JAZZ UP YOUR APPLICATION SWITCHER

JAZZ UP YOUR APPLICATION SWITCHER

I’m sure you know that by pressing the Alt + Tab keys you can switch between the various programs and applications running on your PC but did you know that there’s a simple way to make the Application Switcher a lot more useful, and interesting to look at? Well there is, and it’s called Taskswitch, a free little add-on from Microsoft; in addition to the normal icon view it also generates a preview or thumbnail of the applications you are switching between. It’s part of the Powertoys suite (which includes the most excellent Tweak UI). Just click on the download link, accept the defaults and it’s ready to run.



WINDOWS XP PASSWORD GENERATOR

You are probably sick of me wittering on about the importance of using non-guessable passwords, especially for on-line transactions, banking and so on. I’ve mentioned websites that will come up with random assortments of letters and numbers on several occasions but did you know Windows XP can be persuaded to generate a gobbledegook password? It’s easy; just go to Run on the Start menu and type ‘cmd’ (without the quotes) and a DOS like command prompt window opens. At the flashing cursor type the following:

‘net user administrator /random’

(no quotes and don't forget the space before /random). Press Enter and up one pops and don't forget to make a note of it...



SIMPLE SECURITY TRICK

If you share your PC with others you obviously know that it is next to impossible to keep your personal files and data private, but there is a way. The trick is to use a built-in Windows facility for protecting System files, by ‘hiding’ them from view in Windows Explorer and all of the programs on your PC. To hide a folder and its contents simply open Windows Explorer then right-click on the folder icon. Select Properties and under Attributes check ‘Hidden’. In order for this to work Windows Explorer must be set to hide nominated files, so go to Tools > Folder Options, select the View tab and a short way down the list make sure that the item ‘Do not show hidden files’ is checked.