It never fails – awhile back, perhaps it was a few years, perhaps it was only a few months, you bought a new super-fast, top-of-the-line desktop or laptop computer. At first it ran fantastic – there were few software crashes, browser pages visually popped on-screen, and games ran smoothly at high frame rates.
Unfortunately as the computer got older, problems started occurring. Crashes became more frequent, web pages took longer to load, games appeared slightly jerky, and the overall computing experience lost its luster.
Why did this happen? Is there a conspiracy among computer and software manufacturers to make computers run slower so you'll give up and buy a new machine?
While conspiracy theories are questionable, here are seven valid reasons why your computer may start to run slower as time passes:
read more: 7 Reasons Why Computers Run Slower As They Get Older
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If you access web-based services such as social networking websites, message forums, or online banking applications, you've probably had to register for a user account. This sometimes drawn-out process required you to enter a login name as well as a password (or get one assigned to you), providing some sense of security when accessing the service.
Since good passwords (not the words 'computer' nor 'secret') can be almost impossible to remember (such as a ten character combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation), many services now use a "security question" you can answer in case you forget your username and/or password and need to retrieve or reset them. By offering a security question, these services can help ensure it is really you when a request is made for your login information.
Some websites may even require answering this security question as well as your password every time you use their services, offering a supposed second level of account security.
Filed under Computer How-To by
Have you ever had one of those moments where you can't remember what you just did? Like where you saved a document, spreadsheet or the file that you just copied to your hard drive.
It can drive you nuts and to the point where your just not going to find it quickly and easily.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to find those missing files, even if your computer does not keep track of recently accessed documents.
Here's five ways to find those missing files, documents or spreadsheets without going insane.
read more: Windows Tip: How To Find Files After Forgetting Where You Saved Them On Your Hard Drive
Filed under Windows Tips by
Many people do not realize that their computer IP address is different from their Internet IP Address.
If you are on a network (either at home or work) more than likely you are behind a router and your computer network adapter card (NIC) has been assigned a "local" IP address.
When you access the Internet from your computer, which is behind a router, and check your IP address at a site such as whatismyipaddress.com, what you are actually seeing is the Internet IP address that is assigned to the router (provided by your ISP), not your computer IP address.
The only time your computer NIC adapter IP address can be the same as the Internet IP address is when your computer is connected directly to the Internet.
So now that you know the difference, how do I find my computer IP address? Here's three ways to find it…
read more: How To Find The Real IP Address Of Your Windows Computer
Filed under Computer How-To, Windows Tips by
USB flash drives have become really handy in storing different files of various sizes including, backups, personal documents, music, pictures, portable applications and more. Flash drives turned out to be so convenient that people start pouring in files of any kind without sorting them.
Because of these habits, flash drives end up getting real messy quickly and it becomes difficult to figure out how to clear up disk space to accommodate more files.
Deleting unnecessary files is a good solution, but can be tough to do when files aren't properly organized. If you want to clear up disk space the fastest way possible, the best problem solver to this is by formatting your USB flash drive directly.
Filed under Computer How-To by
When it comes to GMail, sometimes the smallest changes make a big impact on functionality. For example, take the latest addition to GMail Labs called Title Tweaks.
What this cool feature does is move the number of unread messages (count) in parentheses, more towards the left in the browser tab, so you can easily see how many unread messages you have, when the browser is minimized in the task bar.
read more: Change How GMail Displays Unread Message Counts In Browser Tab
Filed under Google and Yahoo Tips by
Sooner or later it's bound to happen. You are cleaning up your hard drive and deleting files when one of the following error messages appears:
Cannot delete [filename]: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use
or
Cannot delete [filename]: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again
No problem, you go ahead and close any running applications or programs you have open, and try to delete the file again. Instead you get the same message and the file still can't be deleted.
More than likely a Windows process has locked the file, which cannot be deleted, until the process ends. This means you need to identify the process and kill it so you don't need to reboot your computer just to delete a file.
read more: How To Identify Which Windows Process Has Locked A File When Trying To Delete Open Files
Filed under Windows Tips by
If you use Firefox browser when connecting to your Linksys wireless router
Consider yourself lucky if you do receive the same warning message, because it's an easy fix by:
- clicking the link at the bottom of the error message, Or you can add an exception…
- then click on the Add Exception button…
followed by clicking on the Get Certificate button (on the next screen) and clicking the Confirm Security Exception button at the bottom of the page.
The invalid certificate warning will not display the next time you connect to your router.
But for those of you out there (like me) that receives an error message similar to this…
192.168.1.1 uses an invalid security certificate.
The certificate is not trusted because it is self signed.
The certificate is only valid for <a id="cert_domain_link" title="Linksys">Linksys</a>
(Error code: sec_error_ca_cert_invalid)
…here's a possible fix to get things working again when connect to your wireless Linksys router.
read more: How To Fix Invalid Certificate Error When Conecting To Linksys Wireless Routers
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