Most people set up a home network that includes a Wi-Fi base station. Smart move: Given today’s portable gizmos, it makes sense for them all to gang up on the local network and eschew those mobile data surcharges.

When the Wi-Fi network doesn’t reach everywhere in the house, extend it with a Wi-Fi extender.
(more…)

Recently I received an email from a reader. He was concerned about duplicate files all over his hard drive. How many duplicate files? Oh, about 89GB worth.
(more…)

Last week, my faithful PC Monster X took a dive. His USB circuitry wouldn’t recognize the mouse or keyboard, effectively ending his very productive lifespan.
(more…)

Power outages aren’t good things for any computer. When a branch fell on the power line behind my house, I heard a loud explosion. Then I heard all the UPS systems in the office start bleeting their warnings. Power was out, time to shutdown the computers and wait.
(more…)

I’ve used this trick so often, I don’t even think about it. In fact, I’ve done it on my son’s computer so often he knows it well. It’s the old “Kill a program by using the Task Manager trick,” and if you aren’t familiar with it, you should be.”
(more…)

Getting sound on your computer set to the correct level is an exercise in frustration. There are just too many locations for setting volume, and then not everyone who creates the sound really knows what they’re doing.
(more…)

A few months ago, I took the plunge. I spent some Major Coin to purchase a network diskstation, specifically the Synology Diskstation DS413. It’s my first major home office computer system upgrade since my old T1 line 10 years ago.
(more…)

Idiots abound. Apparently just about anyone these days can get a radio show and call themselves a “computer expert.” I love it when this happens, especially when these clowns dispense horrid advice.
(more…)

If you use Windows 7, as a growing majority of people are, then you are probably as frustrated as I am about that Windows Explorer shortcut on the taskbar. Here’s what I’m referring to:
(more…)