Web Talk

As you know, the more applications your run on your computer, the more your Windows Startup slows down. This is due to the fact that some of such installed applications are set to start as soon as you boot your PC. An easy solution to this issue would be to turn off the software you don’t need. However, if you  want to have them ready as soon as you click their icon, you can not turn them off. Another solution would be to delay their launch. Let’s see how to lag and defer the launch of certain applications thanks to a free utility. Continue reading »

There are a lot of reasons why you may wish to disable and turn off the annoying Windows Live Mail Skydrive from you personal Windows Live Mail (2010, 2011 and further versions) account. The first thing the average user considers when it comes to getting rid of the useful Microsoft Skydrive web service is privacy. In fact, if you attach a picture or a photo to your email messages, Windows Live Mail will store them to SkyDrive automatically and by default. As a consequence, the recipient will only see small thumbnails. If he wants to see the original picture he will have to download  it from SkyDrive. This apparent meaningless behaviour is due to the very nature of the web service itself whose primary goal is to “provide enough free storage for thousands of documents and photos” so that you will be able to share them later with your friends thanks to handy photo albums. The issue is that all your private stuff will be stored online without your consent. Useless to say, a lot of users are against this. So, let’s see how to protect our important files and stop the SkyDrive automated behaviour permanently. Continue reading »

If you got the latest Windows Live Messenger 2011 (WLM2011) and you can’t send any files then you have to know that this issue is quite common and affect a lot, if not all, Windows Live Messenger users. Despite the fact that the new Microsoft chat client has got a lot of enhancements, improvements and new features, in some cases such new options seem to create “never-seen-before” problems which did n0t exist in the previous versions. If you want one example, just read my articles about the display name issue or annoying ads to have an idea. In this article I will talk about an “apparent bug” which blocks the regular file transfer, also warning you  that  “you have chosen to transfer a file which may be unsafe”.  The solution in this case is quite easy to spot but some users might be at loss on how to proceed mainly due to the lack of proper instructions. Continue reading »

Lately, I have got a question from a Facebook user who wants to know if it is possible to set a Auto-Reply option on their Facebook chat. A kind of  “I am away!” message which is sent automatically by your Facebook profile warning  your friends that you are not in front of your computer when they try to chat or contact you. Other famous chat clients such a Google Talk (Gtalk) are able to send you automatic messages also thanks to nice software such as GTalk Autoreply, for example. However, on Facebook the situation is a little more difficult also due to the fact that the Facebook support page for the chat client doesn’t provide you any information. Continue reading »

Microsoft Outlook 2010 is  one of  the most used email clients  on the Internet.  It is powerful, extremely configurable and best of all, it’s free. However, if you want to setup and configure an email account with it you might get some issue. Too many settings, server ports, POP  and SMTP options to configure.  It is almost impossible to have a working email account able to download emails on your computer on your first try! Let’s see how to automatically setup Microsot Outlook 2010 and have your Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail working in a couple of steps. Continue reading »

A couple of users have written to me about how to add or insert Print Screen option in Gmail. One of them told me that he needed to take a screenshot of his Gmail account and send it (or print it) to his friend. The other guy instead told me that he needed to print a Gmail picture his girlfriend sent it to him as an email attachment. The two issues have something in common. They are quite easy to solve. When at first I read their requests I was a little surprised as they are non-problem. But after a while I realized that a lot of users might not be aware that such apparent issues have very simple solutions! Did you know that your Gmail account has got a very handy Print Screen feature? Did you know that you computer can take a quick screenshot of your screen or video, save it as a file so that you will be able to print it later? No? Well, maybe you should suggest a new feature to the Gmail team then! Continue reading »

Microsoft has just released an interesting Excel 2010 book (ebook) for free! The book, written by Bill Jelen, host of MrExcel.com is  Rev Up to Excel 2010: Upgraders Guide to Excel 2010, and explains in simple, plain words, all the differences, improvements, options and features you need to know if you upgrade from Office Excel 2007 or Excel 2007 to Microsoft Office Excel 2010. The book contains 20 chapters of pure information which you will find tremendously helpful if you are upgrading from an earlier version of Excel, such as Excel 2003, for example! Continue reading »

By default, Windows Live Messenger 2011 (WLM11) saves your downloads  to the following location: C:\ Users\ UserName\Documents\ My Received Files.  My Received Files folder is not a very easy and handy folder to put your downloads. For this reason you might wish to change the default download destination folder to another one which is more easily accessible, or simply put your downloaded files to your desktop. Let’s see how to achieve this result! Continue reading »