A flash drive is one of the single most useful tools a person can own. With it you can back up critical data, transport large files, rescue a malware-infested PC, and even run an entire operating system.

Regarding this last option, awhile back I explained how to put Windows 8 on a flash drive. (It works with Windows 7, too.) Today, let's talk about putting Linux on a flash drive.

By now you've probably heard of Pinterest. If not, it's only a matter of time. In a mere two months or so, the social network has gone from little-known beta startup to hottest social network since Facebook.

Has this happened to you? You're sitting at your laptop, typing away, when you glance at the clock and realize it's time to go. So you shut down Windows--only to be informed that it needs to install some updates first. Ten minutes later, you're still waiting for the job to finish--effectively held hostage by your operating system.

That, my friends, is a hassle with a capital 'H.'

Most modern smartphones, tablets, MP3 players, and other gadgets rely on USB-based chargers. Some of these come with their own AC wall adapters, while others include nothing more than a USB cable--meaning you have to plug them into your PC to get them charged. (I'm thinking in particular of Amazon's entry-level Kindle.)

A free account from beloved file-sharing and -storage service Dropbox nets you 2GB of space. Want to boost that to 7GB? You can, and it won't cost you a dime extra.

See, Dropbox is beta-testing a new desktop client that can automatically upload photos and videos to your account. If you're willing to take part in the test, you can get as much as 5GB of extra storage--in 500MB increments.

Recently I spent some time rescuing my sister-in-law's laptop from some seriously nasty malware. Even after running utilities like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, then using UnHide to restore the system's missing icons and folders, something was hijacking the Web browsers.

Yes, that's browsers, plural. Whenever I'd click a link in Internet Explorer or Firefox (the latest versions of both, FYI), some malicious bit of code would redirect the browser to a phishing site. That's hijacking in a nutshell, and it's extremely frustrating.

For a while now I've been using Google Music as a kind of cloud-based backup for my music library. Except that it wasn't really a backup, because I couldn't easily retrieve all the songs I'd uploaded. In the event of a system failure, I'd have to download tunes in batches of 100. Bleh.

Thankfully, Google just made it possible to download all the songs in your library--or just those you've purchased. (The latter is a handy option if you want to quickly add purchased songs to, say, your local iTunes library.)

On Monday I told you how to turn your PC into a DVR by connecting an inexpensive, antenna-powered TV tuner. I also said I'd be back on Wednesday to explain how to connect that PC to your TV. Then I plumb forgot.

I'm here now, though. No harm, no foul?

Last night my sister-in-law called me, just about in tears. "Something" had happened to her laptop--probably a virus, she guessed--but everything seemed to be gone: all her desktop and Start Menu icons, and, even scarier, all her data. It was like aliens had abducted her desktop.

Not aliens: hackers. Her system had indeed been infected by a virus, and it took me a few sweeps with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (still the best recovery tool out there, IMHO) to get rid of it. (Here's a great malware-removal tutorial from PC World's Eric Geier.)

Recently I've heard from a number of users who are looking for a way to cut that pricey cable-TV cord, but don't want to give up on watching and recording their favorite network shows.

Turns out there's an easy and very affordable solution, one that eliminates cable (cable-TV, anyway) service entirely and frees you from monthly fees.

Last week I mentioned that I've been evaluating Mozilla Thunderbird as a potential replacement for Microsoft Outlook, which I currently use for e-mail (among other things).

I was rather dumbfounded to learn that Thunderbird doesn't mark a message as read when you reply to it (though thankfully there's a plug-in that solves this glitch).

Recently I became the mostly happy owner of an HP Pavilion dm1z. I say “mostly happy” because I wasn’t thrilled with its performance. To give the system a boost, I decided to swap the pokey 5,200-rpm hard drive with a speedy Solid State Drive (SSD).

The Samsung SSD upgrade kit I bought came with Norton Ghost 15--a utility that would copy the entire contents of my existing hard drive to the new drive--on CD. But the Pavilion, like so many ultrabooks, ultraportables, and other ultra-compact laptops, has no CD drive. How was I supposed to install Ghost?