Archive for December, 2006

On the back of most power supplies is a switch with two settings: 115V and 230V. If you are in the United States, you will want to have it at 115V, in Europe, at 230V.

If the proper setting for you is 115V and you set it to 230V, the PC won’t work but it won’t be deadly for your power supply. If you need it to be at 230V and you set it to 115V, you may blow up your computer.

KVM stands for “keyboard, video, mouse”. It allows you to operate two (or more) computers with one keyboard, one monitor, and one mouse. To switch between the two computers, you will have to flip a switch. I can’t think of any uses for this off the top of my head, but with many different companies offering such a product, there must be someone using it.

I think multiple monitors is a better idea.

If you don’t know if Vista will work on your computer, download Microsoft’s Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. It will tell you about compatibility issues and if your computer stacks up to the hefty system requirements.

One of the new features of Internet Explorer 7 that Microsoft is boasting about is the ability to add add-ons to the browser. The add-ons are categorized into 4 categories, Security, Time Savers, Browsers, and Entertainment.

The number and quality of add-ons are limited, and disappointing when compared to Firefox. This is probably because Firefox has a devoted community that is constantly turning out extensions that provide innovative and cool features. Internet Explorer’s add-ons are produced by the company and while they may be useful, they aren’t anything special.

You can .

Most of the time, it does not.

With the prices for new PCs coming down under $400, most used PCs don’t make any sense from a financial standpoint. Head on over to Dell to check out the deals there, and compare them to the used PC offer. Most of the time, you will get a better deal new.

If you decide to buy used make sure you’re getting what they say you are. Make sure you are getting legal versions of software, and that everything you need is included. You probably won’t be getting a warranty, so make a note of that.

If in doubt, buy new.

There is not an option in the Windows control panel to make the NUM LOCK key not activate at startup,

you will need to go under the hood for a few seconds and do some registry editing.

Open regedit by going to the Start Menu, clicking Run, and then typing in regedit.

Browse to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard

Modify the string called InitialKeyboardIndicators, change it from 2 to 0.

Close the editor, and you’re done.

Making sure that the NUM LOCK key doesn’t enable itself at startup is.

To open a previously closed tab, just press SHIFT+CTRL+T.

Note that if you close and then reopen Firefox, the tab history is lost.