PCTips Box

As I am sure you know I have been waffling on for years about how your PC monitors your web surfing activities and logs every website you’ve ever visited, from the day you switched it on, in a hidden and protected file called index.dat. Regular readers may also recall a couple of utilities I’ve been recommending to wipe these files. Back n the days of Widows 98 my cleaner of choice was Spider, sadly it was never updated for XP but then along came Crap Cleaner CCleaner, as it is now known which does a brilliant job. Now we have a new utility that works with CCleaner, called Click&Clean, Basically it lets you put a quick-launch icon appropriately enough a toilet roll on your Internet Explorer or Firefox toolbar. You need to have CCleaner installed on your PC first, and the new icon has to be added manually, so don’t forget to read the instructions. One click and it launches CCleaner and your tracks are covered. (more…)

If you are a ardent web surfer and you use firefox mostly for web browsing,then this article could be interesting for you.

It is very common for a web surfer to open more than 9 sites in a firefox in the same window, it happens to me as when I browse through large number of blogs and web sites opened in different uncountable tabs.

Switching across these tabs becomes more and more difficult when as number increases, so there a key board shortcut associated with each tab starting from left as ctrl+1 for first tab, ctrl+2 for the second tab and so on..

But these shortcuts are limited up to ctrl+9 to access the opened tab the 9th position but if you want to access the last opened tab with a keyboard shortcut you can’t do this in any version lesser then Firefox 3.0 (more…)

One big improvement with Firefox 3 compared to previous versions, is with selecting multiple areas of text on a web page. In previous versions, if you wanted to select multiple text areas, you needed to find an add-on or deal with the limited built in functionality.

Now with Firefox 3, you can easily select multiple discontinuous areas at once, select an entire paragraph, or select multiple words.

Selecting Multiple Areas Of Text

With this new option you can make an initial selection as usual and keep adding text chunks by pressing the CTRL key (Command key on Macs) while making additional selections.

Just highlight an area, then move your mouse to another area of text that you want to select, press the CTRL key and drag the mouse over the area of text.

After selecting the text areas, right click on an area and select copy (or press CTRL+C) and the text will be copied to the clip board where you can paste it in a text file, document, etc… (more…)

Being the loyal adept of a business model based on proprietary software, a free operating system is not exactly something that Microsoft customers can expect from the company. But of course that there are always exceptions to confirm the rule. And the free copy of Windows Vista up for grabs via Microsoft Download is an illustrative example in this context. That’s right, a completely free copy of the latest Windows client, time-bombed of course, but free nonetheless.

Microsoft continues a tradition debuted after the launch of Internet Explorer 7. Because two different versions of Internet Explorer cannot coexist under normal circumstances on the same Windows machine, let alone be used simultaneously, the Redmond giant turned to an alternative solution to make the lives of web content developers and designers a tad easier. The company released Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images. (more…)

There is no way to guarantee complete security on a wireless network. However, there are precautions you can take to help minimize security risks when you use a wireless network.

• Whenever possible, only connect to wireless networks that require a network security key or have some other form of security, such as a certificate. The information sent over these networks is encrypted, which can help protect your computer from unauthorized access. When you view available wireless networks in Connect to a Network, you’ll see text indicating if a wireless network has security enabled or not. (more…)

You invested in dead bolts and alarm systems to protect your business from theft of merchandise and equipment. But a cyber thief does not need access through the front door to steal the information you store on your PCs. Client credit card and bank account numbers, employee data and other confidential files are all at risk in a cyber attack.

Implementing sound security measures can greatly reduce your vulnerability to phishing (a type of Internet-based scam designed to steal your identity), spyware, and other malicious software used to steal or otherwise compromise business data. The good news is that built-in security features in Windows Vista Ultimate make it much easier to safeguard your PCs. Here are three you should know about: (more…)

Internet users in India is growing at a very fast rate with easy and cheap broadband services provided anywhere by mtnl or bsnl and other companies like airtel ,sify broadband etc.

With the increasing use of internet among the young children it becomes very crucial to block those web sites like which are not healthy for young children’s ( online games and chatrooms) etc.

Solution to the problem is to block the websites with the help of website blocking software like Any Weblock

Any Weblock - It is a free program to block access to any website on your computer. (more…)

Application incompatibility is one of the aspects that have managed to deliver extensive damage to the adoption rate of Windows Vista. However, as Vista matured throughout 2007 and with Service Pack 1 in 2008, so did the ecosystem of software solutions orbiting around the operating system. Despite this, the actual perception of application incompatibility managed to survive, especially in corporate environments. If one end user can deal with a program that is incompatible with Vista rather easy, the same cannot be said about an enterprise dependent on a specific business application with tens of thousands of machines.

“Part of this is perception based on fact - Windows Vista is built on a new architecture that promises tightened security and reliability. Consequently, the applications that ride on top of Windows Vista need to communicate with the kernel in different ways. So what has helped fuel current perception around application compatibility? Why did many applications ‘break’ in the migration from Windows XP to Windows Vista?” Microsoft asked rhetorically. (more…)

In order to improve performance and reduce the amount of time spent waiting to view Web pages, Internet Explorer stores many of the Web pages and graphics you have viewed in a folder on your hard drive. Next time you revisit a Web site, Internet Explorer can use the content stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder to display the site content, instead of retrieving them from the Web.

You can manually clear the contents of this folder in Internet Explorer by selecting Internet Options for the Tools menu. From the General tab, simply click the Delete Files button. You can also configure Internet Explorer to empty the contents of this folder when you close your browser. To do so, select the Advanced tab from the Internet Options window. Under the Security section, select the option to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed and click OK.

There are hundreds if not thousands of software programs that are available to block unwanted sites on your PC. some straightforward commands and a text editing program like notepad ( on every windows PC since windows3.1) and you not simply stop someone one(kids, husbands, brother in-laws) from visiting sites that might put computer at risk, or expose them to thing you don’t want them to know about.

1. Know the list of sites you want to block make sure your computer has an internet connection.

2. Standard look of DOS Window Open a command window (DOS), and type in nslookup (more…)