MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES WINDOWS 10, SKIPPING WINDOWS 9

Microsoft Announces Windows 10, Skipping Windows 9

Microsoft on Tuesday announced a brand-new Windows operating system. During a special even today in San Francisco, Microsoft officially announced Windows 10. One major change is that Windows 10, launching to the public in 2015, effectively does away with the "Metro" tile interface from Windows 8.

  

       

"Going forward, Microsoft is planning to make regular, smaller updates to the Windows 10 codebase, rather than pushing out new major updates years apart," Foley added. "Windows 10 will have a common codebase across multiple screen sizes, with the UI tailored to work on those devices."

   

According to Zdnet's report, Microsoft will release a preview build of Windows Ten in the coming week. It is unclear when the new OS will be launched publicly, or if there is any truth to the report that Windows 8 users will get a free upgrade to Windows 10

Windows 8, released in October 2012, was controversial in that it introduced a touch-focused tile design that was dramatically different to Windows 7. Microsoft addressed these criticisms with frequent--and substantial updates--including Windows 8.1. The company isn't starting over with Windows 10, but Microsoft appears to be taking a more measured approach with Windows 10.

Top 10 free PC programs everyone should have

There are millions of free and open source projects available, many of them better than any commercially available product. Below is a short listing of what we think is the best out there, broken down into ten categories.

Antivirus and malware protection

Most PC users realize that they need protection on their computer or may have an installed antivirus program from their computer manufacturer. What most don't realize is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Below are our recommendations

Antivirus program: Avast! or AVG

Malware and Spyware protection: Malwarebytes

Backup solutions

There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately, many of those backups are stored locally, meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services.

Online backup solution: Mozy or Dropbox

Browsers

Although Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers. There are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer.

Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome

Compression utility

When downloading files on the Internet you'll eventually encounter a .zip, .rar, or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can be easy with our below free file compression utility.

File compression utility: 7-Zip

Disc ripper and creation utility

Creating an audio or data CD/DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD, or creating a CD from a .ISO file can also be done freely using our below free recommendation.

CD burner utility: CDBurnerXP

E-mail

E-mail is yet another service that can be done freely. Most users today use online e-mail solutions like the one listed below. However, for those still using an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook we strongly suggest one or both of the below suggestions.

E-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird

Online e-mail: Gmail

FTP, SFTP, and SSH Utility

Users who maintain their own web page or need to upload or download files to or from a server have to use an FTP utility or an SSH client. There are many commercial programs capable of doing this but our below free recommendations beats them all.

FTP client: Filezilla

SSH client: MobaXterm and Putty

Image editor, paint program, and picture organizer

There are many great free solutions for editing, creating, and organizing your images on your computer. Many of the programs capable of doing these tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all of the below programs are completely free.

Image editor: GIMP

Paint program: Paint.net

Picture organizer: Google Picasa

Multimedia

There are dozens of different multimedia programs with different capabilities and limitations. Below are our top free multimedia programs for watching video files and recording audio.

Audio editing and creating tool: Audacity

Video and DVD Player: VLC and MPC-HC

Office Suite

An Office suite such as Microsoft Office is often one of the most expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are just as good.

Top 10 Facebook tips

Below is a listing of our top 10 tips for the popular social networking website Facebook.

Hide users, games, polls, etc.

It quickly gets annoying seeing some users posts, game invites, polls, etc. Hovering your mouse to the right of the post and clicking the Hide button as shown below can hide any post. Once this button is pressed you'll be prompted with the option to hide that user or in the case of a Facebook application the option to hide that application from ever showing up on your profile.

To unhide someone or unblock an application click the Edit Options link in the bottom right corner of the news feed as shown below.

Greasemonkey and FB Purity

Although Facebook does not allow the ability to hide friends getting new friends messages, friends becoming fans of something, and some application messages they can still be hidden with browser add-ons. If you're running Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Opera, or Safari we suggest installing the Facebook Purity add-on.

Update your privacy settings

Click Account in the top right corner of the Facebook window and then click Privacy settings to adjust who is capable of seeing what on your Facebook profile. We highly recommend going through all the privacy settings to verify your privacy is properly protected.

Anything that is not set to friends only or friends of friends can be seen by anyone searching on the Internet. Below is a few things we recommend for most users.

1. Under Search in Privacy settings uncheck Public Search Results. This will prevent users from finding your account and profile picture in search results such as Google
2. Under Application settings, make sure you're only allowing applications you want to have access to your information. Applications that you grant rights to can have access to your Facebook profile information.

