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If you find the information TechByter Worldwide provides useful or interesting, please consider a contribution.
How To Get Rid Of A Key You Despise: Is there a key on the keyboard that you absolutely despise? Maybe the CapsLock key. Maybe some other key that causes trouble for you when you press it accidentally. There’s an easy and free way to banish keys like this.
Short Circuits: The Power Toys Keyboard Manager Offers Additional Keyboard Options: Maybe you wish you could convert a key you don’t use to perform a useful function, maybe even start an app you use all the time. There’s also an easy and free way to do that.
Old Tech Can Be Good Tech: Many early users of computers mastered the skill of creating batch files to perform repetitive tasks. Forty years later, these skills can be useful even with Windows 10 and Windows 11, and the skills aren’t that hard to learn.
Calling It “God Mode” Is Hyperbole, But It’s Worth Enabling: Windows seemingly has adjustments, settings, configurations, and modifications for just about everything. Despite a decade-long effort to finalize the Settings app, the Control Panel is still needed sometimes and finding the adjustment you’re seeking can be difficult. That’s one reason you might want to enable God Mode.
Short Circuits: Turning It Off And Back On Again Is Magic (Sometimes): One of the first things technicians want us to do when something goes wrong with a computer or other electronic device is turn it off and turn it back on again. This actually fixes a lot of problems, but why?
Wikipedia Is Worth Every Dollar You MIght Not Be Paying, But Probably Should: Do you use Wikipedia for research? Millions of people do every day and, despite the doubters, it’s usually quite accurate.
“Always” And “Never” Belong In No Photographer’s Lexicon: Two words make my teeth itch when I hear them, particularly when I hear them from photographers. Someone who claims to be artistic and creative probably should use “always” and “never” rarely, if at all.
Short Circuits: Fluff-Busting Purity Fixes Facebook: Facebook seems to be the most annoying application on Earth, yet people rarely abandon it. There are ways to make it better, at least on computers, and I recently switched from one of the primary players to the other.
The Quick And Easy Way To Get To BIOS Settings: We need to get to the BIOS settings screen rarely, and getting there can be difficult. What if you could put an icon on your desktop to get there with just a click?
How To Get A Better Start Menu: No matter how much effort Microsoft expends on the Start Menu, it will never please everyone. The Start Menu does offer a lot of customizations, but if you really want to take control there's Start 11 from Stardock.
Short Circuits: Beware Upcoming Windows Updates: Updating to the latest version of Windows 24H2 created some significant problems on my primary computer, but the update worked flawlessly on the tablet computer. This is why every operating system update needs to be approached with caution.
Should You Change That Password? Too many organizations still force users to change their passwords too frequently, mistakenly believing that doing so improves security. The opposite is true.
Free Access To News Sources From Your Library: I talk about libraries frequently because they are probably the best value provided for our tax dollars. If you’re looking for access to news media that are often behind a paywall, your local library may be able to help.
Short Circuits: 1440 Daily Digest To The Rescue: Continuing with the topic of locating reliable, honest, unbiased news sources in the days leading up to this year’s presidential election, we’ll take a look at 1440 News.
The Covid Report: Last week’s podcast was cancelled because Phyllis and I were both dealing with covid when I should have been preparing the report. You may already have had covid, perhaps more than once. For us, it was our inaugural voyage.
No Program This Week: Covid Recovery In Progress (Part Two) : Covid is in the rear-view mirror, but I still can’t talk for more than 30 seconds without a sneeze or a cough.
Sorry, But There’s No Report Or Podcast This Week: That’s because Phyllis and I both contracted covid after avoiding it entirely for more than four years. I’m better now, but there’s not enough time to finish the program that would have been here. I’ll pick things up again next week.
Your Browser’s Fingerprint Is All Over The Internet: Just as people have fingerprints, so do browsers. The fingerprint it what allows the browser to be tracked from site to site. If you find this disturbing, there are ways to fight back.
Short Circuits: Scam Likes Are Facebook’s Latest Scourge: If you’ve ever posted something to Facebook and immediately received a like or a friend request from someone you don’t know, it’s probably yet another scourge that Facebook can’t (or won’t) do anything about.
