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
When it comes to keeping my PC secure, I rely on a small handful of tools: Windows 7's built-in firewall, Gmail's spam filtering, Web of Trust's helpful browser plug-in, and Microsoft's free Security Essentials anti-virus utility.
At this risk of jinxing things, here's my score to date: My PC: 1. Malware of any variety: 0.
However, I recently needed to troubleshoot a program that wasn't working properly, and, as always, the tech support department's first suggestion was to "disable my antivirus program."
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 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
Fiddling with the Registry is old hat to anyone conversant with Windows, but Microsoft's Surface RT—well, that's a tablet with a specialized version of Windows. Surely it has no Registry to hack, right?
Wrong—and stop calling me Shirley. (Dang, that joke just doesn't work in print.)
It turns out that you can indeed access the Registry of a Surface RT tablet, and one of the first discovered tweaks can greatly reduce the lag time between touching the screen and getting a response.
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
If you spend a lot of time at your computer, and I know you do, a wrist-rest is a must.
Especially during these winter months, when desks, tabletops, and other work surfaces tend to get chilly. Of course, a properly elevated wrist is also less likely to develop repetitive-stress problems.
You can buy a wrist-rest, sure, but why spend money when you can make your own using any number of household objects?
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
At some point in your life, you'll take a trip. You'll bring your laptop. And you'll make a mistake that will cause you to want to throw that laptop into the swimming pool.
It'll happen like this: The movie you brought along to watch is jerky when played full-screen, so you decide to download an updated video driver.
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
Before Print Friendly & PDF
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, printing Web pages is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get.
Well, okay, if you preview the pages first, you'll have some idea—but there's a good chance you won't like what you're gonna get. That's because most Web sites are packed with ads, banners, graphics, and other clutter that don't always translate well to the printed page. If nothing else, you can end up with lots of extraneous pages, which wastes both ink and paper.
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
One thing you might have noticed about Windows 8 is its new boot loader (i.e. the screen that appears shortly after you start your PC). It has a graphical interface, which is nice, but it's not great for anyone who prefers a dual- or multi-boot setup, and it also makes it a little harder to get to advanced boot options.
