PC Matic Blog

TechBite: 5 Net Tricks to Save You Money

Steve Bass / December 7, 2009

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By Steve Bass

Frugal? Thrifty? No, Cheap!
"You’re a bargain hunter," one of my more polite friends says. My wife’s more to the point: She calls me a cheapskate. I like being frugal, but what do I know? Call me whatever you want (you will anyway), I don’t like paying retail and I’m always looking for a deal, especially when shopping online.

The Internet gives me the chance to comparison shop, see how shipping figures into the price, look over specifications, and feel confident I’ve found the best buy. Here are some of the sites I use.

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TechBite: Fixes for 3 PC Annoyances

Steve Bass / November 23, 2009

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By Steve Bass

I know you’re not always happy with your PC, so here are three
fixes to some of the annoyances you’ve sent to me.

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TechBite: Use the Web to Find Anyone in the World

Steve Bass / November 9, 2009

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By Steve Bass

Find Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime (Almost)

"You find my long-lost buddy and I’ll paint any room in your house." I was talking to a couple of friends about how I had tracked down a wayward YahooGroup moderator.

It was a sweet deal (the kitchen has three colors, lots of cabinets, and needs painting) and I was up for the challenge.

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TechBite: 6 Useful Things You Can Do with Google

Steve Bass / September 14, 2009

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By Steve Bass

You use Google, sure, but if all you’re doing are searches, you’re just scratching the surface. Here are a few things you might not know about Google.

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TechBite: 14 Smart, Handy & Free Web Sites

Steve Bass / August 25, 2009

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By Steve Bass

I have some Web sites for you that are kick-in-the-butt cool; others are just plain handy, the kind of thing you save for only occasional visits. How about an image resizer and a nifty online walkie-talkie? And I use TimeZone Converter to find out what time it is in Singapore (so I can call my friend at 2:00 a.m. his time to see if he’s in yet from club hopping).

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TechBite: 10 More Super-Duper Firefox Extensions

Steve Bass / August 5, 2009

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By Steve Bass

I love it when you write and pass along handy ideas. I received hundreds of messages (okay, 50, but who’s counting) sharing Firefox add-ons, extensions, and tips — and I’m successfully using many of them. Here are some of the most useful of the bunch.

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TechBite: How’s Your Hard Drive Doing?

Steve Bass / July 1, 2009

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By Steve Bass

Hard drives are about as dependable as a teenager promising to come home by midnight. The more you know about your drive–the brand-specific idiosyncrasies and the diagnostic sounds that drives produce–the better prepared you are for the inevitable crash.

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TechBite: Save your PCs Bacon – Back up your Registry

Steve Bass / May 26, 2009

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By Steve Bass

System Restore is a recovery tool built into Windows that backs up and restores the Registry. System Restore takes a snapshot of your computer — called a restore point — once a day, as well as before you perform certain tasks, such as installing a new program. If all goes well, you can use a restore point later on to bring your PC back to the state it was in when the snapshot was taken. But remember, we’re talking about computers.

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