Chrono Quest Highlights The Worst Techniques Of Teaching History: Chrono Quest is a game that requires placing six historical events in the correct chronological order. It’s amusing, but don’t expect to learn any useful history by playing.
Learn About Yourself And Contribute To National Wellbeing: The National Institutes of Health would like to know more about you. Share some information with the All of Us project and you’ll help researchers understand more about disease treatment, control, and prevention.
Short Circuits: Avoid Trouble By Being A Skeptic: With the internet drowning in the proliferation of scams and fraud, staying safe involves treating any message from any source with more than a bit of skepticism.
Bose Might Be A Synonym For “Bozo”: When the plastic battery cover on my Bose TV speaker remote control broke, I contacted Bose to see if they sold replacements. What should have been a 5-minute chat went on for 40 minutes, required a 20-minute follow-up chat, and the problem involving a 5¢ part still hasn’t been resolved.
VueScan Lets You Forget About Scanner Drivers: Regardless of what software came with your scanner, VueScan will do a better job and you’ll never have to worry about the scanner being orphaned by outdated drivers.
Short Circuits: Sorting The Pros And Cons Of LibGenesis: Library Genesis, a source for downloading millions of books, articles, and academic papers, is controversial to say the least. Let’s consider the pros and cons.
“What Three Words” Precisely Describes Where You Are: I had a can of Stone Brewing’s FML hazy double IPA recently. Then I looked at the back of the can and learned more about those letters, which (in this case) mean “Fear Movie Lions”.
Are You Using The Best Browser? Is there a “best” browser? Of course there is, but your “best” browser may not be my “best” browser, and my “best” today at noon may not be my “best” browser this afternoon at 3. What’s “best” depends on a lot of variables.
SHort Circuits: Electronic Sticky Notes Are Even Better Than Paper Sticky Notes: If paper sticky notes are all over your desk and computer, maybe it’s time to switch to the electronic version.
Maybe You Need A Phony Email Address: There are benefits to having an email address that obscures your identity and can be abandoned as needed without affecting your primary address.
And When I Die ...: You’re going to die someday. As a eulogy I once heard put it, “The young may die and the old must.” Dying is as easy as it ever has been but the job for survivors can be difficult if the they have no access to user names and passwords for the services we’ve used to make our lives easier.
Short Circuits: Little Features Can Make Big Differences: Windows has lots of hidden little keystroke sequences that can improve your life as a computer user, but first you have to find them and remind yourself to use them.
Why Microsoft Power Toys Is Indispensable: Microsoft’s Power Toys has long been one of my favorite utilities and one of its components, Power Toys Run recently received a major update.
Finding The Right Low-Cost Cellular Plan: If you think sorting out differences between cellular plans is a challenge, try wading through information for the low-cost plans, particularly if the person who will use the plan has some unusual requirements.
Short Circuits: The Windows Control Panel — A Relic That Will Not Die: Microsoft has been talking about eliminating the Control Panel for about two decades and yet it remains. It may eventually be forgotten, but not gone.
Close, Scammer, But No Banana For You: A pleasant Friday afternoon was interrupted by two emails from my health insurance provider. The first said I had used the “forgot password” function and the second said my password had been changed. Stopping the scammer took only an hour, but it was an hour of frustration.
When Weird Computer Problems Crop Up, Consider A New Account: Sometimes the fastest and most efficient way to diagnose a problem with a computer involves creating a new account.
Short Circuits: The 10-Year Warranty That’s Not A Big Deal: Sometimes the fastest and most efficient way to diagnose a problem with a computer involves creating a new account. In Short Circuits: When I increased storage on a tablet computer with a 1.5TB MicroSDXC memory card, I was surprised by the 10-year warranty it came with. I shouldn’t have been.
Identifying The Most Reliable Disk Drives: When you’re looking for a new or replacement disk drive, a quarterly reliability summary from Backblaze can help with the decision.
