Desktop wallpaper is one of the best ways to personalize your computer. And one of the best topics for desktop wallpaper is space. These 30 images are from NASA and their associate agencies and research organizations.
For the best results, click the image below and navigate to the highest resolution image we have. That higher-resolution image is the one you should use as desktop wallpaper.
When it comes to conserving energy, every little bit helps. Using
your power management features helps you cut down on wasted kilowatts.
Using a power strip for all your components, unplugging things from the
wall when you’re not using them, and monitoring your usage with hardware
and software utilities will help you reduce energy consumption. In
addition to these energy-management best practices, you can resolve to
go green for any PC purchases and upgrades you make in the future.
For new purchases…
1: Do some pre-shopping research
Depending on what you do with computers, you may be attracted to a
particular system for a variety of reasons. Maybe you want a superfast
machine. Perhaps you want something with high-end graphics for gaming
and video. Or maybe a PC with the latest and greatest capabilities or
the smallest carbon footprint tops your shopping list.
Whatever system catches your eye — and for whatever reason — a little
research will help you find out (1) whether the computer is Energy Star
rated; (2) how much energy the computer uses; and (3) what kind of
options the computer offers for power management. You should be able to
find this information on the manufacturer’s site. But if not, search for
user ratings and reviews and check some of the site recommendations
listed later in this article.
2: Detox your computer purchase
The amount of energy your computer consumes is only one aspect of
greening your computer purchases. The question of what types of
materials and chemicals are used to produce the equipment is also
important. Again, you should be able to find some statement — perhaps
called a hazardous material use policy — on the company’s Web site.
Generally speaking, avoid devices that include lead. (Most vendors are
already addressing this problem metal.)
There are many other chemicals and compounds to watch out for,
including mercury, brominated flame retardants (BFR), polyvinyl chloride
(PVC), cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and
pentabromodiphenyl ether (PBDE). The European Union is several paces
ahead of the United States in terms of its Restriction of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS) directive. If you’re in the U.S., you need to do the
research largely on your own.
3: Cut though the greenwashing
One thing we know about anything that captures our attention:
Microsoft's Windows 8 dominated countless headlines in the weeks leading up to its launch late last month, but October saw the debut of another major operating system as well.
Canonical's Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" arrived a week ahead of its competitor, in fact, accompanied by a challenge: "Avoid the pain of Windows 8." That slogan appeared on the Ubuntu home page for the first few hours after the OS's official launch, and attracted considerable attention.
Apparently Canonical decided to tone down its message later in the day—the slogan now reads "Your wish is our command"—but it seems fair to say that the underlying challenge remains. Ubuntu comes with a variety of software packages, including Firefox, Thunderbird, and the full-featured productivity suite LibreOffice.
Window of opportunity
Ubuntu is a widely popular open-source Linux distribution with eight years of maturity under its belt, and more than 20 million users. Of the roughly 5 percent of desktop OSs accounted for by Linux, at least one survey suggests that about half are Ubuntu. (Windows, meanwhile, accounts for about 84 percent.)
The timing of this latest Ubuntu release couldn't be better for Windows users faced with the paradigm-busting Windows 8 and the big decision of whether to take the plunge.
Initial uptake of Windows 8 has been unenthusiastic, according to reports, and a full 80 percent of businesses will never adopt it, Gartner predicts. As a result, Microsoft's big gamble may be desktop Linux's big opportunity.
So, now that Canonical has thrown down the gauntlet, let's take a closer look at Ubuntu 12.10 to see how it compares with Windows 8 from a business user's perspective. Perhaps the biggest surprise for many users of Windows 8's mobile-style Modern UI is that it has no Start button.
1. Unity vs. Modern UI
Both Microsoft and Canonical have received considerable flak for the default user interfaces in their respective OSs. In Microsoft's case, of course, it's the Modern UI, formerly known as Metro; in Canonical's case, it's Unity. Both are designed with touchscreens in mind, and borrow heavily from the mobile world.
By removing the Start button and overhauling the way users interact with the operating system, Windows 8's Modern interface poses a considerable challenge for users, who face a significant learning curve. Unity, on the other hand, became a default part of Ubuntu back in April 2011 with Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal.” It has definitely undergone growing pains, but more than a year has passed, and Canonical has revised the interface accordingly. Although it still has numerous critics, most people concede that it has matured and improved. Some observers, in fact, have even suggested that it may feel more familiar to many longtime Windows users than does Windows 8. One advantage of Ubuntu Linux is that it supports multiple workspaces.
