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MICROSOFT WINS, WE LOSE
So Joy decided to upgrade her Windows 7 computer to Windows 8 — figuring how can we serve the readers if we don’t have the latest Microsoft operating system? Just so. Well, let no good deed go...
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WINDOWS 8 REDUX
Okay, Windows 8 redux. There’s a way out of this mess. There are many things that bug new Windows 8 users. For instance, they used to enjoy a nature scene or family photo on their screen as background...
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NUMBERS REPORT: WINDOWS 8 SALES
Windows 8 sales haven’t been doing any better than Vista did when it was introduced back in 2007. (Vista never did live up to Microsoft’s hopes, as users responded to its introduction with a number of...
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EVEN WINDOWS 7 HAS HASSLES
An alert reader wrote in to tell us she’s as annoyed with Windows 7 as some people are with Windows 8. Invisible menus are making it difficult to organize files. Our reader simply wants to drag and...
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SWEET AND SOUR
The other day Joy recommended Lenovo computers to a friend. “Lenovo,” she questioned, “that’s an obscure one.” Not really. Lenovo bought IBM’s personal computer business some years back and has been...
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WE BITE THE BULLET
All right already. With all this talk about Windows 8 and what a turkey it is, we realized it was our duty to the readers to get in there and suffer. Well, there’s good news, and still bad news. We...
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EASY WINDOWS 8 BOOK
“Easy Windows 8,” by Mark Edward Soper, $25, is by far the best and easiest of the Windows 8 books we’ve seen. It’s from QuePublishing.com and has screen shots on every page to help step you though....
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TIPS AND TRICKS
If it annoys you to type a password every time Windows starts or wakes up from a nap, try this: To remove the password requirement and launch your computer faster, click “start,” then “Control Panel.”...
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DON’T TOUCH THAT KEY
Watch where your fingers are walking or they might fall into a hole so deep it ends in a help center on the other side of the world. From the very beginning of personal computing, we met beginners who...
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THE MAC AT WORK
A reader told us he’s getting a Mac but wishes he could keep the Windows version of “Quicken” because the Mac version is, as he put it, “a real dog.” (He’s a man of few words.) Making the Mac work the...
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WINDOWS 8 TIPS AND TRICKS
Finding free apps in the Windows 8 store isn’t obvious. Here’s what you do. Hover on the right side of any Windows screen until you see the search icon; it’s a little picture of a magnifying glass....
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MAKING WINDOWS 8 EASIER
“Pokki,” a free program for Windows 8, brings back the familiar start menu and lets you find your favorite programs faster. After you download it from Pokki.com, it asks you to choose the programs you...
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THE END OF WINDOWS XP
In a little less than a year, there will be no more updates for Windows XP users. Microsoft is ending all support around this time next year, despite nearly half of all users still using XP. Can we...
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THE FIX IS IN
We heard from a reader who was really annoyed with himself for spending $40 to get Windows 8 instead of just buying lottery tickets. In frustration, he said, he “almost trashed a very capable Dell...
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BEST FREE APPS FOR WINDOWS 8
One of the most popular free apps in the Windows 8 app store is “AllRecipes,” which is kind of a flashback, since recipe programs were among the first to be installed on personal computers back in the...
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WRITING, AND ALL THAT STUFF
Words, words, words, as Annie Hathaway used to say when Bill Shakespeare was having one of those days. What’s a body to do? Recently, for example, a Harvard professor wrote to the Economist magazine to...
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WINDOWS 8 REDUX
As we’ve mentioned before, many Windows 8 users are exasperated by the start-up screen, sometimes called “Tile World.” It delays booting to the normal desktop screen and is distracting. Microsoft fixed...
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WINDOWS 8 FIVE MINUTES AT A TIME
“Windows 8 Five Minutes at a Time,” $30 from Wiley.com, by Lance Whitney, has some great tips. Each tip will take only five minutes to implement, and you get colorful screenshots to show you exactly...
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GIVING UP ON WINDOWS
A friend of ours, a lifelong Windows user, switched to the Mac after a bad experience with Windows 8. This causes us to rethink our latest Windows recommendations. We’ve been pushing Windows over the...
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WINDOWS 8.1 HAS MANY THINGS TO LIKE
The reviews covering the new Windows 8.1 missed the thing we like best about it: the return of the “all programs” list. But there are lots more goodies than that in the new upgrade. You need to have...
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