2023 Program Index

29 December 2023

No Program This Week: Happy Holidays!

Ethical Photo Manipulation: Artificial intelligence allows easy manipulation of photos, even by people who would be unable to make such changes without AI. This has led to discussions about the ethics of photo editing.

Short Circuits: Should AI Plan Your Vacation? AI can also plan your vacation, but should it? Roam Around makes suggestions, but they feel generic because the service doesn’t ask about who is traveling and what interests them.

Stardock Cursor FX Is More Than Just Shiny Objects: Stardock’s Cursor FX modifies the appearance of the Windows mouse cursor. This may seem trivial, but the utility has options that can make the computer more usable.

Twenty Years Ago: Three weeks ago, I repeated an article from 2003 that considered what a Microsoft elevator would be like and what an Apple elevator would be like. The obvious follow-up would involve a call to Microsoft elevator support.

15 December 2023

Excire Foto Finds Needles In Haystacks: Because digital photographs are free, we take a lot of them and that can be a problem when we want to find one particular image among tens of thousands on the computer. A new version of Excire Foto adds artificial intelligence that helps a lot.

Short Circuits: SMTP2GO Eliminates Email Delivery Problems: Anyone who operates a web domain on one of the big hosting services may occasionally have trouble with email messages being rejected as spam or just being quietly deleted. Using a separate, dedicated SMTP service can eliminate the problem, possibly without cost.

Stardock Makes Computers Fun Again And Also Improves Usability: Stardock Software has applications that can make your Windows computer look better, some that can make the computer work better, and some that do both. We’ll take a look.

Twenty Years Ago: Was the 2003 version of Microsoft’s office suite just another pretty face? Compared to what we have today, the office suite was small and plain, but the growth pattern was obvious.

8 December 2023

Learning How To Make The Computer Yours: It’s easy to overlook the one step that can eliminate frustration with a computer and make the device more rewarding to use. Operating systems and applications can be modified so that they work the way you want them to, but it’s up to you to do the modifications.

Short Circuits: One Quick Change To Make The Recycle Bin More Useful: If you empty the Recycle Bin immediately after deleting files, or if you never empty it at all, you’re missing an important benefit. It takes only a minute or two to implement a change that picks the middle path between those two extremes.

Using Codes To Find Entertainment On Netflix: When you’re looking for a particular type of entertainment on Netflix, you’ll probably get faster results if you use a category ID number. It’s easy to find the codes.

Twenty Years Ago: Until late 2003, moving from one cellular service to another meant that you would have to change the phone number. Portability finally arrived.

1 December 2023

How To Improve The Windows 11 Start Menu: Like the Windows 11 Start Menu or hate it, Start11 from Stardock can make it better. Maybe you’d like the start menu to work the way it did in Windows 7, 8, or 10. Maybe you like the Windows 11 approach, but would like to add some features. That’s the point of Start11.

Short Circuits: Python Programming Isn’t Just For Excel: Python is a popular programming language. It’s powerful, but the basics are easy to learn. If you’ve looked at Python because it’s now supported by Excel, you’ve already started. Maybe this is a language most computer users should be familiar with.

Truth Can Be Evasive: The TechByter website was down for several hours on 8 November and getting a straight answer from the hosting service turned out to be much more difficult than it should have been.

Twenty Years Ago: Numerous “If Microsoft Made Automobiles” and “If Apple Was An Airline” pieces have circulated on the internet. In late 2003, I received a copy of “If Microsoft|Apple Made Elevators” and I included it on Technology Corner. Enjoy!

24 November 2023

No Program This Week: Happy Thanksgiving!

17 November 2023

Turning Your Computer Into A Television: Playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs on a computer can sometimes be better than watching them on a television, but Microsoft doesn’t include a player with Windows, and the Media Player app is quite limited. Other options exist, but some are pricey. One is free.

Short Circuits: Beeper Gets Better: Even if you use just a single chat application, taking a look at Beeper is a good idea. And if you use multiple chat applications, I consider it essential.

Make Your Facebook Account Less Attractive To Cloners: Has your Facebook account ever been cloned by a crook? There’s one simple change you can make to your Facebook account that strongly discourages data thieves.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Apple was beginning the long transition from 32-bit processors to 64-bit processors with its new G5 Dual CPUs.

10 November 2023

Keeping A Computer Up To Date: Development cycles for large applications once were frequently 18 months. Now it’s a rare day that we don't receive a bug fix, security update, or feature release for at least one application. Keeping up is a challenge.

Short Circuits: Battling Computer-Killing Heat In A Notebook Computer: Heat is the enemy of electronic devices and notebook computers are highly vulnerable. I recently added a device that places cooling fans below my primary notebook computer and it helps even more than expected.

How To Use Microsoft 365 For Free: I’ve been seeing articles about how to get Microsoft 365 for free. Although some of the suggestions will be successful, most of them seem like just too much work.

