Computer Blogging

Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing. The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with a small amount of C++ for installation and shell-integration related functionality.

Paint.NET can be used to enhance and clean up your photographs. Using the Clone Stamp tool, the power lines that criss-crossed in front of the Space Needle were carefully removed. Other operations were performed that had the effect of smoothing out the image without blurring it, adding some “bloom” (glow), and increasing the contrast.

Read the entire review at our computer help forum.

OK, you’ve gone through the effort of installing Windows Vista, or else you’ve bought a fresh, shiny computer with a fresh, shiny copy of Vista on it.
Now what?
Like any self-respecting power user, you want to bend the new operating system to your will. There are plenty of ways you can do that in Windows Vista. To get you started, here are five must-do,s for the first time you run the new operating system.

1. Add gadgets

The Windows Sidebar and its gadgets — useful and fun mini-apps that sit on the right edge of your desktop — are one of Vista’s niftiest new features. So the first thing you should do is make the Sidebar always visible and add some new gadgets to it.
To make the Windows Sidebar visible, double-click its icon in the System Tray. You’ll see several default gadgets already in place. To add new ones, click the plus sign at the top of the Sidebar, then drag the gadgets you like from the window that appears over to the Sidebar. To see even more gadgets, click the “Get more gadgets online” link at the bottom right of the window.

Until now, the list of gadgets available for Vista has been fairly small, but Microsoft just announced partnerships with major media players, including Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, as well as other companies, which will bring many more gadgets to Vista.
To customize any gadget, hover your mouse over it, click the little wrench icon, and fill out the form that appears. To remove a gadget, hover your mouse over it and click the X. You can even change the opacity of any gadget. Right-click the gadget, and from the Opacity menu item, choose the amount of opacity you want, anywhere from 20% (very transparent) to 100% (no transparency).

Read the rest in our computer forums

Hidden log files eat your disk space and you will find them on all machines.

Log files can be useful: They’re usually plain-text records of actions taken by software as it runs — changes made, files added or deleted, and so on. When something goes wrong, it may be possible to examine the appropriate log file to see what the software was trying to do when it encountered trouble. That, in turn, can be a valuable troubleshooting clue.

But over the years, log files have moved from front-line troubleshooting to a rarely used and obscure tool tucked away on your PC. Log files can be like weeds, growing in the quiet corners of your hard drive.

To learn how to do this please visit our computer forum.

Looking for some shortcuts to help you in using Vista’s new Windows Mail?

Here,s a few Windows Mail shortcuts.

Main window, view message window, and send message window

F1O - pen Help topics
CTRL+A - Select all messages or text within a message

Main window and view message window

CTRL+M - Send and receive e mail
CTRL+N - Open or post a new message
CTRL+SHIFT+B - Open Contacts
DEL or CTRL+D - Delete an e mail message
CTRL+R - Reply to the message author
CTRL+SHIFT+R or CTRL+G - (newsgroups only)Reply to all
CTRL+F - Forward a message
CTRL+SHIFT+F - Find a message
CTRL+P - Print the selected message
CTRL+> - Go to the next message in the list
CTRL+< - Go to the previous message in the list
ALT+ENTER - View the selected message's properties
CTRL+U - Go to the next unread e mail message
CTRL+SHIFT+U - Go to the next unread newsgroup conversation

Click here for more shortcuts.

ClearType Screen Font Smoothing is a feature that you either love or hate!
Some think the feature is great, some think it makes the text hard to read.
If you don’t like it then try this:
Open Regedit by clicking on the Start ‘Orb’ (thats its new name!) and typing regedit then press return.

Click here for the rest of the article.