The next time your computer complains about missing codecs or plugins when trying to play a video or audio file, give VLC Media Player a try. Unlike almost every other media player available for Windows, VLC doesn’t rely on just the right mix of audio and video codecs being installed to do its magic. Instead, it has support for just about every file format you’ll likely run into on the Internet built right in. It also supports DVD movie playback–an important feature that was missing from Windows Media Player on Windows XP.
Like most of the software we recommend, VLC Media Player is simple to use, free and open-source. It’s also highly portable and available for MacOSX, Linux, and Windows XP, Vista and 7.
So you’ve finally gotten your hands on Windows 7, but aren’t entirely thrilled with the new taskbar? No problem! Lifehacker has a great set of articles on how to tweak the Windows 7 taskbar to exactly your liking. A couple fixes I simply could no longer live without are…
Display thumbnails instantly when you hover over an icon
By default, there’s about a half second delay between the time you hover over an icon and the time its thumbnail previews popup. This makes your workflow a little less efficient and gets really annoying really fast. The following registry hack will make previews popup instantly!
Run regedit (Windows Key+R, type “regedit”, click OK)
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
If it doesn’t exist already, add a new DWORD (32-bit) value named “ExtendedUIHoverTime”
Double click ExtendedUIHoverTime and set the value to the number of milliseconds you want the delay to be. The default is 400, but I prefer setting it to something really small, like 50, for an instant thumbnail preview
To apply the change, restart the computer (or just explorer using task manager)
Left click icons to cycle through active windows:
This one goes hand in hand with the tweak above. By default, left-clicking an icon on the taskbar will popup its thumbnail previews, but now that we have previews showing up instantly on mouse-over, that’s a little redundant. So why not simply have the last window in the icon’s group show up when you left click it instead? Here’s how to do it…
Run regedit (Windows Key+R, type “regedit”, click OK)
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
If it doesn’t exist already, add a new DWORD (32-bit) value named “LastActiveClick”
Double click LastActiveClick and set the value to 1
To apply the change, restart the computer (or just explorer using task manager)
As always, be sure to take extra care if you venture into the Windows registry to perform any of these tweaks. If you’re unsure about what you’re doing, stop and get help from someone who knows their way around!
So what’s your favorite Windows 7 hack? Have any tweaks that you can’t live without, or is everything fine right out of the box? Let us know in the comments!
Much like the kid-friendly educational software of yesterday, free web browser Zoodles gives young kids an easy-to-use window into the Internet while keeping them (and your computer) safe. For ages 2-8, Zoodles attempts to always deliver safe, fun, and educational content through a dead-simple interface that can even get more complex as your child grows and learns.
Zoodles is available for Windows and Mac, and comes in either a free version or a $7.95/month premium version which gives parents extra functionality such as enhanced ad blocking, content filtering, and activity monitoring. A free trial of the premium membership is included with the download.
If your kids are older, you should definitely teach them how to use a computer properly without special software installed. However, kid-friendly browsers such as Zoodles are a great way to introduce younger children to the computer and provide them with a safe and enriching experience.
Your favorite helpful nerds are starting a series of youtube videos with simple tips and tricks to keep your computer running at its best. Check out the first in the series, where we show you how to stay protected while browsing the web using totally free software!
The problem with your typical signature-based anti-virus software is that it relies on virus signature definitions to do its detection. It works sort of like a vaccine. You get vaccinated against the latest threats, which should protect you should you happen to run into them, and your “vaccinations” come in the form of downloadable updates to your virus signature database. Unfortunately, hundreds of new viruses are released every single day–that’s just way too much for the “vaccination makers” to keep up with. By the time you download the latest virus signatures, they’re already out of date and you’re still left unprotected against the latest threats. That’s where sandboxing comes in. Read the rest of this entry »
The FCC has given Internet users an open forum to express their views on proposed Net Neutrality policies. This is great, as it provides more transparency in the policy-making process and allows at least some form of discussion to take place between the FCC and the people it will be affecting. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft released their free anti-malware product yesterday, and it’s still awesome. If you’re on a Windows computer, you should stop reading this post now and head here to download it. In case you missed my original post on MSE, let me just recap by saying it’s the single best signature-based anti-virus software available. It’s low on resources, simple to setup and use, and high on performance. Did I mention it’s also free?
Also, in case you’re wondering, all of the default settings in Security Essentials look great to me–except for one. I would recommend that you turn ON “Scan Removable Drives” under Settings->Advanced. This will make sure that your USB thumb drives get scanned as well when MSE does a full scan. Happy downloading!
A secure system begins with the installation of all the latest patches for Windows (and whatever other software you might have running). Without them, you’re a sitting duck for whatever malicious website or hacker you might happen upon. This is why it’s so important to keep your computer updated at all times. Too often do I see clients infected with a virus because they simply didn’t have their Windows updates installed–they were too lazy to install them, they didn’t want to restart their computer, or they just didn’t realize they had to. If you’re like them, you could be one website away from a malware infection. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft has recently released a beta version of Security Essentials (previously Morro), their free anti-virus security software. I’ve taken a look, and I’ve come to a rather shocking conclusion: it’s good. I mean, really really good. In fact, I think it’s safe to ignore my last post about which free malware prevention software is the best. Let me just come right out and say it… Microsoft Security Essentials is the single best product, free or otherwise, to protect your computer from malware. Read the rest of this entry »
When it first hit the scene, the free avast! virus scanner was a pretty new and novel idea. It was the first really good virus protection suite I had found that was not only free, but was free to update with the latest virus definitions. Not a free trial, like McAfee or Symantec, but a totally free virus protection solution that would last forever.
I’ve been a faithful avast! advocate ever since, but recently decided to test out some of the other free malware protection software available (Avira and AVG). Has my faith been shaken? Read on to find out! Read the rest of this entry »
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