Find your System Specs with Speccy

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 23, 2010 | 0 comments

Speccy is a new, great little system tool that gives you detailed information about all the hardware on your computer.  It is even available in a portable version so you can run it on a computer at a store, friend’s house, or anywhere else you need to check detailed stats.  My favorite features is that it shows the model, speed, latency, and more from your Ram; this is really helpful if you’re wanting to add more RAM to your computer.  Check out my whole overview of this tool at How-to Geek:

Find Detailed Hardware Information with Speccy

Lifehacker also found this useful, and linked to my How-to Geek article!

Lifehacker: Speccy Gives You Detailed Information About Your Hardware

Undelete files and folders in Windows 7

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 23, 2010 | 0 comments

My favorite feature in both Windows 7 and Vista is the “Previous Versions” tool.  This has absolutely saved me several times, including once when I accidently deleted a nearly finished essay!  I think this is the hidden gem in modern versions of Windows, so I really enjoyed writing about it for How-To Geek.  Check out the article intro below, and then continue reading it at How-To Geek.

Have you ever accidently deleted a file, or removed a crucial part of a document only to realize it no longer makes sense?  Windows 7 is smart enough to protect you from yourself, and here we’ll see how you can restore files in any edition of Windows 7.

Continue reading:  Restore Previous Versions of Files in Every Edition of Windows 7

Create your own XP Mode for 7 Home Premium and Vista!

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 23, 2010 | 0 comments

My recent article on How-to Geek about running XP Mode without hardware virtualization got a lot of comments from people wanting to run XP Mode on other editions of Windows.  XP Mode is only licensed for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, so if your computer is running 7 Home Premium or Vista you cannot run it.  But, if you have your own legal copy of XP, you can make your own XP Mode.  It’s actually very easy with VMware Player, and takes less steps than importing the standard XP Mode.  Check out my article at How-to Geek, which details all the steps involved and offers some tips on integrating your virtual XP with Vista or 7!

Create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Versions & Vista

This article was also listed at Lifehacker!  Check that out at:

Lifehacker: Create Your Own XP Mode for Any Version of Windows

Run XP Mode without Hardware Virtualization

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 17, 2010 | 0 comments

Several months ago I wrote about VMware’s release of VMware Player 3.0.  This was a major upgrade to VMware’s free desktop virtualization offering, adding support for creating virtual machines and running them in Unity mode.  Windows 7’s release, then on the other hand, boosted desktop virtualization’s position in the marketplace with XP Mode which brings a virtualized copy of XP to Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.  Many people have been disappointed that Windows Virtual PC, required to run XP Mode, also  requires hardware virtualization support.  If your computer doesn’t have it, then you simply can’t run XP Mode.

Or can you?  Thanks to VMware Player, you can actually still use XP mode even without hardware virtualization!  And, even if your computer can run Virtual PC, you may get better performance or features using VMware player.  Check out my article at How-To Geek for all the inside information on how to do this!

Run XP Mode on Windows 7 Machines Without Hardware Virtualization

This article was also featured on Lifehacker today! Check out the Lifehacker article:

Run XP Mode on Windows 7 Machines Without Hardware Virtualization

And check back soon … I’ve got a lot more articles about virtualization coming to How-to Geek!

Sync all your email accounts with Hotmail

Posted by Matthew Guay on Feb 17, 2010 | 0 comments

For all the talk about Gmail, Hotmail is still a very viable and highly used webmail service.  My main email account is a Windows Live Hotmail, and I can easily access it from Outlook, hotmail.com, or my Windows Phone, depending on what I’m doing.  Most of my emails come to my @live.com Hotmail address, but I also have a number of other email accounts, including from my college, Gmail, and more.  The great thing is that all of my mail is always avialable through Hotmail.  No matter where I am, I can easily check Hotmail and get all of my email!

So how do I do this?  Check out my article at How-To Geek for more info!

Keeping track of multiple email accounts can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re a Hotmail user, you might want to integrate all of your POP3 accounts into a single address for more efficient access. 

Hotmail can send and receive emails from any POP3 enabled account, and it even supports SSL for secure connections.  Most email accounts from your internet service provider, work, or school will work directly in it.  Make sure to have your other account info, as you may need it in advanced setup. For this demonstration we’ll walk through setting up a Gmail account, but it should work with your other POP3 accounts as well.

Read on for more information – How to Add POP3 Email Accounts to Hotmail