How to Lock your PC – but not your screen – with KeyFreeze

If you’re leaving your PC unattended for a while then locking it (pressing Win+L) can be a sensible precaution, as it prevents others from viewing your files or interfering with running programs. The Windows Lock function also hides the current contents of the screen, though, annoying if you want to leave a movie playing, or perhaps monitor the progress of some lengthy task you’re running. And that’s why might sometimes prefer KeyFreeze, which locks your PC but leaves the screen active, just as before. The program is tiny – a single 341KB executable – and portable. There are no unwanted extras here, just unzip it and you’re ready to go. When you need to lock your system, just launch it. You’ll see a five second countdown, just...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Tips

Quickly search and explore thousands of plain text files with Depeche View Lite

Searching one or two plain text files is easy. Windows Search and Notepad will probably be enough. But when you need to browse ten files, a hundred, maybe even thousands, then you’re likely to need a little specialist assistance. And that’s where the free-for-personal-use Depeche View Lite comes in. Point this tiny portable program at a location and it will open every plain text file in that folder tree (up to a maximum of 10,000 in this build, anyway – the $40 commercial version is unrestricted). These are all displayed in a flat view, one above the other, and that alone can be useful as it’s easy to scroll down and browse them all. When you do have a lot of files then you’ll soon want to start searching, of course, and this is...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Tips

How to Personalizing Windows 8

Windows presents a lot of different ways to personalize the look and feel of your system, and this chapter teaches you some of the ways you can do this. In This Chapter Personalizing the Start Screen Personalizing the Lock Screen Changing Your Account Picture Configuring Other Windows Settings Using the Traditional Control Panel Setting Up Additional Accounts When you first turn on your new computer system, you see the Windows Start screen as Microsoft (or your computer manufacturer) set it up for you. If you like the way it looks, great. If not, you can change it. Windows presents a lot of different ways to personalize the look and feel of your system. In fact, one of the great things about Windows is how quickly you can make...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to Switching to Windows 8: A Quick Guide for Current Windows Users

Here it comes — Windows 8 is on the way! Windows 8 is a lot different from older versions of Windows, however, so you may have a little reeducation to do. In this article author Michael Miller shows you what’s new in Windows 8, and helps you learn how to do all your old tasks the new Windows 8 way.   Windows 8 is the latest version of Microsoft's iconic operating system. And it's a lot — really, a lot — different from those previous versions you've learned to know and love. (Well, at least to know and tolerate.) The entire Windows 8 experience is new, from first power-on to running your favorite apps. It's so different, in fact, that current Windows users may have a hard time figuring out exactly how to do what they...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to Customizing the Windows 8 Start Screen, Colors, and Other Settings

This chapter walks you through some basic Windows 8 personalization features using lots of illustrated, step-by-step examples. When you first turn on your new computer system, you see the Windows Lock screen, and then the Start screen, as Microsoft (or your computer manufacturer) set them up for you. If you like the way these screens look, great. If not, you can change them. Windows presents a lot of different ways to personalize the look and feel of your system. In fact, one of the great things about Windows is how quickly you can make Windows look like your version of Windows, different from anybody else’s. Different Windows Lock Screens    ...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to Starting and Stopping Windows 8

This chapter walks you through the steps necessary to start your computer and then sign in to Windows in you're new to Windows 8. You'll also learn how to put your computer to sleep and shut it down completely. In This Chapter How to Start Up Windows 8 How to Sign In to Windows 8 Handling Special Windows 8 Start-Up Situations Departing Windows Dual-Booting Concepts If you have just brought home a new computer with Windows 8 preinstalled, or if your computer has just been upgraded to Windows 8, maybe you’re thinking, “Now what?” The obvious answer is to power up your computer and sign in to Windows 8. Like everything else in Windows 8, though, the power-up and sign-in phases are quite different than those in prior versions of Windows,...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

Hwo to working with Data in Your Windows 8 Application

Learn about the different types of data that are available to your Windows 8 application and techniques for manipulating, loading, storing, encrypting, signing, and querying data. Data is central to most applications, and understanding how to manage data and transform it into information the user can interact with is critical. Windows 8 applications can interact with data in a variety of ways. You can save local data, retrieve syndicated content from the Web, and parse local resources that are stored in JSON format. You can query XML documents, use WinRT controls to direct the user to select files from the file system, and manipulate collections of data using a structured query language. In this chapter, you learn about the different types of data that are available to your Windows...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

Essential Windows 8 Shortcuts, Clicks, and Gestures

Windows 8 has a lot of cool features, but they’re hard to find - unless you know the secret keyboard shortcuts, mouse clicks, and touch gestures. In this article, author Michael Miller provides an invaluable reference to everything you need to know to use Windows 8 to the fullest.   Windows 8 is much like previous versions of Windows—except it’s not. That is, you can do almost everything you used to be able to do, and then some, if you know the secret handshakes. Well, not really secret handshakes, but it seems like that, sometimes. That’s because a lot of what used to be out in the open in Windows 7 and Windows Vista (and even Windows XP) is now accessible only by a touch gesture or keyboard shortcut or mouse movement. There are fewer “visual cues” to what you need to do,...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to Using Windows 8’s Xbox Music

