Block or Allow Third-Party Cookies in IE

Third-Party Cookies are nothing but Cookies from another website requested via an embedded code. These have no real benefit to the user as they are only used for data gathering purposes.

Some websites or features on a web page may not work if you block third-party cookies. Then again, some of you may have privacy concerns and may want to block third-party cookies.

We have seen how you can manage cookies in Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Now let us see how you can allow or block third-party cookies in these web browsers.

Block Third-Party Cookies in Internet Explorer

To set Internet Explorer to block third-party cookies, open IE > Internet Options > Privacy tab

Click on the Advanced button to open the Advanced Privacy Settings. here, check the Override automatic cookie handling box. IE by default accepts third-party cookies. To block them, select Block. Click OK and exit.

Use VLC Media player As A Screen Recording Tool

VLC player is touted as the Swiss Army Knife of all media players, and not without reason. While it practically plays every media file that you throw at it, what’s amazing about VLC is that it does so much more beyond that.

One of VLC’s potential use-cases can be using it as a screen capture/recording tool. Sure, there are other free apps out there that are better equipped for this particular task, but there might be situations when you need to do some quick screen recording, and don’t have a recorder app to work with.

Screen capturing with VLC is fairly simple, and requires just a few steps –

    Open VLC player, and click on View –> Advanced Controls. A few more buttons will appear on the interface.

    Now, press Ctrl + C (or, go to Media –> Open Capture Device…).

    In the new window, set Capture Device to “Desktop”, and the Desired frame rate to “10 fps” (frames per second). You can set a higher value if you want, but 10-12 fps will make just fine screencasts.

Click on the Play button, and VLC will start showing your desktop. Make sure VLC isn’t maximized, else all you’ll see is an endless stream of VLC-inside-VLC windows!

 Click on the Record button to start recording. You should preferably minimize the VLC window so that it doesn’t show up in your screencast

    Do whatever you need to show in your screencast, then restore the VLC window and click on the Record button again to stop recording.

    VLC will automatically save an AVI file in your Videos folder, which you can then share or do whatever you want with it.

Before you get all excited about this VLC feature, here are some pretty serious limitations you should keep in mind.

    There is no way to use your voice in your screencast. You’ll have to record your voice separately and stream that audio file along with the desktop recording. Clicking on the recording button will then save the audio along with the screencast.

You can only record your entire desktop in RAW format. There is no way to record a part of the desktop. This leads to enormous sized videos (like in GBs!) even for relatively short screencasts. For smaller videos, you’ll have to compress your video using H.264 or WebM.

As I said before, VLC shouldn’t be your go-to screen recording app, but it is certainly a useful feature to have nevertheless.

How to show File Extensions in Windows 8 / 7

File Extension is that which identifies the file type. If you are a regular Windows user, then it is not at all a problem to identify the file type. For it is very important to see file extension to identity the type of file you are trying to open from a security point of view. So in this post, we will see how to show File Extensions and why you should.

Since file names allow you to use multiple full stops, the real name of a malware file could be realword.docx.exe. But because you have not set Windows to show file extensions, you would see only realword.docx. Thinking its a Word document, you could well end up clicking on it and infecting your computer. If you had, on the other hand, set your PC to show file extensions, you would see its ful name – realword.docx.exe, which would help you to identify that it was actually an executable file and in all probability a malware file.

What are File Extensions and how are they useful

Different file types have different extensions. Audio files have .mp3, .wav, .wma and more based on the program used to open that file. File extensions also help the operating system to identify the corresponding program to open that particular file. So, you should be able to see file extensions to be at safer side and we will let you know how to enable options to see file extensions in Windows 

As mentioned earlier, by default Windows does not show files extensions and they are hidden. But, you can toggle the option to see them.

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Show File Extensions

There are two ways how you can go about accessing this setting. One way is through the Control Panel and other way is through Windows Explorer itself. In both ways, you will be toggling the option to see file extensions.

Through Control Panel

Open Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization.  Now, click on Folder Options > View tab. In this tab, under Advance Settings, you will see the option Hide extensions for known file types. Uncheck this option and click on Apply and OK.

Now, you can see file extensions for all files anywhere on your Windows system.

These are very simple steps to follow and you do not need any third party softwares to view file extensions. Windows provides us everything which can be easily achieved and the point lies in knowing and implementing them. This is the first way to see file extensions in Windows 7.