Will Canva Destroy Adobe? Canva, especially with its acquisition of Affinity’s Photo, Design, and Publishing apps, is a powerful competitor for graphic design, but don’t expect it to unseat Adobe anytime soon, if ever.
Short Circuits: Who’s Leading In AI Image Creation? Artificial intelligence for visual tasks is advancing so fast that any examination of the current state of affairs is nearly pointless, but let’s take a look at what Adobe, Microsoft, and Canva are up to.
When You Can’t Find A Needed File, Summon Agent Ransack: As our computers become repositories for ever increasing numbers of files, sometimes it’s hard to find the one you’re looking for even if you try to keep them organized. The free version of Agent Ransack can save the day.
Short Circuits: Why Locking Your Phone Number Is Important And How To Do It: Although the risk of being victimized by a SIM-swap scam is small, the damage done by such an attack could be enormous. There’s a quick, easy way to eliminate the danger.
Activate Side Tabs In Any Browser: Have you tried using side tabs in the web browser on your computer? Some browsers have that functionality built in, and there are extensions for those that don’t.
Microsoft And Adobe: Evil Empires? Microsoft and Adobe are gigantic, but are they as evil as some would have us believe? Big doesn’t always mean bad, so let’s take a look.
Short Circuits: The Case For Being Evil: What might the prosecution say in making the case that Adobe, Microsoft, or both are evil. I tried to work out what cases might be made.
Spotting Fake Images, Videos, and Information Is Harder Than Ever: Doctored images, deep-fake videos, and disinformation have us surrounded, so now it's time to identify the ways we can protect ourselves from the lies.
Short Circuits: Resources For Identifying Fake Or Manipulated Photos: It's still easy to spot some manipulated photos or videos, but increasingly we're going to need artificial intelligence to help us identify the dreck that has been created by artificial intelligence.
Sift The Wheat From The Chaff: And even AI analysis won't protect us for very long. Just as we must be the final line of defense against malware, spyware, phishing, and social engineering, we need to learn how to deflect the lies being thrown at us.
Aomei Backupper Pro Provides Comprehensive Backup: Even if you use an online backup service, it probably doesn’t capture the operating system and the Registry. An image backup application is needed if you want to avoid having to reinstall Windows and all applications if the disk drive fails. The free Aomei Backupper application may be sufficient.
Short Circuits: Bringing Madness To Your Computer Is (Relatively) Easy: You can have absolute madness on your computer if you’re able to locate an old copy of Totally Mad from Broderbund Software, but there are tricks to getting it installed.
Replace Ctrl-V With Win-V: Everybody knows how to cut, copy, and paste text and images, but there’s a better option than Ctrl-V for pasting.
Passkeys Are The Future: No matter how long or complex a password is, it’s useless if a scammer gains access to it. One of the most beneficial aspects of passkeys is that they can be compromised only if the crook gains access to the computer or smart phone where they are stored.
Short Circuits: Add-Ons Expand Thunderbird’s Capabilities: Microsoft Outlook is facing more competition than it has seen in quite some time, and some of the strongest competition come from the newly renovated Thunderbird and its stable of more than two thousand add-ons.
What If You Don’t Want Microsoft’s “Recommendations”? Anyone who is displeased by Microsoft’s decision to add advertisements, which they call “recommendations”, to the Start Menu and elsewhere will welcome relief from two open-source apps that stifle them.
Faster DNS (May) Mean Faster Internet Service: The domain name service you use may have an effect on the speed with which web pages load, but there are other reasons to examine the DNS you use now and possibly changing it.
Short Circuits: Don’t Forget To Wipe Your Disk: When you're giving away or selling a computer or disk drive, think about the files that were on the computer. Just deleting them doesn't really remove the data. How much more you need to do depends on how much you value privacy and security.
Excire Is Also A Crime Fighter: Excire, the company that makes the standalone Excire Foto and the Lightroom Classic plug-in Excire Search, is also helping law enforcement agencies evaluate photographic evidence.
