Windows Tips

Sometimes you just can't win. That's the way it is with the Windows Firewall. The one in XP can't monitor connections from your PC to the outside world--which is how botnets, Trojans, and other malware operate. The firewall in Vista can block outbound connections, but this feature is off by default, and it's practically impossible to create filters to block selective outbound links.

On the one hand, Microsoft claims that you don't need outbound filtering if you use the Windows Defender anti-spyware app to keep the snoops off your PC in the first place. On … Read more

Microsoft's most recent update for Windows caused many people using Check Point's ZoneAlarm firewall to lose their Internet connection. The patch fixes a potential DNS-related security breach that affects servers and clients alike, so I'm sure Microsoft was compelled to release it as quickly as possible.

That's little consolation for the many ZoneAlarm users who struggled to regain their network connection. Read more about the problem, and find a link to Check Point's solution, at Robert Vamosi's Defense in Depth blog.

The fact is, even with potentially serious security holes such as this appears … Read more

Life would be so much simpler if each problem we face had a single solution.

Of course, "simple" and "computer" are two words you rarely find in close proximity, except when you hear someone say, "My life would be so simple if I didn't own a computer."

For about two weeks, my notebook computer balked at linking to my wireless router. It would eventually connect, taking its own sweet time about it. Vista's Network and Sharing Center showed that Windows was struggling to acquire a network address.

A quick Web search indicated … Read more

The disk defragmenter in Windows Vista leaves much to be desired. A couple of months ago, I recommended Auslogics' Disk Defrag as a free alternative. What that program lacks is the ability to defrag just one or a select set of files and folders.

If you use Windows XP, the free Contig program from Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals fame (now owned by Microsoft) lets you ensure that an existing file is stored contiguously rather than fragmented onto different disk volumes. You can also use it to create a file that will remain contiguous.

Why would you want to defragment a … Read more

You start typing only to realize 10 seconds later that the focus is on the wrong window. You see a Windows notification pop out of the taskbar only to have it fade away before you can figure out what it means. You get distracted by all of Windows' pointless animations. You miss seeing keyboard-shortcut hints on menu entries and elsewhere in Windows dialog boxes.

You could spend hours hunting for the settings that will do away with these four Windows annoyances. At least Vista collects them all in the Ease of Access Center. These usability settings are spread far and … Read more

Most of us rarely need to stray from the standard Windows interface. But there are times when it would help to get a close-up view of a graphic or some other file we're working on, or to listen to a long document or Web page rather than having to read it. Those are the times when Windows' built-in accessibility tools come in handy.

The screen reader, magnifier, and on-screen keyboard are designed primarily for people who have difficulty interacting with their computer using a typical display, keyboard, and mouse. Of course, anyone could benefit from time to time by … Read more

There were some important shortcuts left off the list I described a couple of months ago. I wanted to be able to use my PC without requiring a mouse or any input device other than the keyboard. Since I can't remember all the shortcuts I might need, I listed them in a text file I can open in Notepad using just two easy-to-remember keyboard combinations.

Unfortunately, some very useful keyboard shortcuts were omitted from the initial list, including those that let you move and resize windows by pressing Alt-Spacebar-M and Alt-Spacebar-S, respectively. (Note that the Move and Size options … Read more

About a year ago I tested a Sony GPS device. The device is long gone, but a shortcut to the product's personal My Documents folder remained among the Send To options on my context (right-click) menu.

Getting rid of this useless entry was as easy as opening Windows' Send To folder and removing its shortcut. Press the Windows key and R, type Shell:sendto, and press Enter to open the Send To folder. In the right pane, right-click the shortcut associated with the item you want to remove and choose Delete > Yes.

Adding an entry to your Send … Read more

What I really want to do is add a link to Google Docs on the right-click (context) menu in Windows Explorer. That way, I could open a file in Google Docs by right-clicking it in Explorer and choosing Send To > Google Docs.

Well, I wasn't able to figure out how to do this. So instead, I created a shortcut to open Google Docs, and then I browsed to the file and opened it the old-fashioned way.

This won't save you a lot of time, but at least Google Docs makes it easy for you to transmit the … Read more