Posted in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP by Steve Sinchak
If you own a Google Chromecast streaming device, you can easily share a browser tab in Chrome browser or even your entire desktop. This can be very useful when presenting from your laptop or if you just want to watch something on a big screen that is only on your PC. The only requirement is you must be on the same network as your Chromecast device and using a recent version of the Chrome browser.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
Keeping your Windows PC up to date is the most important thing you can do to keep your personal information secure. In addition, an up-to-date PC is less likely to be infested with malware which is not just bad for you, but its bad to everyone else in the world if it ends up in a botnet. That is why I'm very happy that Microsoft has taken an aggressive approach by automatically installing updates when they become available by default. This is perfect for the average consumer that doesn't want to worry about maintaining yet another thing. But for advanced users that prefer more control, it can be incredibly annoying. So rather than disable automatic updates completely which is just a terrible idea, how about configuring Windows 10 to prompt when an update is ready to be installed?
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
One of the most frequently asked questions I receive about Windows is from users asking to restore the old behavior of Windows Explorer. Upon launch, the old Windows Explorer would simply list your drives compared to the new File Explorer that displays recently/frequently accessed content by default. There were a number of ways to change the launch behavior over the years, my personal favorite was tweaking the Windows Explorer shortcut. In Windows 10, Microsoft finally made it really easy for everyone to customize this setting.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
People are multitasking more than ever and it can be very hard to keep your work and personal life organized. How many of you routinely have dozens of tabs open in your web browser? And how many apps do you have open as well? The different things you are working on are mixed up with everything else making it difficult to switch between the items you are juggling. Virtual Desktops in Windows 10 provide a great way simplify the chaos keep everything organized.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
The integrated malware protection, known as Windows Defender in Windows 10, has come a long way over the years. In the latest version, there is a hidden gem that can protect your computer from annoying junk software that users are tricked into installing. I see this all the time when users download and install Java from Oracle.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
If you installed the Windows subsystem for Linux on your Windows 10 PC so you could run Bash and other Linux apps on Windows 10, I am going to show you some basic maintenance tasks to keep everything up to date and your PC secure. Just like other apps and operating systems, the more software you install the more you need to keep up to date, otherwise you risk running an outdated version that could make your PC vulnerable.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
After using Windows 10 for a few days you may begin to notice suggested app advertisements right on your Start Menu. Microsoft decided to use a small portion of the Start Menu to promote apps in the Windows App Store. This has become a controversial feature that many users want to disable simply because they don’t want ads in their Start Menu. This article will show you two easy methods to disable Start Menu ads on your PC.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
This sounds like an April fool’s day joke, but I am going to show you how to run Bash and other Linux apps on Windows 10 using a hidden feature in the Windows 10 Anniversary release (version 1607). Running Linux on Windows has been possible for a long time with virtualization software, but with the new “Windows Subsystem for Linux” Ubuntu Linux binaries can run directly on Windows without the need for the Linux Kernel running in a VM.
Posted in Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 by Steve Sinchak
Keeping an eye on your system performance is a must for any power user but using Task Manager or Resource Monitor can be inconvenient. In Windows Vista Microsoft created sidebar gadgets that displayed useful performance information on the right side of your screen. Unfortunately, Microsoft pulled the feature from Windows due to “serious vulnerabilities.” Picking up where Microsoft left off, a new utility was created by Ryan K. (ArcadeRenegade) on GitHub called Sidebar Diagnostics. This free utility displays all of the important system performance stats on a sidebar with a simplistic design.
Posted in Windows 10 by Steve Sinchak
Now that all of the parts for the build have arrived, we can begin assembling our ultimate Windows 10 micro PC. As described in part 1, I selected the Lenovo M900 Tiny with the SkyLake based i7-6700T as the foundation for this build. To make this the ultimate micro pc, we will be upgrading the ram to 32 GB, installing a 256 GB M.2 PCI Express 3.0 SSD, and a 1 TB SSD for even more storage.