Artificial Intelligence Versus Real Stupidity: Panicking pundits pummel Photoshop prematurely. If you listen to or read some of what passes for thoughtful reporting, you might be convinced that Adobe is a demon that must be eliminated. I disagree.
Short Circuits: Sharing Files Between Computers Shouldn’t Be Difficult: Windows 7 introduced a handy new way to share files with other local users, but HomeGroup wasn’t widely used and it was discontinued with Windows 10. A follow-up function is limited by working only with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections, not Ethernet. Something better is needed.
Mozilla Pocket Isn’t New Or Improved, But It Continues To Be Useful: Mozilla’s Pocket is a handy way to make references for articles you want to read available on any computer or mobile device that has a browser.
Replacing Multiple Hard Drives With One: When I noticed a disk drive problem early one Saturday, I decided it was time to replace an aging cabinet filled with aging disk drives. A significant performance boost was a welcome extra.
Short Circuits: Microsoft’s PC Manager Claims To Clean Your PC: Microsoft would like you not to use cleanup applications such as CCleaner because they might damage the Registry, but now they’re offering a CCleaner-like app called PC Manager.
PowerToys Adds An Environment Editor: Editing Environment variables is much easier today than it was 40 years ago with EDLIN on an early DOS computer, and an addition to Microsoft’s PowerToys makes it even better.
Switching From CrashPlan To Backblaze: Despite having used CrashPlan for the past eight years and still feeling that it is a viable online backup service, I have switched to Backblaze.
Short Circuits: Will You Help Facebook Train Its AI? Starting in less that two weeks, Facebook will begin using your public posts, photos, and chatbot iterations to train its AI.
If You Think Libraries Are Low Tech, Think Again: Libraries are among my favorite institutions because of their high-tech and low-tech solutions to today’s problems.
Artificial Intelligence Is Suddenly Everywhere: This week is all about artificial intelligence, starting with the many ways AI can be used to improve images and sometimes create scenes that do not exist in real life. There are also applications for old and new motion pictures.
Short Circuits: AI Can Tell You Where To Go And How To Get There: We’ll move on to how AI might soon be used to help applications like Waze and Google Maps evaluate more conditions that affect your route.
The Last Place I Expected To Find AI: Is the last place we should ever expect to find AI on the Desktop? Probably not. But is Stardock the last firm we’d ever expect to put it there? Let’s ponder that.
Updating Windows To Version 24H2: Many Windows 11 users will be offered an update to Windows 11 version 24H2 between now and the end of the year. As is usual with Windows, the update brings both useful new features and a certain number of annoyances.
Short Circuits: Net Neutrality Is Finally Back: Actions by three states probably kept internet service providers from doing their worst when the FCC eliminated net neutrality rules in 2017. Now the rules are back, but for how long?
Portable Apps Is A Handy Addition To Every Computer: Portable Apps is a handy program that stores utilities, browsers, and games on a thumb drive so they can be used on any computer, but there’s also a good reason to install Portable Apps on a desktop or notebook computer.
Excire Foto April Update Adds Features Introduced In Excire Search: An update to Excire Foto brings the ability to look for photos using a text description, as introduced in Exicre Search, to the company’s plug-in for Adobe Lightroom Classic.
Short Circuits: Spot Fake Sellers With The Fakespot Browser Plug-In: Fake reviews, scam products, and questionable sellers can all be made to look like real bargains. Fakespot by Mozilla helps you sort the truth from the lies.
Running Commands In Windows With Temporary Administrator Permissions: One of the most important new capabilities coming to Windows 11 version 24H2 will be all but meaningless to many users.
The Road To Secure Privacy: You Can’t Get There From Here: Ensuring that your computer is safe, private, and secure is easy enough, but doing so will make the computer virtually unusable. Let’s consider some options that help without hindering, at least not too much.
Short Circuits: Not Every Disk That’s Connected To Windows Needs To Be NTFS: Windows computers use the New Technology File System, which was new in 1993, but it’s not a good choice for devices that must also be used by MacOS computers or Android devices.
