The Sixth Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Welcome to the sixth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice. As ever many blog authors contributed their posts and, as always, limitation of space means that some did not make it into the carnival. Many thanks to all those who contributed.Some troublemakers try to fool the novice with bad advice and rogue software. So first up this month we have a post by nicky at Tips, Trick and Practice on how to identify Rogue Software and Security. In the...

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Keyboard shortcut of the week: a few for Firefox

Here are a few keyboard shortcuts for Firefox to mark the release of version 3 of that browser (which I express my initial opinions about at the bottom of this post). These should all work in Windows and Linux, for Apple Macs simply substitute the Ctrl key with the Cmd key.Full screen modeTo hide the menus, toolbars and status bar press the F11 key, press it again to go back to windowed mode.Text SizeTo increase the size of text on a page, either...

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Firefox 3 Download Day two hours away

We are about two hours away from the start of Firefox Download Day, which is either an attempt to bring people of all (or at least most) nations together in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in a day, or a shameless promotion of the latest version of Mozilla's web browser. Either way I will be trying to download Firefox 3 over the next twenty-four hours, assuming that their servers don't fail and that the Internet can...

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Command Window Here: Free MS PowerToy for XP

In the last post I have instructions for using the Command Prompt to navigate to a particular folder; however, there is an easier way to do this in Windows XP by installing a PowerToy (this feature is already available in Vista).To install this feature, look for 'Open Command Window Here' the list of PowerToys on the right hand side of the page and click on CmdHere.exe to download it (or simply click here - if this links stops working please leave a comment). After installing the software, when you right click on a folder icon, or on the empty...

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How to save a list of files in a folder

There are a number of programs available that will create a text file from a list of files in a folder, but here is a quick and easy way of doing the same using the Command Prompt.Firstly, open up the Command Prompt (aka the MS-DOS Box). To do this either click on 'Run' in the 'Start' menu, or hold down the Windows key and press R (the Windows key is the one with the Windows logo on). In the box that opens type cmd, and either click the 'OK' button...

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How to make Windows quicker: lose the fancy look

There is a price to be paid for fancy effects and other visual features in Windows: a reduction in performance. Nevertheless, by switching off the knobs and whistles you can make Windows run that little bit faster.To choose which visual features to disable, you need to open the 'System Properties' dialogue. To do this either right-click on 'My Computer' on your Desktop and select 'Properties' from the menu that opens, or hold down the Windows key...

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