Workers' Edge

Combine your Firefox bookmarks and IE favorites

Dennis O'Reilly — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

For most people, browsing is an either-or proposition: they use either Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox. But I'm betting there's a bunch of people like me who find themselves spending time in both browsers, often simultaneously.

The problem is, my list of Firefox bookmarks bears ...

Fix glitches by updating your software

Dennis O'Reilly — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, my notebook lost its ability to connect to AT&T's 3G data network. Downloading and installing the latest version of the company's communications management application restored the network link. (I had to use the notebook's built-in Wi-Fi adapter to download the ...

'Internet safety' may be an oxymoron

Dennis O'Reilly — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

To the short list of life's certainties--death and taxes--we can now add "Web threats."

Early indications are that there will be no quick fix for clickjacking, which enables a PC to be infected with malicious software simply by clicking a disguised link on a Web page. All browsers are ...

Fine-tune Vista's indexing options

Dennis O'Reilly — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

After finding my post from last March about tweaking Vista's index locations, a reader sent me five questions. I don't have the person's name or e-mail address, so I'm going to respond in this post and hope they're still reading.

"Please advise step-by-step how to ...

Use Web apps offline with Google Gears

Dennis O'Reilly — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

My laptop's wireless 3G connection has been crapping out for over a week now. It works for a while, and then it quits. I don't know why. I don't know when it will be fixed, if ever.

I only know that when I'm on the road, ...

Print your Outlook contacts as mailing labels

Dennis O'Reilly — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

A friend asked if it's possible to print a subset of the addresses in her Microsoft Outlook contacts as mailing labels. You would think that such a basic operation would be a breeze for an industrial-strength personal-information manager like Outlook. You would think wrong.

The first bit of counter-intuitivity ...

Get more out of Windows' Snipping Tool

Dennis O'Reilly — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

For many Windows users, the only screen-capture tools they'll ever need are the Print Screen key (in conjunction with the Alt key when they want to capture only the active window) and Windows' own Paint utility.

Others need the industrial-strength features of a commercial screen-grab utility such as TechSmith'...

Five quick-and-simple Microsoft Word timesavers

Dennis O'Reilly — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

You can use Microsoft Word for years and still find new ways to get more work done in less time. Here are a handful of fast-and-easy productivity boosters.

Create outlines out of lists
Word 2007 adds a handy outline list to the standard bullet and numbered lists available on Word ...

Firefox add-on maps the sites you visit

Dennis O'Reilly — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Last May, I described the CallingID add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser. It lets users see at a glance the address or location of the server hosting the site their visiting, and it even offers a color-coded security rating.

Unfortunately, the add-on doesn't work with Firefox 3, and the ...

Improve Vista's performance a little or a lot

Dennis O'Reilly — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Vista won't win any popularity contests, but even with its faults, I'll take the most recent version of Windows over any of the predecessors. My biggest beef with Vista is that it's slow. At least the OS makes it easy to optimize your system for peak performance. ...