Home Office: Still Annoyed With Your PC? No Wonder...

Another heaping helping of fixes for vexing PC problems.

Steve Bass

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I'm still kvetching about my PC, and with good reason. Last week I told you about the two "PC annoyances" articles I wrote. This week I'm digging into more annoyances that didn't make it into the articles. I've also got some utilities that stop annoyances in their tracks.

Annoyed? Fight Back

I really hope you tried each fix in my latest article, "50 Fixes for the Biggest PC Annoyances." I also want you to experiment with the utilities I talked about in that story, some of which were written exclusively for the article (more about that in a sec).

In the article, you'll find "Utility RX: The De-Annoyifiers: Five Free Tools to the Rescue," a sidebar with obscure tools for not-so-obscure problems. The one I can't compute without is IEScroll, a program that lets me use the Scroll Lock key to jump to the next open Internet Explorer window. IEScroll was written by Brett Bartholomew at my request. (Yeah, I know, I'm still shocked that Bart was willing to write a utility from scratch--for free, no less. I guess I should have asked him to paint the house, too.)

Bart also wrote WMPopKill to stop pop-up ads in Windows Media Player, and Toolbar Chest, which saves IE's Toolbar settings. Bart has other free and useful tools. And if you have a yearning for a utility, something small that you've always wanted your PC to do, send me the idea and I'll forward it to Bart.

Dig This: It's got to be a gag. No one in city government, not even in wacky Los Angeles, would post a sign like this.

On Patrol With WinPatrol

Of the many utilities I covered in the "50 Fixes" story, WinPatrol stands out as one of the very best of the freebies. I talked about WinPatrol in detail on the last page, under the heading "Protect your system tray."

WinPatrol guards against all the annoyances doled out by programs--say, Real's player, AOL's Instant Messenger--that insist on loading themselves in your system tray. WinPatrol also stops programs such as Apple's QuickTime player from phoning home each time it's used. It's a tool I strongly encourage you to try, then make a permanent resident on your PC.

Of course, I needn't mention (but will because I know about your short attention span) that you can find every utility I wrote about in the article by heading to the Downloads area of our Web site.

Take a Break From Fighting Annoyances

There are a few pieces in the October issue that I don't want you to miss.

The first is Christopher Null's "The Best Software You're Not Using." This article is packed with programs I've never heard of before, some I'm going to try. I'm particularly intrigued by 1Tabview, because it looks like a smarter way to browse the Internet. See "View Multiple Web Sites" (it's four blurbs down). Another two that caught my eye: DU Meter (at the top) and Wine Library (near the bottom), both on the "Network Essentials" page.

The next story I've been perusing is "Inside Office 2003." I've been struggling with the whole idea of (cover your ears) NEVER UPGRADING EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE. That's a topic for another column, but reading Laurianne McLaughlin's insightful article is helping me move towards a decision. She's got the scoop on which of Office's components aren't worth the bother--and which are.

Dig This: It's big (2MB); but there's a cow in it, and it's funny. What more can you ask, eh? The Mootrix is a brilliant parody of The Matrix.

Another Annoyance Conquered

The Annoyance: I just bought a new PC. When the system boots, all I see is the manufacturer's irritating logo.

The Fix: IMHO, watching the logo screen is more than just annoying; it's depriving you of valuable troubleshooting and diagnostic information that's served up while the PC's booting. This annoyance is pretty easily dispensed with, provided your system's BIOS allows you to turn off the logo screen.

As you're booting up, tap the Delete or F1 key. (Pay attention during boot-up: The system usually displays the proper key on screen.) Browse through the various BIOS options until you find something similar to "disable the Logo Screen," and change the setting to not show the logo.

If you're feeling queasy about messing with the BIOS, read through "Tweak Your PC's BIOS Settings the Safe Way," a Hardware Tips column by Kirk Steers.

Dig This: Have a complaint? Take a number.