What’s Taking Up Most of the Space On Your Hard Drive?

The general rule of computing is that no matter how large your hard drive is, it will eventually fill up and tell you that it’s out of space. While you can certainly add a new larger hard drive, another option might be cleaning up your old hard drive and get rid of all those giganto files. The problem is how do you “easily” find those large files and folders?

WinDirStat.info is one highly recommended program to do just that.
It may take a while to scan your drives, but when you check back, it will give you a visual picture of what is taking up all that space. Then you can move or delete those files and folders to give yourself more breathing room.

 

 

 

Goodbye Norton Antivirus

I was in the local Best Buy lustfully looking at the new Windows 7 laptops and overheard a conversation about antivirus programs.  The sales associate was trying to encourage the new computer buyer to get the extended anti-virus program so that she would be covered for the next three years. I wanted to butt in and say, “Don’t do it. Microsoft has a free anti-virus program available to download.

Microsoft Security Essentials is highly rated and FREE.

The one thing I don’t like about it is that it seems to run and take up lots of resources when I first start the computer. MSMPENG.EXE is the file that I find running under my processes and taking up 50% of my resources.  Here’s a link which discusses this problem (click here)

Note – this is such a hassle on my XP machine, that I got rid of it and went back to AVG Free 8.5
My Windows 7 machine seems to be fine with MSE.

Sharing Folders in Google Documents

If you use and share Google Documents – this is a new feature they just started.

In the past one could share individual documents with one or people, but now you can share entire folders.

Select the folder you want to share and click on the “Share this folder” link.

Folders that have been shared with you will show up in “Folders shared with me”.

Vacations-Thumb Drives and Security

While vacations are great and thumb drives are great, security goes out the window for many people who haul around their laptop or thumb drive on vacations. If either gets lost or stolen, there’s a good chance the “bad guys” will have access to all your accounts, passwords and banking information.

I’ve found a nice solution by creating an encrypted area on my thumb drive and putting all my sensitive data into that area. How you do it is a bit complicated but not that bad. Here’s a site which explains the process step by step. (click here)

To use the thumb drive, you just plug it into your computer and you will get a popup – choose “Start TrueCrypt Background Task” then OK.
- choose a drive letter – like Z:
- Select File – choose the encrypted file o nthe thrumb drive.
- Select Mount
- Type in your password.
- Exit

Facebook – Removing Entries

I just came across a situation where I wanted to delete one of my Facebook entries. Here’s how to do it.

From the main page click on Profiles.

Then choose Wall.

Now when you hover over an entry, it gives you a “remove” option.

Online Bookmarks

If you’re ever on vacation and are using someone elses computer, it’s always a bit of a pain since you don’t have your computers bookmarks handy. You try to remember all those URL’s, but it’s no use. iKeepBookmarks is one solution. (Thanks to Bev for this tip.)

Your first setup a free account and then import your passwords. While they don’t mention importing Firefox bookmarks, I did it without any problem. Now you’ll have your bookmarks handy no matter where you go or which computer you use.

Do You Like Being Tracked?

Cookies are one way advertisers watch you and collect data on which sites you visit. If you’d like to limit their tracking abilities in Firefox 3.5 , here’s what to do.

Tools – Options – Privacy – Use Custom Settings for History – You can accept cookies and third party cookies, BUT check the box which says – Keep Until I close Firefox.

This way any cookies which do make it onto your computer are deleted when Firefox closes.

Is this Site Safe?

While we generally know that most of the sites we regularly visit are safe, what about sites which we have never visited before?

Google has a nifty tool to let you check out a site BEFORE you start browsing its pages.

Just enter the URL below, but instead of NBC.com, enter the web page you want a report on.

http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=nbc.com

Moving Firefox to a Different Computer

If you have Firefox on more than one computer, it’s a bit of an aggravation when you work on one computer and fix your Firefox addons, settings, bookmarks and toolbars just so, but when you go to your other computer, of course nothing has changed. Rather than going through and manually changing everything again, here’s a solution.

Firefox keeps all of its settings in one profile folder. In XP you can find it under:

C: – Documents and Settings – Your Account Name – Application Data – Mozilla – Firefox – Profiles.

Then just copy the profile to a thumb drive and paste it into your new computer in the same area.

For more details and information on Vista click here.

New Router – Think Security

802.11N has finally been finalized and new routers with the new specs should be hitting the stores soon. If you are planning to upgrade to one the new routers, make sure you follow Leo Laporte’s list of router security tips.

Five steps – 1) rename router, 2) change the default password, 3) turn off Wide Area Network Administration/Internet Administration, 4) Turn on WPA2 encryption with a hard password with numbers and punctuation included, and 5) turn off Universal Plug n Play.