Sometimes you may want to make sure that an e-mail address exists before you start sending out messages to that address. While you could simply send a test message to the address and see if it bounces off the mail server, you’d may want to try a sneakier solution so that the recipient does not [...]

The Disk Cleanup tool offers a great way to quickly free up some disk space by deleting temporary files that are no longer needed. It is in no way as complete or thorough as third party tools like CCleaner, but it gets the job done and does not require you to install another software on [...]

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms currently available on the Internet. Popular sites like Techcrunch, Gizmodo or yours truly are all powered by WordPress. Users who are just getting started have a few options at their disposal. They can start with a blog over at WordPress.com, get their own website and self-host [...]

If you ever forgot to make an important phone call or be at home or office to receive one, you may appreciate the small portable program Remember To Call. The program acts as a basic reminder on your system that notifies you when it is time to make that one call that you have to [...]

Sometimes you may want to make sure that a particular folder, and more precisely files stored in that folder, is not tampered with by any means. This includes the assurance that files have not been edited, moved, deleted or manipulated in any other way. And while you could use a program like Checksum Control, SFV [...]

One of the reasons for the success of the file sharing application Limewire was that it offered everything that one needed to get started. The program came with built-in options to search for and download files. All you had to do was to key in names that you were interested in, wait for the search [...]

With hard drives and storage devices growing bigger by the year, it is only natural that computer users start to put more data on their computer systems. The shift from highly compressed movie formats to high definition formats takes its toll as well, as movies may now need Gigabytes of storage space instead of Megabytes. [...]

Testing a PCs stability makes sense in a number of situations. Maybe you have made the decision to overclock your PC and want to make sure that everything runs well and stable, or you are thinking of giving away your old PC to a friend or family member who is not the most knowledgeable person [...]

As a Microsoft Windows MVP and a Windows author I’ve got a busy year ahead of me.  I’ve got several Windows 8 books to write for starters, all to be out during 2012 so I really do need to know Windows 8 backwards.  The Building Windows 8 blog has been extremely useful in this respect [...]

When you are moving from one PC to the other, or are making use of multiple devices running Windows, you probably want to have data available on all the PCs. This can be personal files like documents or music, but also configuration settings for the Windows Firewall. If you are connecting to the Internet via [...]

Image and photo manipulation has become an art form of its own ever since computers were able to display images in decent resolutions on the screen. Professionals use tools like Adobe Photoshop to manipulate images, while you and I would probably prefer a simpler more straightforward solution. While it is possible to use a program [...]

Microsoft yesterday announced the new “Storage Spaces” feature in Windows 8 that will allow you to pool the hard disk storage you have in your PC (if you have more than a single hard disk) and use it all together as a single big hard disk.  On the face of it this seems like a [...]

There are four different types of books and magazines available on Google Books. First free ebooks that can be read only or downloaded to mobile devices and as pdf or epub documents, then ebooks that are only readable online but not downloadable, then books that are listed but not readable at all, and finally commercial [...]

Sending big files over the Internet is still a big issue for many users. While it is possible to overcome those issues, it often means spending time preparing the files to do so. You could for instance pack and split the files before sending them, upload them to an ftp server or online file hosting [...]

The topic of dual booting operating systems has been covered in a few ways on this site, but here is a primer to provide you with some important information before attempting any dual boot. More users today are becoming aware of how useful and practical the Linux operating system is, in all its shapes and [...]

I had to read Microsoft’s new post at the Building Windows 8 blog twice to fully understand the Storage Spaces feature of the Windows 8 operating system. Storage Spaces is a new drive virtualization technology. It basically allows users of the Windows 8 operating system to create drive pools and virtual disks. Drive Pools combine [...]

One of the big issues that many Windows users have with Windows Explorer is that the file browser is not displaying the size and amount of files that are stored in subfolders. Why would that be important? You could for instance use the information to detect the largest folders on your system, and that both [...]

