See calender with one click

Question: In order to save time, I want to have a look at the calendar with one or two clicks. Hoe can I do this?

Answer: There are two ways in which you can do with Windows Vista.

Method 1 - Just click on the time figure located at the right side of the Task bar. This is the best option.

Method 2 - Place a calender widget on your Vista sidebar. (To see how to add a widget, click HERE) To quickly view the sidebar just click on the sidebar icon in the Current running program icons. See picture below.

Add widget to Vista Sidebar

Question: How do I add a widget to my Vista Sidebar?

Answer: To add a widget, click on the small plus/add button located at the top of the sidebar. In the pop-up window, you will see a range of commonly used widgets. To add a widget, double-click the widget.

NOTE: If there is a widget that you want that is not there, click the ‘Get more gadgets online‘ link. This will direct you to Windows Live Gallery which is a service where you can select different widgets for Vista and also other Windows Live Services.

Drag widgets off sidebar to desktop

Question: How do I make a widget on the Windows Vista sidebar to appear on my desktop instead of on the sidebar.

Answer: To do this, you simply just drag the widget to anywhere on your desktop. It is very simple. Take a look at the screenshot below.

Freeware of the week:Mz Ultimate Tweaker

This week’s freeware pick is called ‘Mz Ultimate Tweaker’. This free program will help to optimize your computer for better performance and productivity. Some things that it does and have are: Hardware tweaks, system tweaks, internet Booster, WMP tweaks, Clean up tools and much more.

Also, this program is certified and received a four star rating from Softpedia.

Please note that this program is only for Windows XP. An equivalent program for Windows Vista will be published next week. For a much more detailed review that looks into the heart of Mz Ultimate Tweaker and the download page, please click HERE

Site Report: Why the slow traffic?

I don’t know why but I am getting very low traffic since yesterday. I normally have 100-200 visitors daily but yesterday, the figures dropped to 69! I was totally shocked! And today, I received even less traffic! What’s going on? I don’t know the answer to this question. If you do, please tell me by making a comment.

[This is a blog status post]

Open a Website Without Typing www and .Com

Question: How do I open a website without typing the www. and .com

Solution: You can avoid typing ‘www’ and ‘com’ by doing the following:

Type the URL of the website with out www. and .com in the address bar. Then press ‘Ctrl+Enter‘. You web browser will automatically add www. and .com for you!
NOTE: But remember, you have to use either Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla Firefox 2.0 +

Pin programs to start menu

Question: How do I pin a program to the start menu so that every time I click the Start button, a short cut for the program will appear.

Answer: You can pin a program tot he start menu by doing the following:
1) Browse through the programs list and right-click the program that you want to the pinned.
2) Click on ‘Pin to Start Menu‘.

The selected program should be now pinned to the Start Menu.

Introduction: Computing in the Clouds

Technology has revolutionized three times more than anything else in the past six years. A couple of years ago, anyone who said ‘the internet is the computer’ must have been mad or at least most of us would consider him/her as mad. But now, it seems that this statement, ‘The Internet is the computer’ is quite true. We do more work online and a lot of more information and data are kept online.

A few examples of computing in the cloud are:

• Working with your email with a web based email service such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail.
• Creating documents and spreadsheets with an online service such as Google Docs or Zoho.
• Storing you data on an online server.

Computing in the cloud services can also be called ‘web 2.0 services’. As we do more and more stuff on the net, we become more and more less reliant on desktop applications such as an email client. Also, this may even affect the operating system we use. For example, I could just have a PC with a Linux OS (Ubuntu is free!) and do all my work online. Although some might complain that desktop applications offer much more features compared to a web 2.0 service. But take a look from the other side and you will discover a whole range of benefits. For a detailed article about what is web 2.o, please click HERE

What’s to come: In Part 2, I will list a whole lot of web 2.0 services and briefly talk about what are their uses. And in Part 3, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of web 2.0 services.

Mark an email read/unread in Gmail or Hotmail

Question: How do I mark a read email unread in Gmail or Hotmail?

Answer: You can mark a read email message unread by doing the following:

For Gmail — 1) Log into Gmail account and select or tick the messages that you want to be marked as read or unread.
2) Click ‘More Actions‘. In the drop down menu, click ‘mark as read‘ to make the select item/s as read mails or click ‘mark as unread‘ to make the selected item/s as unread mail.

For Hotmail — 1) Log into Hotmail account and tick the messages that you want to be marked as unread.
2) Then click the ‘Mark as unread‘ button located in the actions/menu bar.

(I am not sure if Hotmail allows you to mark a message read, when I find out I will update this post)

Freeware of the week: FreeRAM XP Pro

This week’s freeware pick is ‘FreeRAM XP Pro’. This program is to free and optimize your computer’s RAM which will increase your system performance and productivity. It also automatically configures itself for ease of use and also features advanced options. FreeRAM XP Pro is very easy to use and is suitable for both starters and experts. Also, download.com has given FreeRAM XP Pro a rating of 5 stars out of 5! Below are just some of the great features:

* Automatic, real-time memory monitoring and optimization
* Fast, threaded memory freeing with stop option
* AutoFree option intelligently optimizes RAM without sacrificing performance
* system metric and performance monitors
* Advanced tray support
* Memory reporting and diagnostic logging — Plus much more.

To go to FreeRAM XP Pro, please click HERE