by Dee-Ann LeBlanc
There are three major sites that OS X users in the know keep a close eye on: MacHeist, MacUpdate Promo, and MacZOT. These three sites offer discounts on software written by independent developers, and can save you a ton of money on a lot of excellent software.
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by Tina Gasperson
Water is just plain bad for electronic gadgets, but for some reason our cell phones seem to be almost magnetically attracted to the wet stuff. Maybe it’s because they’re small and fit into our pockets that they seem to get washed more than their fair share. Or maybe they end up swimming in the sink because they’re too small and won’t stay put. Whatever the reason, you’ll probably have the opportunity at least once in your life to perform a water rescue mission on your mobile phone. With lots of luck and a little skill, you can resuscitate your gadget.
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by David Hakala
When you create a user account under Windows, the operating system sets up a number of different folders to contain data specific to that user. These folders are placed on the same drive with the Windows operating systems files by default. There are some good reasons to change the location of these user files to a drive other than the one which Windows resides.
First, it makes backup operations faster and more efficient. User data changes very frequently, while the operating system changes seldom. If you make backups daily, as you should, then your backup program must a) work to sort changed files from unchanged files before backing up only the changed files, or b) back up unchanged files unnecessarily. Either way, backups take longer and consume more system resources while they are running, slowing down other things you may be doing.
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by David Strom
Yes, it is a Windows world out there, as those of us that use Macs on a daily basis know. And while the Internet has leveled the playing field somewhat, it can be annoying to come across the occasional Windows Media audio or video file that you would like to view on your Mac. There is a simple solution: download Telestream’s Flip4Mac and you won’t ever have to worry again.
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by Tina Gasperson
Even a fairly casual Internet user has a list of several different passwords for things such as email, banking, shopping, and discussion forums. Do you have trouble keeping track of your passwords? Or are you one of those who have decided to use the same password for all your accounts? It’s easy to see why someone would want to do that, but it’s a very insecure way to manage your Internet life. All a cracker has to do is figure out one password and they have access to all your memberships and accounts. It’s much better to make and maintain separate, hard-to-guess passwords for each and every online login you have.
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by David Hakala
So, you want your own Web site. Most people get started with a free hosting service such as Yahoo!’s Geocities, or a blog on a blog hosting site such as WordPress.com. But the domain names of such sites can be cumbersome, i. e., mysite.geocities.com or myblog.wordpress.com. If you want to be seen as a “land owner” rather than a tenant on someone else’s property, you should register and use your own domain name.
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by Gabe Goldberg
Anyone who’s used a PC more than briefly has wandered through the fundamental directory/folder/file structure underlying Windows’ graphical user interface. And any PC that’s been used for a while likely has convoluted structures of user files — text, photo, spreadsheet, music, video, etc.
So it’s occasionally necessary to print the contents of Windows file folders (directories) for chores such as listing user folders and files contained in data backups, keeping family/hobby/volunteer material separate and organized, tracking files changed by software patches and installs, and noting file details when reporting problems.
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by Tina Gasperson
You may have downloaded a file with an MP4 extension and found that your audio player wouldn’t recognize the file. MP4 is a file format that can contain audio, video, or even still photos, but by default most audio players will not work with MP4. You’ll need a program that is specifically designed to convert your MP4 file to the MP3 format. Note that this only works for MP4 audio files, not those that contain video or other visual formats. MP3 is an audio-only file format. Look for a shareware or freeware program to convert your files, and follow the instructions.
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by David Hakala
Email is as vital as a tongue to some people. They can’t imagine getting through a day without communicating via email. For others, checking email is just an occasional thing. But in either case, when people click that “send/receive” button they expect something to happen. When, instead, you get an error message that says in part, “cannot connect to server,” here are some potential solutions to try.
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by Tina Gasperson
Q: How can I convert my PowerPoint productions to video so I can post to YouTube? — Marie
Converting the PowerPoint file format (.ppt) to a video format such as .avi or .wmv is possible, but it will probably cost you money and getting good results can be tricky whenever you’re making such a drastic change to the way a file is encoded. I recommend that instead of converting the file format, you download and install a free program called CamStudio.
CamStudio is a freeware screen recorder. It records all activity on your computer screen for the length of time you want, and saves it as an .avi file, suitable for replay and for uploading to a service such as Youtube.com. To use CamStudio, download and install it. Double-click the shortcut for CamStudio that was saved on your desktop.
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