Tutorials
Article | 5/04/2011
How to fix speech recognition in Windows 7
QUESTION Speech recognition will no longer load on my Windows 7 PC. Unless I first switch off User Account Control, I get the error message: 'C:\Windo...
Article | 9/03/2011
Open source FreeOTFE encrypts disks handily
FreeOTFE may sound like a political bumper sticker, but it stands for "Free On The Fly Encryption." The "Free" part is self-explanatory; "On The Fly E...
Article | 3/03/2011
Digitize your movies
Analog movies can be the easiest--or the hardest--medium to digitize, depending on the format you're working with. While older camcorder and video for...
Article | 3/03/2011
Digitize your documents
The space required to store paper documents can be a problem. Digitizing your documents renders them exquisitely portable--you can store an entire lib...
Article | 3/03/2011
Digitize your pictures
Today the digital camera is ubiquitous, but photos used to be taken by momentarily exposing something called "film" to light. Yes, film--the ode to ph...
Article | 3/03/2011
Digitize your music
In my lifetime, music has been delivered on vinyl, cassettes, eight-track tapes, CDs, and audio DVDs. How do I listen to it now? Usually with a PC or ...
Article | 5/02/2011
Prepare your PC for future data disasters
Reformatting and restoring a PC is not fun--in the way spending 2 hours in the dentist's chair is not fun. You have to back up all your data (and pray...
Article | 20/01/2011
Convert DVDs to play on a WDTV box
QUESTION: I need some advice about video conversion. Using DivX, a WDTV Live drive and a large hard drive, I've copied my entire DVD collection to dis...
Article | 11/11/2010
Get 5GB of free cloud-sync storage from SugarSync
Wouldn't it be cool if you had a "magic" folder on your PC, one that automatically synced its contents with the Web, your other PCs, your cell phone, ...
Article | 5/11/2010
How to pick NAS for any business
Network-attached storage (NAS) can make your business easier to run and more efficient in multiple ways.
Article | 27/10/2010
Flash Drive 101: Copying files, removing viruses
The other day, my wife asked me how to copy a PowerPoint presentation to a flash drive so she could take it with her to school. I was a little shocked...
Article | 22/10/2010
Flash Drive 101: Protecting Your Drive from Viruses
Flash drives are virus magnets. This is a generally accepted truth, but today I learned it firsthand.
Article | 26/08/2010
Adobe Illustrator tutorial: Create beautiful repeating patterns
Patterns are everywhere. Look around and you'll probably see one right now. It might be a pattern on a tie, a shirt, trousers, a paper cup, bathroom t...
Article | 21/07/2010
Laptop tips: Add RAM, recycle a hard drive
It's been almost a year since I served up some nice, hot laptop tips--and that's inexcusable. I'll make it up to you this week with some useful advice...
Article | 5/06/2010
DIY mod: add a USB power outlet to your car
In the very near future all cars will have built-in USB ports. Some do now, but until that future becomes a full-blown reality you can either wait or ...
Article | 5/06/2010
Fix Backup & Restore when it won't start
QUESTION: When I try to start the Backup & Restore utility on my new hard drive I get the error message: 'The backup application could not start due t...
Article | 5/06/2010
Find drivers for your hard drive
QUESTION: I backed up my Windows XP PC to a portable hard drive. This drive appears in Device Manager and Disk Management, but not in My Computer. My ...
Article | 21/05/2010
How to fix a broken USB port
QUESTION: My Windows 7 desktop PC has four USB ports, all of which are in use. However, no peripherals are automatically visible in Explorer.
Article | 5/05/2010
Keep your personal data off the market
In 2003, author and security pioneer Simson Garfinkel conducted a study of data he found on second-hand hard drives. On eBay, Garfinkel bought the har...
