Computers and hardware

How you may have inadvertently participated in recent DDoS attacks

The risk that an Internet-connected computer is infected with malware will never be reducible to zero. It's just the nature of software that errors happen. Where there are software-design errors, there are people who will exploit those errors to their advantage.

The best PC users can hope for is to minimize the chances of an infection and to mitigate the damage a piece of malware can inflict -- whether it intends to steal a user's sensitive data or to commandeer the machine as part of a cyber attack on servers thousands of miles away.

Last week, Internet users … Read more

Change your Notification Center sound

When you receive a notification in Apple's Notification Center for Mountain Lion, the system will use the built-in "Basso" sound. If you do not want this sound to play whenever you receive a notification, then you have a couple of options.

The first is to disable the sound completely, which can be done on a per-application basis in the Notifications system preferences. Simply select an application and then uncheck the "Play sound when receiving notifications" option, which should silence it.

Unfortunately this is a relatively limited option and one that requires you to change it … Read more

How to manage transparencies in Preview

Transparency in images files can be quite convenient, especially if you need to place the same image over different backgrounds and want it to properly blend in. While having a white or other solid color background may help you view the image on the screen, with this setup if you embed it in a document with a different-color background then the white will stand out as an obtrusive rectangle.

To help reduce this, you can both manually remove backgrounds from images using Apple's Preview application or use a transparent canvas to compile images that already contain transparency.

To create … Read more

How to find truly free wireless access

You're in the middle of a city park. You're at a rest stop on the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe you're simply in your living room. You turn on your computer and have instant, secure access to the Internet without requiring any network cables or log-ins -- or even any payment to an ISP.

Yeah, right.

Ubiquitous, free, and safe Internet access is a long, long way off, and many skeptics believe such a day will never arrive. The glass-half-full among us will point out that the number of people … Read more

Home networking explained, part 5: Setting up a home router

Editors' note: This post is part of an ongoing series. For the other parts, check out the related stories section below.

It might seem like a daunting task to set up a new home router. But it doesn't have to be if you understand the most common way routers are managed: through the Web interface. The hardest part of using the Web interface is getting to it. Once you have gotten there, the rest, at least most of it, is self-explanatory.

Note: Almost all home routers on the market come with an Web interface, which is a Web page … Read more

Five things to consider before buying LED bulbs

As your incandescents burn out, it's a good time to consider switching to LED bulbs. By now, you probably know that LEDs have an impressive lifespan (20-something years!) and are very cost-effective. You probably also know that they're a pricey investment that can run five times more expensive than incandescents.

Despite the cost, now's the right time to switch to LEDs. These bulbs have made significant advances over the last few years, finally delivering the warm light incandescents have comforted us with for decades.

More than ever, there is also an overwhelming number of LED varieties, and … Read more

How to unlink a file type in OS X

For every application installed on your Mac, OS X will scan its document-handling capabilities and store them in its Launch Services database, which it then uses to pair up document types with the applications that are built to handle them. Therefore, if you install a new image-handling tool on your system, when you right-click image files or get information on them you should see this program be available in the "Open With" section as an optional handling program.

This service is convenient for ensuring that documents can be opened directly from the Finder; however, it assumes you always … Read more

Tackle IMAP e-mail not being stored on server

Apple's Mail e-mail client supports a number of different messaging protocols including POP and IMAP, but if you convert an existing account from POP to IMAP then you may run into a problem in which e-mails are longer saved on the server.

MacFixIt reader Bruce recently wrote in with such a situation:

I have recently tried to convert my wife's AOL email from POP to IMAP. I did this by adding a new account in Mail. When she sends messages with the new account, the sent messages do not show up on the server, even though I have … Read more

Fix 'Connection to Twitter failed' when tweeting from OS X

A while back Twitter announced that any URLs being shortened by its t.co service were going to cost users two extra characters. When you only have a 140 characters to begin with, the extra characters could be disastrous when trying to get your point across in a tweet.

It seems Apple didn't take the change into account with its integration of Twitter in OS X Mountain Lion. I discovered this when attempting to tweet a link from Safari. According to the tweet sheet, I had composed a perfect tweet, using up my entire 140-character allotment.

But every time … Read more