Calm YouTube With A ClickBait Remover: Thumbnail images shown on YouTube can help users decide whether they want to view the program, but all too often the thumbnails are little more than clickbait. There’s a browser extension that will help.
Audacity Adds AI, But Sometimes It Becomes Confused: Some remarkable capabilities have been added to Audacity, but it’s still not a contender to take Audition’s place for audio productions.
Short Circuits: Don’t Skimp On Keyboards, Mice, Or Monitors: It’s not a good idea to skimp on the devices you use to interact with your computer. One or more properly placed monitors, a mouse that fits comfortably in your hand, and a keyboard that doesn’t result in wrecked wrists are all more important that we may think.
Keeping A SMART Eye On Your Computer’s Disk Drives: How close is your computer’s hard drive to failure. Some disk disasters can’t be predicted, but others can and a free utility program that watches the indicators provided by modern disk drives sounds early warnings.
Be Your Own Tech Support Genius: When something goes wrong with your computer, it may be easier, faster, and less frustrating to fix it yourself instead of dealing with tech support.
Short Circuits: Fuzzy Is For Cats And Dogs, Not Computer Screens: Every computer screen is different and your vision is unique to your eyes. That’s why it’s a good idea to use Microsoft’s ClearType Text Tuner.
Maybe Your Next Computer Will Be An AI PC: You’ll start to see computers being marketed with heavy AI claims soon, probably before the end of the year, but waiting for the next generation in late 2025 is probably wise.
Has Your Facebook Account Been Hacked (Yet)? A surprising number of Facebook accounts are being stolen and recovering them is difficult, if not impossible. That's why it's better to avoid trouble in the first place.
Short Circuits: Choosing A Better DNS Provider: Although your internet service provider includes domain name services, there’s a good reason to use one of several alternate services.
A Nutrition Label, But For Internet Service: Efforts by the federal government to eliminate junk fees have finally resulted in some changes that affect what service providers must tell you before you sign up.
What Happens When Your Windows 10 Computer Expires Next Year? You still have about a year and a half to decide what you'll do when Microsoft ends support for Windows 10. There are several choices, but not all options will work for all users. Let's take a look at some that will keep the computer out of the trash.
Short Circuits: Renaming 1000 Files Can Be As Fast As Renaming 1 File: Although Microsoft has added a file renamer function to PowerToys, it won't be sufficient when you need to apply complex names to a lot of files. A manual process becomes cumbersome when more than a few files are involved, absurd for hundreds or thousands of files. This is a job for the Bulk Rename Utility.
Does Your Keyboard Have A Special Key For Emoticons And Such? Newer keyboards have a special key to open the emoticon finder, but there's a faster and easier way to insert bullets, fractions, currency symbols, and accented characters. It's yet another utility built in to PowerToys.
Bitdefender Tries A New Approach: Romania-based security company Bitdefender offers a comprehensive protective suite for Windows and MacOS computers, as well as IOS and Android phones. The package includes enough licenses for all devices used by everyone in the family unless you have an exceptionally large family or everyone has five or six devices.
Short Circuits: It’s Time To Stop Renting Your Cable Modem And Router: Your internet service provider would like you to continue renting a modem from them, but there are good reasons to buy your own and cost is just one of the reasons.
A Question Without A (Reasonable) Answer: Scam offers appear like clockwork every couple of months for counterfeit US postage stamps that are often shipped from China. Facebook seemingly can’t (or won’t) do anything to stop them.
Making Virtual Desktops Your Friend: The virtual desktops feature that was added to Windows 10 and improved in Windows 11 can help organize the computer when you need to work on more than one task at a time.
Short Circuits: Adobe Uses AI To Clean Audio Tracks: Artificial intelligence is now being used to improve audio recordings by removing flaws such as background noise and room echo. Despite being new, the results are already astonishingly good.
Don’t Wait Until They Work Out All The Bugs! Bugs are a simple fact of life for computer users. If you’re delaying a purchase until all the bugs have been eliminated, you’re going to wait for a very long time.
Operating System Features You May Be Missing: If you regularly mutter to your computer that it doesn’t do something you want it to do or doesn’t do something the way you want it to, stop for a moment and investigate. There’s a good chance that the computer can accommodate your desires.
