Ok before I go into this post I’d like to apologize to all the Mac users out there. I actually happen to love Macs just as much as the next guy but I tend to write more about Windows (Because it has more problems =D ). So if you come accross this site and think I’m just another Windows Lover / Mac Hater then you are mistaken. I respect most operating systems out there but let’s face it… Windows is everywhere! I invite any Mac user that is experiencing any issues or would like to see something posted here to shoot me an e-mail and I will seriously write a whole post based on what you say… this blog is for you so it’s semi-interactive in that regard.

 Anyway… now that we are all friends again. Keyboard shortcuts! Windows Shortcuts. OK, this is where my geeky side comes out, I am a nutcase when it comes to shortcuts, I just love them for everything. This will be a quick useful guide on how to keep your desktop clean and have some effective shortcut layouts that will make your friends jealous. *Somehow it always comes down to making your friends jealous, people are funny.

OK, on to the basics. In a Windows environment there are many pre-defined shortcuts that you can utilize to make your computer experience faster and more efficient. In the old days there were no mouses (I refuse to say Mice!) so anyone that had to use a computer had to use shortcuts from the keyboard to navigate around and do simple functions.

Here’s a list of some of the pre-defined Windows shortcuts.

Alt + F4 –> Quits out of most windows unless the program is designed not to support it. This is the magical key sequence when an annoying spyware ad has taken over your screen and you can’t remove the silly thing by clicking on the exit button on the top right.

 Alt + Tab –> Switches between active open windows and gives you a brief description in text on what the other windows are. (If you get that nifty powertoy in the Utilities section then it will give you an awesome description with an actual page preview!)

Ctrl + C –> Used to Copy selected text or a selected item in Explorer.

Ctrl + V –> Used to Paste a previously copied item(s) or text.

Ctrl + Alt + Delete –> Opens up the Windows Task Manager and allows you to force programs to close when they are not responding and allows you to view stats on your processor voltage, process memory usage etc.

The most useful shortcuts actually derive from the Windows Key as seen below. If you don’t have a Windows key on your keyboard then you have a special keyboard and this article will not really apply to you. But if you’re using a Natural QWERTY layout then continue reading!

  That’s the famous Windows key. This key does not just open your Start menu. It has many other tricks up its sleeve.

Windows Key + E –> Opens up a new Explorer window. Explorer is everything you see in My Computer… in any folder. That is what is running to allow you to navigate around you computer. So it opens another one of those windows for you to navigate to a new section.

Windows Key + D –> My favorite one of all. When you’re an avid multi tasker like myself there’s nothing better than when you can just jump to to the desktop without having to minimize 20 windows. Press this key sequence and you will suddenly be jumped back to the desktop. It’s also very useful if someone tries to sneak a peak at your e-mail or at your improper party pictures from the night before, you get the picture it’s useful!

Windows Key + L –> This one locks your computer if you’re stepping away… it is assumed that you have a password protected account otherwise this one is kind of useless. It almost immediately jumps to the Welcome screen where your username is and does not log you off so nothing gets lost in the process. If it doesn’t immediately do it then your computer is slow and you need to refer to my previous post about speeding it up

Windows Key + F — > This is an old-time favorite. Pops up the search menu where you can search for anything on your computer.

Windows Key + M –> Minimizes all active windows that are open but in my opinion it is not as useful as the Windows Key + D shortcut because it doesn’t restore the minimized windows unless you press Windows Key + Shift + M, in other words too much work. Windows Key + D > Windows Key + M. Enough said.

Windows Key + Pause/Break –> You’ll find the Pause/Break key on the upper right area of the keyboard and you probably have never used it unless you play video games :D. If you press these keys together System Properties shows up. This is excellent when you’re trying to see how much RAM there is and who the computer is registered to, windows version, etc…

Windows Key + Tab –> If you know what Alt + Tab does then this is similar except that it switches between taskbar buttons.

And now the best shortcut that we will talk about… Windows Key + R

Opens up the Run utility which allows you to run a program or command by typing the correct name. Some programs come with a name that windows recognizes when you type it in Run. AOL Instant Messenger is one such program and if you typed AIM in the run command and have AIM installed it will run that program. Most programs do not however so this will teach you how to get around it.

