BartPE is an exceptional program that strips down all the extra files you don’t need in windows and creates a streamlined version that’s meant to be run from CD or USB. The awesome thing about it is the vast amount of plugins created that act as individual programs. You can have anything from Anti-Spyware programs to network drivers and browsers. If you don’t feel like rummaging through the extensive libraries of plugins, that’s where UBCD4WIN (Ultimate Boot CD for Windows) comes in. With UBCD4WIN, many of the most popular plugins have already been added, which makes your job much simpler.
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With magnetic hard drive prices as low as they are it makes even more sense to backup all of your personal data cross multiple drives. But what about programs and games? CD/DVD cases can take up space after years and years of saving disks and one of the ways I have combated the issue is by making digital backups of important games and programs. Windows can not natively handle this so you have to download a third party program such as ImgBurn to create ISO files (disk image files) but Apple’s OSX has this functionality built in. more…

Ubuntu: The Essentials

So for those who’ve made the dive off the luxurious, expensive non-Flashy ocean liner of Mac or the really determined but admittedly under-performing fishing boat of Windows, there is a nice compromise between command line operating systems and signing your soul over to one of the two behemoths. Ubuntu. Ubuntu is far from perfect out-of-the-box. But after a few tweaks it can get pretty close.
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As a member of a tech support team involving hundreds of other members I am consistently exposed to massive amounts of emails, alerts, and messages flowing into our exchange server that must be personally attended to individually by myself and the other techs, beside my personal inbox and workflow.  These messages are accessed by almost all the members of the team and it can very quickly become difficult to manage what’s coming in and when across an entire department.  Thankfully, the guys over at MAPILab felt the same way, and created Advanced Folders Watch.

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Having driver troubles?  We’ve all been there.  Good news is if you’ve got Windows anything installed, the Windows Update Catalog is your new best friend. more…

Widgets are small desktop applications that open as part of your default computer environment.  They can be used for a wide range of purposes such as clocks, listening to the radio, keeping tabs on sports, stock updates, social networking, playing music, and so on.  There’s a lot of different providers for desktop widgets out there, but in my experience the best provider is Yahoo Widgets. more…

One thing I’ve noticed about torrenting is that the downloaded TV Show filenames can become a disorganized mess. If you’re like me, you want your TV Shows to be as structured as possible. By show, season and episode with episode name. Luckily, there’s a program out there that can do all this for you. more…

If you have Dropbox you know it’s file synchronization and backup abilities are beyond the average backup tool. Our Dropbox Guide shows you how to use Dropbox but lets take it a step further. Lets add torrent files to Dropbox and have them automatically begin downloading. more…

In our previous article, we showed you the ins and outs of BitTorrent, however, knowing the basics of Torrenting only goes so far. Without the proper configurations and an updated tracker list, chances are your downloads will seem sluggish and look like it’ll never complete. If you’ve been plagued with tediously slow download speeds or want to squeak out as much speed as possible with your connection, there are a few quick tips I can give you that can drastically speed up your torrents. more…

We recently covered Downloading Torrents via RSS where you use RSS (Real Simple Syndication) to automatically grab the torrent files to your favorite TV Shows right when they become published but that isn’t all RSS is used for. RSS can also be used to bring all the new updates of your favorite website right to you, instead of constantly going out to those sites looking for new information. With Google Reader you get a centralized place for all your RSS reading needs. more…