Xbox Music is the new music app in Windows 8; it’s also accessible from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console and Windows 7/8 phones. In this article, author Michael Miller shows you how to use Xbox Music to manage your own music collection and to listen to and purchase new music online. Every recent version of Windows has included some sort of music player application, such as Windows Media Player. Windows goes one step further, however, in including both a music player app and a music download/subscription service. Windows 8’s music player/service is called Xbox Music. (Microsoft is obviously playing off their successful Xbox videogame brand.) Xbox Music is both a media player for music stored on your PC or network and an...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to Add the Start Menu Back to Windows 8

One of the biggest complaints about Windows 8 is Microsoft’s removal of the Start button and Start menu. In this article, author Michael Miller examines third-party applications that promise to put the Start menu back in Windows 8 – and tells you which are worth your while. Windows 8 introduces a brand new user interface, alternately called the Metro, Modern, Windows 8, or Tiled interface. This new interface is typified by the new Start screen, where big, brightly colored tiles represent all the apps and utilities installed on your PC. Windows 8 also takes away many things of which we’re familiar, most notably the Start button and Start menu. This move has annoyed and incensed millions of upgraders, and quite possibly...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Windows 8

How to hide your important data from other users?

 Normally when you need to secure your important data from other users, then your first choice is to burn it on CD or put it to removable drive instead of hard drive. But imagine if your data size is more than 100 GB then it is not easy to burn it on CD. No worry, you can save your full drive from other users access using this trick.Perform the given steps to hide your system data partition:     To enable this feature, you will need to be logged into your computer with administrative rights.          First click on Start button to open "Run" and type "CMD" (without the quotes) then press Ok button to open Command Prompt. Now type diskpart on the blinking cursor and wait for 5...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Tips

How to increase your system performance?

Window Disk Cleanup is very useful tool to increase the performance of your system. You can increase also the free space on the hard disk, because Disk Cleanup utility searches many unnecessary programs and files on your hard drive that you can delete. This tool perform many useful tasks to cleanup your hard disk. For example  Delete the temporary internet filesDelete the old windows programs that you are not using.Delete all temp Downloaded Program filesDelete Office Setup filesDelete Old Chkdsk fileDelete the Recycle Bin itemsDelete all Setup log filesDelete the windows temporary filesDelete the Web Client or Publisher Temporary files.Delete all Catalog file for the content indexerYou can remove the optional windows components that you...

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Posted in: Computer repair,Computer Tricks,Tips

How to clear your sensitive information on system shutdown?

During data processing some operating systems use the hard disk as memory, called virtual memory. During processing, operating system transfers some data and programs from RAM to hard disk and reloads again when required. The data or programs are stored in hard disk in temporary file called the swap file. This technique of swapping data between memory and hard disk is called paging. Operating system spends a lot of time in paging process, instead of executing the application software. But the problem is that while working you use different software programs on computer and page file may contain your confidential information...

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Posted in: Computer repair,Computer Tricks,Tips

How to disable/enable the usage of USB storage devices?

  USB drives (also known as flash drive, mobile disk or pen drive) are becoming the most popular standard in these days to store and move data. USB support is available in PCs of both IBM-compatible and Apple computers. USB port support hot plugging and plug & play. The USB allows up to 127 devices to be connected to the bus via a single port. The driver name "usbstor.sys" is used to communicate any USB drives to the operating system.   USB drives are indeed very useful in these days but a user can easily use to transfer any confidential information from your computer to others and can also upload viruses affected...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Tips

How to Block a Website Using a Firewall

A firewall is a program that can be used to manage incoming and outgoing connections from your computer to a network or the Internet. Though a firewall is mainly used to block (or allow) specific programs from connecting to the Internet, you can also use firewalls to block users from being able to access specific Internet pages. You just have to enter your firewall's "Settings" utility and manually add a rule disabling users from visiting a particular site Instructions Open your firewall's configuration utility. Steps to do this will vary depending on your specific firewall. For example, if you use the Windows Firewall (a permanent fixture of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7), you would enter the Windows Control Panel and open the "Windows Firewall" icon.  Select...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Internet

How to Block Unwanted Site From Your Router

This tutorial takes you step by step on how to block unwanted websites from your family computers. Remember that to block a certain websites from your router, you must be the administrator of or have administrator access to that router. Login to your router by using 192.168.1.1 in the URL address. There are three areas on the homepage. On the left panel there is content filtering. Under the content filter there are, Log, Block sites, Block services, Schedule and Email. We are only interested on the block sites for now. Click on the block site and you should see a list of choices. Under Keyword Blocking, you can either chose: Never, Per schedule or Always, depends on how you want to block the websites. In the type Keyword, Domain Name here: Enter any Web address, or keyword that you...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Internet

How to Block Websites By Editing the HOSTS File in Windows

DNS, which stands for Domain Name System, can convert the elusive IPv4 or IPv6 addresses to meaningful names, and then translate the characters back to IP addresses. For example, when you want to visit a website, DNS will tell your web browser the real IP address of it, and then web browser will download the web page directly from that IP address. As you may expect, the process of translating IP addresses to website names will consume some time, which could cause access delay. Particularly, if the DNS servers are down, you will not be able to visit most websites through their URL, which isn’t uncommon. Hence, it is necessary to make a list for mapping hostnames to IP addresses. That is what Windows HOSTS file does. On most Windows systems,...

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Posted in: Computer Tricks,Internet,Tips