2. Customizability
Linux has long been known for its virtually limitless customizability, but given the current controversy surrounding desktop interfaces, that feature has become more salient than ever.
This is a point on which Windows 8 and Ubuntu differ considerably.
Generally Ubuntu Linux is hardly effected by virus and the reason is its structure and strong community support, any loopholes are worked immediately. For every new virus, its solution is out within two hours thus preventing it to do any further damage. Linux antivirus are also effective against the Windows virus and they are removed if they enter your systems through external hard drive, internet etc.
Top 5 Ubuntu Linux antivirus I recommend are:
1. ClamAV Antivirus
ClamAV is the most popular open source anti-virus software and it is available for both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Its GUI interface is called Clamtk.
It can be install from the software center or in terminal type
$sudo apt-get install clamav clamtk
2. Free Avast Linux Home Edition
This is Free version of popular proprietary Antivirus Avast. It requires online registration for 1 year use. It is not available for commercial use.
Your Windows Phone 8 can’t connect to all cloud services, but it can connect to enough of them to keep most mobile users happy. One such service is Box, which is unique in the world of cloud sync/storage in that it’s clearly geared toward the world of business. With the addition of Personal and Enterprise plans, Box has nearly everyone covered for cloud storage — and Windows Phone users are no exception.
Box offers a solid mobile app for the Windows Phone 8 that includes some unique features, including:
Powerful preview tool
Support for Office documents and PDFs
Pin files as live tiles
View and edit file descriptions
Comment on documents
Share files
The one caveat to the Windows Phone 8 Box client is its inability to upload any type of file other than images. Other than that one weakness, Box is an outstanding cloud sync/storage service for your Windows Phone 8.
Installation
As with most mobile app installations, getting Box on your Windows Phone 8 is simple. Just follow these steps:
Samsung has created an entire line of Android phones and tablets that use the "S Pen" to allow manual input on the screen. The most recent tablet offered was the Galaxy Note 10.1. Thecompany has announced that the anticipated smaller slate, the Note 8.0, will sell beginning April 11 at major retailers. The price will be $399, making it competitive with the iPad mini it is obviously taking on directly.
The Note 8.0 has impressive hardware, including the 8-inch touch display running at a resolution of 1280x800. The S Pen is fully supported with a collection of apps from Samsung designed to take advantage of drawing and handwriting on the screen.
Samsung has placed a quad-core processor (1.6GHz) in the Note 8.0, and a 4,600mAH battery to keep things running for "up to 9 days". We'll have to see that in practice to believe it.
Samung has stated that the Note 8.0 is preloaded with "content and services valued at over $200, including 50GB of free Dropbox storage for 2 years, 1 month free of unlimited music streaming in Samsung's Music Hub". There's also microSD slot to store all that content, something the iPad mini lacks.
The tablet is not showing up on Amazon yet, so anxious buyers may have to wait until the 11th, as stated. Until then, theofficial Note 8.0 websitehas all the information you need. The Note 8.0 is only available in white, and has a MSRP of $399. It will be available at Amazon, Best Buy/Best Buy Mobile, hh gregg, Newegg, PC Richard & Son, Staples, and TigerDirect.com.
Would you prefer to have Windows 8 bypass the Start Screen and boot
straight to the desktop? If so, you can do so using a technique that
takes advantage of a feature that is built right into the operating
system - no third-party tools required. All you have to do is create a
specially configured task that is scheduled to run at log on.
In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps required to make
Windows 8 boot straight to the desktop using a specially configured
scheduled task.
Some background
If you were working with/testing Windows 8 during the Preview/Beta
period, you may know that a similar trick allowed you to make Windows 8
boot straight to the desktop and that the loophole that allowed that trick was closed when the Windows 8 code was finalized.
As you may recall, in previous versions of Windows, a special
shortcut called Show Desktop appeared on the Quick Launch menu. This
shortcut was a standard text file that contained five lines of code and
was saved with the file extension SCF. The fifth line of that code was Command=ToggleDesktop.
