Flash Player

Keep That Cartridge Fresh

Today's quick tip is just a little friendly reminder for all of you computer users out there! If you use a computer, chances are, you use a printer quite often as well. I know many of you even like to print out some tips and to do that, you need to make sure you have a sufficient amount of ink.

So, this is just me telling you to remember to keep your ink cartridges clean and fresh. If you don't print very often, your cartridges (both black and color) can dry out very quickly. You should always run your printer every so often so that doesn't happen. If you don't keep the ink flowing, it will dry up way before it's supposed to. If that happens, you'll just have to buy a new cartridge and that just wastes your money!

You should also remember to clean your print heads every once in awhile. That will help keep the cartridge area clean as well.

Is there a way to keep a window maximized when I reopen again and keep it like that?

Open the Window to its maximized state by using the rectangle icon between the minus sign and the X in the top right corner. Check to make sure that your window is actually maximized and close to being maximized. If you can drag the edges or top/bottom of the window inward or outward or up or down, then the window is not truly maximized.

If you're sure your windows is maximized and not near-maximized, close the window by clicking the "X" in the top-right corner while holding down the shift key. The next time you open your browser it will open maximized.

We've answered this question many times on forums and we realize there are folks who think we're talking about "Full-screen" mode here. we're not. Full-screen mode is achieved from any window state by pressing the F11 key - and pressing the F11 key again to return to a normal window state. The full-screen mode will hide the tool bar and give you the maximum browser viewing area available. So remember this. You don't want to hold down the shift-key while clicking the X in the top-right corner when you're in full-screen mode. That will force the browser to open in that mode the next time - and you won't have any toolbars. Full-screen mode can be activated and deactivated easy enough. Just press the F11 key.

How to put My Computer Icon on your desktop

Right click an empty area of your desktop. Choose Properties>> Desktop tab>> Customize Desktop button>> General tab.

Place a checkmark next to the item that you would like an icon to appear on your desktop. Your choices are:

* My Computer
* My Documents
* My Network
* Internet Explorer

Close all open windows at once
Windows XP and Windows Vista

If you have a lot of windows open and you want to close them all at once, here's how you do it.


1. Hold down the CTRL key, and click each of the task icons on the taskbar
(each task icon will look depressed - not sad, depressed - like pushed in depressed!)

2. When you've clicked them all and get to the last one, right-click on it and choose "Close Group".

After you've selected "Close Group" Windows will begin the exit procedure for each open application and window. Again, don't worry! If any application has any unsaved information the program will still warn you that you have unsaved work in progress and you'll have a chance to save your work before the program closes.

Flash is necessary to have in your browser if you have any desire to use the Web the way it is designed to be used. Over 96% of all browsers have some form of Adobe (used to be Macromedia) flash installed.

However, older versions of Flash have been reported to be vulnerable to attack. Symantec reports that versions of Flash are vulnerable to "zero day" attacks. The current version of Flash (9.0.124.0) are not. So, Visit this page and make sure you have the latest version of Flash installed. If you see any version other than the current version of Flash (9.0.124.0) then update your Flash plugin as soon as possible by visiting this page.

Another important reason to update your Flash player is that earlier versions are at risk for being vulnerable to malicious advertisements.

Flash player is free. Be sure to pay attention when you install it. Adobe has a penchant for installing either the Yahoo Toolbar or Google Toolbar (the option pre-checked in the installer) depending on who is paying them more this week.

The Yahoo toolbar is bloated and a bit invasive. We don't recommend it. The Google toolbar is useful, friendly and non-invasive. We recommend it. But we don't recommend it being installed with other software. We do recommend you visit http://toolbar.google.com/ and get it from Google if you want to install the Google toolbar. Don't install it with Adobe Flash player.