Twenty Years Ago: AOL, in my estimation, did something right in 2003. What I offered was kind of a back-handed compliment, though.

3 November 2023

Adobe Firefly’s Amazing Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence is something Adobe has been working on for several years and this year’s advances mark the beginning of what seems likely to be an explosion of advanced capabilities.

Short Circuits: Adobe Can Be Sneaky: Adobe pointed to some of its plans for future products at the annual Max conference in Los Angeles. The sneak peeks could easily be mistaken for pure magic.

Tired Of Waiting For Windows 23H2? If your Windows computer hasn't yet updated to version 23H2 and you'd like it to, the process is both quick and easy.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Apple released another of its big cat operating systems, Panther, and I was quite impressed by what it could do.

27 October 2023

Use AeroAdmin To Help Others And For Remote Access: AeroAdmin is an excellent choice if you need to help friends or family solve problems with their computers and when you want to log onto your computer when you’re not in front of it.

Short Circuits: QuillBot’s AI Can Rewrite Your Text: Artificial intelligence can create text for you, and it can paraphrase your text. Is it worth trying an application such as QuillBot to see how good an editor it is?

Sync The Windows Clipboard To Your Android Phone: We’ve been able to synchronize the Windows clipboard between computers for a while now, but you can also synchronize the clipboard with your Android phone.

Twenty Years Ago: Most of us occasionally think about “The Good Old Days”, but if we really stop and think about it, it’s clear the the good old days really weren’t that good.

20 October 2023

Windows Copilot Is Live, So Are You Using It? Copilot is the most significant new feature in the Windows 11 Fall update, version 23H2. If your computer hasn’t been updated to 23H2, you can force the update or obtain some of the new features even without updating.

Short Circuits: If You’re Considering The Opera Browser, Make These Changes: Opera is a good browser that I’ve recommended several times in the past 25 years, and I still do recommend it, but only if you perform a fully manual installation to avoid some nasty “features”.

AI Imagery Is Changing Fast: It’s hard to keep up with improvements in artificial intelligence imagery. I took a look at images from Adobe Firefly, Canva, and Microsoft’s Copilot, which uses DALL-E3. There’s one standout winner.

Twenty Years Ago: Some of the security fixes Microsoft patched in 2003 seem quite simple by today’s standards, but others are similar to issues that are fixed today, differing only in the affected components.

13 October 2023

Photoshop’s Newest Features Didn’t Wait For Max: Adobe didn’t wait for the annual Max conference to roll out some of the new features for Photoshop and other apps. Generative Fill and Generative Expand are still resolution limited, but they are already surprisingly useful.

Short Circuits: Microsoft Plans The End Of Printer Drivers: Printers have long been the bane of IT support, and Microsoft has plans to make printers a bit less vexing. Manufacturers will need to work with a universal printer subsystem instead of writing drivers for their devices.

An Uncommonly Serious Threat Is Unlikely To Affect You: If your browser and any other applications that can display WebP graphics are up to date, you’re safe from a nasty flaw. If not, now would be a good time to update them.

Twenty Years Ago: It’s not unheard of for Windows computers to run for months between restarts these days, but it wasn’t common in 2003 and I was somewhat jealous of a Linux system that had been up for more than seven months.

6 October 2023

A Long Week Of Short Stories: The main article is really three short pieces: One about PowerToys Run, a quick and easy way to start an application or launch a search; the next about the now limited “unlimited” hosting plan from Bluehost; and finally a fond farewell to WordPad.

Short Circuits: Living Like It’s 1983: If you loved WordStar, you can now install WordTsar and try to remember some of the obscure key sequences that made things happen.

You Didn’t Read The Terms Of Service Or Privacy Policy, Did You? If you’ve ever read either a privacy policy or a website’s terms of service, you’re in the minority. A service is available to show the important points without requiring the consumption of many pages of legalese.

Twenty Years Ago: Burning CDs and DVDs was a big thing in 2003, but few of today’s computers have optical disc readers, to say nothing of burners. It was a short era.

29 September 2023

Freely Editing Videos: Even basic smart phones can create remarkably good videos and more people are editing videos at home. As a result, there are lots of applications, both free and paid, designed to take the place of editing suites that once cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build.

Short Circuits: Adobe Audition’s New Features For 2023: New features in Adobe’s audio editor, Audition, are rare, but three improvements in the 2023 version will wow audio editors, while others will wonder why they’re such big deals.

Aptos Is Microsoft 365’s New Face, But … Aptos is Microsoft’s new typeface for Microsoft 365 subscribers, but before going all in on Aptos, it’s a good idea to consider some of what Microsoft isn’t talking about and thinking about Microsoft’s motives.

Twenty Years Ago: 2003 was the end of the line for TechXNY, previously called PC Expo. Once a show that filled New York City’s Javits Center, the final program was confined to a small corner.