During the Preview/Beta period, it was discovered that if you
recreated that shortcut in Windows 8 and set it up as a scheduled task
that ran at log on, the operating system would run the SCF file and boot
to the desktop rather than the Start Screen. Once the Windows 8 code
was finalized, that particular shortcut was no longer recognized by the
operating system. Whether Microsoft did that on purpose or whether the
contents of the SCF represented legacy code that was never intended to
be a in the final code is unknown.
In any case, it seemed there would be no way to get Windows 8 to boot
to the desktop without a third-party tool, such as Stardock’s Start8 utility, which, once installed, bypasses the Start Screen as well as revives the Start Menu.
Convinced that there had to be another way to make Windows 8 boot to
the desktop using a scheduled task, I began experimenting with different
shortcuts and executables. Then, it dawned on me that explorer.exe is
still the heart and soul of the Windows desktop. I figured that if
anything could trump the Start Screen, it would be explorer.exe. So I
tried it and found that it worked.
During my experimentation with this technique, I haven’t found any
serious side effects or other problems. However, that doesn’t mean that
sometime down the road, Microsoft might release a patch that will
disable or even invalidate this technique.
Getting started
To begin you’ll need to launch the Task Scheduler tool. To do so,
just press the [Windows] key, type Schedule, select Settings, and click
Schedule tasks, as illustrated in Figure A. When you do, the Task Scheduler will appear.
Figure A
Accessing Task Scheduler from the Start Screen is easy.
In the information-saturated times we live in, I think most
of us try to take shortcuts any way we can. It’s why some people flock
to YouTube videos to watch a how-to tip before they’ll slog through
hundreds of words of prose meant to guide them along a technique.
Charts are sometimes a godsend for those
just-give-me-the-info-as-quickly-as-you-can people. For their sakes,
we’ve created a chart that compares the features of four of the leading
smartphones in the U.S. market now.
So, if you just want a quick answer on which smartphones have
removable storage or which ones offer the best battery life, take a look
at the chart below (you can click on the chart to enlarge the image).
In the ever-growing world of cloud sync/storage/services, it’s becoming more important to be able to manage and access those cloud services from your mobile device. But when you have multiple clouds you connect to, it can quickly become a hassle to manage. That is, unless you take advantage of a cloud management tool like SME Cloud File Manager.
With SME Cloud File Manager, you can:
Manage multiple clouds in a single view
Copy/paste files from one cloud to another using the Cloud Clipboard
Sync to and from a device
Upload local files by turning the app into a HTTP or FTP server
Upload file, photos, videos, etc
Create Text Notes directly in the app and sync to any cloud
Downloaded files are available on the device until deleted
Open files directly from the cloud into other apps
View documents directly in a web browser
Share files via email, Twitter, or choose secure sharing with link expiry
Share multiple links
Create Sharing Groups (for collaboration)
Search for files across multiple clouds
Add/delete/manage your cloud providers in real time
SME Cloud File Manager supports the following cloud services:
Outlook is one of the most widely used email clients in the business world. But with more smaller-sized companies starting to migrate to other, cheaper, solutions a lot of users are finding email clients that handle the tasks, without the headaches (and cost) that often accompany Outlook.
Email clients offer a variety of features; some features map perfectly to Outlook, some may not. Some email clients offer calendars, some stick with just the basics. In the end, what's important is that you find a client not only offers you what you need, but does so reliably and within your budget. I've found five solid email clients to help you migrate away from Outlook. Give these a look and see which one(s) might work.
1 Opera Mail
Opera Mail is one of those clients that surprise a lot of people. Most have heard of the Opera browser, few know about the mail client. That is a shame as Opera Mail is quite solid, supports POP, IMAP (no Exchange support), newsgroups, RSS, and Atom feeds.
Opera Mail has a nice list of features: Threaded views, spam protection, allows you to browse websites within tabs, and has a very simple (and lightning fast) user interface. Opera Mail is free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
2. Dreammail
Dreammail is another lesser-known client that plays well with POP3 (no support for IMAP or Exchange) and allows you to set up and use multiple accounts and multiple-users.
I think a lot of people think of LinkedIn
as just a more staid version of social networking. And I think the
gainfully employed often neglect their LinkedIn pages in favor of its
more scintillating cousin, Facebook. After all, would you rather hear
who a former colleague is now connected to or read trash-talking among
your Facebook friends?
Okay, maybe that’s just me.
