As parents of two children, 13 years and 18 months, my wife and I worry about how our children will spend their time at our computer. When it comes to the older child, we especially worry about his access to mature adult content. However, we don’t care for content filtering programs which has been shown [...]

This one’s for my fellow parents. If you’ve got some school-age kids, they’ve likely spent some time at a computer (yours or a friend’s), downloading from peer-to-peer ("P2P") networks like the Gnutella network, which can be accessed via the popular LimeWire program. According to our research, many of you want to know how to best [...]

I’m a big fan of Hulu. It lets me catch up on my favorite shows, and, thanks to generous advertisers, doesn’t cost me a dime.  Hulu has new programs, reruns, and full-length movies. One problem, though. Hulu videos stream in Flash video, and there wasn’t any way to download and save programs for mobile viewing. [...]

At my school, my class and I are comparing different operating systems. Each of the big three (Windows, Mac, Linux) have their pros and cons, but I’m certainly not here to incite a flame war. About half of my class was just introduced to Linux last week when using some Knoppix disks. Linux is very [...]

Microsoft’s Hotmail, having gone through many revisions, has been around since 1996; which may as well be “eternity” on the Internet. If you use this service, good security practices are in order, and I’m here today to help secure your Hotmail sign in. If you’re not a Hotmail user, many of these tips can still [...]

We could sit around all day and debate about which of the popular social networks is the best, but for visually-customizable profiles, MySpace is tops. So much can be done with your profile. Have you ever asked yourself, “How do I make a background on MySpace?” Well, today I’ll show you how to find, create, [...]

Windows XP is an odd beast. Some have no problems using it, while others report little else but problems. If you often find yourself in the latter category, you may at some point have the need to use Windows XP’s Recovery Console, especially if your PC will no longer boot. The Recovery Console is a [...]

Love it or hate it, iTunes is one of the most popular media players available, thanks to the success of the iPod and iPhone. The following tips should come in handy for those of you who use iTunes for Windows XP, in the event that your iTunes installation ends up in less-than-perfect operating condition. First [...]

I’m a big fan of the BitTorrent protocol despite its bad rap. Devised as a method to distribute large files without using up too much bandwidth, it’s become a hit for all the right and wrong reasons. It’s unfortunate that using BitTorrent can be so difficult: Tracker? Seeding? Port forwarding? Why did my ISP block [...]

There’s nothing wrong with a harmless prank, especially when the victim is anyone but you. If you want to have some fun with your friends (or enemies for that matter), drop these cool fake viruses into the folder located at “C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuStartup”, then watch “˜em squirm. Although the following fake viruses may [...]

Whenever you are looking to buy something and aren’t willing to pay that much, where would you turn to? For me, it’s eBay. Most eBay users would start looking for items by visiting eBay.com and entering a keyword search. That’s fine, and all, but I’m here today to show you some alternative methods to starting [...]

While some of us have been lured over to Google Chrome, Mozilla’s Firefox remains the favorite browser here at MUO, and I’m willing to wager that it does so because of near-limitless customization options. We’re also very security-minded as well, so we’ve compiled a brief list of security-conscious Firefox extensions which are compatible with each [...]

Windows users can find many things to complain about, but in my opinion, the absolute worst “feature” of Windows XP is the Nagging Restart Dialog. In 2008, Mark showed you how to disable the Windows restart prompt temporarily. I’ll extend on that and make it even simpler for future use. I’m sure you’ve had to [...]

A lot of us here at MakeUseOf use Skype to get in touch with each other. Skype, for those who may not know, is a Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) service which allows unlimited free calls between users using the desktop, mobile or iPhone application. If you pay for Skype credit, you can call out from Skype [...]

It’s important to make backups, but there aren’t many free services that offer unlimited space for them. Suppose you and a friend simply agree to hold each other’s backups at your homes. You have to backup to DVDs or, worse, CD-Rs, and meet to exchange the disks. In the past, I’ve shown you how to synchronize [...]