Archive for February, 2007

Google Maps has added a great new feature: up-to-date traffic information for major cities. Search for your city, and press the “traffic” button (it’s right next to “map”, “satellite”, and “hybrid”). Google Maps will trace over major roads with color coded lines that correspond to current traffic speeds. If a road is red you can [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/402

doPDF is Windows 2000/XP/Vista software for creating PDF files from any printable document. doPDF is free for both personal and commercial use. Like the similar program PDFCreator, doPDF works by acting as a “virtual printer”. To generate a PDF with doPDF, you follow this basic procedure: Install doPDF (just once). Open the document that you want to [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/399

Now this is interesting: French blogger Simon has implemented a version of Exposé for Windows Vista. Exposé is Mac OS X’s window management application that’s designed to let the user fly around their desktop, managing lots of windows with ease. With Exposé, you can assign actions such as “start screensaver”, or “go to desktop” to [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/398

Blogging is a web publishing format that lends itself well to sites with frequently updated content, and since it’s become so popular, there are a wide variety of software and services that make it an easy scene to get into. There are many different content management systems designed specifically to manage a blog, and they [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/390

Bill Westerman was unhappy with the state of commentary on making the switch from PC to Mac, and so he set out to publish his own, hype-free account of what it’s like to switch. Westerman is true to his word, and shows very little (if any) bias in his article. According to him, this comes [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/389

“The Twenty Minute Guide to PC Security: 20 Tips to Secure Your Box” is an excellent article from IT news & info site IT Security that covers 20 practical tips for increasing the level of safety and security of your daily computing habits. Many readers take these sorts of articles with a grain of salt, because [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/386

Virb is a new social networking website, similar to services like MySpace and Friendster. The folks at Virb are in the final stages of beta testing, and are getting ready to release their product unto the world. From a quick glance, Virb appears to be a polished version of the current social networking sites. Virb offers [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/385

Readers commenting on “Superfast Spelling Corrections with Firefox” offered up this great shortcut: hold CTRL and press K, and you’ll send the cursor up to the search box in Firefox. I previously just hit CTRL+L and then TAB, but hey, one less key to press is one less key to press. Some other Firefox keyboard shortcuts [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/382

Ah, Windows XP Notification Area Balloons — a well meaning feature that annoys more often than not. Download Squad hits on a particular notification balloon that can get to you after a while — the “Low Disk Space” warning. If you’ve got a hard drive (or drives) that are nearing their capacity, XP will pop-up [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/380

If it ain’t new, well, it’s new to me — you can play mp3 attachments directly in GMail. The next time you receive an e-mail with an attached audio file, you’ll see a “Play” link next to the attachment’s icon. Click on that “Play” link, and a flash audio player will open up in a [...]

http://www.ofzenandcomputing.com/zanswers/379