Author Archives: Woody Leonhard

Since the debut of Windows 95, the Start menu has offered an easily navigated and extensible haven for all the programs we don’t use every day.

In Part 1 of a series of stories on getting the most out of Windows’ Start menu, we start with the basics: pinning applications, folders, and files.

Like it or not — and I know that some of you don’t — tablets are changing the way the world works and plays. Whether it’s an iPad, Kindle, Nook, or a tablet based on Google’s Android OS, mobile devices are swirling across the computing landscape. Here’s how to pick the right one.

If you’ve ever struggled with your PC’s BIOS — or been knee-capped by a rootkit that assailed the BIOS — you undoubtedly wondered why this archaic part of every PC wasn’t scrapped long ago. Well, be of good cheer: Windows 8 will finally pull the PC industry out of the BIOS generation and into a far more capable — and controversial — alternative, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

Microsoft’s newly released beta version of Windows Defender Offline, a rootkit-sniffing and Windows-rehabilitation tool, should be the latest addition to your bag of Windows-repair tricks. WDO should be able to catch a wide variety of nasties that evade detection by more traditional antivirus methods.

A YouTube video by Trevor Eckhart documents a litany of privacy-busting transgressions made by Carrier IQ, a software program factory-installed on mobile phones.

Almost every news outlet in the U.S. seems to have run the story about Carrier IQ as if 1984 had finally arrived, with Big Brother (in large, corporate form) working the phones — our smartphones in this case. But is that view accurate?

Floods in Thailand — and an ensuing worldwide purchasing panic — have pushed the price of hard drives to nosebleed heights and left us all with fewer choices. Here’s what you need to know about the crisis, the fallout, and what you can do about it.

You can find no end of advice on creating strong passwords, using clever tricks, stats, mnemonics, and such. But all too frequently we (and I include myself in this rebuke) tend to reuse little passwords at what we think are inconsequential sites. It’s a big mistake — here’s why.

Most of the Windows utilities we talk about in the Windows Secrets Newsletter help you work faster or better or smarter, but Windows Event Viewer doesn’t fall into that category. A powerful diagnostic tool, Event Viewer is now being used by online support scammers who make big bucks preying on people’s fears.