USB drives, such as flash drives and external hard drives, are additional sources of storage space for a computer, capable of transporting data between computer systems. Due to this, however, you also face the risk of obtaining a virus and spreading it to any other computer you connect the USB drive to. Scan the drive with an anti-virus software, just to make sure it’s clean. Writer Bio

Updated September 13, 2017 If you are receiving harassing or threatening phone calls to a Verizon number, Verizon can also help trace those calls, turning the information over to law enforcement. Use a Traditional Search Engine If you’re researching Verizon phone numbers or those from any other carrier, it’s worth checking if those numbers are listed anywhere online. Even if you don’t recognize a phone number, it might be listed on a public website if it belongs to a business or to someone who has a personal website....

When sending money to friends and family through PayPal, you can avoid any fees by opting to send the payment as a gift provided that you fund the amount through your PayPal balance or bank account. Making gift payments for your online purchases, however, voids PayPal’s Purchase Protection program in the case of a fraudulent sale. According to PayPal, funding payments that use a credit card incur fees (2.9% plus $0....

If you want to set display settings for the built-in monitor on your Sony Vaio laptop computer, you’ll have to use the native tools inside the Windows operating system designed for this task. These native tools will let you change your screen resolution as well as your orientation whenever you’d like. You will be able to access these tools via your Sony Vaio laptop computer’s desktop. Writer Bio

Setting “hot keys,” or shortcut keys, on an ASUS laptop is performed using Windows functions. Hot keys are keys or key combinations that, when clicked will open a file or folder, or start a program. Several hot keys are preprogrammed for Windows commands. For example, the hot key combination of CTRL + ALT + DEL will prompt the user to reboot the computer. See the complete list of Windows 7 preprogrammed keyboard shortcut keys in the Resources section....

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browser is one of the most popular browsers in the world. It’s easy to set your favorites in IE, so you can quickly access sites that you like without typing in the entire URL each time you visit them. There are several ways to accomplish this. Warnings Writer Bio

Remote Access is a useful feature of Mac OS X that lets you access files on your computer from anywhere. Remote Access also lets anyone with your administrator login and password access files on your computer, which is why it is a good idea to shut this feature off if you don’t really use it. You must shut off remote access in System Preferences on your actual computer and not through your remote connection....

Common on all operating systems but particularly pervasive on Windows-based operating systems, buffer overrun detected problems may be executed when untrustworthy data is permitted by software coded in C or C++. This externally introduced data may cause program crashes or exploit vulnerabilities in software and allow malicious software to be executed on your computer. Buffer overrun detected error messages should be noted, and you should correct these problems as soon as possible to prevent greater security issues....

Use GIF Ninja, GIMP, Photoshop, or another image manipulation program to split an animated GIF’s frames into separate images. Note that only animated gifs can be split because this is the only GIF format that can store multiple, separate images. The desktop programs that split these images can do so because of their layering tools. Layers are virtual transparencies that you can stack to form a unified image. Imaging programs also use them to hold the frames of animated GIFs....

Fake Apple earbuds can look remarkably similar to the real thing – particularly at first glance – and can even come in boxes that look almost identical to the packaging that Apple uses. Therefore, distinguishing genuine Apple headphones from counterfeits comes down the small details on the headphones themselves. Writer Bio

The Adobe Flash player handles a wide variety of multimedia content on the Internet. When you load streaming media, the Flash player buffers the media. Buffering is the process by which the media is temporarily downloaded onto your computer before playback. When your playback is stopped due to “Buffering,” this means that the download and storage speed is slower than the playback speed. Aside from increasing your Internet speed, one solution to stopping buffering errors is to increase the buffer size....

After you connect a hardware device to your computer, certain versions of Windows (such as Vista Home, Vista Premium and Windows 7) may automatically install the drivers it detects instead of allowing you to choose which drivers to install. While this feature may save you some trouble in most occasions, some hardware devices require an installation with specific drivers in order to function properly. Stop your operating system from automatically installing device drivers by using the Windows Driver Settings options panel....

Java.exe is the file used to run the Java compiler. When you execute a Java application, the Java.exe file appears in the list of processes shown in the Windows Task Manager. To stop Java.exe, you must stop it in Windows Task Manager. Stopping the process also stops any Java application from running on the computer.

Integrating a computer’s media functionality into your home theater system has become easier than ever with the addition of high definition television sets and their VGA and HDMI inputs. Users can surf the web, listen to music and stream videos all from the comfort of their living room couches, forever lifting the computer’s restriction to home office use. With the ability to access the Internet and their entire music and video libraries with their home theater systems, an individual’s choices for home entertainment have become endless....

Updated February 10, 2017 Click the “Spotlight Search” icon at the far-right of the menu at the top of your screen. Type “photo booth” into the search field, then select the application from the list of results that appear. Wait as Photo Booth opens. The iSight camera activates. The Photo Booth window displays the image in front of the iSight camera. Press the red “Shutter” button below the displayed image....

Digital signatures are used to authenticate digital information such as documents. They assure the viewer of the document that the information it contains is authentic and that the contents have not been modified since it was digitally signed. Such signatures also indicate the origin of the document. It’s relatively simple to tell if a document has been digitally signed. Tips Writer Bio

Your Kindle has an easy-to-read screen that mimics the look of pages in a book. If you don’t want to read e-books and other content yourself, the Kindle also has an accessibility feature called Text-to-Speech. With the feature activated, the Kindle will read books, newspapers and magazines to you in a male or female voice. Text-to-Speech is useful if you need a hands-free way to use the Kindle when you’re driving or working....

There’s always that one important number you just forget to save to your phone. Maybe you placed or received a call on your Boost Mobile phone, but either way you lost the number. Fortunately, with Boost Mobile phones you can easily trace calls by accessing the phone’s call records online. Boost Mobile call records house an itemized list of all calls placed and received on the phone. Call records are also archived by month for organized accessibility....

Updated September 18, 2017

Beta, or “Betacam” as it is properly known, is a component analog video format that was introduced by Sony in 1982. However, due to its robustness and reliability as a broadcast-specification recording and playback system, it was in early 2011 approaching obsolescence and should not be considered a long-term archive medium. Digitize analog tape assets as soon as possible in anticipation of any deterioration in the physical recording media. This requires tape playback using a dedicated Betacam VCR followed by analog-to-digital conversion of video and audio signals....