PCTips Box

Just when you think Google can’t do any more to improve their search results, they continue to fine tune in subtle ways. And that’s a good thing, because when you do spot these improvements, you will wonder what took them so long to implement.

One improvement is adding more information in search results so you can quickly determine if it’s useful or not to click on the link.

For example, how many times have you search for something only to click on a search result that was an old forum post? For the most part, forums can be a great resource for information. But not if it’s old or there are no replies to the post.

Now you can see if the post is current, because Google will display the date of the forum post along with information of the forum thread in the search result. (more…)

Internet Explorer has some quirks as we all know. However, if there is any chance that you may uninstall Internet Explorer, there could be some problems. In fact, you may not even be able to start Windows with a full functioning desktop.

Apparently, Internet Explorer version 6 and 7 are not getting along. If you upgrade IE, uninstall, reinstall, or download a version from Yahoo, Google, or Adobe, then you may lose your Windows functions after you shut down your computer. When Windows starts up again, it boots to only a blank desktop screen. A popup window will give an error code of “iertutil.dll is missing or corrupt.” There is not a way to use Windows or see your taskbar. However, we can solve this quickly with the help of another computer and we can prevent this type of situation from happening again with all Windows programs. (more…)

Firefox is one of the most popular browsers on the Internet because it was the first application that provided tab browsing, being regarded as the most powerful rival for the classic Internet Explorer. As you probably know, Firefox is a well developed browser that provides support for themes and extensions, tiny tools able to increase the functionality of the application. Some time ago, Google released Toolbar for Firefox, an interesting add-on for Mozilla’s browser meant to add a popup blocker for the program as well as quick access to Google’s services.

If you didn’t know, Google owns a separate page to present the most interesting extensions selected by the company’s employees and able to enhance the performance of the products developed by the search giant. (more…)

Make the user interface behave
Another big reason people hack Firefox’s settings is to modify the user interface either to make it a little easier to do something, or to revert to a behavior that was prevalent in Version 1.x but changed in 2.0.

Get case-sensitive, in-page searches
The integer preference accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive controls how Firefox’s “Find as You Type” feature behaves. The default is 0 for case-insensitive searches; set it to 1 for case-sensitive matching. (more…)

During the previous days I wrote about multiple Google hidden codes that will help you find exactly what you were looking for. After presenting the majority of these commands, now it’s Yahoo’s turn.

There are a lot of users that prefer Yahoo instead of Google, so you must know that this search engine has a lot of hidden commands to allow you to search more accurately.

Then, let’s start presenting some of these codes: (more…)

WHOOPS! Whilst attempting to enhance its email service yesterday, Yahoo! Broke it completely. “While we were working on an improvement to our email delivery systems, email delivery was inadvertently suspended for some members of some groups,” admits the company.

“Unfortunately, while messages posted to affected groups during this time were saved to group archives, the messages cannot now be delivered via email.” But the answer is simple, say Yahoo! Boffins. “You may want to suggest that your members resend any messages they had sent between yesterday afternoon and this morning, if they want to ensure they are read by other members.” (more…)