Like every year around year end, Donation Coder members and guests are pledging to release new applications for the New Year. You can read up our coverage of the NANY 2011, NANY 2010 and the NANY 2009 events to get a better picture of the type of applications that have been released in the past. [...]

Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system will ship with two new recovery modes called Reset and Refresh that users and administrators can use to reset the computer to factory state or to refresh it to a “good state”. The terminology may be confusing at first. The reset option basically removes all personal data from the PC [...]

There are so many great launchers for Windows to make organizing multiple applications easy. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, as this depends entirely on your needs. To add to the collection of possibilities, MadApp Launcher is a tabbed launcher for Windows 7 and Vista that is exceptional for users who have numerous applications [...]

Sometimes you may need to analyze only the changed files of a particular directory structure. This can be helpful to detect unauthorized file modifications for instance, files that have been updated automatically or manually recently, or project files that other team members have worked with, or to detect files that need to be updated in [...]

Creating new folders has never been easier than in Windows 7. Just use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-n to create a new folder. It is automatically selected to let you change the name of the folder to a more descriptive title. It still takes multiple actions to copy files to that new folder, and while you [...]

How do I download Linux? That’s a question that I hear fairly often. It usually leads to follow-up questions, like what is a distribution, which distribution should I download or how do I install Linux on my PC. While it is possible to download a Linux distribution from a project website or developer homepage right [...]

Microsoft has improved Windows Explorer in recent versions of Windows. The ability to add custom folders and libraries to the left sidebar pane is used by many to quickly access folders that they use frequently in the operating system. Visibility is best if folders are limited to a dozen or less though, especially on systems [...]

The Windows operating system does not support different sensitivities for input devices. Users who work with touchpads and mice on the computer may experience issues because of this. Some users may for instance feel that the mouse cursor is moving to fast when they connect a mouse to the system. The reason is simple: Manufacturers [...]

Google Docs users have quite a few options to synchronize their online documents with local computer systems. Among them Gladinet Cloud Desktop, the Microsoft Office add-in OffiSync or DocSyncer. Insync is a new option for Mac and Windows users (and soon Linux as a Linux port is in the making) who want to synchronize their [...]

When you connect two or more computer systems to a local network you need to make sure to assign unique local IP addresses to all computer systems to avoid conflicts. Conflicts may happen for a number of reasons, from assigning the same IP address manually to DHCP server issues. Conflicts may cause connectivity and functionality [...]

This is the third part of the Ghacks best of 2011 series. In this top list, I’m going to look at the best software for the Microsoft Windows operating system that we have reviewed in 2011 here at Ghacks. We posted a total of 937 Windows related stories in 2011, of which the majority were [...]

It may sometimes be necessary to run an application all the time when the computer is up and running. This can be a backup or security software, a synchronization program or another program that is performing important tasks whenever the computer is on. Knas Restarter is a free portable process monitoring program for Windows that [...]

Have you ever asked yourself what you should wear on a given day? Maybe you have that many clothes that it has become incredible hard to pick the right pieces, or you have forgotten that you have those warm boots lying around that you could wear in winter. What to Wear is a simple application [...]

Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update for the Windows operating system that fixes a number of security vulnerabilities in the Microsoft .NET Framework. The vulnerability affects all 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows that receive security updates, and the following versions of the Microsoft .NET Framework: Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.5 Service Pack [...]

Maybe it is just my impression, but screensavers seem to have lost much of their popularity in recent years. We have already discussed that screensavers do not really save the screen from burn-ins anymore, and that they are more an aesthetic choice nowadays. Multi Photo Quotes Builder is a new program by Mouse of Donation [...]

Duplicate content is one of the things that webmasters need to avoid on their own domains as web search engines like Google or Bing can penalize websites for duplicate content. Webmasters have less options when dealing with content that someone else copied from their websites. Content scraping is a lucrative business, primarily due to the [...]