I have Google Earth… awesome program in my opinion. I want to run Google Earth from the run command so that I don’t have to jump the desktop to run it from the shortcut. Once you install the program, right click on the desktop icon for Google Earth and make a copy of the shortcut and paste it in the desktop. Now rename it to Earth (not case sensitive). Right click on the new shortcut named Earth and Cut it. Now let’s use a shortcut with windows key :D…. Press Windows Key + R to bring up run and type in \Windows and press OK. It will open up the Windows folder, press Ctrl + V to paste the Cut shortcut into the Windows Folder and scroll all the way to the bottom to verify that it was pasted into the folder and shows up in it. Now for the grand finale close everything down and press Windows Key + R and then type Earth and press Enter. If you did all the steps correctly Google Earth comes up and you’ve just created a manual Run command shortcut.

If you think this is useless then I can’t do much about that, we all have our own preferences on how to do things but I prefer my desktop clean and with no visible shortcuts. When my friends come over and see my computer they can’t really tell if I have any programs installed because there are no shortcuts to indicate this

Google Earth is a mere example but you can do that for any shortcut on your desktop. You can also just rename the existing shortcut and then throw it in the Windows folder and it will work just the same. Go nuts with it! It’s fun!

- Mr. Tech

Comments(0)

It is extremely difficult to explain how to prevent harmful malware to get into your computer but it all starts with one source… You.

That’s right, I haven’t used an anti-virus or anti-spyware program on my machine for about 5 years now and still going strong. How do I do it? From experience I have began to notice patterns of malicious sites, certain names of executable files, and even how long it takes for a webpage to load…

I am not trying to brag about my abilities because frankly, I have gotten lucky a few times that I’ve caught a trojan virus before it could spread around my machine. Everyone should have some level of protection no matter how basic. My point on the paragraph above is to show people that the internet is not some hot zone of malware, nor does it infect your machine as soon as you connect to the internet. These myths are simply not true.

The internet works by you sending a request out to the World Wide Web to view a specific address and in return you get a website and download its contents. If you know what you’re typing in the address bar, chances are you are fine. If you typed www.Google.com and Google loaded up you risked little with the process. The main danger comes from websites with ad-link clusters. These websites are out there and numerous so you must pay careful attention to the nature of the content in them before you go on clicking and visiting.

Not to pick sides on the matter but Google honestly has some of the safest search results around. I would say that for any word or phrase that you search on Google.com the top 10 or 20 of them are safe and genuine websites that provide you with relevant content based on what you searched. Of course if you search for “Windows XP Crack Keygen” you are already in trouble because no genuine website would carry such content and still be operational.

Since everyone is connected to the web I would say that safe browsing is the number 1 protection for your computer against all types of malware. Up next… protection programs.

Top 5 on my list of the best protection software for your Windows computer:

1). AVG Anti-Virus - Detects more malware than Symantec and McAfee combined and is free for personal use with updates! Can’t beat that.

2). Ad-Aware Anti-Spyware - And old time favorite of mine… kicks some serious butt when it comes to removing pests in your machine.

3). PC-Tools - A very thorough machine examiner that digs out even the worst malware threats out there.

4). Spybot Search & Destroy - Another awesome cleaning tool from the Spybot team.

5). Kaspersky Anti-Virus - A true giant in the fight against Malware. It is a solid performer and continues to provide some of the highest level protection against threats. Not free but worth the money!

Except for AVG and Spybot S&D the other 3 require that you purchase a license but I would say it’s money well spent considering the high cost of cleaning a computer after an infenction.

Have a protection program running at all times (You pick the best one, I can’t impose these 5 on you) and always mind your browing on the web. If a website has a weird sounding name like warez / xxx / crack / keygen etc… Don’t visit that website, you just never know what might be waiting at the other end.

If you click on a link and it seems to be loading for a long time hit the stop button on your browser and close the windows immediately. No need to risk getting scripts that download in your Temporary Files folder and then are executed once the website fully loads. I’ve seen it all

Like I said before, the ultimate machine protection derives from you.

