Stories by Rick Broida

Automate TV show downloads

Ever wish your BitTorrent client could automatically download new episodes of your favorite TV shows? That's the idea behind ShowRSS, a site that turns TV shows into RSS feeds.

Switch to full-screen view in your favorite apps

Monitor space is a terrible thing to waste. Yet most of us sacrifice valuable screen estate to omnipresent toolbars, which appear in our Web browsers, our word processors, and other apps.

Be more productive in Microsoft Outlook

Do you depend on Microsoft Outlook for your e-mail and scheduling needs? Are you annoyed with the e-mail client? Well, join the club--thousands of Outlook users are lobbying Microsoft for improvements in the next version. But this week let's not just...

Screenshot an entire Web page with ease

There are countless ways to take a screenshot of a Web page. You can tap the Prt Scr key, of course, but that captures only what's visible, not the entire page.

Turn off your monitor by pressing a hotkey

Monitors, including desktop and laptop LCDs, consume a considerable amount of power. Yet most of us leave ours on and running all day (if not all night).

Window tips: Windows 7 shortcuts and more

Windows 7 adds some new keyboard shortcuts to the mix, all of them based on the Windows key. Here are my favorites:

Speed up your Windows XP netbook

Most modern desktops and laptops have power to spare, but netbooks are notoriously pokey. Consequently, you should turn off any operating-system features that can make your Lilliputian PC even slower.

Customize your Windows Desktop

Widescreen monitors are great for watching movies and organizing windows side-by-side, but a lot of time the space goes to waste. This week I've got a great tip that's particularly applicable to laptop and netbook users: Move the Windows taskbar to t...

Fix the iTunes 'session timeout' error

Whenever I try to buy something from iTunes or redeem a gift code, I invariably get this message: Session Timeout. Then I have to "try again," which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

How to get Windows 7 features on a Vista or XP system

Vista received well-deserved criticism for bringing few noteworthy new features in its train when it arrived to take over from Windows XP. In contrast, Windows 7 offers plenty of new stuff to like. Fortunately, you can add many of these features to y...

Windows 7: five unique features

Though Vista and XP users can enjoy some of the Windows 7's goodies, either directly or by proxy, various highly desirable features are available only in the genuine article. Here are five that will require you to roll a 7.

How to get Windows 7's look and feel on a Vista or XP machine

Much of the excitement about Windows 7 relates to an assortment of user-interface improvements: a little eye candy here, a few window-management tweaks there. Below are some of the highlights, along with the tools you'll need to get them for your cur...

Get Windows 7 performance on your current PC

Informal speed tests show that Windows 7 boots faster than Vista, and many users have reported that it "feels" faster during everyday operation. (Maybe that's because the User Account Control is more restrained in Windows 7 than in Vista and doesn't ...

Fix a laptop's sticky, broken keys

As we learned last week, it's fairly easy to fix a noisy overheated laptop: Open an underside panel, (carefully) blow out the dust, then enjoy the praise your wife lavishes on you for fixing her system.

Search within Web pages faster in Internet Explorer 8

While it's easy for Firefox die-hards like me to turn our noses up at Internet Explorer, the fact is that Microsoft's browser has made a lot of progress. You've no doubt heard about newfangled features like Accelerators and Web Slices (see Preston Gr...