Short Circuits: JustWatch Helps Find What’s On, Where, And When: Anyone who has trouble finding where programs they want to watch are streaming, or who forgets to watch new episodes, will find JustWatch useful.
SnapArt4 Adds Creative Options To Photoshop And Lightroom Classic: The latest versions of Adobe’s photo editing applications are filled with useful features, but that doesn’t mean we should forget about applications such as SnapArt4.
Avoiding The Big Phish: One of the most common ways that people are victimized online involves the victims failing to recognize social engineering and giving their login credentials to scammers.
Short Circuits: Protecting Your Facebook Account And Eliminating Annoyances: Facebook accounts are filled with gold that scammers like to mine. There’s a quick and easy way to view what crooks see so that you can modify your account to maximize security.
Removing Microsoft’s Edge Browser Annoynces Without Removing Edge: Europeans can remove Microsoft’s Edge browser because of European Union rules, but these rules don’t apply in the United States. There’s still a way to tame or remove Edge, and I’ll explain how.
Some Reviews Say Fruust.com A Scam: When a charge for a service I didn’t recognize showed up in an alert from my bank, I found that I had been signed up for a video streaming service I’d never heard of. Eliminating the service was easy enough, but a lot of people have reported terminating it was difficult.
Short Circuits: A Font Is Not A Typeface: Even those of us who are not typographers, graphic designers, or publishers sometimes need to deal with typefaces. What most people think of as “fonts” aren’t fonts, but this may be a surprise: It doesn’t really matter.
Check More Than Amazon’s Ratings Before Buying: Anyone who relies on Amazon’s ratings to make buying decisions isn’t getting the full story. A service that rates that ratings helps, but it’s still wise to proceed with caution.
Exposure X7 Is Still A Good Choice: Exposure hasn’t had an upgrade from the X7 version, which was released in 2021, but it’s still a good choice both as a standalone application and as a plug-in for Lightroom Classic.
Short Circuits: Connections Are Easy With The InCharge X: Speaking of golden oldies, I encountered a little device that could be used to connect lots of devices two years ago. It saved the day a week ago when I had to deal with an IPhone that had a low battery.
What Does AI Think The Dangers Of AI Are? There’s a lot of concern about the dangers of artificial intelligence, so I went straight to the source and asked two AI engines about the dangers of AI.
Dealing With A Hijacked Facebook Account: A hijacked Facebook account can be a lot of fun, but only if you have a most peculiar understanding of the term “fun”. It wasn’t my account, but I had to deal with the repercussions of a hack recently.
Short Circuits: Thank Hedy Lamarr For Some Of Today’s Most Useful Technology: The technology that powers GPS, Bluetooth devices, and other modern high technoloby was invented 83 years ago by someone considered to be “the most beautiful woman in the world.” Even now she doesn’t get the recognition she deserved in 1941.
Disabling Windows AI “Bloatware” With AI: Ever notice how technology someone doesn’t understand, doesn’t like, or fears is labeled as “bloatware”. That’s the term beoing used with AI today, along with a fair amount of faulty logic.
Maybe It’s Time To Re-evaluate Streaming Services: Which is better, cable or streaming? There are lots of variables and cable is perfect for some people while streaming is the winner for others. After switching to streaming three years ago, now seemed a good time to re-evaluate.
Short Circuits: Updating Old Photos With New Tools: You might have some old digital photos that would benefit greatly from today’s AI-powered applications. I have a couple of examples.
Beware Unreasonable Expectations: “Warning: Your privacy settings can’t guarantee your privacy on Facebook.” That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Excire Search 2024 Finds Photos Fast: The more digital photos you have, the harder it is to find the one you’re looking for. Excire Search, a plug-in for Lightroom Classic, makes the process much easier.
Short Circuits: Libre Office Didn’t Really Jump 17 Versions Into The Future: Libre Office is the ideal office suite for those who are unable or unwilling to pay a monthly subscription fee. The latest version, though, has a surprising number.