Comments(1)

From experience I have known many people that swear at their computer for being too slow and they normally associate this lack of good performance with the brand of their machine.

Dell, HP, ASUS, Compaq, Lenovo, etc… all make some great machines but the trick is to understand how to maintain a computer.

Unfortunately nowadays no machine is clean and what I mean by this is that no machine really comes with a sqeaky clean install of the Operating System. Most vendors will install trial software and online offers and it has become quite a market tool for the major computer companies.

We’ll take an example and pick on Hewlett Packard. They have been in the business since before Mr. Tech was born. If you purchase an HP computer today you are guaranteed to have at least a dozen programs in there that you have no clue about or that you might never use. It’s sad but it happens daily and the consumer isn’t given a choice.

The only choice is to go and custom build a computer but that doesn’t attract too many users out there from either lack of knowledge on the subject, lack of time, or both.

At any rate, in a HP machine I serviced a few days ago there were so many programs running at startup that it took 10 minutes for the machine to actually start up. The OS? Windows XP Pro. The reason? HP loves money and not about efficiency of your machine. End result? Unhappy customer.

The irony of all this is that without all these “junk” programs that come in the machines I probably wouldn’t have a job or at least I wouldn’t have a lot of work to do on people’s computers.

Anyway, enough chit chat about one computer or another. The truth of the matter is that you need to clean up your machine whether you first got it or have had it for 5 years… the process is the same.

This step-by-step process is assuming that you have a Windows 2000 SP4 or a Windows XP machine that can actually turn on and can load windows properly. For Vista the process is similar but I’ll get to that eventually.

Start by going to START > RUN > Type: control > Press OK.

That will bring up the control panel as seen here…

Click the Add or Remove Programs

Now it’s time to remove “junk” | This category includes any software that you have installed and you know you don’t need anymore. If you don’t know what it is then please don’t remove it because for all we know it might be something important.

Protection Software: If you have Norton / McAfee / Verizon / AOL / Trend Micro… or any kind of malware protection suite that has been installed in the machine you will need to remove it. No I’m not crazy but I am insanely against any of the above software because I know first hand what they do to a machine. They provide such an intrusive protective infrastructure that it usually causes machine instability. On the Downloads section you will find a removal tool for Norton and AOL, while the other software can be removed from the Add/Remove Programs utility in Windows.

Once you’re done removing software you might have to restart. Do that and come back to this post

Are you back? OK! Now it’s time to get down and dirty…

NOTE: For Windows 2000 upgrade to Windows XP Professional and save yourself the hassle, but if you are a die hard fan then download the MSConfig.exe utility from the downloads section to be able to work with the utility.

Go to START > RUN > Type: MSCONFIG > Click OK

You will see this window…

Click on the services tab and check the [ Hide all Microsoft Services ] Option.

Now you’re in control of your system and what it can and cannot start up. Uncheck Machine Debug Manager if you see it and anything that has to do with the Anti-Virus software that you previously uninstalled. (Symantec, Trend, AOL, etc…)

Now click on the Startup tab. In my opinion you shouldn’t have any programs running at startup because you should be able to choose what program you would like to run. Because of this I say that you disable everything in there but that will be up to you. Click Disable All and then go through and see if you need something to startup (Like AIM or some program you use constantly) and check only that.

Click the OK button

It will automatically ask you to Restart. Click on Restart.

Once your machine has been restarted it will come up with a window stating you have used the Startup Configuration Utility. Check the box to make sure it doesn’t pop-up again and that’s that!

Your machine should be much faster and more responsive. Another post that is coming up will explain in detail how to tweak your windows settings to make it run faster. Stay tuned and don’t hesitate to comment or ask me anything.

- Mr. Tech

Comments(0)

The idea to create this blog started as sort of a joke between myself and my boss Mike. We were sitting down at a cigar bar and I thought this would be a funny blogsite to have. Well two weeks later we brainstormed our idea on paper and had our lead designer Erjon Metohu go to town with the website. Today at 10:10 AM is the official first post of Mr. Tech but I couldn’t bring myself to drink champagne as it is much too early in the morning.

I’d like to welcome everyone to our site and I hope you may find the right solution to all your computer problems.

 - Mr. Tech

Comments(1)