How-To Geek

At first thought, it seems that generating an accurate estimation of time should be fairly easy. After all, the algorithm producing the progress bar knows all the tasks it needs to do ahead of time… right?

If you are running Windows 8, hit the Windows key and L at the same time. What do you see? It should be the lock screen complete with the date, time and weather. What format do the date and time take? It’s almost certainly the same as the clock in your taskbar – if you have opted to use 24 hour clock format, it will be used in both places. But this doesn’t have to be the case; customization is possible.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

Few people disable JavaScript, but many who do are very vocal about it. JavaScript makes the type of web pages we have today possible. While you could disable JavaScript, it would be a lot of annoyance for little benefit.

There are a number of ways you can tweak Windows, whether you are looking to improve performance, iron out irritations, improve security or change the appearance of something you dislike. Some settings can be changed through the Control Panel, some by using a third party tweaking tool, or you may prefer to dabble in a little registry editing. But if you have the Professional version of Windows 8 there is also Group Policy Editor and here we have rounded up ten top tweaks you can apply in this way.

Do you perform a lot of calculations and mathematical functions on your PC? Tibi’s Mathematics Suite is a free package of useful mathematical applications that go beyond the Windows calculator and allow you to perform useful mathematical functions on your computer.

Internet Explorer 10, the same version that comes with Windows 8, is now available for Windows 7 users as well. Even if you aren’t an Internet Explorer user, you should still think about upgrading IE to the latest version for security reasons.

In a perfect world, there would be no way for your computer to be infected via your browser. Browsers are supposed to run web pages in an untrusted sandbox, isolating them from the rest of your computer. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen.

Whatever platform you look at – iOS, OS X, Android, Windows, Linux – there is some form of software store available. Android users have been able to enjoy Google Play (under various guises) for some time, and Apple’s App Store is well known even outside of tech circles. Microsoft was a little slow to join the party, but Windows 8’s Store means everyone is now on the same page. But is the store that’s built into Windows 8 the best option?

Do you sometimes wish that you could use Microsoft Word’s more useful features, such as auto-complete, automatic spelling correction, and Autotext, in other programs in Windows? PhraseExpress is a free program that allows you to do just that.

If you want to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your PC, you might consider disabling some of the built-in Windows services. But which ones should you disable? And which ones can you safely disable?

Websites – at least the desktop versions – are designed for broadband connections and are larger than ever. This isn’t normally a problem, but what if you’re tethering your computer to a smartphone with a limited data plan?

Between the browser history and tracking cookies, it’s easy to feel like your browser is tracking and spying on you. But web browsers store this private data for good reasons.

If you have accidentally deleted files from your Windows computer or from an external USB drive, memory card, or other external storage device, there’s an easy way to recover those files using a free program.

Old hardware often necessitates all manner of work arounds–in this case the question at hand is whether or not increasing the page file can compensate for the failure of a physical RAM module.

You probably already know about Lorem Ipsum or perhaps tools such as Random Text Generator, however what can end up happening is – despite the nature of the text – people still focus on the text and attempt to read it. When situations such as this happen, using completely random or gibberish text can come in handy.

Chrome has built up quite a loyal following over the years, but while it is an adept web browser it does suffer from problems when it comes to tab management. It does not take long for Chrome’s memory usage to creep up as you load up more and more tabs, and start times can be extremely slow. Using the The Great Suspender extension you can get things back under control.

If you managed to get infected with the absolutely terrible Ask Toolbar on your computer, don’t be ashamed – it could happen to anybody. Especially considering that is bundled with the equally awful Java runtime. Those people should be ashamed of themselves.

Most everyone needs to be reminded about something. Be it a daily task, recurring commitment, or a one time event – having a pop-up reminder on your computer can come in handy. While there are myriad tools available to handle this task, we outline a simple way you can do this with no additional software.

Windows 8 is designed to push Microsoft’s web services: Bing, Internet Explorer, Outlook.com, and more. However, Windows 8 isn’t limited to just Microsoft’s services. Google services like Gmail, Google Search, Chrome, and more can all be integrated with Windows 8.

Wireless internet connections are far more prevalent than they used to be, but there are still times when you may find that you are stuck using a wired connection and want to use it wirelessly — for instance, at a hotel with only wired internet but you want to get your tablet online.

By default Windows keeps track of which files you have opened with a particular program in its Jump List. Here’s how to limit the amount of entries it stores or even disable it altogether.

Microsoft’s Surface RT and other Windows RT-based machines include the Flash browser plugin, but it only runs on websites Microsoft has whitelisted. We have covered how you can add any website to the Flash whitelist, but now there’s an easier way.

Web browsers normally save your private data – history, cookies, searches, downloads, and more – and only delete it when you ask. If you are constantly clearing it, you can have any browser automatically clear private data when you close it.

Windows has quite a few ways to control your default applications and file associations – more than you might expect. These are used when you double-click a file, click a link, connect a device, or insert media.