Don’t Need It? Don’t Install It!

These days with gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of hard drive space inside our computers it can be all too easy to give in and install anything and everything without much regard for the impact upon the performance of your system. Furthermore, it is still fairly common to receive new laptops and desktop machines full …

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The 2TB Barrier – What Does it Mean for You?

Throughout last year I made a couple of mentions of the 2TB (two terabyte) barrier for physical storage in modern computers but didn’t take the opportunity to flesh out exactly what it means for the regular consumer out there. In this article I am going to explain why this is important and what you need …

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Change Your Windows 7 Logon Screen Wallpaper

Another short and sweet tip for today. While some of us tend to leave many of the presentation features in Windows at their defaults some of us like to customise things to suit our taste. One such element of customisation is the wallpaper at the logon screen. Unfortunately, this has always been something fiddly to configure all …

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Adjust and Mute Volume for Individual Windows Applications

Windows 7 Volume Mixer (Sound Device Selection)

Sometimes, you might have one or a few applications that will make noise on your computer for whatever reason on a regular basis or the cause of the sound is outside of your control (i.e. receiving instant messages, e-mail, etc). This can be particularly annoying if you are trying to concentrate on other things such …

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Remove the Need for a KVM with Synergy

This has been one of my favourite tools to use when I have had multiple computers with their own displays setup at my desk and faced the issue of cluttering my desk with numerous keyboards and mice. For those who have never heard or come across a KVM before the acronym itself stands for “Keyboard, …

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Web Browser Tab Management Tips

Here’s a quick tip for tonight. The latest versions of Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (IE9 currently in beta), and Firefox (Firefox 4 also in beta) support a couple of neat features when it comes to tab management. The first feature allows you to shift the order of the tabs around simply by dragging them left …

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Watch the IPv4 Countdown

Well, it’s bound to get some additional press over the next couple of weeks but as another heads up the IPv4 address space is gradually running out. I covered this previously where I touched on various predictions over the years of when the IPv4 address space would be exhausted and a few of the benefits …

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Upgrade to Microsoft Security Essentials Version 2.0

Microsoft Security Essentials - Manually Check for Software Updates

Quick tip for this evening. An update to Microsoft Security Essentials was released by Microsoft on 16 December, 2010 which saw the version number increment up to Version 2.0. This was after the second Tuesday of the month (AKA “Patch Tuesday”) where Microsoft releases patches and upgrades for its software through Windows Update. This meant …

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Improve Screen Readability – Increase Text Size

One complaint that I do come across after a user has had their screen set at its native resolution is that the size of the text on the screen has shrunk and, especially for smaller displays that run at high resolutions, can still be difficult to read. Luckily, you can increase the size of the …

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Improve Screen Readability – Enable & Tune ClearType

Leading on from yesterday’s article which looked at modern digital displays such as LCDs, LEDs and plasmas, the concept of the native resolution and how lower resolutions may not align with the physical rows and columns of pixels on a display. Today, I have another tip to further improve the readability of text on your screen. ClearType, …

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