How To

Need to shut down your PC in a hurry? Simple. Here are two handy keyboard shortcuts to save you time and mousing.

Close all open programs A little-known set of keystrokes will shut down all active programs at once in no time.

Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and then Alt-T to open Task Manager's Applications tab. Press the down arrow, and then Shift-down arrow to select all the programs listed in the window. When they're all selected, press Alt-E, then Alt-F, and finally x to close Task Manager.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's seven steps that … Read more

Our nation faces a decision that could tear us apart.

Yes, the choice between running Windows 8 in Metro view or the traditional desktop view is what we must wrestle with.

Fortunately, there is a compromise to bridge this heated divide. By using a dual-screen setup, you can run Metro and desktop views simultaneously on the same machine.

In the How To video above, I'll walk you through the process of connecting a second monitor to your Windows 8 machine and adjusting just a few settings to achieve the ultimate dual-interface Windows 8 experience.

To cut to the chase, … Read more

There are a lot of great programs available to rip CDs to MP3, AAC, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, etc., but most require you to re-rip your CD if you want to save the rip to a different file format. If you have a large CD collection, ripping your CDs twice could take an excruciatingly long time.

dBpoweramp for Windows (XP/Vista/7/8), is a very fast and accurate audio CD ripper that supports ripping to multiple encoders. If you want to rip your CDs to FLAC for archiving and to MP3 for use on an iPod or smartphone, dbPoweramp can … Read more

Though Instagram recently added likes and comments to its Web interface, a complete Web experience, filled with photo uploads, streams, and and profile-viewing is still on my wish list.

Many have adopted their phone as their primary camera, but there's a niche group of users -- like bloggers and photographers -- who work around Instragram's limited app environment to upload full-res photos from their dSLR cameras.

Possibilities include uploading photos through the iPad Camera Connection Kit, or even e-mailing a photo from a desktop computer and uploading it to Instagram through that route. Savvy Android users might even … Read more

If you are a tech blogger or engage in another pursuit that requires the regular capturing and sharing of screenshots, Puush (Mac | Windows) could prove useful. It's a free and easy multiplatform app that automatically uploads screenshots as you snap them. It works on both Macs and Windows systems, and there is also a Puush iPhone app. I tried out the free Mac app and iPhone app.

When you launch Puush on a Mac, you'll see a small arrow icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen. Click on the arrow icon and choose Preferences … Read more

As a tech blogger, I take a lot of screenshots, and I use Dropbox to make these screenshots accessible from any of my computers. Typically, the process involves me taking a screenshot and then manually uploading it to Dropbox. With GrabBox, however, I am able to automate the process.

GrabBox is a free Mac app. After installing it, it places an icon in your Mac's menu bar and opens an Initial Setup window. The setup involves one, simple action. It asks you to right-click on a file in your Dropbox Public folder, and it provides a button that will … Read more

Do you like my new desktop background?

If you have 2 minutes to spare, you can create such a background, too. From Stamen Design, a San Francisco-based design and technology studio, comes Map-->Image. It's a free Web utility that lets you create an image from an area on a map.

Plug in a city and state or zip code in the Find a Place box, choose a map style, set the image size, and click the Make button. Once you have found a place, you can use the "+" and "-" buttons on the … Read more

Fences 2.0 doesn't mess with what worked in the first version, which we loved when we looked at it three years ago. You get the same easy functionality of creating shaded areas (aka fences) on your desktop for organizing your files and folders. It lets you create rules, as you could with the old Fences Pro version, which automatically direct certain types of files to particular fences. Fences 2.0 introduces two new and useful features -- Folder Portals and Desktop Pages -- but before we get to them, let's quickly go over how the app works.… Read more

Desktop Groups does for Macs what Fences does for PCs. It lets you create tiles (aka groups) on your desktop that keep an otherwise scattered group of files and folders neat and tidy.

You'll find two versions of Desktop Groups in the Mac App Store. The free Desktop Groups Lite lets you create up to five groups; the full version ($5.99) lets you create as many groups as you desire and provides additional viewing options (such as a list in addition to the default thumbnail view).

To get started, launch the app for the first time, click the … Read more