Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

That annoying language bar that takes up taskbar space has a tendency to reappear any time you upgrade Internet Explorer or Outlook.

I know NO ONE who uses it, yet Microsoft insists on polluting our desktops with it.

This short video shows How to Get Rid of the Language Bar in Windows XP, and even how to get it back if you do need it.

If you have upgraded Internet Explorer to version 7 you probably found that the Internet Explorer icon is no longer on the desktop. According to Microsoft, that is by design.

If, however, you want it there, here is how to get the internet explorer icon back on the desktop.

I have long recommended Mozilla Firefox as the web browser of choice. But for those foolish sites requiring Internet Explorer to work properly, you will want IEView to have Firefox automatically open IE for you so you can use bookmarks, etc in Firefox and not have to remember which sites need IE to work properly.

This short video shows how to install and use IEView:

This video shows how I recovered favorites, Word macros stored in Normal.dot and Outlook names from the good hard drive of a computer whose motherboard failed.

All of the data from this corporate workstation is appropriately stored on the server and backed up, but users like these “convenience” items and typically have no clue where or how they are stored.

Recovering these lost files made one user very happy.

I used the Vantec SATA/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter to retrieve the files easily.

Here I describe some changes in my life as I transition to making money online while working from home.

And in it, I ask you a very important question.

Clicking this link could change your life.

Green is in. And everyone wants to save money on their power bill. If your hard drives last longer as a result, then that’s an added benefit (mean time between failures; reduce “time”, reduce failures).

With your Netgear ReadyNAS network attached storage device you can set it to automatically spin down the hard drives after a defined period of inactivity.

This short video shows how. (Uploaded in HD, easier to read the screen if you view in larger format.)

This short video shows how you can check your hard drive health and smart status in a Netgear ReadyNAS network attached storage device (NAS).

You might be getting this error message, but only if you login to your device admin panel:

Video was uploaded in HD, will be easier to read the screen if viewed in the larger format.

I normally don’t like Microsoft too much, as I explain in the video.

But sometimes you have to give credit where due.

Check out my video review of the new Bing search engine from Microsoft

People like easy passwords, people like simple systems.

Today’s news tells us that Governor Palin’s Yahoo email that she foolishly used for official business was hacked. They don’t know how yet, she may have been duped by a forged email into revealing her password (which you should never do anyway) or maybe by asking her to change it via a forged website.

It’s also possible that they got the password sent to them by Yahoo! since many of her private information is public knowledge – birthday, etc.

My advice is to NEVER use real information when signing up for one of these services. Use a password safe to store all of this information in.

And do not ever assume that what you send in an unencrypted email is private. Hackers and good ‘ol Uncle Sam can get it. Maybe even an IT person at your company or ISP.

Should you maybe take a look at some privacy software made easy?

There are new video formats on the web all the time, and even some of the old tried and true websites change the way the video is handled. (Even YouTube continues to evolve.)

I like to download videos so that I can watch them uninterrupted and to play later for myself or a family member and not deal with the download time or the bandwidth usage a second time.

You might also guess that I don’t watch many Yahoo! videos, since they seldom play promptly – if at all. And no way I know of to download them.

I just updated my video download page on the website with a great new FireFox add-on that works on every site I have tried except Yahoo!

And it’s so simple to use. Just click the rotating balloon type button next to the address bar. It will come alive if there is a video on the page.