How Many More Useless Keys Will Microsoft Add To Our Keyboards? Microsoft wants to be the king of artificial intelligence and may well succeed, but do we really need a special AI key on our keyboards?
Some Of My Favorite Things Are Free: Free, open-source software is often viewed as being second rate when compared to commercial software, but sometimes the best application actually does cost nothing.
Short Circuits: Autoruns Controls What Starts With Your Computer: When something starts with Windows, but you don’t want it to, finding a way to make it stop can be a challenge. Autoruns fixes that.
Once Common Hardware, Software, And Terms That Are No More: Phones no longer have dials, but we still say we’re dialing a number. Hardware, software, and processes are changing so fast that some arrive, flourish, and disappear seemingly in days.
Adding Windows 11 To A Reluctant Windows 10 PC: Windows 11 cannot be installed on certain computers, mainly older models that lack sufficient hardware, but it is possible to force-install Windows 11 on computers that would fail otherwise because they lack hardware security features.
Short Circuits: Give Your Email A Little Spark: With so many free email clients, you might wonder why anyone would be willing to pay $60 per year for one. Anyone who uses multiple mobile devices and wishes the same application was available for all portable and desktop systems might consider it.
Stardock Icon Packager Adds Flair: If, like me, you're someone who customizes the look and feel of Windows beyond what Microsoft allows, Stardock's Icon Packager is a quick and easy way to make big changes.
Maybe It’s Time To Upsample Some Of Your Old Digital Photos: Anyone who has digital photos that are more than a decade old could improve their quality substantially with an application that uses artificial intelligence to fill in details that don’t exist in the originals.
Short Circuits: Anything Written About AI More Than 24 Hours Ago Is Obsolete: Speaking of AI, if you’re trying to keep up with what’s new, you may suspect that it’s difficult and maybe impossible. Anything written more than a day or two ago is probably already outdated.
Using A Mouse And Keyboard On Two Computers: Have you ever needed to use a second computer near your primary computer only to find that making space for a second mouse and keyboard cramps your style? Multiplicity may be just what you need.
Using Sysinternals Process Monitor & Process Explorer To Solve Problems: The Sysinternals suite of utilities has been around since the 1990s and has been part of Microsoft since 2006. More than 70 utilities make Sysinternals essential for all Windows computer users and today we’ll take a look at just two.
Short Circuits: Making A Sound Decision: Believable sound effects are essential for motion pictures and podcasts, but it’s not an easy process. The first step involves identifying and obtaining the right sounds.
Fences Can Liberate Your Computer’s Desktop: Some Windows users like to keep all of their commonly used applications on the desktop. That has never been my preferred method, but one of the applications included in Stardock’s Object Desktop suite has convinced me to make better use of the Desktop.
Where Did All My Disk Space Go? We don’t run out of disk space as often now as we did in the early days, but you might wonder about discarding some old junk even if space isn’t a significant problem. Several utilities are available to help you identify the junk.
Short Circuits: Scammers Want Your Money, So Be On Guard: Scammers work hard to earn your trust and then steal your money. A Washington Post article about a retired federal scientist who was bilked out of her life savings is a cautionary tale, and we all need to be on the lookout for thieves.
The Windows Snipping Tool Improves, But Better Options Remain: Microsoft’s built-in screen capture tool has improved, now including the ability to capture video sequences, but it still lags behind both commercial and open source applications.
Use Microsoft’s PC Manager For Quick System Management Tasks: Microsoft’s new PC Manager takes the place of some other utilities such as CCleaner and offers quick, easy access to built-in Windows functions that are often several layers deep in Settings or the Control Panel.
Short Circuits: SendLater Eliminates (Some) Email Embarrassments: If you’ve ever wished you could unsend an email because you forgot to add an attachment or make an important point, SendLater will save the day, but only if you use Thunderbird.
Stardock’s SoundPackager Gives Windows A Distinctive Voice: Stardock’s SoundPackager makes it easy to add, change, or delete sounds that Windows plays to notify users of specific events, and it cost just $5.