The fact is, LinkedIn is a great tool for what are perhaps the most
important aspects of searching for a job-networking and online presence.
And with the addition of some new LinkedIn apps, these have become
tasks have become even easier to do.
First of all, you can put your work profile up there for the world to
see. While you still should send targeted resumes for positions you
want to apply for, LinkedIn gives everyone a snapshot of your
capabilities. So if a potential employer is just looking around before
he or she even posts an opening, you’re out there. Here are some tips
for using LinkedIn to its greatest advantage:
Avoid overused keywords just as you would on a resume
LinkedIn late last year released its top 10 overused buzzwords used in U.S. member-profiles. Avoid:
Given the extent of development both Google Apps and Microsoft’s
Office 365 have gone under recently, or just the sheer volume of
features each service now offers, deciding which “office cloud” might be
best suited for your small business or enterprise has become an
extremely daunting task, abounding with risk. There are a number of
factors to consider in order to avoid actually harming an organization’s
productivity or drowning it in sunk costs and unforeseen expenditures.
Furthermore, there are other trade-offs to choosing one service over the
other, which go well beyond the basic set of productivity tools each
offer — SLAs, application support, and maybe, especially, user culture
and adoption. To
help lessen the apprehension with choosing Google Apps over Office 365,
or vice versa, I’ll be creating a series of posts that will go over
virtually every nook and cranny of each service. Additionally, I’ll pit
the analogous features against one another in order to describe how one
might be better suited for enterprises of small, medium and/or large
size, or just explain how one might simply outperform the other. I’ll do
this by way of a downloadable comparison chart
(Excel format), which I’ll describe briefly below. You can also find an
attached template of the chart that you might want to use/fill-in on
your own, conducting your own research.
First, we’ll look at the most basic office applications, productivity and document management apps.
Productivity applications
The applications that both Google Apps and Office 365 are most known
for are their productivity suite apps that include a word processing,
presentation, and spreadsheet software. These applications are known as
Google Docs under Google Apps, and Office Web Apps under Office 365.
Both suites also include
I am constantly being asked to improve the speed of someone's computer because "it's too slow". But did you know there are several things you can do to improve the speed of your Windows 7 computer without the need of a tech? So here's a list of 10 things you can do to improve the performance of your Windows 7 computer.
1: Disable unnecessary services
Not every system service that is running on a stock Windows 7 machine is necessary. A number of services can either be disabled or modified to run only when needed. Once you make these changes, the service no longer has to consume system resources and the system no longer has to spend time starting the service. Earlier this year, I wrote an article here at TechRepublic titled 10+ Windows 7 services you may not need.
2: Reduce the number of startup items
Windows 7 systems eventually begin to suffer under the weight of software that is installed in the normal course of business. Many software titles install more than is necessary and include helper applications designed solely to make the software start up more quickly or facilitate other communication (e.g., iTunes helper). And new software installations might add a permanent presence to the system tray, even if it’s not absolutely necessary for the system to function (Steam games, for example).
You could go through your system tool by tool and remove the offending software, but you might want to keep the underlying tool around and just prevent the helper from loading. This and more can be accomplished through the use of MSconfig, a tool that has long been a part of Windows. MSconfig allows you to selectively disable startup items and take other steps toward improving overall system performance.
To use MSconfig, go to Start and in the search box, type MSconfig. From the Startup tab (Figure A), you can disable items. Just be careful about what you choose.
You can use Word to create a simple To Do list. If you like, you can even print checkbox controls next to each item. There are two ways to add checkbox controls and how you’ll use them determines which method you’ll use.
Only for printing (content control below)
If you plan to print your list and use a pen or pencil to mark each item as you complete it, you can add checkbox controls instead of bullets, as follows:
Select the list.
Click the Home tab if necessary.
Click the Bullets dropdown in the Paragraph group. (Don’t just click the option; doing so will automatically insert the default bullet.)
At Bulldog IT Solutions we do free small business network consultations? Contact us to find out more.
Did you know?
Not all IT people are weird? No it's true. At Bulldog IT Solutions you'll find you like not only how we repair your IT related problems but how we are completely normal...like you!
Did you know?
The average life span of a PC or Server is 24-36 months? As your IT consultants we can help you get the most out of your equipment and help you identify problem areas so you're not wasting valuable resources.
