Just for winter and holiday fun. Desktop Snow is a (very) small utility that places falling snowflakes on your desktop. There can be a few or a lot, small or big, falling slow or fast, , all the time or just when you are inactive, etc. You control it. It is a ‘portable app’, so you do not install anything. Just download the exe file and double-click on it to have it run. Sweet, simple, and fun.
Get it at: http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=Freeware/DesktopSnowOK
Merry Christmas,
Andrew
If you have multiple PCs at your desk and want one mouse and keyboard to control them all then MouseWithOutBorders (MWOB) may be just what you need. MWOB is from “The Garage” by Microsoft. Garage projects are applications and tools created by Microsoft developers in their spare time.
[A note to techies reading this: MWOB is a software KVM, but fast, seamless, drag-n-drop capable, and free.]
Say you have your laptop sitting on your desk beside your desktop monitor and you would like to use your desktop keyboard and mouse to control your laptop. All you need to do is:
After the install, you can tweak some of the settings if needed. As I had my laptop on the left of my desktop, all I needed to change was to drag the laptop icon to the left of the desktop icon and click “Apply”. My mouse seamlessly slides past the left margin of my desktop monitor to the right margin of my laptop monitor – as if it were just two monitors connected to the same PC. When my mouse cursor is showing on my laptop monitor, the keyboard types on my laptop. When the mouse cursor is showing on my desktop monitor, the keyboard types on my desktop. Setup is easy. After setup you will find it is fast, smooth, and intuitive to use. You can drag and drop files from one PC to the next. You can lock all the PCs at once, if you desire. You can take control from any PC, so if you have your hand on your laptop’s mouse then you can just slide it over to your desktop’s monitor and control your desktop from your laptop – all without touching a switch or anything. You can even customize the Windows logo screen (a reasonably useless function, but kind of neat if you get tired of the Windows screen). MWOB will control up to four PCs at a time.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been ‘blown away’ by any piece of software, but this one did it. Oh, and did I mention – It is FREE!
Download it directly from Microsoft at http://aka.ms/MouseWithOutBorders
TIP: After you have disconnected or rebooted any machine then you may need to go the Settings, on each machine and click the Apply button. You get to the Settings by right-mouse-clicking on the icon found in your system tray (lower right of your screen). (The icon looks like a yellow right-pointing arrow touching a yellow left-pointing arrow with two black dots above.)
…is a handy site for soliciting help from others; in this case, me. It makes a FREE video and audio recording, up to 5 minutes in length, of everything you see and do on your computer display while recording. When the recording is over, it emails me a link to the video. I can then watch the video and (hopefully) help you out with whatever problem you are having. Continue reading
Eldy is a software that turns any standard PC into an easy-to-use computer for people that have never used a computer before or people that just want to ‘keep it simple’ and don’t need or want all the bells-and-whistles of Windows. The ‘Eldy desktop’ consists of a simple six button interface, yet it accommodates email, internet, chat, videoconferencing, documents, pictures, Skype and more. Continue reading
[The following is the text from the June 12th, 2011 class at the Allen Senior Center.]
The key to proper maintenance is obtaining the essentials and then getting in a routine of using them.
Carbonite is one of the premier online backup tools. It is completely automatic, secure, provides simple file recovery. If you want, you can access your files remotely, even from your smartphone. You get unlimited backup for $55 per year. Overall, it generally costs less than other backup solutions. Continue reading
Tildee is a site where you and others can easily create online tutorials and share them with others. If you know how to do something, not necessarily computer related, then sign up for an account, create your tutorial, and share it. Tildee makes it very easy for anyone to create a quality tutorial. Of course, if you need to know how to do something then you might want to search Tildee to see if someone has already posted a tutorial on the topic.
URL: http://www.tildee.com/
Microsoft has released a stand-alone security scanner. It is not designed to replace standard anti-virus programs, but to supplement them. It scans your system for malware that may have made it past your always-on antivirus tool. The Microsoft Security Scanner is similar in form and function to the Malwarebytes tool. Like Malwarebytes it is run manually. You download it and then run it. The tool both expires and is updated every ten days, so you’ll need to set yourself a periodic reminder. What I have done is set my e-mail program to alert me with a reminder to download and run the program every other Saturday.
Microsoft Security Scanner (Free): http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
McAfee Stinger is similar (Free) program: http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/stinger.aspx (I use them both.)
Pressing the F1 key will bring up a context aware “help” dialog in most any computer. If you click F1 while on your desktop, it will bring up a general help dialog about your computer. If you click F1 while running an application, it will bring up a help dialog about that application. Some applications are even aware of what you are trying to perform and will give you specific help on that particular task. This is most likely the single most efficient way of learning about your computer or application.
The design is a bit outdated and the some of the graphics are cheesy, but after browsing through the site you’ll see that Jan offers useful instruction that really will teach computers to someone who absolutely has no clue how computers work.
