PcWorld posts

Top 12 ways to overcome PC disaster

by Ryan Carter May 25th 2007

PC World has put together a round-up of ideas to save you from the worst things that could happen to you. These end-game scenarios include:

These are some of the most frequent problems that an IT technician will be asked to deal with, but if you don't happen to have an IT person to beg and offer your life-savings, PC World has put together articles for each issue that may arise to help you out of your predicament.

You may want to bookmark these articles, or print them out and store them in a firesafe, just so when your PC takes a nose-dive, you'll have something to fall back on. There are a few gems that are not so common knowledge for your triumph over the untimely death of man's "new best friend" (that's the computer if you haven't had enough coffee yet today). Good luck, you're going to need it.

Tags: crash, disaster, fix, pc world, PcWorld, repair

Filed under: Audio, Design, Developer, Internet, Security, Text, Utilities, Video, Web services

101 free applications, 2007 edition

by Chris Gilmer Mar 29th 2007

Once again PC World publishes an article that is packed with tons of great freebies found all across the internet. We covered it last year, and the gang is back at it. From System Utilities, Communications, File Sharing, File Management, Productivity, Music, Photos, and Video its all here.

The 101 freebie list also includes a great People's Choice winners list that is an awesome place to check out what applications come highly rated by actual everyday users. Winners in this category include Ad-Aware SE, Google Gmail, Windows Live Messenger, Nullsoft Winamp, Google Desktop, YouTube and Picasa.

If you are in need of a free application, take a look here first to check out what the top rated ones are.

Tags: 101, communications, file sharing, FileSharing, free, managements, music, pc world, PcWorld, photos, productivity, software, utilities, video

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Freeware

PC World Video

by Ryan Carter Dec 2nd 2006

PC World Video This holiday "gift" for you and yours comes from PC World. Their new video area offers practical guides on the small screen (PC that is) on how to replace a graphics card, set up a wi-fi network, and others. The gift part is that you can enjoy a nearly "my-new-technology-doesn't-work" phone-call free holiday season. Okay, I am dreaming a little bit here, but you get the idea. The videos are fairly good, and actually do offer some help for the average to beginner PC user. There was adequate detail on the video I watched, but it wasn't too drawn out, for example they showed going to the nVidia and ATI websites to download drivers, but since that was self-explanatory they whizzed by it, which was fine with me. These videos are obviously not for the uber-all-hours geeks and modders that hang out here, but for those you invariably end up supporting, most likely during a holiday family gathering, to do it themselves.

Tags: computer, diy, fix-it, how-to, PC world, PcWorld, video

Filed under: Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft

PC World's 100 Best Products of the Year

by Jordan Running May 31st 2006

Now that we've got the worst products ever out of the way, how about the best? PC World is running an article with the past year's 100 best tech products, and I'm tempted to copy-and-paste the whole thing into my wishlist. It's an even mix of hardware, software, and web sites, but since this is a software blog I'll give you a sampling of the latter two (spoiler warning): Adobe Premiere Elements 2, Apple's Boot Camp, Craigslist, Google Earth, and YouTube make up the software half of the top 10, with Firefox and Google following not far behind. The heavy hitters Adobe, Mozilla, Google, Apple, and even Microsoft make a few more appearances, but there's also plenty of one-off products from small vendors holding their own. Oh, and I should mention that Download Squad's sister site Engadget makes the list at #13, right between Firefox and Toshiba's HD-A1 HD DVD player. Congrats!

Tags: 100, adobe, apple, best, firefox, google, hardware, list, microsoft, mozilla, pcworld, roundup, software, tech

Filed under: Fun

PC World's 25 tech products of all time

by Jordan Running May 29th 2006

I dithered quite a bit over posting this link because, well, my employer's dial-up service is on the list, and it ain't near the bottom (and I can't say as I disagree). But what the heck: The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time from PC World is an excellent list of the crappiest of the crappy and the cruftiest of the crufty. A few gems on the list: Windows ME, Microsoft Bob, Internet Explorer 6, and Comet Cursor. It's not all software, though: Lots of hardware flops make the cut, including one that's near and dear to my heart, IBM's PCjr., the first computer I called my own.

Tags: bad, flop, hardware, lemon, list, pcworld, software, tech, top25, worst

Filed under: OS Updates, Security, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Shareware, Freeware, How-Tos

Make XP like Vista

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Apr 13th 2006

Not talking about an Aero-inspired shell. From faster startup to securing your data, PCWorld has some tricks on making XP a little like Vista. It's a healthy mix of free and shareware offerings, though even all the apps together won't cost as much as Vista Starter. Still, this is no replacement for Vista's powerful tools and enhancements, but it makes things a little better until the big release...

Tags: pcworld, vista, xp

Filed under: Web services, Freeware

101 free apps, sites, and services

by Jordan Running Mar 30th 2006

PC World has published an article called 101 Fabulous Freebies which is a round-up of apps, web sites, and services that you can use for free. Their "outrageously useful" tools are broken up into categories like "Tune Up," "Find It," and "Lock It Up," and they're fairly well-chosen, though I'm sure most readers could think of at least a couple things they've left out. It also includes some welcome round-ups of RSS readers, webmail, blogging tools, and video sharing sites. Probably not the last freeware round-up we'll see this year (nor even, if memory serves, the first), but worth a look.

Tags: 101, free, freeware, list, pcworld

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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