For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Reader Larry wrote me regarding his new Asus machine, which came without any kind of recovery disks (which would be used to restore Windows in the event of a major system meltdown).
That's not uncommon these days. Even on systems that have optical drives (which are increasingly rare), computer vendors opt to save money by skipping the Windows restore/recover disks that were once common.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Activity Indicator.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know when my hard drive is active.
That's partly so I know when Windows has more or less finished its boot activity (which, on one aging machine, takes 7-8 minutes), and partly so I can troubleshoot problems.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
Virtual Router Plus
Recently I spent a full week in a hotel, where I grudgingly paid for Wi-Fi so I could get some work done. Unfortunately, it was a per-device purchase: Only my laptop could get online. If I wanted Internet access on my phone (which had a weak indoor signal) and tablet (Wi-Fi only), I'd have to pay again. And again.
Hey, wait a minute, doesn't Windows let you set up a Wi-Fi hotspot to share its connection with other devices? It did, in Windows 7; it doesn't in Windows 8. Actually, the capability is still there, but enabling it requires some serious command-line tinkering.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
My Channel Logos XL enhances your Windows Media Center program guide in many cool ways.
Despite Microsoft's endless attempts to crush my enthusiasm, I continue to be a fan of Windows Media Center. At least, I'm trying to be: It's not included with Windows 8. I'd literally have to spend $100 to get it as part of Microsoft's Pro Pack. (Windows 8 Pro users can buy WMC for $9.99, a slap in the face to the rest of us.)
Thankfully, I still run Windows 7 on my tuner-equipped media-center PC, and therefore still get to enjoy the benefits of the software.
For more than 20 years, Rick Broida has written about all manner of technology, from Amigas to business servers to PalmPilots. His credits include dozens of books, blogs, and magazines. He sleeps with an iPad under his pillow. More by Rick Broida
For me, one of the most awkward aspects of the Windows 8 Start screen (you know, the one with all the tiles) is file management.
Specifically, if I want to browse or search my files (Word documents, PDFs, etc.), it's not immediately clear how to do so. There's no file manager to speak of, at least not amidst the tiles, so anyone accustomed to an earlier version of Windows might be left thinking, "Dude, where's my data?"
As you may have learned, you can search for files the same way you can search for apps and settings: just start typing. Windows 8's dynamic search option immediately displays and filters results as you type.
