I am a regular user of the Alexa Toolbar. This toolbar monitors browsing habits and sends information back to Alexa to help them determine the most popular websites. Because of what it does, some people consider the Alexa Toolbar to be spyware. However, it doesn't do anything malicious, when you install it, you should be aware of what it is doing. Spyware Doctor, an anti-spyware program decided that the Alexa Toolbar was spyware and removed it from my system. It didn't do it the friendly way by running the uninstaller provided by Alexa; instead it entered the ...

Your Choice of Password May Be Letting You Down Passwords. We have them everywhere now. Whether it's the PIN (Personal Identification Number) for your ATM card, the password that logs you into your email account, or to set up your Internet Router, we have this need for security that our money, our personal details and our private information is kept away from people we'd rather not let near them. However, your choice of password can let you down and even though you think you are safe, you could be leaving the doors wide open to unsavoury characters who don't think ...

When you unpacked your PC the first time you got it home, or it was installed in your office, it worked like a dream. The system started quickly, programs opened quickly, did their job as expected and closed down with no problems. Then after a few months, or maybe even weeks, the rot set in. Your PC started taking ages to start up, programs took an age to open and load your data, and then to add insult to injury, takes an eternity to close down. So what's going on? Why the big difference in performance? And more ...

As operating systems and software applications get bigger and bigger, we often find that we need to install more system memory (RAM) in our PCs.  Worse still, we may find that our PC motherboard won't support any more, so we need to upgrade that, too. So we head down to our local computer store and the salesman convinces us to buy 8Gb of RAM, and maybe a new motherboard in which to install it. Back home, upgrade completed, we power up, expecting our operating system and software to luxuriate in the relative ocean of 8Gb of memory. But wait!  What's this?  Windows tells me I have only 4Gb ...