22 September 2023

Jotti’s Malware Scan Averts Disasters: It’s a good idea to check out any file you receive as an attachment, even if the file seems to have come from someone you know. Jotti’s free malware scan will show the file to more than a dozen antivirus applications so you can make an informed decision.

Short Circuits: A Setting That Should Have No Effect Has Fixed A Windows Problem: Sometimes modifying a computer setting fixes a problem even when you’re absolutely certain the setting cannot have any effect on the problem. I’ll tell you about one of those I encountered recently and, although it couldn’t possibly fix the problem, it did.

11Clock Is A Better Clock For Windows 11: There’s a new and improved clock for Windows 11. It restores some features that were present in the Windows 10 clock and adds several new features, including the ability to display multiple clocks on multiple screens.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, I said your computer’s hard disk will fail. That’s less likely these days, even for mechanical drives, but complacency is still not your friend.

15 September 2023

Ground News Helps You Sort Fact From Fiction: Being able to tell the difference between truth and lies is increasingly difficult, especially on the internet, but also with organizations that claim to be presenting facts. We can’t escape bias, but we can at least try to be aware of it.

Short Circuits: Mouse Without Borders Solves A Problem You Might Not Be Aware Of: Mouse Without Borders, a relatively new feature in Microsoft’s PowerToys utilities, solves a problem you may never have encountered. For those who have experienced this problem, the solution is absolute genius.

Calculating Your Home’s Risk: If you’ve ever wondered about your home’s risk from flooding, wildfire, wind, or heat, the RiskFactor website can answer the questions.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, I offered what I thought was a great solution to spam. Fortunately, nobody implemented the plan because it was shortsighted in the extreme.

8 September 2023

Adobe Express: Quick, Easy, and Fun: Whether you’re a graphic designer or not, Adobe Express has something for you. Professionals can use it to give themselves more time for custom creativity and non-designers can leverage Express to perform tasks they couldn’t do by themselves.

Short Circuits: A Big Snake Comes To Excel: Although Python has been available as a paid add-in for Excel, it will soon be included in the application. Currently it’s available only in the Beta channel for Microsoft 365 Insiders.

Yes, You Should Have More Than One Browser: Installing and using more than one web browser can improve your experience because most browsers offer features not available in the others. How many browsers do you use?

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Corel was pinning its hopes for the future on an office suite that was based on WordPerfect.

1 September 2023

Thinking About Buying a New Computer? Buying a new computer includes some of the same processes and decisions needed when buying a new car, and it’s important to base the buying decision on facts instead of on emotions.

Short Circuits: If Your Computer Seems Slow, The Task Manager May Show Why: Sometimes antique computer-users like me say old DOS computers seemed faster than today’s Windows machines. That’s not entirely inaccurate and the Windows Task Manager helps us understand why.

Saved By Safe Mode: Safe Mode is useful when your computer has a problem, even if it can’t boot normally, but getting into Safe Mode is a little more complicated than it used to be.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, my preferred email client was The Bat, a remarkably advanced email application from Moldova that continued to be my favorite for many years.

25 August 2023

A Disk Partition Manager Can Be Helpful Even If You Think You Don’t Need One: Disk partition managers are essential tools for technicians, but they can also be useful for any computer user. Third-party partition managers include more features than the one that came with your computer and might be free.

Short Circuits: Is That Employee Retention Credit Message A Scam? The Employee Retention Credit was established at the height of the covid pandemic to help businesses that paid their employees while the operation was shut down. The Internal Revenue Service warns about scammers who are now using the ERC to defraud companies.

Taking The DuckDuckGo Browser For A Test Drive: The developers of the DuckDuckGo search engine are working on a browser and it’s currently available in beta for Windows and MacOS computers.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, some said the internet would save humanity and others said the internet is evil and will destroy us. Did we ever get that sorted out?

18 August 2023

Thunderbird’s Attractive Face Is Just Part Of What’s New: Mozilla has been working on a new version of Thunderbird for a while and the combination of improvements, new features, and ongoing debugging make it well worth looking at regardless of which email application you’re using now.

Short Circuits: Microsoft May Be Huge, But It Can Also Be Incredibly Stupid: Sometimes Microsoft does something so astonishingly ignorant that it’s hard to believe management was aware of it. I’ll describe what seems to be the dumb and petty decision to pull support for the OneNote Clipper from Firefox.

Is Buying An Extended Warranty Wise? sually I recommend against extended warranties, but sometimes they can be a good value, particularly with expensive mobile devices that can easily be damaged.

Twenty Years Ago: Spam was a big problem in 2003, but back then we had no idea how bad it could be.

11 August 2023

How Much Internet Speed You Need & How To Find Out If You’re Getting It: Internet access is slower and more expensive in the United States than in many other countries, so it’s important to figure out how much speed you need and then to confirm that you’re getting what you pay for.

