Firefox 3 came up with a bunch of improvements, but some of its new features are really two-headed serpents, because some love them, while other hate them. Just one example - the default over sized Back button in the toolbar. I love it, but some people want to see it go away. No problem, we'll solve that, and we'll also check an additional Firefox 3 tips, so fire it up!

OK, so let's get to it - how to turn the big Back button into a smaller one?

- Right click on the toolbar to get to the menu, and choose Customise.

- Check Use Small Icons, and then press Done.

- Enjoy your small Back button, or go back to the big one!

Next, we'll see how to adjust the Smart Location Bar's suggestions number (maybe you don't want more than 3, after all).

- Type about:config into the Address Bar, and then press Enter.

- Press the I'll be careful. I promise! button.

- Type browser.urlbar.maxRichResults in the Filter field to get to this preference.

- Choose how many suggestions you need(5 is fine with me, as you can see below).

Next, let's see how can we choose what Firefox 3 does with a certain file type by default.

- Open the Tools menu, and choose Options.

- Go to the Applications tab, and type in the name of a program/company/file type. In my case, it's Adobe.

- Select the action you want to set as default, as you can see in the image below.

- Press OK, and it's all done!

Fourth Firefox 3 tip today is a very quick one - to open a tab that you just closed, press Ctrl+Shift+T. Sweet!

At last, a quick scroll tip - to quickly scroll with your keyboard, use the Space key. While the Space key scrolls down, use the Shift+Space combination to scroll up.

That's it for today, I hope you enjoyed these Firefox 3 tips!

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Summer is a troublesome season for computer owners, especially for those without proper airflow in their cases, and if the computer is also located in a room that gets hot...problems are just around the corner! Even more, viruses and other security threats are also waiting to make your life miserable, but you don't have to go and drop your computer at the local computer repairs shop, or the geek next door, because there are a lot of free computer fixes within reach! You don't have to pay for any software, and you won't need any special tools for "playing" with your computer's innards, you just have to pay attention to my advices!

<-120x240 Vertical Banner - left->When it comes to software, checking 10 Computer Security Tips could help a lot, although I can't claim that's all you can do to secure your computer and your data, but those tips could take you much closer to "best security you can get," since there's no such thing as "unbreakable system," only "system that hasn't been broken in yet."

Now, let's leave the security issue aside and move to the heat related problems and other issues that my need fixing these days, shall we?

Computer not starting/random reboots after upgrading the video card? If you got your hands on one of the new ATI Radeon HD 4850 or HD 4870 cards, I envy you! Both offer unbeatable price/performance ratio, and there are plenty of benchmarks and tests published here and there to prove that, but what if you just got one new card, and you can't enjoy its power? No, ATI doesn't suck, and NVIDIA doesn't suck either! Here's what you can do by yourself...

First of all, be sure to check that the 6-pin PCI-Express power connector is inserted into the card, because most new PCI-Express card need a bit of extra power. If you didn't check before buying the card, you should also check that your power supply unit can handle the power requirements of your new card, since most of them need at least a good 450W one. At last, if you get reboots in games, check the temperatures of your card, and maybe add some fans to your case, or simply remove the side panel.

After the last power drop, your computer doesn't boot at all, or gives you the BSOD? I know this won't probably help, but be sure to buy a UPS, just to avoid such problems in the future! Now, to serious things...

Test your memory, first of all. How to do that? No, don't go to any specialist, you can do it, too! Grab a Linux bootable CD of, if you have Vista, you can try the Memory Diagnostics Tool to check the memory. If you don't want to use any Linux bootable CD just to check your computer's memory, you can also give MemTest a try, I know a lot of computer service technicians using it, and you don't need any special knowledge to do that.

If your computer is starting up without problems, temperatures seem to be fine, but you still get random BSODs, you shoud check the hard drive, too. The fastest method is to get a program able to check the SMART status, such as Active SMART, DriveHealth or HDDLife. Although these are commercial programs, using the trial versions for a quick check is possible, but you could also consider buying them for long term hard drive health monitoring...or not, it's your choice.

Slow computer? Programs crashing all the time? Check your memory, scan for viruses, clean the dust from inside the case...and maybe even get a new computer, if the one you're currently using is 10 years old!

