My son wanted to use the Xbox 360 controller on his PC. That makes sense. In fact, quite a few popular games offer that type of device input over using the traditional keyboard and mouse.

You can’t plug an Xbox controller into a PC. It doesn’t work. But Xbox-style controllers are available. They come with a USB connector. Plug it in and go, right? Not so fast.
(more…)

Would it be possible for a cat to march across your desk, lie on the keyboard, and somehow manage to completely erase everything on your computer? Let me mull the possibilities.
(more…)

I missed a bill payment. It’s my fault: I tried to log into the utility’s website, but it was unreachable. I figured it was a hiccup and I’d check back later. The problem: The website hasn’t been available for weeks. Is it me?
(more…)

Some call it crapware. I prefer bloatware. Whatever you call it, the name applies to software pre-installed on a computer. Sometimes the software consists of useful tools, such as anti-virus, the Acrobat Reader, or even a productivity suite. Recently the trend has been for actual malware to be pre-installed, which I find a bit unsettling.
(more…)

The file I wanted was in a weird format. TZ. I searched the web and found a compressed file extraction utility that would deal with it. Being in a rush, I failed to read the dialog box before I clicked the Install button. Hello, unwanted crap!
(more…)