• If you're curious to see how a program or web page connect to the Facebook API can see your profile see Tip135.

Use the Facebook top bar for navigation

Knowing how to properly navigate is vital if you want to get the most out of Facebook. Below is a brief description of each of the available options in the top bar as shown above.

Home (facebook logo) - Clicking this logo takes you to your wall (News Feed) that shows all friends recent posts.

Friend requests - If any friend requests are waiting to be approved this icon shows a notification of how many friends are waiting for approval. This icon can also be clicked when you want to view any friend recommendations or search for friends on Facebook.

Messages - This section allows you to send and receive private messages between one or more people you're friends with.

Notifications - Any time a friend or Facebook application creates a new post you'll be notified in this section. Clicking this icon shows all recent notifications. If you want to change what is capable of sending you notifications including any Facebook applications or games click the See All Notifications link at the bottom and check or uncheck what you want to be notified on.

Search - Finally, the search box in Facebook can be a powerful tool that can be used to quickly find any current friends or people on Facebook. In addition searching for terms such as a company name, product, sports team, music band, etc. will find fan pages and groups that can be joined.

Modify your account notifications

Keep your e-mail and your cell phone clean by updating or eliminate Facebook notifications or keep more up-to-date by adding new notifications. Facebook notifications can be added and removed by clicking Account link in the top right corner, then Account Settings, and then clicking the Notifications tab.

Top News and Most Recent

By default Facebook displays your wall postings in the News format, which means it only displays posts it believes are most relevant to you. These results are based on your past interaction with your friends. If you want to see every post made by all your friends that are not hidden click the Most recent link in the upper right section of your news feed as shown in the above picture example.

If you want to adjust who shows up manually click the Edit Options in the bottom right corner of your news feed.

View High School work friends

If you've added your High School or previous Work locations to your profile, quickly see all classmates and co-workers on Facebook by clicking the link in your Info tab under your profile.

Quickly change profile picture

Your profile picture can be quickly changed to any other picture by visiting your profile, hovering the mouse over your current profile picture, and clicking the Change Picturelink that appears in the top right corner of the picture.

Don't post private information on friend's walls on in comments

When you make a post on a friend's wall or in any of their comments realize that any of their friends are going to be able to see that post. If you want for something to remain only between you and a friend send them a Facebook message instead.

Suggestions and random friend invites

As you get more friends on Facebook it will begin making friend, groups, and fan suggestions. These are suggestions made by Facebook and not your friends. Unless these are something you're interested in they can be ignored.

This same rule can be applied to people who may want to be your friend that you don't know. If you don't know someone don't accept his or her friend invite. Once someone becomes your friend they'll have access to any information your friends are capable of seeing.

Tag your Facebook friends in your photos

Always make sure to tag any of your Facebook friends that are in pictures you upload. However, never tag someone who is not in the picture. When someone is tagged in a photo that picture is automatically added to that persons profile and is a great way to share pictures with all friends.

Top 10 computer mouse tips everyone should know

Most computer users don't take full advantage of the computer Mouse. Below are computer mouse tips and secrets that help you get the full potential of your computer mouse and increase your overall productivity while on the computer. 

Shift key and mouse click

Many text editors and programs allow you to highlight all or portions of text using the Shift key and the mouse. For example, click at the beginning of a text in the below text box, hold down the Shift key, scroll to the bottom, and click at the end of the text to highlight all of the text.

Bonus tip: Holding down the Alt key while dragging and highlighting text in a text editor allows you to selectively highlight text. This can be useful if your paragraph or other text is in a column.

Take full advantage of the scroll wheel

Today, everyone is familiar with a mouse wheels ability to scroll up and down on a page. However, this wheel can also do so much more, below are just a few examples.

• The mouse wheel is not just a wheel, it can also be used as a button. Pressing down on the wheel will act like a third mouse button. This can be used to open a web page in a tab by clicking the wheel on any link and can also be used to close a tab by clicking the wheel on any open tab.
• Zoom in and Out on a web page, word document, excel spreadsheet, etc. by holding down the Ctrl key and scrolling up to zoom in and down to zoom out.
• Holding down the Shift key while scrolling up or down in most Internet browsers to go back and forward between web pages.
• Some mouse wheels can be pushed left or right to also move back and forward on a web page.

Select with double and triple click

Any word can be selected by double-clicking the word. If you want to highlight the whole paragraph or sentence, click the mouse button three times on any word. Try it now on this paragraph by clicking three times fast on any word in the paragraph.

