Tips

Print Part of an E-mail Message
Submitted by Joe Howle

Open the e-mail message. Hold down the left mouse button and hi-light the part of the message you want to print. With the part of the e-mail message hi-lighted go to Print. When the print pop-up box appears, under Print Range select Selection and click OK. This will still print the header (your name, from, to, sent, and subject). It will also print the footer (date). But it will only print the part of the e-mail that you hi-lighted. This also works on WEBSITES.

Copy E-mail Message to a Word Document and Print
Submitted by Joe Howle

Open the e-mail message. Hold down the left mouse button and hi-light the part of the message you want to print. With the message hi-lighted press the right mouse button and in the pop-up box select Copy. Close the message and minimize (or close) the e-mail program. Open Microsoft Word. Pick Edit from the top bar, and select Paste Special. From the paste special box select Unformatted Text and OK. You now have a Word Document. Select Print and it will print the document as shown. If you want to save this document, go to File and select Save As and select where you want it saved and give it a file name. If you don’t want to save the document, Exit and select No in the pop-up box. Copying and pasting also work in any program or website.

Eliminating Spam and Protecting Your Privacy
Submitted by John McClanahan

When sending multiple mailings, always send as Bcc: (blind carbon copy), and encourage your friends to do the same. This will prevent other people from stealing your e-mail address, since the addresses will not be visible. Open a new email message. At the top, click View and click All Headers. Then Bcc will show up in every message.

Never unsubscribe to unwanted mail. You are only verifying their mail is being received. Instead, use an anti-spam program that will "bounce" unwanted e-mail. This will give the sender the impression that your e-mail address is no longer valid, and your name will be removed from their mailing list. MailWasher is a free program that will do this. To further prevent your e-mail address get a free Yahoo Mail account (go to yahoo.com to sign up) and use it when signing up for anything on the Web. And never use your real email address on a website!

Check to see how much disk space you have left
Submitted by Phil Hemby

You can check to see how much disk space is free on your hard drive by simply looking in My Computer. To do this: Double-click on the my computer icon. Right-click the icon of the drive whose disk space you want to check. Click Properties. A nice pie chart will appear with the information.

Where's My Window? (all Windows versions)
Submitted by Judy Howle

Sooner of later you'll try to reposition a window on your screen and you sneeze. Your hand jerks and you accidentally drag your window off your screen and out of reach. If you have young children then you likely know what type of mess their little hands and fingers can make of your desktop. Whatever the cause, if your application window has been dragged off the screen, try this: Press ALT and the spacebar. Next, type the letter 'm' (this will activate the Move function). With the arrow keys on your keyboard, slowly nudge the window towards the center of your screen. When you can access the title bar with your mouse, drag it to a safe place.

Set Up a New File
Submitted by Joe Howle

Open Explorer. Right-click on the Start button and click Explore. Select the drive you want the file to be under (in). Pick File from the top bar, select New, and then Folder. A box will appear that has New Folder in it, it will be hi-lighted. With it hi-lighted type what you want this new folder to be called. After typing the new name hit enter. If you want to make changes to the file name, right click on it and select Rename. Make the changes and hit enter. You now have a new file to put documents in.

FREE Anti Spyware & Security Tools
Submitted by Judy Howle

ZoneAlarm This firewall keeps watch over inbound and outbound Internet connections, helping avert attacks by hackers and spyware programs. It offers greater control and is easier to use than Windows XP's built-in firewall. Make sure that you download the basic firewall, which is free for personal and nonprofit use, instead of the trial version of ZoneAlarm Pro.

SpywareBlaster can help keep your system spyware-free and secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web.

SpywareGuard provides a real-time protection solution against spyware that is a great addition to SpywareBlaster's protection method.

WinPatrol uses a heuristic approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computing environment. Traditional security programs scan your hard drive searching for previously identified threats. WinPatrol takes snapshot of your critical system resources and alerts you to any changes that may occur without your knowledge. You'll be removing dangerous new programs while others download new reference files.

Ewido The efficient solution against the new generation of threats spreading over the internet. Secure your data and protect your privacy against Sypware, adware, dialer, keylogger and worms. We offer you advanced scanning and detection methods and state-of-the-art technology behind an easy to use interface. really helps stop hijackers, spyware, worms, dialers, trojans, and keyloggers. It includes a great scanner and realtime scanner. Some features are disabled in the free version, including the realtime scanner, auto updates, self-protection, and memory scanning, but all these are included in the 15 day trial which can be reinstalled.

AVG Free is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements). Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.

Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most probably have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies.

Ad-Aware Personal provides advanced protection from known data-mining, aggressive advertising, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers, and tracking components.

