Since being awarded my MVP from Microsoft on January 1st this year I’ve had a fair few questions from people asking about the MVP program, what  it is, what the benefits are and how you can become one.  I thought I’d write this up here for you all as a guide as we all know [...]

It’s all go here at gHacks.net (as per usual) and just to show some of those other Windows, Microsoft and tech websites out there that they’re not all as impressive as they might think they are we’re doing more and more every week and bringing you bigger and better stuff. For all of you Tech Pros in [...]

Encrypting the files and data on your hard disc can be awkward.  There are various packages you can use to do the job some of which are easy to use and effective and others which are just a pain.  Personally I use the Encrypted File System built into Windows, though I still don’t like it [...]

It’s not been a good few weeks for technology companies with all manner of high-profile hackings being reported, not just on technology websites such as gHacks, but worldwide on the early evening news bulletins. There’s no sign things are going to calm down any time soon either with Sony still in the news for tentatively [...]

I’m delighted to announce that my 170 page Windows 7 Power Users Guide is now completely FREE to download and own as an eBook. The book is for people of all technical ability from complete novices to IT Pros. UPDATE : In the first day of it’s release as a free eBook, the Windows 7 [...]

The latest anti-virus test figures for Windows 7 are out and there are a good few shocks to be seen in the results. In the tests performed by AVTest, BitDefender has leapt from ninth place since last year to 1st place in the chart.  Bullguard follows it closely having leapt even further all the way up from [...]

Sometimes when you need to perform diagnostics on a faulty or malfunctioning copy of Windows, Safe Mode is too restrictive, too frustrating in use and unable to provide an environment that has the functions or permissions you need to repair the problems that you’re facing with Windows. One of my favourite alternatives here has existed in [...]

Those of you who follow me on Twitter, Facebook and other sites will know that I’ve been asked by Microsoft to run an ‘Ask the Expert’ session at their upcoming Windows Desktop TechDay on Monday 23rd May in London (UK). I’ve also arranged a Geek Meet the night before. I’ll be there to answer your [...]

>In light of Sony’s security breach last week it’s clear that Internet security is a major issue and work clearly needs to be done, and done quickly, on implementing new web security standards, for instance the authentication of email which people have been talking about for years.  Not to mention the fairly obvious increase that’s [...]

The sheer volume of excitement about Windows 8 has taken me quite by surprise with more leaks than we ever saw with Vista or Windows 7 in the same time-frame.  The excitement and hype easily matches that of Google’s Chrome OS in the same period of its development, even though when the operating system finally [...]

I’m well known for being a PC minimalist. I even make a bit of a fuss about this in my book, Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out, that if you want to have to keep repairing problems in Windows one of the best ways to achieve this goal is to keep installing software into it. There’s [...]

Those of you who follow me here or somewhere like Twitter might know that I was invited to Microsoft yesterday for meetings.  Apparently my name had been coming up in conversation and several people there wanted to see me.  I thought I’d write up here about my experience at Microsoft’s UK campus and split this into a two-part [...]

As a new Windows MVP I’ll be having my first meetings next week with Microsoft at their UK head office in Reading. It’s going to be very interesting as it’s my first official visit to the company and, more importantly, a meeting that’s been requested by them rather than me. I’ll be meeting with the [...]

Microsoft came under heavy fire with the launch of Windows 7 for not offering a direct migration path from XP. The older operating system, which is now ten years old, is something Microsoft and many other technology firms are keen to move users away from because of its inherent problems with security. There were perfectly legitimate [...]

Nope, this isn’t a belated April fool, with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser only just out of the door and not even delivered to many users yet through Windows Update, the first platform preview of their next version, IE10 is already available to grab at the Microsoft IE Test Drive website. The first demonstration of the [...]

Publisher Simon & Schuster have announced that the first official biography of Apple supremo Steve Jobs will be published early in 2012. “iSteve: The Book of Jobs” from Walter Isaacson marks the first time that Jobs has authorised an official account of his life to be written, and it will make an extremely interesting read [...]

As people are using PCs for many more things at home and the computer itself has become, in a few cases, an objet d’art in the case of some all-in-one devices companies are putting much more effort into peripherals.  In this review I want to look at two of these high-end devices, Logitech’s illuminated keyboards. Let’s start [...]

It’s been on the cards for a couple of years now but today YouTube has launched its new Live service.  New live streaming video can be found at www.youtube.com/live and they follow several tests that included high-profile concerts and events. This now puts YouTube, which already gets around 2 billion video views every day, up against [...]

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or through other social networks may know that for the last month I’ve been testing NetGear’s new, top of the range Neo TV 550 Ultimate HD Media. This box is a small, and I really do mean small, do it all box for the connected home.  It [...]

There are all manner of images, screenshots and leaked details coming out now about Windows 8 and we already know a lot about what Microsoft want this product to be.  We know it’s going to be smaller, quicker and more agile than even Windows 7 was able to be.  It’s going to have to run [...]

In the last few years the world of computer peripherals has changed with many high-end products coming to market.  Now though a great many of these products are the norm with keyboards and mice now costing over £100 ($150).  We’ve generally accepted these price increases as consumers as commonly they bring additional benefits such as [...]

It’s been over a decade now that we’ve had secure socket layer (SSL) encryption technology for making Internet transactions safe. With only a very few exceptions, including a certificate cloning scare a couple of years ago, it’s worked very well and has enabled millions of people online to perform trillions of online purchases and financial [...]

Now that mobile carriers around the world are beginning to roll out updates to Windows Phone, many Windows PC users are finding that the update(s) cannot be installed because they encounter an error. The error, commonly 801811A5 for those who are interested, is caused by the Zune desktop software hasn’t enabled a particular service in [...]

It’s been a busy time for me here as I’ve recently been doing a series of webcasts and lectures and I thought I’d share some of these with you here.  They’re all completely free and residing on YouTube. I also thought I’d share with you a couple of photos from my most recent seminar, at [...]

If you, like me, have a Windows Phone and are wondering just when you’ll get a message telling you that an update is available, fear not. Already we have two updates for Microsoft’s new mobile OS. The first was released back in February and simply contained an update to the phone update process itself. Ther [...]

 Business social networking website LinkedIn has sent emails to everyone of their first one million members, including myself, to thank them for being an “early adopter” and “help[ing] lead the way” with the adoption of new technologies. In a clever marketing campaign they’re even telling people what member number they were, in my case number [...]

For the last year we’ve all been talking about tablets.  They’ve been the technology of the moment for some considerable time now and their appeal doesn’t seem to  be diminishing.  It’s still been the case though that we’re just not seeing tablets being used out and about in cafes and on trains in the way [...]

I get all manner of emails in my weekly mailbag, but one of the most common is about repairing a corrupt startup. I have a video on YouTube explaining how to use the Startup Repair features in Windows 7 (this will also apply to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 and 2008) but what happens if [...]

Well we’ve only just had Internet Explorer 9 out of the door on Monday but coming up straight behind it will be Mozilla’s new Firefox 4 just next week. More’s the point, the company is so confident that people will want to grab the browser as early as possible they’ve given a release time of [...]

I’ve written about hundreds of Windows 7 troubleshooting tips in my book Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out but one of the most useful tips, at least for business customers, is how you can add actions to events in Windows. Why would you want to do this?  You can commonly find that drivers, services or software in Windows [...]