That should be all for today, but if you're looking for other free computer fixes, don't hesitate to stand out and shout. Your wish is my command, so let me know what's wrong with your computer. If it's ill, we'll cure it!

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Google is slowly turning into a monster able to provide you all that you may need from the Internet. For now, everything seems fine, and there are no side effects. Although I am not using all Google's tools, I am extremely happy with Gmail and I think the search engine isn't that bad, either. In fact, it's the best thing you can get for now, in most cases. To me, iGoogle is a pretty new service, since today it was the first time I used it, to be honest. Now, let's see what's the link between iGoogle and social networking, shall we?

Before moving on, I have to excuse myself for being so ignorant - iGoogle has been around since May 2005, and got its current name and a whole plethora of features on the 30th of April, 2007. On the 18th of April, 2008, Google turned its iGoogle page into its general user start page. Now, iGoogle has reached a level allowing it to compete with sites like Netvibes, Pageflakes, or Windows Live Personalized Experience.<-125x125 Button - right->

OK, so the story is short and simple - Google is working on a new version of iGoogle, and is currently testing social networking features for the personalized home page, including chat between those signed in Google Web mail, instant messaging, or iGoogle services, in the left side navigation bar, sharing of stories in Google Reader and images in Picasa, as you can read in the Google Operating System blog.

To be honest, I am not crazy about having that left side navigation bar inside iGoogle(I wouldn't stop using Netvibes too soon, either), but I am sure they'll add an option to remove it, or maybe even an auto-hide feature. I know there are plenty of good similar sites, but what about leaving another Internet task to Google? Well, it may be scary, but we may be closer to Google OS than most of us think!

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No matter how hard it may seem for most people, if you have a crazy dream, but you channel all your energy towards reaching it, your chances of reaching it will increase exponentially. No matter how much some people would disagree, I am sure Bill Gates is a living proof of the statement above. He's also a proof of the fact that having all the possible studies one, two or more universities can provide won't ever compensate for inspiration, passion, and sustained work. Now, let's get to the historic event that happened today - Bill Gates stepped down from most of his Microsoft-related duties, but remained the chairman of the company's board of directors.

Obviously, we can't just say "Bill Gates retired" without taking a look back and try to point out the highs and lows of his career as Microsoft's CEO, starting with those early "garage days" until today. This is a pretty long period - 33 years, and a good lesson for most people dreaming to have a net worth of a few million over night. Big things take time, remember that! Now, let's roll back to 1973...

...when Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside School, and scored 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs. In the fall of the same year, he enrolled at Harvard College, where he met Microsoft's future CEO - Steve Ballmer. Anyway, Microsoft wasn't even founded yet back then, but Gates met a lot of interesting people at Harvard, including Christos Papadimitriou, a computer scientist who worked with him on a paper about algorithms.

In 1975, Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work for Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems on a BASIC interpreter, and once Intel released the Intel 8080 CPU, he saw this as an opportunity to put his BASIC skills to work, starting a computer software company with Paul Allen.

As a side note, you should know this wasn't Gates' first business venture, because he formed Traf-O-Data with Allen a few years before, when he was 17, earning $20,000 in the first year, but that business went slowly down went his clients found out... his age!

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On the 26th of November 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered with the USPTO, after starting up as "Micro-soft" in Albuquerque. In that period, Gates wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter, after finding out that a pre-market copy of the BASIC interpreter he worked on leaked into the community. Gates pointed out in the letter that software developers should be able to demand payment, and in late 1976, Microsoft became independent of MITS.

On the 1st of January, 1979, the company moved to Bellevue, Washington. In those early days, Gates continued to write code, while taking care of the company as a whole, and it is worth being mentioned that, during the first 5 years in Microsoft's history, he personally reviewed every single line of code that made it to clients, often rewriting various parts by himself.

In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft to make the BASIC interpreter for the upcoming IBM PC, in a move that laid the foundation of the IT world as we know it. Pretty soon, MS-DOS was born, and Gates insisted to keep the copyright of what was a heavily modified 86-DOS, a operating system similar to CP/M, the most popular one before MS-DOS turned Microsoft into a major player of the IT industry.

