Is the PC slow? Fix it with System Mechanic and boost performance!

Clean your Mac with MacKeeper, protect it, eliminate disk clutter!

Parallels Desktop 7 - run Windows programs on your Apple Mac!

O&O Defrag Professional - boost the performance of your disk drive!

Windows tips

Windows: Adjust application volumes individually
You may not have realised that the volume for each program that is running can be adjusted individually, so you can turn up the music and turn down the browser sounds. Show me...

4 great desktop gadgets for Win 7/Vista
There are some great desktop and Sidebar gadgets for Windows 7 and Vista, but they are becoming increasingly hard to find. Here are four great gadgets with download links that work!

Turn Windows 7 features on or off
If you don't need a component, then why should you bother loading it every time you start Windows? Fortunately, you can remove it.

Windows: Organise your photos
Zoner's Photo Studio 14 Free offers several unique features. It's well worth adding to your software collection.

Run CCleaner in Windows on a schedule
CCleaner doesn't have a scheduler. You can't run it at 9am or 6pm every day to keep the disk drive clean, for example. However, there is a way to do this using Windows built in scheduler.

Add AutoCollage to Windows Live Photo Gallery
Windows Live Photo Gallery is an excellent photo manager and organiser and its range of functions can be expanded through the addition of plug-ins, such as AutoCollage

Back up your PC without installing any software
I'm always on the lookout for software that just runs and doesn't need to be installed. Here's my backup solution.

PerfectDisk optimises the disk drive
Recently updated Raxco PerfectDisk 12.5 is, well, perfect for keeping your disk running at peak performance. Let's take a look at this utility.

Stop Internet Explorer add-ons message
Internet Explorer 9 keeps on displaying a pop-up message at the bottom of the window saying "Speed up browsing by disabling add-ons." Here's how to disable it.

Remove malware with Windows Defender Offline
Viruses, Trojans, spyware and other types of malware can be stubborn and hard to remove once they get on a PC and infect it. Get Windows Defender Offline boot CD.

Run disk and RAM tests
How fast is the disk drive? Is the RAM up to scratch? Use Winsat to measure the performance and you can see the results in the figures. It's a geek tool, but useful.

Customise the Send To menu
When you right click the mouse on a file or folder on the desktop or in an Explorer window there is a Send to menu. You can add your own items to this and send files and folders to other places or applications.

Modify or remove shortcut arrows
The shortcut arrow is big and it's ugly. Wouldn't it be better if you could make it smaller, or perhaps you would like to completely remove it. It is easy with a registry tweak.

Add Explorer Copy To and Move To menus
Right click a file on the desktop or in an Explorer window and the context menu pops up with items like Cut, Copy, Delete, Rename and so so on. Add Copy to and Move to commands to this right click menu.

CPU speed tests using Winsat
Winsat.exe is a utility in the C:\Windows\System32 folder that can be used to measure the performance of different components in the PC and to measure how fast they are.

Free Bing themes for Win 7
Bing provides a collection of Windows themes that contain some of the best images from the search page and what's more, new images download automatically every week. Grab a theme!

Control Panel tips and secrets
It is a good idea to get to know the Cotrol Panel and to be able to use it efficiently to find the things you need. Here's how to quickly search for the items and display them.

Get more Windows tips

You want more Windows tips and articles? Click here!

Apple tips

Mac: Disable Flash in web pages
Adobe Flash enables vector graphics, animation, fonts, images, video and audio in web pages. However, it does create problems for users as well as solving them for web designers. You need to be aware of the pitfalls of Flash.

Get a faster Mac - upgrade the memory
Increasing the amount of memory available by installing more or higher capacity memory modules is a great way to boost the performance of the computer.

Mac: Resizing windows and panes
Resizing windows has always been a bit of a pain in OS X, but now though, we can click and drag any window border like everyone else. There are some extras that you are probably not aware of.

Customise Finder's toolbar and create instant slide shows
Here are a couple of tips written way back when Leopard was the current version of OS X on the Mac, but they still work fine on Lion today.

Clean your Mac with EaseUS CleanGenius Free
There are many tools for cleaning up the disk drive, such as OnyX and MacKeeper, but one that you may not have heard of is EaseUS CleanGenius. It's free, so try it.

Top Finder tips for Lion
Here are a few of the new features added to Finder in Lion and some of them are not so obvious, so there may be a few surprises for you.

Use Quick Look in Dock stacks to view files
Quick Look is a very useful feature. Did you know you can Quick Look items in the Dock too?

Back up Lion's recovery partition
Creating backups of the Mac's internal disk drive is an essential task that helps to protect your valuable files. One of the new features in OS X Lion is a hidden recovery partition on the boot disk. How do you back it up though?