Short Circuits: Why WinGetUI Might Be A Better Choice Than The Microsoft Store: The Windows package manager, WinGet, provides access to more apps and utilities than the Microsoft Store does, but it’s a command line function that’s cumbersome to use. A graphical user interface, WinGetUI, makes it much easier.

Photoshop Of The Future Is Almost Here: Generative Expand has been added to Adobe’s Generative Fill in the beta version of Photoshop. Even in early days, these are powerful features that look like magic.

Twenty Years Ago: Nothing New Under The Slime: Scams have been around forever and this week we’ll take a look at one from 2003.

4 August 2023

The Files On Your Computer Are Probably Worth $120 Per Year: Sometimes saving money is a really bad idea. For example, doing without a backup system for the files on your computer because you don’t want to spend $100 to $200 per year. How much are your files worth to you?

Short Circuits: CURL Is Not A Treatment For Your Hair: The utility CURL has been around since 1996, but it was just added to the Windows operating system this year. It’s a command-line function and it’s old, but it still performs some useful functions.

I Will Cite Some Silly Sites That Are Sights For Sore Eyes: When it’s time to kick back and play with the computer, there are thousands of options. Let’s take a look at just a few.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, somebody floated the idea of a disposable digital camera. It failed to become a huge success.

28 July 2023

Scams That May Be New To You: Scammers are always trying to find new ways to extract money from people they can fool. New variants of old cons are common, and for the past several months phony feedback surveys have been big. Most scammers can be defeated by treating any offer with a bit of suspicion.

Short Circuits: Random Command Line Tricks That Are Handy To Know: Early personal computers had the command line and no graphical user interface until the mid 1980s. The command line is still useful and we’ll look at a few such instances.

Using The Scanner That’s In Your Pocket: When you need to copy text on paper, there’s a better option than using your smartphone’s camera app. It’s like having a scanner in your pocket.

Twenty Years Ago: SCO, the Santa Cruz Operation, became one of the most hated high-tech companies in history. By 2003, its greed had upended the company, but its lawyers were still busy.

21 July 2023

How To Acquire A Better Nameserver: When pointing your browser at a website, the browser needs to find the site’s IP address, so it calls on a domain name service server. Using a better DNS server can improve the browser’s response time, but only by a bit. There are other reasons to use DNS not from your internet service provider.

Short Circuits: Adobe’s Generative Fill Can Turn A Photo Into A Painting: Adobe’s Firefly (generative fill) function, even in beta, has shown itself to be surprisingly good at some tasks. It can also be used to create an oil-painting effect on a photograph.

Beep! Beep! The Update: After working with Beeper, a universal chat application, I’m ready to talk about its advantages and (because it’s still a beta app) some of the areas that need refinement.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, hardware and software for video editing were still expensive, but the future was clear.

14 July 2023

What’s the Best Office Suite in 2023? Microsoft 365 might be the best office suite for you, or maybe Google’s offerings would be better. Or perhaps you don’t need a suite at all. Let’s ponder that.

Short Circuits: Sending A Letter From Your Computer: Correspondence today heavily favors email and text messages, but sometimes you might need to send a real paper letter in an envelope using the US Postal Service. You can, even if you don’t have a printer, an envelope, or a stamp—and without leaving your house.

How To Save 300 Milliseconds Per Day With A Formula: Formulas can save time for spreadsheet users, but often the time saving is minimal. The primary benefits are better accuracy and reliability; and to increase comprehension, don’t neglect conditional formatting.

Twenty Years Ago: Digital cameras from 2003 often had noticeable delays between when the user pressed the shutter release and the camera captured an image. Digital SLRs eliminated that.

7 July 2023

Local Account Or Microsoft Account–Which Is Better? When you set up an account on a Windows 10 or 11 computer, it can be a Microsoft account or a local account. Some pundits maintain that Microsoft accounts should never be used, but I don’t like the word “never”. There are good reasons to use a local account and good reasons to use a Microsoft account, so let’s look.

Short Circuits: AI Scams Are A Threat But AI Analysis Is A Promise: Scammers are finding that artificial intelligence is a marvelous tool they can use to hoodwink victims, but AI can also be used to identify scams.

Win11Fixer Fixes (Some) Windows Annoyances: There’s an easy way to modify Windows 11 settings and version 2 of the Windows 11 Fixer adds some options.

Twenty Years Ago: Scams have been around since the beginning of civilization and spams existed before the internet was created. Twenty Years Ago, only on the website, looks at attempts to eliminate spam in 2003

30 June 2023

Selecting A Comfortable Screen Size, Number of Pixels, & Resolution: When it’s time to replace a monitor or to buy a new notebook compute, it’s also time to think about the size and resolution of the device.

Short Circuits: The Bulk Rename Utility Might Become One Of Your Favorites: Renaming one or two files is easy, but when you’re faced with hundreds of files that need to be renamed, it’s time to call for the Bulk File Renamer.

