Microsoft Vista and its associated sidebars were not very popular with many users. It quickly faded from existence and was replaced with the much more successful Windows 7. It contains helpful tools called Windows 7 gadgets. Let’s discuss some of the more effective and useful ones to consider using. System monitor gadgets can be very useful to have on your desktop. They provide the ability to monitor your computer’s resources at all times. It can alert you to usage spikes which can affect performance. These spikes are normally not a problem but they can sometimes be indicative of a problem...

In the past most of us have used fancy 3rd party tools for our multimedia needs within Windows. Isn’t it about time we actually used the tools that already come with our operating system? Windows 7 has many multimedia enhancements and today we are going to talk about using the Windows 7 DVD Maker. With the Windows 7 DVD Maker we can make professional looking DVDs from our home movie clips. To get started go to Start > Programs > Windows DVD Maker. Then click on add items. Browse your video library and select the clips you would like to work with. Once you add them to the DVD Maker you can...

I was going to call this post, Productivity or Fascism? I spent years working for a company that had all games turned off by default and I only had access to the Company Intranet. This company had successfully removed any remote possibility of enjoying work while using their computers. Windows 7 has the most bells and whistles of any desktop operating system, yet in order to push the powerful business capabilities of Windows 7, games have been turned off by default. Take heart my fellow drones, the games can easily be turned back on. Couple this with a high-speed processor and broadband, and Windows 7...

Windows 7 has a lot of new or improved features. One of my new favorite features is the Sticky Notes – they are not only useful but they are fun to work with. You can find Sticky Notes from the start menu. These can be used to create notes and reminders. You can drag them around your desktop and re-size them to your heart’s content. They will stretch as you write and best of all they look like just like Post It Notes. You can even right click on them to change the color. If you would like to clear the notes from your desktop; right click the notes icon in the task-bar and click on close,...

Pin Programs To Taskbar – The Windows 7 Task Bar (the bar on the bottom of the screen) comes with 3 default programs pinned to it; Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and Windows Media Player. To pin programs of your choice to the task bar go to programs and then right click on the program and choose Pin to Taskbar. You can also drag desktop shortcuts to the taskbar. You can also drag around, rearrange, and delete these icons. Jump Lists – Let’s say we use Word a lot so we pin Word to the taskbar now if we hover the mouse over the Word icon in our taskbar and right click, we will get a jump...