Boost security with FileVault 2
If your computer is stolen the consequences could be severe if your personal, private or business information fell into the wrong hands. The solution is to encrypt the disk drive so no-one can access it.

3 top tips for Spotlight
Don't open Spotlight files - shows how to open the folder location instead of the application or file. Customise Spotlight categories - shows how to choose which results Spotlight shows and in which order. Stop Spotlight finding files - there may be placed on the disk drive that you don't want to index. Go here for the tips...

Use Spotlight as a thesaurus or dictionary
Not all word processors have a built in thesaurus though and when you are stuck for a great word you must look elsewhere for ideas. One solution is to use Spotlight as your thesaurus.

Lion's secret Wi-Fi Diagnostics
Wireless networking is the the best invention since the TV remote. It's like magic, except when it doesn't work. Wi-Fi Diagnostics tool can solve your problems.

Compress PDFs for emailing and sharing
A drawback of PDF files is that they are sometimes big and you don't want to email multi-megabyte file attachments. You should shrink your PDFs, not by archiving them in a zip, but compressing the contents within the PDF.

Add your signature to PDFs
PDF files you create yourself and documents from elsewhere can not only be viewed, but also edited. The cool thing is that you can actually sign a PDF file with your own real signature.

Mac: Tidy up the login items list
Some programs automatically load when you start your Mac and they run in the background. You should check occasionally to make sure that all the items are valid.

Mac: Power-up your internet connection
Switch to OpenDNS domain name servers and you could find that your internet connection is faster and more reliable. Changing OS X settings to use OpenDNS is easy.

Improve your Wi-Fi
Problems with your wireless internet connection, such as a poor transfer rate, intermittent access, dropped connections and so on, may be caused by interference. Select the best access point or settings.

Choose your preferred wireless network
When several Wi-Fi networks are available, which one should your iMac or MacBook connect to? You can specify the order in which to try to connect to them.

8 graphics applications
Whether you need a vector drawing app or a bitmap photo editing tool, there are some excellent ones available that are free of charge if you know where to look. Show me...

Get more Mac tips

Go to the Apple Mac home page or the Mac and OS X tips page

Linux tips

Partition the disk for Linux
What partitions are required, what size should they be, and how do you actually do it?

Dreamlinux 5
Dreamlinux uses Xfce instead of KDE or Gnome, Softmaker Office instead of LibreOffice, it's ready to play video and audio, and it's based on Debian. Is it any good?

Kororaa Linux - an easy to use distro?
Kororaa is an easy to use Linux distro for new users while still being useful for experts. It aims to be a complete general computing solution. KDE and Gnome distros in 32 and 64-bit versions are available.

Linux: Send the disk to sleep with hdparm
Hdparm is a multi-function tool that does a lot of different things, but here we are just going to look at a few simple ones. It's a brief introduction to hdparm.

ZevenOS - Ubuntu meets BeOS
ZevenOS is a Linux distro that has the look and feel of BeOS. Will it quietly disappear like BeOS? No, this OS is all Linux and underneath and it has some great features.

Mageia - a new Linux distro
Mageia was born as a fork of Mandriva and version 1 is here with a 2 alpha ready for testing.Here's what you need to know.

Anonymous web browsing
If you really want to be anonymous on the internet and prevent anyone from tracking you or identifying you, one solution is to use Tor.

Fuduntu - Fedora/Ubuntu hybrid
With hundreds of Linux distros available you might wonder whether enthusiasts are running out of ideas, but it appears not. Fuduntu 14 is a unique blend of Fedora and Ubuntu.

Shut down Linux from the command line
The shutdown command in a Terminal window accesses extra features that are not available when shutting down via the menus. Get to grips with shutdown.

3 Linux download managers
Store download links for later, adjust the bandwidth used, and speed up downloads by opening multiple connections, all with a free download manager.

Remove files you no longer need
Your linux distro might include a utility to uninstall software, but if not, you can also uninstall software from the Terminal command prompt.

Three ways to monitor the system
It is a good idea to keep an eye on the system and to monitor the resource usage. In Linux this is easy and there are several ways of performing this task.

Password managers to keep logins safe
Use a password manager to store the login details for the sites you visit and the services you use. All you need is one password and the rest are stored securely. Here are three.

Essential Terminal commands
The number of times you have to use the Terminal is a shock when switching to Linux and you need to know how to list the disk contents, move around directories and so on. Here are some useful commands to get you started.

Check the disk for errors

If you are having problems with your PC, Linux or an application, such as a crash or program freeze, you might want to check the hard disk drive for errors to make sure it is OK. There are several ways to do this.

Get more Linux tips

You want more Linux tips and articles? Click here!