Bonus Tip: If you double-click and then drag your mouse it will highlight one word at a time.

Use the right-click

Take full advantage of the right-click any time you highlight text or want to view the properties of an object. For example, if you highlight a file or text, you can right-click that highlighted item copy it and then right-click anywhere else to paste it.

Bonus Tip: If you highlight or select any file or text and then click and drag it while hold the right button, when you let go the option to move or copy that file or text. This saves you the extra step of having to right-click where you want to paste the item.

Bonus Tip: While in a browser pressing and holding Ctrl while clicking on any link opens a menu with options for that link.

Ctrl key and mouse click or highlight

While holding down the Ctrl key you can left-click to select multiple objects or highlight multiple sections of text. For example, in the below selection box if you wanted to highlight more than one of the items listed you could hold down Ctrl and select each item you want highlighted.

             Mouse             Example             Tips             Tricks             Buttons             Clicking             Wheel             Highlight           

Bonus Tip: Mozilla Firefox users can also hold down the Ctrl key and individually click on each cell in a table they want to copy or drag their mouse down a row to select just that row or text without selecting any of the other text in that table.

Use the mouse side buttons

Many new computer mice also have buttons on the side of the mouse. These buttons can be programmed to do anything, however, by default the left-thumb button can be used to go back on a web page. This makes browsing the Internet more enjoyable since you do not need to move the mouse cursor to the browser back arrow button in order to go back a page.

Use the Windows Snap To feature

Take full advantage of the Windows mouse Snap To feature, which will automatically move your mouse to buttons that appear in a dialog box. For example, if you delete a file or close a window you may get a prompt asking you if you are sure you want to perform the task. With the Snap To feature enabled, the mouse cursor automatically moves to the Ok button, so all you have to do is click the mouse button if you agree. This saves you the time of having to move the mouse cursor over to the Ok button and then click Ok.

To enable this feature open the Mouse properties under the Windows Control Panel and check the Snap To check box under the Pointer Options tab.

Bonus Tip: While changing this feature we also suggest looking at other available options in the Mouse settings. For example, increasing the Motion speed can also help increase your productivity while using the mouse.

Manage the open window with the mouse

Double-click the top title bar of any window to maximize a window or if it is already maximized resize it to a window. You can also double-click the icon for the window in the top-left corner of the window to close that window.

Move the mouse with your keyboard

Instead of using the mouse that came with your computer you can also enable Windows to use the number pad as a mouse.

Customize your mouse

Finally, if you have a mouse with more than two buttons, installing the included mouse software allows you to customize the mouse even more. For example, if you don't use the side buttons to move back and forth in a web page change it to something you do more often, such as switching between open windows or opening the calculator.

How to repeat YouTube videos

YouTube does not allow you to automatically repeat your favorite YouTube video, but there are plenty of third-party services that allows you to repeat any video. Follow the steps below to repeat any of your favorite YouTube videos.

Browse to your favorite video and edit the URL in the address bar. Below is an example of the video URL we are editing, this URL could be changed to your favorite video or music video.

Erase everything in front of youtube, so in our example we are erasing "www."

After youtube type repeat to make the above example URL the URL shown below and then press enter.

youtuberepeat.com/watch/?v=dD40VXFkusw

After pressing enter, you are forwarded to the link below, which will repeat your video until you close the page. This page also has a repeat counter to let you know how many times the video has been repeated.

Top 10 Twitter tips and tricks

Below is a listing of our top 10 favorite Twitter tips and tricks. These tips help make your Twitter experience more enjoyable and can help increase your followers.
 

Customize

• Change your profile picture. Use a picture of yourself to make it seem more personalized if this is your personal Twitter account.
• Utilize as much of the 160-character limit Twitter BIO space allows. Include keywords your followers or potential followers may be trying to find.
• Create your own background image. However, do not make the image too much like an ad or sales pitch. The background image must be less than 800k and we recommend a size of 1600x1200 for a large image or smaller if you plan on tiling the image or just having it on the left-hand side. Finally, keep in mind that smaller resolutions and monitor sizes hide much of the background.

Third-party tools

Take advantage of the hundreds of different third-party online tools and services that enhance your Twitter experience. Below are a few of our favorites.

