Well, we’ve been warned that this time would come – probably from the earlier eighties on. Yes, computers have finally taken over and if you doubt it, we’re here to convince you – but not because we want to or because we can. We want to convince you that if you don’t take the necessary steps to control… Read More »
When it comes to maintaining your computer, you’ve probably heard it all before. “Run Defrag!” “Scan Your Disk for Errors!” Although these two activities are important, there’s more you can do to extend the life of your computer beyond today’s predicted two-year span. In fact, by following the simple advice below, you can enjoy the use of your… Read More »
In an effort to be “user-friendly,” Windows (and perhaps some other operating systems) hides the most important part of a file name from new computer users: the extension. Okay – we’re assuming that the reasoning behind hiding extensions is a “user-friendly” one because we just can’t come up with any other reason for hiding them. No harm could… Read More »
Over recent years, computers have become synonymous with viruses and viruses don’t show any signs of disappearing any time soon. In recent news, LiveScience.com reported that “Before the month is even done, April has set a record for virus e-mails.”1 In the past, we would be comfortable in telling new computer users not to worry about viruses and… Read More »
These days it’s strange to hear people say, “I’m just not computer literate,” as computers have evolved from archaic scientific calculators to simple point-and-click type machines. We suspect that today’s “computer illiterates” are people who haven’t taken the time to experiment with such a machine. And we strongly believe that spending just twenty minutes with one could turn… Read More »
Like electronic identity theft, computer viruses, and the spread of other computer crimes, software piracy is on the rise. The problem with software piracy is that software costs make this illegal activity appealing to the end user. After all, who is it going to hurt? Rich software companies?? This article investigates software piracy as a whole and the… Read More »
If you haven’t heard of smartphones, we’d like to learn where you’ve been hiding all this time. Smartphones have been all over the news and chances are, you do know what they are – only you know them under a different name. Smartphones are mobile phones with computer like capabilities.
If you’ve spent any lengthy amount of time on the Internet, you’ve probably heard of open-source software but might not have fully understood what it is and why it even exists. This article will describe this recent phenomenon and describe some of its benefits for the software using community.
Have you ever thought about networking your computers at home? If you have a small collection of computers around the house (and a small collection of computer users), you can connect each one of those computers to one another and share data, software, and hardware including a single Internet connection. There are many creative uses for home networking,… Read More »
In a previous article, we introduced automating some tasks with MS-DOS batch files. In this article, we’re going to introduce programming and describe how it can be used to control the way your computer works. Normally, computer novices aren’t interested in controlling the computer. New computer users are typically interested in learning more about how the thing works.… Read More »