Subscriber Cosby Chaney wrote with an unusual problem involving an external hard drive.

Hey Terry.
Got this problem. I have this 160 gig external drive that I’ve had for maybe a year or so. I originally used it for back ups for my home computer, but for the last six months or so have been using it connected to my DVR.
I had this DVR from “Charter” that only had this tiny H.D., maybe forty meg or so, and couldn’t store much high def, so I added the external.
Of course the DVR had to format it to use it and now I just had the box changed out to one that has adequate storage. (160 gig, same as the external drive)
By now you’ve guessed that my computer has no idea that I’ve plugged anything in. I don’t remember any software coming with this unit.
Any idea how I might make an introduction between these two?
(Been to “device manager, dealt w/ the “wizard” etc. )

Continue reading Converting an External Drive from DVR to Computer

If you need to identify which program opens a particular file type, you can do that, and a lot more, using the Folder Options functions in Windows Explorer.

To find Folder Options, open Windows Explorer (right-click on Start, select Explore). Then, on its menu bar, select Tools and then Folder Options…

At this point, we need to select the File Types tab.

Continue reading HOWTO: Identifying and Changing Default File Type / Program Associations

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My first experience with a privacy cleaner was WinClear, which cleans up Windows and Internet Explorer temporary files, passwords, cookies, and history. It also handles a few other programs like Word, Excel and Windows Media Player. It’s very easy to use, but at the bottom line, it is a program that focuses on Microsoft Windows and other Microsoft programs.

I kept looking and found the much more flexible cleaner XP Privacy Pro, which also handles Netscape, Opera and Firefox web browsers in addition to Internet Explorer.

I’m much happier with XP Privacy Pro, since it gives me more direct control of what the program finds and deletes — and that it handles my Firefox and Opera browsers, too.

Continue reading Privacy Control with XP Privacy Pro

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*   Updates Last Week
I watch a few operating systems and programs for updates — mainly because these are the ones that I use or in which I am interested. What updates or versions were new last week?

*   Same Email Received Again and Again
A reader keeps receiving the same email again and again — it’s not sent again, but he keeps receiving it…

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Getting the monitor’s contents, or a window’s contents, into an image…

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