Work isn’t anchored to one device or one location. In a typical day, you can go from working on a multimonitor desktop rig in the office to a laptop at a client site to a desktop at home, working in sips on a tablet or smartphone in between. This unfettered mobility means its more critical …
When I’m at home, I have an Apple device for almost everything. My iPhone is my travel buddy, my iPad mini is my reading and writing companion, and my computer takes on all the other heavy lifting. But for a visit to Italy earlier this year, I knew I had to pare down my collection: …
Look down at your fingers for a second, then look back up here. Chances are you’re still using the same cheap plastic keyboard that came with your PC, and that’s a pity. The keyboard is your primary tool, the unsung workhorse of your day. Without it, you couldn’t get anything done—but I’ll bet you haven’t …
The Boy Scouts got it right: be prepared. Whether you’ve just purchased a new PC or you’ve been using the same one for years, chances are good that at some point, you’re going to need help and/or information. This could be anything from needing to know the wattage of the power supply (so you’ll know …
Rickaber asked theUtilities forum to explain the basics of backing up. Not backing up is like not wearing a seatbelt. You can go months or even years without a problem, then disaster strikes and you’re in serious trouble. Only a few hours before writing this article, I received an email from a reader who couldn’t …
DVDs are so analog. Sure, they’re digitally encoded versions of your favorite movies and TV shows, but they’re trapped on physical platters. If you want to watch something, you have to find the disc, slide it into a DVD player—or a computer with a DVD drive—and flip your TV to the proper input. As DVD …
You can use Apple’s Disk Utility to convert a folder into an encrypted disk image—a protected archive that you unlock with a password. Such images are particularly helpful when you’re working on confidential company documents away from the office or when your business card reads: International Person of Mystery. But the truth is that creating encrypted …
I’m an expert at learning things the hard way. For example, my two-year-old Acer PC had reached the point where it desperately needed a hard drive reformat/Windows reinstall. (For background, read “How to decide when it’s time to reformat and reinstall Windows.”) Having been through this process many times before, I backed up all my …
This week’s column deals with solutions to common (and some less common) problems that use little-known features of iTunes or third-party software. The questions this time can only be solved with a workaround, or by using iTunes in a way it’s not intended. Q: I have some tracks on a CD that, when ripped with …
OneFeed for Google Chrome. If you’re a Google Chrome user (it remains my browser of choice), you already know how to reduce tab clutter with OneTab and add a clock and weather station to new tabs. But if you really want to amp up Chrome’s tab acumen, install OneFeed. It turns new tabs (that is, …