PC World Business

Like chocolate and episodes of Mad Men, there's no such thing as too much battery life.

The tagline at OldVersion.com reads as follows: Newer is not always better. That's true of Coke, Star Wars movies, and software. If you recently installed a new version of a beloved program, only to recoil in horror at its "improved" interface, "better" features, and "faster" operation, OldVersion.com is the site for you. It's home to a couple thousand versions of nearly 200 popular programs, from AOL Instant Messenger to ZoneAlarm.

The curse of being tech-savvy is that you're often called upon to help friends and family members resolve their computer problems.

One thing you should know about me: I'm no fan of Windows Vista. Some things about it just annoy me to death, like the unnecessary overhaul of certain interface elements. That said, Vista has a few features I positively love, starting with connection sharing. In other words, you can turn your Internet-connected notebook into a Wi-Fi hotspot for others to share.

There's nothing to calculating how many watts your PC will need to operate properly. You total up the power needs of your processor, your motherboard, your video and sound cards, and everything else that goes inside your computer, round up to the capacity of a decently-priced power supply, and there you have it. Of course, you have to know the power needs of your processor, your motherboard, your video and sound cards, and everything else that goes inside your computer, but what's life without its challenges.

Make your programs behave themselves.

Have you ever needed to combine more than one Word document into a single file?

If a program can output a delimited text file (I'll get to what that means in a minute), Excel can turn it into a reasonable table.

You know that Windows key on your keyboard? Most people overlook it, but that's a mistake. One press is the same as clicking the Start button with your mouse. And pressing it in concert with other keys can save you from having to reach for the mouse at all. Here are three Windows-key shortcuts you should memorize immediately:

You've no doubt already fine-tuned your existing audio setup, but why stop at optimising the audio potential of just one PC? Connecting all your computers and audio devices on a wireless network does away with the hassle of transferring CDs between machines and re-downloading files.

Microsoft tried to make the simple task of addressing a message easier in Windows Mail. They succeeded in making it less intuitive.