So far I’ve enjoyed using Windows 7 much more than Vista. One thing I’ve found annoying is I would like to pin the Recycle Bin, My Computer, and Control Panel to the taskbar or ‘superbar‘ as it is called now. Once you do this you can theoretically have an icon free desktop existence. I remember seeing many tips back in the Windows 95 day and even up until Vista, stating that an uncluttered desktop fosters a faster computer. This makes sense since your PC has to redraw all of those icons AND a background picture if you had one, each time you do something on the desktop. By moving all of those icons into the taskbar, you offload the heavy lifting to the taskbar applet that is always running anyway.
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Have you ever gone to a website that had some information you would love to read but can’t due to some design oversight? Whether it is dark font on dark background, small fonts, bad spacing, narrow margins, cluttered screen, or anything else that distracts you from the article you are reading; this little tool I found will help you clear out the mess.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
All you need to do is move the white ‘readability’ button to your browser’s toolbar so it can be readily available where ever you go on the web. If you don’t have a toolbar for links enabled you can also drag it to your ‘favorites’ in IE or ‘bookmarks’ in FF.
Now whenever you go to a site that is hard to read, just click on the ‘readability’ on your toolbar or in your bookmarks and the page will be transformed into a white page with black, easy to read, font.
An alternative to this method is to simply highlight the text and paste it into your favorite text editor or word processor. The only drawback is you may accidentally paste some web element too. What ever method you choose, just make it easier on your eyes will ensure you have a long more enjoyable web experience without wanting to jab your eye out with a dull knife after read a site with dancing green leprechauns tiled in the background on a size 6 script font.
Many of you may have notice the address bar starting with Windows Vista having a new unique way of letting you finding out where you are in Windows Explorer. While most will welcome this change, some of you old school geeks who would rather have the full path with all the c:\ and \, would love to find a way to get this back. You can do it by pressing Alt+D in the window but that can get tedious.
The quickest solution is to install AveNoBreadCrumb
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I am a person who uses two operating systems every day. My desktop is a Mac and my laptop is PC. Unlike your typical fanboys I appreciate both and am not partial to either one. I see them as tools to get a job done. There are things on each OS that I wish the other one had. One such item is a desktop background rotators for Windows. OSX has one built in while only Windows 7 will start having one. For everyone using Vista or below, one solution is WallPapa. While there are many to choose from, you should only use one that takes little system resources and easy to configure.
http://www.phoeniixz.net/software.html
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Microsoft is late getting in the game but it is slowly deploying tools to help Windows users combat virus and malware. Microsoft Security Essentials is the next step in rebuilding their sullied image. In the past they have released Windows Antispyware; later renamed Defender. As a standalone download, not many people heard about it and even less used it on their Windows XP machines. As of Vista and beyond, Defender is included in your OS for really Microsoft’s protection. From the complaints I hear in the field, one of the top reason people are switching to the Mac is their lack of viruses.
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