Many years ago, Microsoft Money was a common software program used for personal finances. Then Microsoft discontinued that software, and Quicken & Quickbooks became the mainstays of personal financial software. But to this day, I still encounter MS Money loyalists. If you’ve stuck with Microsoft Money all this time, then you need to know: it’s … Read more
The Trend Micro company has come out with a new tool that I want to recommend. Trend Micro Check is a free browser extension that you can install in Google Chrome (or Microsoft Edge) that will protect you as you surf the web. Specifically, Trend Micro Check blocks ads and trackers (like AdBlockPlus), warns you … Read more
We’ve pretty much moved past digital storage media, such as CDs and DVDs, by now. If you’ve got any old discs laying around with important data on them, you should probably move your files off to an external hard drive or cloud storage. These days, very few computers come with an optical drive for reading … Read more
LibreOffice is a lovely option for document creation, if you don’t want to drop money on Microsoft’s software. While Microsoft costs $100/yr or $150 for its basic office suites, LibreOffice is free, free, free. But if you try LibreOffice, you should immediately adjust its default file types. Right out of the box, LibreOffice will save … Read more
I’m hearing a lot of reports that Google Chrome is frequently freezing up. But only for several seconds, and then it unfreezes. Other report that refreshing & reloading the page seems to shake things loose… until they walk away for a few minutes and return to yet another stuck page. In any case, it’s an … Read more
These days, we use File Explorer to navigate the files and folders on a PC, but back in 1990, Win 3.0 offered the first tool for organizing your data: Windows File Manager. If you want to relive a small part of Windows 3.0, you can get the Windows File Manager for your modern computer, for … Read more
Last month, I posted the basics about Private Browsing, but I skipped mentioning one of its important uses: Bypassing paywalls. When a website insists that you pay for access, Private Browsing can sometimes get you in without payment or logging in. This most commonly works for news websites and other pages that offer you “5 … Read more
When it comes to office software, most people think of Microsoft Office, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. But Microsoft’s options can be complicated. There’s a lot to think about before you spend money on their Office suite! So here are the details that may help you figure out if you will buy or rent … Read more
These days, all web browsers offer a function called Private Browsing. Let’s go over what this is and isn’t. Private Browsing allows you to use the internet so that no traces of your surfing are saved or left behind on that computer. Whatever you do in this mode disappears from that computer as soon as … Read more
For years, CCleaner was many people’s go-to program for cleaning up a Windows computer. It quickly finds and deletes temp files and other junk from a system. But these days, there are more reasons to get rid of it than keep it around. It’s time to say, “Goodbye, CCleaner!” First, it’s main function is replicated … Read more