The first retail version of Microsoft Windows arrived on the 20th of November, 1985, and Bill Gates' dream started to have a clear shape. Windows 95, Windows NT, the ill-fated Windows Millenium...all these are history already, and I think best thing to do now is to get back to Bill Gates...

Gates has three children, being married with Melinda since 1994, and a net worth of $58 billion, and still rising.

I think one of the greatest of Bill Gates' accomplishments is the fact that Windows doesn't work perfectly. I know it sounds strange, but think about all those jobs created by this simple fact! It doesn't work? Call a tech support center!

Today, Bill Gates delivered a short speech to Microsoft employees, saying "There won't be a day in my life when I won't be thinking about Microsoft, the great things that we're doing and wanting to help," with tears in his eyes.

That's it - no matter how you put it, an era is ending, and another one has already started. Should Gates return as a CEO, one day? Will Steve Ballmer be the CEO Microsoft needs in these troubled days? There are soo many questions, and lots of answers, but I know one thing - only time will tell, but until then, feel free to drop your comments below, I am sure you have plenty of things to say about this!

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These days, security becomes a problem to more and more people. I am not talking about terrorism as we all know it, but you can consider this a form of terrorism too, because computer viruses are surely a tool of terror. Why do I say this? Well, the less you know about computer security, the more likely you'll get frightened when your antivirus will detect "something," or when your operating system will display error messages. Since knowledge is power, today I'll provide you some valuable computer security advice, because that's what you need, before anything else.

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While most of you are probably using Windows, most of these tips apply to other operating systems, and some of them are also useful in real life situations, like interacting with people your don't know if you can trust or not. All right, these being said, let's see today's 10 security tips, shall we?

1. Don't rely on suppositions, and don't EVER say "that can't happen to me." Try to find at least 10 minutes per week to find out more about latest threats and to get some computer security advice.

2. Use a good antivirus, and don't rely on your friend's advice regarding this matter. Go visit Checkmark, AV-Test.org and AV-Comparatives to see for yourselves that the program you're going to spend some money for is really worth it...or not!

3. If your antivirus is not an all-in-one package, try using a firewall. My personal suggestion is Comodo Firewall Pro, one of the best out there, and also a free product! Obviously, you don't have to take my word for granted, so feel free to check some of the many firewall test results available on the Internet.

4. Be careful with incoming email, especially when your antivirus is not capable of scanning incoming messages, or you have disabled this feature. Even friends can send viruses without knowing it, so always double check strange attachments.

5. Don't use passwords easy to guess. Your phone number or your birth date can be easily found through trial-and-error, while a password like "7yhfX_8dh7z_1sZ3" is not something one would guess. Try to make your passwords as complicated as needed so you won't remember them, and store them in a safe location, like a USB drive.

6. Getting back to emails, don't answer spam. If someone you don't know sends you a message without sufficient identification data, better avoid answering too, although it may not look like spam.

7. Avoid sharing your personal documents on the network, as well as installing useless toolbars, programs you don't need, and those coming from sources you can't fully trust.

8. Keep your operating system and applications up to date, but don't use automatic updates. Why? Some updates proved to do more damage than the threats they were supposed to fix, so my advice is to wait a few days after an update is issued, and check user feedback before taking that step.

9. Avoid Warez sites, because these are obvious sources of Trojans/spyware/viruses. I don't have to say that using files you get from such sites is illegal in most cases, but sometimes only by accessing a Warez site you can end up with a virus.

10. Backup, backup, backup! USB drives are extremely cheap these days, and so are DVD discs. Spare at least 30 minutes per week to save your latest documents on a disc or a USB drive, and keep the backups in a safe place. Your data is far more valuable than the hardware used to store it, so don't suppose your hard drive won't crash. The warranty can replace the dead drive, but won't bring back your data!

This is it. I know some of the computer security advice above may seem obvious, but this is like learning to write, especially for beginners. The key is to repeat it all until you'll find the security measures above to be as natural as breathing. If you have some computer security advice I missed and you'd like to share with the rest of us, please drop your comment below, your effort will be highly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

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