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) 2.0 Scans for missing security updates and common security misconfigurations. It offers an improved user experience, expanding product support, and can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services.

Microsoft Windows Defender (Beta 2) Helps protect your PC from spyware and other potentially unwanted software with this beta release.

Microsoft Security Assessment Tool Download the Microsoft Security Assessment Tool and install it on your computer to obtain information and recommendations about best practices to help enhance security within your information technology infrastructure.

Webwasher Classic The original. Designed for use on clients and for smaller-sized networks. Webwasher filters out unwanted advertising and protects the surfer's privacy by filtering cookies, referrer strings and Web bugs.

AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.

FREE Utilities
submitted by Judy Howle

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.

RegistryProt is a 100% free, standalone, compact, low-level realtime registry monitor and protector, that adds another dimension to Windows security and intrusion detection.

CleanUp! is a powerful and easy-to-use application that removes temporary files created while surfing the web, empties the Recycle Bin, deletes files from your temporary folders and more.

EULAlyzer End user license agreements (EULAs) are the bane of most computer users.
No one wants to read through pages and pages of boring text before installing a program. And many programs put their license agreements in small windows that require lots of scrolling. So many people either skim them or skip reading them altogether. But it can be dangerous not to read license agreements. License agreements can provide information about the intentions of software, and other bundled components. Have you ever installed a program, only to have your desktop taken over by advertising? It may have been noted in the license agreement that you simply clicked past. If you aren't reading the license agreements, you have no idea what you could be agreeing to.

You should always read license agreements before agreeing to them and now there's a way of making that much easier with EULAlyzer.

Ultimate Boot CD is an amazing bootable CD to restore a crashed computer and can fix it.

Unlocker is an Windows Explorer extension allowing you with a simple right-click on a file or folder to get rid of error message such as error deleting file or folder, cannot delete folder: it's being used by another person or program.

MyUninstaller - Alternative utility to the standard Add/Remove applet of Windows operating system. It displays the list of all installed application, and allows you to uninstall an application, delete an uninstall entry, and save the list of all installed applications into a text file or HTML file. MyUninstaller also provides additional information for most installed applications that the standard Add/Remove applet doesn't display: product name, company, version, uninstall string, installation folder and more.

Total Uninstall monitors any changes made to your system during the installation of a new application. It allows you to perform a complete uninstall without having to rely on the supplied Add/Remove program which can leave files or changes behind.

System Information for Windows utility that displays detailed specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU, devices, memory, video, disk drivers, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs, processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network, network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage and network traffic. It displays currently active network connections, passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more.

Firefox the award-winning, free Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy. It's easy to import your favorites and settings and get started. Download Firefox now and get the most out of the Web

Foxit Reader For viewing PDF files, Foxit Reader beats Adobe Reader hands-down. This program requires no installation--just run the executable--and it launches in about 1 second. Plus, it includes some desirable tools that Adobe lacks, such as a "typewriter" that lets you edit any text in the PDF, not just in form fields.

Microsoft Tweak UI Control scores of hidden Windows XP settings, from determining what appears on your Start menu to specifying how users log on to your PC.

7-Zip It's just plain rude to send huge, uncompressed files. 7-Zip is a free utility that creates .zip compressed archives.

Google Desktop Harness the power of the Internet's most popular search engine on your own PC. Google Desktop indexes nearly every document on your hard drive and then includes those files in your Google searches. A sidebar displays information modules that you select, such as current news, updated items from recently visited sites, and local weather.

MSN Search Toolbar With Windows Desktop Search This search tool indexes your hard drive and then delivers search results through a Windows application rather than relying on a Web browser. Also, it searches the Web via MSN Search, and can index your Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail.

Copernic Desktop Search Like Google Desktop and the MSN Search Toolbar, Copernic lets you search local files as well as Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail. But it gives you more control over your searches--for instance, letting you specify messages from a certain sender.

Free Download Manager If you're continually downloading files, this Internet Explorer companion can help. It speeds up single-file downloads, resumes interrupted downloads, manages your bandwidth usage, and schedules multiple file downloads for specific times. You can even use it to grab every page from a Web site.

OpenOffice.org Though it's a full-fledged, Microsoft Office-compatible word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, and database, OpenOffice.org won't cost you one thin dime. It's solid enough (and sufficiently compatible with Office documents) that you may never have to invest in an office suite again.

Skype People who like to gab on the phone may like Skype, which has been offering free PC-to-PC voice calls (with text chat and file transfer capabilities) since 2003. It's easy to set up and has a huge user community. The current version makes video chat available. But Skype-to-telephone or telephone-to-Skype calls cost you money.

101 Fabulous Freebies in alphabetical order from PC World (I listed several of them here)