Repairing or tweaking an Internet connection can be quite the troublesome experience sometimes. It may take a long time before you resolve the problem or find the setting that normalizes your Internet connection speed. And while you normally cannot get more out of the line than you have subscribed to, you can make sure to [...]

Windows users can start applications in a number of ways. They can use the start menu for that, shortcuts on the desktop, start the program from its program directory or the command line, or pin programs to the taskbar if they use Windows 7. And then there are keyboard launchers which put program starts at [...]

A mouse gesture is an alternative input method that uses the mouse, sometimes in combination with the keyboard, to send commands to the operating system. Windows itself does not support mouse gestures out of the box. Most users come into contact with mouse gestures either when a program like Opera support them, or when they [...]

Virtual private networks (vpns) allow users to securely connect to another computer, server or home PC, that acts as a proxy for all of their communications. The websites and services that you connect to communicate only with the vpn server and not with your computer. They in fact do not even know that your computer [...]

Ethervane Echo is a little clipboard extender for the Windows operating system that keeps track of your clipboard history for you. The program is relatively straightforward to use. The clipboard manager keeps track of the history automatically once unpacked and started. You can click on the application icon in the system tray to bring it [...]

It is sometimes necessary to open a file with a different application. Think of a video file that you can open in a player or in an editor. Windows users can make use of the Open With context menu entry whenever they need to open a file in a program that is not the default [...]

Windows users who want fast access to their applications have several options at hand. They can use desktop shortcuts or the Windows start menu, and Windows 7 users can use the taskbar on top of that (the quick launch bar offered similar features on previous versions). Sometimes though that’s not fast enough. That’s where application [...]

DNS servers play an essential role on today’s Internet. They translate domain names into IP addresses. Without them, users would have to enter IP addresses directly to access sites on the Internet. Most Internet users are using their Internet Service Provider’s DNS server. While that is often a convenient solution, it can have consequences. Some [...]

If you are a Windows users you often encounter situations where you cannot really say when a process ends. This may be a copying job where projected times fluctuate between a few seconds and hours, burning of a DVD or the installation of a new program on the computer system. If you are like me, [...]

It may sometimes be useful to have important information displayed to you directly in a program window. This could be a tutorial on how to complete a certain task in the program, passwords or other important information that are relevant to the program, or reminders on things that you still need to do. While you [...]

Windows users who want to find out how much free space they have left on local hard drives, mapped drives, removable drives and substituted drives will notice that Windows Explorer is less than ideal for the job. The default system file manager displays a drive’s capacity and free space in Gigabytes in the Computer menu. [...]

First information about Facebook’s plan to release their own instant messaging program appeared on a Facebook support page about a month ago. Facebook Messenger for Windows, according to that page, offers chat, messaging and notification functionality. The program was initially only available to a group of alpha testers. A direct link to Facebook’s Messenger has [...]

Setting up computer systems can be a boring repetitive task. While I’m setting up and configuring PCs maybe once or twice a year only, I always repeat the same set of steps after the operating system has been installed. This includes installing common software like the web browser Firefox, the email client Thunderbird, SnagIt for [...]

Metadata is often automatically added to an image upon creation. Most digital cameras and programs are configured to write metadata automatically. This data may contain copyright information, camera make and model, the image editor, a thumbnail image, gps location, or data and time. While it is sometimes beneficial to have those information, for instance by [...]

Most password managers today offer more than just a secure storage space for passwords. Most come with options to generate secure passwords, automatically fill out sign in forms on the Internet, or to record notes and other related information. The core purpose of a password manager however is the secure storage of passwords. With password [...]

Some of the best web services may not be available to you if that service is limited to users from a specific region or country of the world. This is for instance the case with Pandora and many other entertainment related services. Your only option to access the service is to use a proxy server [...]

Media player hotkeys allow you to control the media player with the keyboard and even if the program window is not the active window on the system. That’s handy if you are working in fullscreen applications or do not want to switch regularly between the window you are working in and the media player window. [...]