More Generative Fill Magic From Adobe: Generative Fill, which Adobe also refers to as “Firefly”, can make image modifications in seconds that previously would have taken hours. I have an example.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Microsoft had a security problem with version 9 of the Media Player.

23 June 2023

Choosing The Right Camera: Whether you need a huge camera with a lot of heavy and bulky lenses, just a smartphone, or something in between depends on how you approach photography. Let’s explore that.

Short Circuits: Every Computer Should Have A Solid-State Disk Drive: Most new computers come with solid-state drives. If you have an older computer that you’re not yet ready to retire, now would be a great time to upgrade the boot drive to an SSD.

Let Beeper Organize Your Chat Applications: Beeper is a new approach to messaging. Whether you use Messenger, IMessage, Twitter, or one of the other services, Beeper puts them all in one location.

Twenty Years Ago: Scams are as old as the internet. In 2003, I was grumbling about scams of the day, an activity that has persisted for two decades.

16 June 2023

Advantages Of Using A Virtual Private Network: A VPN is essential whenever you use a mobile device with a public Wi-Fi hotspot, but it can also improve privacy and security at other times. It’s important to understand the trade-offs, though, because some websites may not work when a VPN is active, network performance will be at least slightly slower, and good VPN services aren’t free.

Short Circuits: Crooks Are Smart, So We Have To Be Smarter: Some internet crooks are stupid and I like to make fun of them, but there’s no shortage of crafty criminals. It's important to be aware that they exists and to beware of their tricks. In other words, be wary.

Finally, I Get To Enumerate Some Of Adobe’s Other Advances: I’ve been trying to find time to talk about some of the enhancements Adobe has added to the Creative Cloud suite, but blockbuster additions to the photography programs keep getting in the way. Today some of the other apps take center stage.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Nikon loaned me a digital SLR camera. I had been using digital cameras since about 1999, but they were more like point-and-shoot cameras than the single-lens-reflex cameras I had used since the 1960s. The D100 was my first extended experience with the new breed of cameras and I was immediately sold.

9 June 2023

Fingerprinting Your Browser: Your browser blocks ads and pop-ups, you use incognito mode, and you don’t allow sites to access the computer’s hardware. Safe, right? Your browser can still be fingerprinted and you can still be tracked.

Short Circuits: Canary Is Not For The Birds: Canary is an email application that runs on Windows, MacOS, IOS, IPadOS, and Android. In addition to artificial intelligence for creating or responding to messages, the app strengthens security and the versions work about the same on all platforms.

Voice Modification Is One Scary Outcome Of Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence makes it possible for one person to sound exactly like another. The dangers should be apparent.

Twenty Years Ago: Copyright In The Internet Age: In 2003, legislators were wrestling with the effect the internet would have on intellectual property and specifically how copyright would apply. I was still trying to figure it out.

2 June 2023

Make Life Easier With Nirsoft, SoftwareOK, And PowerToys: Small specialized apps generally known as “utilities” can solve problems and add capabilities not provided by the operating system. We’ll look at new functions in PowerToys utilities from Microsoft and from two individual developers.

Short CIrcuits: Firefly Comes To Photoshop: Adobe released Firefly a few weeks ago for people to try and now the AI component has been added to the beta version of Photoshop that’s available to Creative Cloud subscribers.

Jotti’s Malware Scan Averts Disasters: When testing files that might contain malware, maybe you’d like a second opinion. What about fourteen opinions without having to install anything?

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Kodak saw a future that did not need film and was attempting to rebrand itself as “the picture company”.

26 May 2024

Improve Computer Sound With An Equalizer: Big home stereo systems have largely been replaced by computers that lack the features of high-end audio systems. Even a mid-range system can be improved with the addition of a graphic equalizer. Instead of hardware, though, today’s equalizers are software.

Short Circuits: The Most Fun You Can Have With A Smartphone Camera If Your Phone Can Run It: Photoshop Camera opens the door to some amazing fun and creativity for users of many Apple and Android phones. It’s an app that improves photos with filters that can be added, modified, and removed after the fact.

Collect A Bit What Fa¢ebook Owes You: The class in the class-action suit against Facebook is enormous so, although the settlement is huge ($725 million), the amount any individual member of the class will receive is likely to be small, but you have to sign up for it.

Twenty Years Ago: Webshots offered the ability to put photos on some AT&T phones in 2003. The company is still in businesds today, and it has expanded quite a bit.

19 May 2023

If You Own A Scanner, You Need VueScan: Even if your scanner came with a scanning application, using the scanner will be easier and more productive if you buy a copy of VueScan.

Short Circuits: Adobe Banishes Digital Photography Noise: I’ll tell you about some of Adobe’s new photo suite features soon, but one that stands out above all the others is a game changer called Denoise.

