Resolving USB Speed Issues, "This Device Can Perform Faster" Error
Have you ever seen the "this device can perform faster" message when you connected a USB device to your computer? This message is Windows’ way of telling you that you’re missing out on the theoretical speed of your hardware, but it may not be clear how to fix the problem. Like many computer issues, particularly with hardware, this problem has a number of possible causes and solutions.
Turn Your Old Mission-Critical PC Into A VM Before It Dies
If you’ve got an older PC running important software, one of the best ways to give that software a new lease of life is by ditching the hardware entirely – you can convert your existing system to a virtual machine and run it on another computer. The process is fast, and at the end you’ll have an image you can use in VMware or any virtual machine program that can import VMware disk images.
You Are The Product, Not The Client: The Personal Data Economy Explained
As Andrew Lewis once said "If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold". Think about the implications of that quote for a moment – how many free services do we use online every day? When we use Facebook, make a search on Google, or check our Gmail, we like to think that we’re the customer. But we’re rarely the customer online – instead, we’re the product being sold to advertisers and tracking networks.
How To Sync Any Folder To SkyDrive, And How To Use SkyDrive On Windows XP
Microsoft’s new SkyDrive is a great entry in the cloud storage wars -- it competes toe-to-toe with Dropbox, Google Drive, and the rest. However, it has some limitations. We’ll show you how to overcome these limitations and use SkyDrive the way you want to.
How To Migrate Steam To a New Hard Drive
Unlike most Windows applications, Steam can be easily moved between hard drives without redownloading or reinstalling anything. If you want to put Steam on a new hard drive – say, if you’ve bought a new computer or a larger hard drive for your games – you can copy your games over without going through a long download process. This is just one of the things that makes Steam awesome.
From The Web To Jail: 6 Types of Computer Crimes You Can Get Arrested For
Governments across the world have tried to tame the Internet as a tempest of new technology threatens everything from strict government censorship and control over the media to entrenched media conglomerates and old concepts of acceptable speech. Like King Canute commanding the tide to turn back and not disturb him, governments have put up laws against everything from forwarding emails and commenting online in an attempt to stop the inevitable.
Why Do Apps Nag Me to Update & Should I Listen? [Windows]
Software update notifications seem like a constant companion on every computer. Every app wants to update regularly, and they nag us with notifications until we give in and update. These notifications can be inconvenient, especially when apps pester you with them while you'e busy, but keeping your installed applications updated is important for a variety of reasons – especially security.
Avoiding Censorship: How Blocked Websites Stay Online and Accessible [MakeUseOf Explains]
We've been hearing a lot about website-blocking recently, particularly with anti-piracy organizations forcing Internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay in the UK and elsewhere. However, when UK Internet service provider BT blocked The Pirate Bay, the block was only in effect for a few minutes before The Pirate Bay bypassed it.
Download YouTube RSS Feeds Using These 2 Great Tools
YouTube offers a variety of RSS feeds for everything from uploads by individual users to search results for any phrase. With these tools, you can download YouTube feeds as video podcasts in iTunes or any other video-podcasting application. YouTube doesn’t normally make this easy – the feeds are designed to notify you of new videos and send you back to YouTube, not to let you watch videos offline.
What's Missing From Windows 8?
Windows 8 has seen the removal of many features that have been key to Windows over the years, including the Start button, Start menu, and Windows Aero. We tend to focus on the new features added in new versions of software like Windows 8, but the removal of features can be equally important – if not more so. This list isn’t exhaustive, as many less-important features have also been removed.
How to Chat on Any IM Network From Within Gmail
Google Talk, which powers Gmail’s built-in chat feature, isn’t a proprietary instant-messaging network. It’s built on top of the XMPP standard, also known as Jabber, so you can connect Gmail’s chat feature to any IM network. Some networks like AIM are interoperable with Gmail, while some like MSN and Yahoo require special Jabber transports.
Create PDFs With Advanced Features From Any Application With novaPDF Desktop Professional [Giveaway]
Most of us don’t have the tools to easily create PDFs – particularly with advanced options -- and don’t want to learn a complex application like Adobe Acrobat to do so. Softland's novaPDF is an easy-to-use tool to create PDFs from any application that supports printing. This week we’re giving away 25 copies of novaPDF Professional Desktop 7 worth a total of $1250! Read on for your chance to enter our giveaway and win your own copy!
4 Alternatives to Windows Live Writer for Blogging
Microsoft recently announced the end of the Windows Live brand. In response to concerns, all Microsoft is saying about Windows Live Writer is it will “work great on Windows 8” – not whether development is being halted or not. With such an uncertain future, you might be wondering what alternatives are out there.
Combine All Your IM Accounts In One Application With Pidgin [Windows & Linux]
Pidgin is a free instant-messaging client that combines all your IM accounts in one simple application. Instead of running several different IM clients that display ads and eat up memory, just use Pidgin. All your chat contacts across every network will be combined into a single buddy list, and all your conversations can be combined into a single tabbed chat window – or multiple windows.
Easily Edit Multiple Photos At Once With BatchPhoto for Windows and Mac [Giveaway]
Have you ever taken a lot of photos and needed to edit them all at once? Whether they need to be resized, rotated, or combined into a photo album, editing the photos one-by-one can be a pain. BatchPhoto, which touts itself as the fastest photo editor, makes this easy. We’re giving away 25 copies of BatchPhoto Home for Windows and Mac worth nearly $875 this week! Read on for instructions on entering our giveaway and earning your own copy!
Easily Subscribe to Feeds With the RSS Subscription Extension [Chrome]
If you regularly use Google Reader or any other feed reader, you’ve probably noticed a missing feature in Google Chrome. Most browsers offer a built-in way to detect and subscribe to RSS feeds, but Chrome doesn’t. The Google-created RSS Subscription Extension for Chrome adds this missing feature, along with previews of RSS feeds.
7 Useful Tips & Tricks For Internet Explorer 9 Users
Tech websites write a lot about Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, so it’s easy to feel a bit left out if you use Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 9 is easily the best version of Internet Explorer ever released, and it includes some cool features. If you’re an Internet Explorer user, here’s a collection of browser tips just for you.
Should You Pay More Attention to Windows Software Error Reports? [Geeks Weigh In]
Windows tracks every application crash and freeze on your system. It records detailed information about the crashes and even tries to provide a solution to each error report, helping you fix problems. With that in mind, the question is: should you pay more attention to these error reports and solutions?
What Does Post-PC Era Mean? [MakeUseOf Explains]
Back in 2010, Steve Jobs proclaimed that we were entering the "post-PC era". Much of the discussion around Windows 8, its new Metro interface, and its focus on tablets has focused around the new reality of the "post-PC era" too. But what exactly does that mean?