CompuClever Blog

PC tips: what are sticky keys?

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You’ve probably encountered this before – you’ve hit some sort of keyboard combination when using a Windows computer that results in a dialogue box asking you if you want to enable “StickyKeys”. And like me, you’ve probably quickly hit “escape” or “close” and have continued on with whatever you were doing in the first place.

What are StickyKeys? Fundamentally they’re a form of accessibility for PC users who may be living with some sort of disability, typically visual impairment, or blindness.

Andy Thompson frequently writes about PC tips.

However, StickyKeys can become a powerful tool that can help anyone get more out of their computer.

Of course, we all use keyboard shortcuts – combinations of keys that allow us to do certain activities, and save time and typing rhythm by taking the mouse out of the equation. Some keyboard shortcuts, however, require you to hold down three keys at a time. If you want to use a keyboard shortcut but find it difficult to hold down two or three keys at the same time, StickyKeys makes it easy.

When a shortcut requires a key combination, the StickyKeys feature in Microsoft Windows lets you press a key, such as SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT, and keep it active until another key is pressed. Continue reading...

Protect your online identity

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protect your online identityIt’s the Christmas season, and more and more people are doing shopping online in order to save time and to stick to a budget. If you’re doing a lot of online holiday shopping, are you taking basic steps to protect your online identity?

You might be surprised by the amount of personal information that is stored on your computer – everything from passwords to, in some cases, banking and credit card information.

If you happen to download malware such as a Trojan or a virus, it may be possible for someone to learn and use your personal information – after you’ve been using your credit card to buy Christmas presents, for example – which can become a nightmare to fix.

So, to save you some worry, here are 2 tips for protecting your privacy online:

1. Scan your computer for cookies, passwords, chat email history, web search term history

Every time you use the internet, your browser stores “cookies” that remember personal information about the websites you’ve visited – personal information such as passwords for your online banking, your birthday, or even your mother’s maiden name, for example.

Your internet browser also saves the specific search terms you’ve been using to find things on the internet. Continue reading...

How to free up memory on your PC

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Thanks to the incredible growth in online services in recent years, paired with the ability to quickly an easily connect your home computer to your entertainment system, it’s really easy to start downloading movies from Amazon or other providers and never stop! Combine that with our tendency to take HD videos of our kids, and it all adds up to hard drives that fill up quite quickly.

So what do you do if you run out of memory on your computer?

If your hard disk is filling up, you can free up a considerable amount of memory by reducing the size of your Recycle Bin. Your Recycle Bin is where all of your “deleted” files end up, but they’re not really deleted until you, the user select “empty Recycle Bin”.

Until they, all of these old files, everything from old Word docs to very large media files stay where they are, taking up space on your hard drive.

So, to empty your Recycle Bin and free up some space:

  1. Right click on the Recycle Bin icon with your mouse, choose Properties from the pop-up menu.
  2. In Vista and Windows 7, you can enter in a maximum MB that the recycle bin can hold.
Continue reading...

How to speed up Internet Explorer for free

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How to speed up Internet Explorer

It’s a fact: Internet Explorer slows down over time. Pages take longer to load, and sometimes even crash.

Why is this?

Often when you purchase a new computer, Internet Explorer comes pre-installed with “tool bars”. These may look useful, but they can slow down your computer.

Other things like “cookies” and other Internet Explorer “plugins” can also slow down your internet browsing.

Our cool trick

Luckily, we have developed a cool trick that’s easy to do, that speeds up Internet Explorer on your computer.

If you’ve downloaded the newest version of PC TuneUp Maestro:

1) Click on the “Fix & Clean”.

2) Click on “Internet Explorer Repair”, and you’ll be presented with some choices.

Reset Internet Explorer

If you click on “Reset Internet Explorer”, you’ll be able to remove all the toolbars and plugins that may be slowing down your computer.

Don’t worry, PC TuneUp Maestro will ask you every step of the way about what to remove – you get the final say on what toolbars and plugins stay, and which ones get removed.

Launch Internet Explorer Without Add-Ons

Launch this tool, and a new Internet Explorer window will open and you can start enjoying a faster web browser immediately.

Continue reading...

Speed up your computer in 5 days

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speed up my computerUse PC TuneUp Maestro to speed up your computer over 5 days by completing 5 taks. Some of these can be used without even purchasing PC TuneUp Maestro!

Here’s the boot camp line up:

Day 1: Remove clutter

Over time, your applications run more slowly and your computer is not performing as fast as it used to. You may be experiencing the effects of clutter: excess files on the computer.

The solution is to delete these files to prevent delay time and make your computer more responsive.

Day 2: Re-organize your files

Over time, as your computer saves and stores files, the files can become fragmented. This fragmentation can result in poor hard drive performance, which means it takes longer for your computer to open programs and files.

Use PC TuneUp Maestro to quickly access the Disk Defragmenter, a tool that will speed up the access to files on your hard drive by re-arranging them.

Day 3: Speed up the startup time

It is common for applications to add functions to your computer that run when you start the computer and possible stay active (but out of view), while you use the computer.  Each of these programs takes time to load up and run when you start the computer, making the wait longer. Continue reading...