Revisiting Artificial Intelligence’s Hazards: Geoffrey Hinton, Google’s chief artificial intelligence scientist retired abruptly and has begun warning us about a time when AI will be smarter than humans. Let’s consider that.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, I was preparing to buy my first digital single-lens reflex camera and was excited about its performance and features.

12 May 2023

Pick The Right Tool For Website Development: Anyone who wants to create a website needs to start by selecting either an application that edits website code or a service that offers site design tools. Many choices exist, but the two primary contenders are Dreamweaver and WordPress.

Short Circuits: Google Offers A Free VPN And Dark Web Monitoring: A virtual private network on your computer is on the way to becoming essential, and Google’s VPN service that’s part of Google One might be sufficient.

Taking A Virtual Trip On The Interwebs: The internet is full of useless attractions that are amusing. Among them are the ability to ride public transit systems online. Come along for a ride on New York City’s 7 train.

Twenty Years Ago: Is Linux an existential threat to Microsoft? Twenty years ago, it’s what Microsoft considered its number one danger.

5 May 2023

The Ultimate Windows Tweaker Fixes Not-Quite Annoyances: Windows has features that, while not quite annoyances, don't work the way you'd like. The Ultimate Windows Tweaker fixes a lot of these not-quite annoyances, and it's free.

Short Circuits: Today’s Keyboards Add Useful Features: When I bought a new keyboard, I noticed a lot of extra keys. Some of them are surprisingly useful.

Fix Website Printing With PrintFriendly: Trying to print a website page is often an exercise in frustration because website pages are rarely designed for printing. PrintFriendly is a clever website, and a browser extension, that makes website pages printable.

Twenty Years Ago: Iomega, the company that filled a storage gap with high-capacity Zip and Jaz disks tried online storage as the need for disks faded, but success eluded the project.

28 Apr 2023

Save Time And Improve Accuracy With MacroExpress: When I set up a new computer, MacroExpress Pro is one of the dozen programs that are installed immediately. Those who don't need all the power of the pro version may find one of the three more basic options useful.

Short Circuits: DPReview Is Gone, No Thanks To Amazon: For nearly 25 years, DPReview has been the go-to resource for many people when they're thinking about buying their first digital camera, upgrading to a new camera, or asking a question about digital photography. Soon all traces of the site will be gone.

How Clever Is Google’s Bard? Although Google was an early leader in artificial intelligence, ChatGPT and others took the lead and Google is trying to reclaim that position. So now we have Bard, by invitation only.

Twenty Years Ago: Unicode was fighting for recognition in 2003. Everybody could see its advantages, but it wasn't catching on quickly. Today it’s everywhere.

21 Apr 2023

Fixing Oddball Windows Annoyances: Reinstalling Windows 11, as I did a few weeks ago, gave me the chance to rediscover some of the “features” Microsoft offers that don’t work quite the way I want them to. Let’s look at some annoyances that are easy to fix.

Short Circuits: Eliminate Constant Interruptions By Windows: Maybe you consider the seemingly never-ending announcements and notifications from Windows 11 to be an annoyance, too. You may have more control than you think.

Creating Professional Podcast Quality Without A Studio: Adobe has a free artificial-intelligence tool that's designed to fix less-than-perfect audio, making it possible to create a podcast even if the recording environment is noisy.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, light-emitting diodes were expensive, but they saved money with lower operating costs. Now even the initial expense is lower.

14 Apr 2023

Taming Windows 11’s Start Menu And Quick Settings: So many people complain about Windows, but then don't take the time to figure out how to fix what's bothering them. It's usually not difficult, so let's consider some of the annoyances that can be fixed with minimal effort.

Short Circuits: Adding RAM To Accelerate A Slow Computer: Long ago, but still in this galaxy, the accepted way to make a slow computer faster involved adding RAM. Then the best option involved replacing a mechanical disk drive with a solid-state drive. Now that many computers have SSDs, we're back to adding RAM.

Where Are All The Old Techies? A common bit of humor has old people who need tech support calling on their six-year-old grandchildren for help, but it doesn't have to be that way. Some recent research says that we older folks are dealing with technology a bit better and the pandemic is part of the reason why.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2001, digital camera manufacturers hoped to be able to bring a one megapixel digital camera to market at a reasonable price. That milestone had been passed by 2003 and film was doomed.

7 Apr 2023

A Clean Machine Works Better: You probably already know about the importance of keeping your computer, notebook, or tablet clean and up to date just as you ensure that your car is maintained properly, but what about your smartphone?

Short Circuits: Taking Your Videos On The Road: When you take the family for a long trip, a vacation for example, maybe you’d like to be able to entertain the kids with videos in the car. But taking a stack of DVDs or Blu-ray discs might be a problem even if you have a device in the car that will play discs. Let’s consider some options.

The Internet Radio That Never Was: The Kerbango internet radio was introduced at PC Expo in 2000, but the project was discontinued a year later before even one unit could be sold. Now internet radios are being manufactured by several companies.

