Computer Tips and Guides

Archive for October, 2009

FlagTab Groups Your Firefox Tabs with Colors

Firefox only (Win/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension FlagTab adds relative tabs and customizable colors so you can keep your tabs organized more easily.

Once you’ve installed the extension, you can colorize a tab by simply Ctrl+Clicking to cycle through the colors. Once you’ve colorized a tab, the child tabs will have the same color as the parent tab—it’s similar to the tab grouping feature in Internet Explorer 8. You can access the color settings through the tab ..read more

Manage Your Google Reputation

We’ve always emphasized the importance of managing what Google has to say about you, but now Google’s jumping in with their own tips for managing your online reputation through search results.

Most of the time, thinking before posting something that might be potentially embarrassing is the best route, but hindsight’s 20/20, isn’t it?

Google already took a significant step toward helping you have a little more control over what search results for your name turn up when they released ..read more

AVG 9 Free Now Available for Download

Windows only: AVG 9 Free—one of the most popular free antivirus apps on the market—is now available for download.

A couple weeks back, the popular antivirus maker AVG released AVG 9 with performance improvements and other updates, but on launch only the commercial version of AVG 9 was available. The fact of the matter is that most AVG users are probably using AVG Free, the freeware version of the app, so if that’s the case ..read more

WOT Extension Integrates Web of Trust into Google Chrome

Chrome extension WOT adds the Web of Trust community web site rating service to the Google Chrome browser, so you can check the trustworthiness of a web site without leaving the page.

Once you’ve installed the extension—by simply clicking on the link and accepting the install—you will see a new icon in the Chrome status bar that shows the community rating for the site you are browsing. Clicking the icon will display a ..read more

The Best Way to Search for an Old Post on Lifehacker

We frequently get emails from readers having trouble finding an old post on Lifehacker. They’ve tried the site’s search box but still aren’t having any luck. It’s not you, it’s us. There’s a better way.

Unfortunately Lifehacker’s search doesn’t always do the job of turning up content as well as it should, so when you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for, turn your query over to the people who do ..read more

Snow Leopard Bug Deleting Entire User Accounts

Tech news site ITWire reports that a reproducible bug related to guest accounts in Snow Leopard is deleting entire user account data. That’s a very bad thing. From ITWire, here’s what’s happening:

According to multiple topics on the Apple Support discussion boards, the problem can occur when a user logs into their Mac’s Guest account — whether by accident or on purpose — and then tries to log back into their regular account.

In some cases, ..read more

Google Adds Shared Folders to Docs

Good news for people using Google Docs to share or collaborate on documents: Google today has added folder sharing and multiple document uploading to its popular suite of web-based document and spreadsheet apps.

There’s not much to getting up and going with shared folders. Either right-click a folder and select Share or go to a folder and select the Share this folder drop-down to invite people. They’ve also improved their file upload tool to support uploading ..read more

Dropbox Comes to the iPhone and iPod touch

iPhone/iPod touch only: Dropbox, one of our favorite cross-platform file-syncing tools, has now made its way to the iPhone and iPod touch, complete with offline file viewing.

Once installed on your device, Dropbox for iPhone provides access to all your Dropbox files, allows you to view any file supported by your iPhone (including documents, photos, music, and video), uploads any photo or video you’ve taken on your device to your Dropbox account, and lets ..read more

PwnageTool Jailbreaks iPhone 3.0 OS with 3G, 3GS, and iPod touch

Mac OS X: The merry band of iPhone and iPod touch hackers known as the iPhone Dev-Team just released a new version of the jailbreaking app PwnageTool. It supports all generations of the iPhone and every iPod touch except the third generation.

Jailbreaking using the PwnageTool 3.1.3 is a breeze, but if you’re an iPhone 3GS or iPod touch 2G user, make sure to read the details of the Dev-Team’s post ..read more

10,000 Hotmail Passwords Leaked Online

According to tech news site Neowin, an anonymous user posted usernames and passwords for over 10,000 Windows Live Hotmail accounts to web site PasteBin, including accounts on email domains like @hotmail.com, @msn.com, and @live.com. Neowin verified that the accounts are genuine, and that most appear to be based in Europe. Ars Technica reports, more specifically, those leaked accounts include usernames in alphabetical order beginning with the letters “ar” to “bl”. Microsoft has confirmed the leak, so ..read more