• TwitPic - Take advantage of TwitPic to post pictures on your tweets. If you want to post pictures while away from the computer, use the Twitterific app.
• Qwitter - Great service that sends an e-mail anytime someone unsubscribes from your Twitter profile and mentions a possible Twitter post you made that may have caused them to leave.
• Manageflitter - Fantastic site for managing your followers and getting an overview of people not following you back, quiet users, and inactive users.
• WeFollow - Great website that allows you to add yourself to a listing of Twitter users by tags you find interesting.
• SocialOomph - Another great service with a collection of free Twitter tools including the ability to schedule when tweets gets posted.
• Twitter Fan Wiki Apps - Finally, this wiki has a listing of several hundred different Twitter applications and tools for users wanting more.

Use Twitter search

Take full advantage of the Twitter search tool. Below are just a few tips that can help improve your search capabilities on Twitter.

• Search for your website or blog URL and see if others are mentioning your page.
• Search for anything near you by adding near:"city state". For example, typingnear:"Salt lake city Utah" club would return current tweets that have happened in Salt Lake City, Utah with the keyword club in them.
• Find people whom you may enjoy following by searching for keywords that interested you.
• If you do not want tweets with links add ? -filter:links at the end of your search query.
• Need more options, use the Advanced Twitter search.
• Anytime you get excellent results click the "Save this search" button to save that search. These searches can then be found under "Saved Searches" on the right-hand part of your profile on the old Twitter interface or under the "Searches" tab next to your timeline on the new Twitter interface.

Followers

• Engage followers.
• Do not follow too many people. No one wants to follow someone following thousands of people with only 10 followers.
• Retweet interesting posts.
• Retweet and participate in conversations with people with lots of followers.
• Realize it is impossible for anyone to read every tweet.
• When first joining do not follow hundreds of people, doing this may mark you as a bot.

Create useful and interesting tweets

• Try to make all your tweets informative, useful, or funny.
• Do not post mundane posts, e.g. eating a bowl of cereal.
• Add hashtags to your tweets. For example, if your tweet is about computers, consider adding #computer in the tweet.
• Tweet frequently. No one is going to follow someone they do not know who has not tweeted in months. Try to tweet a few times a week or daily if you can manage.
• Do not whine or complain. Most people unfollow anyone who constantly whines or complains.
• Try to make your valuable tweets during the times people will most likely see them.
• Keep some space available in your tweet in case someone retweets your post.
• Use special characters in your tweets.

Know the lingo

Know the Twitter lingo, these are just a few examples: @reply, Direct Message (DM),Follower, Hashtag, Retweet (RT), Trending Topics, and Tweet. See the Twitter description for a complete listing of Twitter terms and Lingo and related terms.

Follow the masters

Following a few of the masters of Twitter and Social Networking give you an understanding of how to tweet better, posts to RT, and inspiration for tweets of your own. Below are the top ten Twitters we recommend following.

@GuyKawasaki
@Scobleizer
@jeffbullas
@briansolis
@tonyrobbins
@kevinrose
@timoreilly
@donttrythis
@zappos
@brainpicker

• Twitaholic - A full listing of the top users on Twitter based on Followers, which is great for finding and following the top users and learning what they are doing with their account.

Tip: Many of the first few hundred people are celebrities on Twitaholic, if they do not interest you skip the first page.

Create and use lists

Twitter lists are an excellent method of filtering filter through the people you follow. To create a list, click the Lists link, and then click Create a list. After creating a list, visit the person's profile page you want to add and click the list icon (shown to the right). Our Computers and Tech list is an example of a public list we created.

Go Mobile

Apple iPhones, Blackberry phones, Android phones, Windows phone 7 phones, and most of the other smartphones have Twitter applications. Take full advantage of these applications. For users who do not have smartphones Twitter also has extensive support for SMS, which can send tweets over a text message.

Top 10 Windows 7 tips

Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts 

  

Use the below Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts to make the most of your Windows 7 experience.

Windows key and the arrow keys

Pressing the Windows key and Left or Right arrow keys will dock the window your viewing to the left or right-hand side of the screen. Pressing the Windows key and the Up arrow will maximize a window and pressing the Windows key and the Down arrow will resize and then minimize the window.

Use Shift: To stretch a window vertically, press the Windows key + Shift + the Up arrow. If you have multiple monitors use the Windows key + Shift + the Left or Right arrow keys to move the window to another monitor.

Windows key and plus and minus keys

If you ever need to zoom in or out of what is being displayed on your screen press the Windows key and the + (plus) or - (minus) keys. Pressing the plus zooms in and once zoomed in the minus will zoom out.

Clear all background programs

If you are not viewing a window in full screen and have other windows open in the background clear all background open windows by pressing the Windows key + theHome key.