Twenty Years Ago: Using system restore points can sometimes fix problems. Not always. In fact, rarely in my expereince, but sometimes. Twenty years ago, in 2003, I mentioned successfully using a restore point.

31 Mar 2023

When The Windows Snipping Tool Is Too Little, ShareX: If you need to be able to capture screen shots, but the Windows Snipping Tool is insufficient and commercial applications are too expensive, there's ShareX.

Short Circuits: Fixing A Google Calendar Flaw: Anyone who has tried to schedule a Google Calendar event on the last day of each month has found that it's not possible. There's a workaround, though.

Should You Tell Your Windows Computer To Shut Up? Does your Windows computer share too much information with Microsoft? You can tell it to shut up, but proceed with caution.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, Windows XP users complained that their computers were much slower after they installed Service Pack 1.

24 Mar 2023

The Dangers Of ChatGPT And Other Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence applications are responsible for a lot of questions about the future. Will AI help us humans, create insurmountable problems, or be no big deal?

Short Circuits: StreamWriter Plays And Records Internet Radio Stations: Music lovers who have trouble finding a local station they like will be happy with StreamWriter, a free application that not only plays music from thousands of radio stations but also makes it easy to record streams for later listening.

It's Now Easier To Run Android Apps On Windows : It's easier than ever to run Android apps on a Windows 11 computer, so let's look at how it's done.

Twenty Years Ago: Is Word Perfect? How About WordPerfect? Before Microsoft captured desktop computers with Word, a small company in Utah built Wordperfect into a world class application. By 2003, the battle was essentially over.

17 Mar 2023

Working With A Single Monitor Is No Fun: Many businesses issue two or more computer monitors to each employee because they've discovered a modest hardware investment improves productivity. Maybe it's time for home users to have more than one monitor, too.

Short Circuits: Seeing Adobe Application Updates Before They're Released: Users of Adobe's Creative Cloud can download and test beta versions of more than a dozen applications. The betas run alongside the installed release versions.

A Free Application With An Unpleasant Surprise: A handy utility application from McAfee leaves behind some software that may slow your computer and how to get rid of the extra app isn't obvious.

Twenty Years Ago: Will Your 2003 Computer Come From China? Although most computers purchased today come from China, in 2003 the change was just beginning.

10 Mar 2023

Affinity Apps Are Two Good: Version 2 of Affinity's Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps give users surprisingly powerful features at a modest cost.

Short Circuits: Portable Apps Keeps Everything Up To Date: PortableApps, one of my favorite programs, has recently added more applications including a lot of useful utilities and the ability to use specific typefaces wherever you are.

T-Mobile Bleeds Data From 37 Million Customers: T-Mobile continues to be the poster child for accidentally exposing information from its clients — this time 37 million of them.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, broadband was available to only about 10% of US families. Now it's around 80%.

3 Mar 2023

Lightroom's Multiple Mask Magic Pushes Into Photoshop Territory: Until now, Adobe's Lightroom and Lightroom Classic offered no way to add more than a single mask to an image. That's no longer the case and the change gives users the ability to make modifications that would previously have required using Photoshop.

Short Circuits: Netflix Dials Back The Threat Level: Netflix has been trying to find a way to limit password sharing and is testing one option in South America.

How Long Will Your Disk Drive Last? How long will the disk drive in your computer last? There's no way to tell for sure, but the annual disk drive report from cloud backup company Backblaze offers some useful clues.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, airlines were just beginning to introduce electronic tickets, but it wasn't until 2008 that the conversion was nearly complete.

24 Feb 2023

Internet Rabbit Holes That Are Worth Exploring: The internet has lots of rabbit holes that are good for passing time, enjoyment, and (sometimes) education. This week, we'll take a look at a few.

Short Circuits: Disassembling A Scam: An email that appeared to be from a high school classmate asked for a favor. It's been several decades since we graduated and the request seemed odd. Then it got odder.

Stop Microsoft From Repeatedly Adding An Edge Icon To The Desktop: If you prefer to maintain a clean Desktop, you might find Microsoft's repeatedly adding an icon for Edge a bit annoying. I'll explain how you can make it stop.

Twenty Years Ago: It's no big deal to send a photo an an email attachment these days, or to place the image in the body of the email itself. That wasn't the case 20 years ago. In 2003 we were beginning to see ways to accomplish this.

17 Feb 2023

OneNote Is The Organizer Everybody Needs: Microsoft OneNote has been around since 2003 and it's one of a small set of applications that I use every single day. OneNote stores all kinds of information and makes finding it easy when you need it.

Short Circuits: Buying A 16TB SSD For $60: Speaking of scams, when 16TB solid-state drives are selling for more than $2000, you may be delighted to find one for just $60 on Amazon. You will regret that purchase, though.

