Computer Tips and Guides

Archive for March, 2010

If you’ve started using the Start Menu search box as your primary application launcher, you may have come across a weird annoyance: By default, you can’t open the Recycle Bin from the search box.

Over at the How-To Geek site (my home away from Lifehacker), writer Matthew writes up the quick and easy trick to opening the Recycle Bin from the start menu, through the search box or even just using the mouse; all you need to do is create a ..read more

AVG Rescue CD Cleans Your Infected Windows PC

There’s any number of great antivirus tools that help protect your PC from viruses, but what about when you encounter an already-infected PC? Your best bet is a boot CD, and the free AVG Rescue CD cleans viruses easily.

The AVG Rescue CD comes in two flavors: an ISO image that can be easily burned to an optical disc, or a compressed version that can be installed to a bootable flash drive. Once you’ve ..read more

Plan Party Tents with an Online Marquee Planner Tool

Renting a party tent is easy, but what goes under it takes a bit more thought. Marquee renter County Marquees has a simple, user-friendly planning tool available to all (not just customers) to organize, print, and share tent plans for large parties. We’ve featured a bunch of different webapps and methods for floor planning, but the scene is a bit more sparse when it comes to planning outdoor parties. If you’re renting a ..read more

Windows XP Mode No Longer Requires Virtualization Hardware

Windows XP Mode is a pre-configured solution for Windows 7 users needing support for older software, and, until recently, it required AMD-V or VT processor hardware. An update released today should make XP Mode far more accessible to more Windows 7 users.

If you’re a 7 user who’s been trapped by the lack of that finicky hardware requirement, check out the XP Mode page later today and look for the update. Those with Intel ..read more

NetBalancer Prioritizes Network Traffic by Application

Windows: Ever wish you could guarantee your BitTorrent download didn’t choke your streaming YouTube video—or vice versa—but don’t feel like setting up Quality of Service rules on your super-router ? NetBalancer shapes bandwidth allocations for different apps on your PC.

With NetBalancer, you can set separate download and upload priorities for different applications (you’ve got the options of High, Normal, and Low), you can choose to block or ignore traffic altogether, or you can choose specifically ..read more

MusicBee is a Powerful, Easy-to-Use Music Manager

Windows only: Despite the many great media players out there, MusicBee earns itself a spot high on the list with super tagging, managing, browsing, ripping, syncing, and converting powers, all on top of an intuitive interface familiar to any iTunes user.

MusicBee positions itself as the media player for those that want more than what iTunes has to offer, but don’t need the extensive customization that something like previously mentioned foobar2000 is capable of. ..read more

Use Transparent Shortcuts to Separate and Organize Your Windows 7 Taskbar Icons

If you’d like to have empty space in between some of the icon sets on your Windows 7 taskbar to keep things organized and separated, this simple hack will get the job done.

Lifehacker reader Virgilstar shared this excellent tip here. We tweaked it a little and made a custom icon for you those of you within the software to make icons yourself.

The magic behind the trick is assigning a ..read more

Speed Up Windows 7 Taskbar Navigation with a Registry Hack

Windows 7’s taskbar is undoubtedly a great addition to Windows, but if you’ve got more than one application window open, you’ve got to either click twice or patiently hover to navigate to an open window. Reader Richard details how he fixed this:

I’ve been frustrated as of late with the Windows 7 taskbar (which led me to try hot-dogging it on the left-hand side as detailed here—by the way GREAT and useful ..read more

FlashHacker Keeps Flash Videos in Full Screen on Your Dual Monitors

Windows: If you’ve got more than one monitor, you’ve probably tried fullscreening a Flash video on one monitor while working in another. The problem: Flash exits fullscreen as soon as you click on something. FlashHacker fixes this problem.

A few months ago we highlighted a somewhat complicated method of tweaking Flash to fix this problem, but it hasn’t been updated for a while and doesn’t work with Flash 10 (the latest ..read more

Better Gmail 2 Updated

Google’s Gmail tweak broke some of the more popular features of my Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension this week, including Folders4Gmail and Hide Spam Count. Thanks to the quick work of Arend v. Reinersdorff, the problems have been fixed. If you’re a Better Gmail 2 user and your labels aren’t collapsing properly or your Spam count is showing when it shouldn’t, hit the “Find Updates” button in Firefox’s Add-ons dialog to get the fix, or download the ..read more