• Full listing of computer shortcuts

Use the Windows 7 search

Find and run anything in Windows by using the Windows 7 search box. Click the Start orb or press then Windows key and type the name of the program you want to run or file you want to edit. Windows 7 does a good job at finding an exact match and simply pressing enter will execute that program or open that file. If more than one match is found, use the up and down arrow keys to select the file you want to open and then press Enter.

Running as administrator: Some programs may require administrator mode in order to function properly. You can run any program as administrator from the search box by typing the name of the program you want to run and then instead of pressing Enter to run the program press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run as administrator. If you want to click and run a program as administrator hold down the Ctrl+Shift and then click the icon.

Take full advantage of the Taskbar

Pin programs to the Taskbar

All programs can be pinned to the Taskbar and allow easy access to your favorite programs without having to use the Start Menu. To Pin a program to the Taskbar right-click on the program or shortcut to the program and in the menu choose the Pin to Taskbar option. Alternatively you can also drag the icon to the Taskbar.

If you want to remove a pinned program, right-click on the Taskbar icon and click Unpin this program from the Taskbar. Alternatively you can also drag the icon off of the task bar and then click Unpin this program from the Taskbar.

Move the icons and pinned programs

Any pinned or opened program on the Taskbar can be moved and arranged. Left-click on any icon on the Taskbar and drag it to the location you want it to remain.

Windows key and a number

Pressing the Windows key and a number on the top row of your keyboard open the Window corresponding to the open program on your Taskbar. For example, in the picture below of the Windows 7 Taskbar, Firefox i the first icon, Control panel is the second icon, and Adobe Photoshop is the third icon. If the Windows key + 3 was pressed, Adobe Photoshop would become the active window. To make it even easier arrange your icons (as mentioned above) from left to right by most frequently opened.

Pin your favorite folder

If you frequently access the same folder (e.g. your favorites, my documents, Dropbox, etc.) pin the folder to the Windows Explorer icon on the Taskbar. To do this drag your favorite folder to the Taskbar until you see Pin to Windows Explorer. Once pinned, right-click the Explorer icon to access that folder under the Pinned section.

Open a second instance

If you want to open a second instance or window of a program that is already open, press and hold the Shift key and then click the program icon on the Taskbar.

Get to the Desktop

Click the Desktop button on the far right edge of the Taskbar to get to the Desktop.

Customize the Notification area

Windows Vista and Windows 7 allow the Windows Notification area (aka Systray) to be modified. By default, many of the icons shown in the past are now hidden and give Windows a much cleaner look. Customize this area to make icons show or not show by clicking on the up arrow next to the icons and selectingCustomize, as shown in the picture. Once in Customize you can choose what programs show, don't show, or only show notifications.

Improve the quality of your text

Use the Windows ClearType Text Tuner to improve the overall quality of all text you read on your screen. To start the ClearType Text Tuner click the Start Orb and typecttune.exe and press Enter.

Enable and disable Windows 7 features

Turn on and off Windows features by clicking Start, typing features and press enter. In the Programs and Features window on the left-hand column click Turn Windows features on or off and in the Windows Features box check or uncheck the features you want enabled or disabled.

Use the Reliability and Performance Monitor

View the reliability history of your computer by using the Reliability Monitor. Click the Start orb and type reliability and press enter for View Reliability History. In the Reliability Monitor, you'll be able to view the overall reliability of your computer and be able to identify any past problems your computer has had.

If you want to view the performance of your computer in real time use the Performance Monitor. Click the Start orb and type performance and press enter for the Performance Monitor. In the Performance Monitor, you can view your computers performance in real time or view a log of your systems performance.

Re-enable underlined keyboard shortcuts

By default, Windows 7 has the underlines for keyboard shortcuts like those shown in the picture. To re-enable these underlines in all Windows programs follow the steps below.

1. Open the Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel click Ease of Access
3. In Ease of Access click Change how your keyboard works
4. Finally, check the Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys and then click Ok.

Rename multiple files at once

To change the name of multiple files at once highlight all the files you want to rename inWindows Explorer and press the F2 key. Type in the new name you want to use for all files and press enter. Once done all files will be renamed to the name entered followed by a unique number.

Install Windows Essentials

Install missing Windows software by installing the free Windows Essentials software package that includes: Windows Live Family Safety, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, SkyDrive for Windows, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer, and Microsoft Outlook Hotmail Connector.

• Official Windows Essentials web page and download.