What's Wrong With All These Messages? When I turned off my spam catcher briefly the other day, the expected happened: A lot of spam made it through to my inbox. The scam of the week seems to be phony surveys with unbelievable prizes.

Twenty Years Ago: How about a computer that could run Windows XP and still fit in your pocket? That was big news in 2003.

10 Feb 2023

LastPass Out; 1Password In: After one too many breaches at LastPass, I started looking for a new password manager and decided to give 1Password a try. It works well and there's one feature that every password manager should have.

Short Circuits: Useful Commands Every Windows User Should Know: DOS commands are old, many dating back to the early 1980s, but many are still useful. Spending a bit of time with the antiques now might save time later.

First, Kill All The Passwords: Although password managers are essential, the real solution to the password problem is eliminating passwords. It's been nearly 40 years since that was proposed and we're still not there. Maybe in another 40 years.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, many people had to format the hard drive and then reinstall Windows about once a year. In my case it was usually two or three times a year. I do not miss that little exercise in futility!

3 Feb 2023

Technology Makes Hospital Stays Less Frustrating: Having "enjoyed" an extended hospital stay late last year and an even more extended period of starting the recovery process, I learned that hospitals have changed a lot in recent years and that one absolutely essential possession to take along is a smartphone.

System Updates Sometimes Bring Problems: Sometimes system updates cause problems for users. Such was the case with an update for my Samsung smart watch, and it's apparently not the first time Samsung has pushed out a flawed smart watch update.

Microsoft's File Explorer Improves, But Q-Dir Is Still Better: When Microsoft released Windows 11 version 22H2, tabs finally became a part of the File Explorer. While this is a welcome new feature, my preference is still for the third-party file explorer, Q-Dir.

Twenty Years Ago: Once Microsoft was a software company. Then they started making add-on devices such as keyboards. Today's Microsoft hasn't gone all-in on hardware, but it's a much larger part of the operation.

27 Jan 2023

The Duck Offers Free Email Protection: Besides offering a search engine that doesn't track users, DuckDuckGo offers email protections such as the ability to provide someone you may not trust with a one-time address that can be eliminated.

Proton Mail Is The Easy Way To Achieve Email Security: Being able to send an encrypted email message is helpful when you need to send sensitive or proprietary data, but the process is challenging. ProtonMail makes it much easier.

Restoring The Safe Mode Boot Feature Microsoft Took Away: Microsoft eliminated the ability to boot to Safe mode by pressing the F8 key at boot time in Windows 8, but there's an easy way to restore that functionality.

Twenty Years Ago: An information manager called Chandler looked promising in 2003, but the application never really caught on.

20 Jan 2023

Two-Factor Authentication Should Be The New Normal: Two-factor authentication isn't yet the new normal, but it should be. Some businesses that should provide better security for their customers are lagging, and many users seem more interested in saving a few seconds than in securing their finances. This must change.

Repairing A Small Leak In My Backup System (Part 1): I've described my backup system so often that you may think recovering a file isn't a big deal, and that's true until it isn't. I'll tell you about the cause of a close call. No significant files were at risk, but I did manage to annoy myself.

Repairing A Small Leak In My Backup System (Part 2): Then I'll explain how I recovered some files and describe the steps I've taken to close a small hole in the backup system. Having an image backup of the boot drive is important, but it's not sufficient if you might need to recover individual files quickly.

Twenty Years Ago: Today we send and receive email with ease on our smart phones. That could be done in 2003, but it was much more difficult.

13 Jan 2023

Windows 11 Version 22H2 Improves Security and Adds Features: Version 22H2 of Windows 11 will catch your eye with numerous user interface enhancements, but the real reason to get the update sooner rather than later is the emphasis on security.

Now You Have Even More Reasons To Install Microsoft PowerToys: Microsoft PowerToys adds some must-have features in version 6.2. If you haven't yet installed the free utility, these may be the extras that convince you.

Adobe's $20 Billion Figma Acquisition: Adobe is paying an enormous amount of cash and stock for a seven-year-old application called Figma. Twenty billion dollars. Wow.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2002, a company wanted people who had trailer hitches on their cars to shell out $30 for a lighted sign. It didn't work out well.

6 Jan 2023

Notebook Computers Are Pushing Desktop Computers Off Desks: Even those who need a full keyboard, onre or more large monitors, and the usual trappings of desktop systems are increasingly connecting them to notebook computers.

Last Pass Security Incident: No Big Deal?: Password manager LastPass has suffered two significant breaches in recent months (This segment was written before the second incident occurred.)

So Many Hard Ways To View The Windows Apps Folder: If you'd like to see what's in the Windows Apps folders, you'll find lots of descriptions for hard ways to do it. I prefer the easy way.

Twenty Years Ago: In 2003, thinking that the cat or dog could eat your computer was a bit of hyperbole, but today we have watches that are essentially computers. Twenty years ago, thoughts like that were still just a joke.