Via Windows File Explorer

In Windows 8.1 explorer, you can access it via View > Options > Change folder and search options. In Windows 7, open Explorer, press Alt on your keyboard to make the Classic bar appear. Next, click on Tools > Folder Options. Now follow the steps mentioned above.

Thus, you can set your Windows to show file extensions in Windows 8. If you have anything to add, please do share with us through comments.

Open Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization.  Now, click on Folder Options > View tab. In this tab, under Advance Settings, you will see the option Hide extensions for known file types. Uncheck this option and click on Apply and OK.

How to edit PDF files in Word 2013

Portable Document Format (PDF) is a common format for sharing final versions of files. The format is most used for viewing and not editing. But if you need to edit PDF files, Microsoft Word 2013 brings a multitude of features to the word-processing table, one being the capability to edit PDFs.

Office 2010 provided the option to save a document as PDF, but Microsoft Word 2013 even allows editing of the content before sending it to the final recipient, as a PDF file. Although, full version of Adobe Acrobat allows users to modify PDFs, it’s more cumbersome than editing the original document in MS Office. Why so? PDF is technically an image file, converting this image file back to text needs sophisticated OCR like Adobe Acrobat X Pro or other tools. Adobe Free Reader therefore, does not allow you to modify the content in a PDF. With Word 2013, however, you can convert a PDF into a Word document and edit the content.

In this post, we will see how to edit PDF files in Word 2013

Edit PDF Files in Word

When you install Office 2013, you will notice that the context menu for any PDF file, has an option to open a PDF file in Microsoft Word, along with your other PDF Readers like Adobe Reader or Foxit and Windows Reader, if you are on Windows 8.

Go to any PDF file location, right-click on the PDF file, select ‘Open with’ option and choose ‘Word (desktop) to open it in Word 2013. When you open any PDF file in Word 2013,  it starts to convert it using Microsoft PDF Reflow.

Microsoft PDF Reflow, will convert all the files contents, including its formatting like paragraphs, lists, headers, columns, footnotes , tables, etc, into Word content. You will be able to edit even the tables. I tried with various smaller PDF documents and it kept all its formatting, even after the conversion. Then I also tried bigger-sized PDF’s like e-books (sized ~30MB) . It took a bit of time to convert – but it did its job. So, you can try large files too if you have some newer systems with more memory.

Anyway, next, a dialog box with a message “Word will convert your PDF to an editable Word document. The resulting Word document will be optimized to allow you edit the text, so it might not look exactly like the original PDF, especially if the original file contained lots of graphics.” should appear on your computer screen.

Click the OK button to continue opening the file in Word 2013. Once it opens the PDF in Word, it will be in Read Only / Protected mode

Upon opening the file, Click the Enable Editing button next to the warning message to begin editing your PDF file. Once the editing is completed, click File, click Save as button to save the file. Here, remember, you cannot save the changes to the existing PDF file readily.

To maintain your changes, it is essential you  save the document with a new name or to a different location.

  

So, if you get a pop bearing the same message do not be surprised. Try saving the PDF with a different name or save the file in Word or PDF format.

Depending on the situation, one option may work better than the other:

PDF: If you don’t want to make any more changes to the document, save the edited document as a PDF file.

Word document: If you want to continue making changes to the document (or if you need second pair of eyes for approving the changes), save it as a Word document. You can always save it as a PDF file later on.

This is a great feature in Word 2013, among many other cool features of Microsoft Office 2013!

Enable or Disable 3rd-party cookies in IE app on Windows 8.1

Earlier we explained you about an Internet Cookie and the different types of Internet Cookies. We also detailed the steps that need to be followed in order to block or allow Third-Party Cookies in IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera. In this post, we will see how to enable or disable 3rd-party cookies in the Internet Explorer App for Windows 8.1, using Charms PC Settings Panel.

Before starting with the tip, let’s take a glimpse of what a third-party cookie is. Third-party cookies are the small amount of text stored in your web browser by a website with a domain name, other than the one you are currently visiting. Most of the time, the ad services use cookies to offer you the targeted ads based on your browsing history and web searches. However, they can raise privacy concerns and some may want to block them for privacy reasons.

Let us see how you can enable or disable third-party cookies in the IE app, using the Charms Settings panel.

Disable 3rd-party cookies in IE app

If you prefer to use the IE app, then to block or disable the third-party cookies in the Internet explorer app, you have to follow the below mentioned steps.

1.       1. Open your Metro or Modern or Universal IE app and then bring up the Charms bar. Choose Settings.

2.     2.   In the Settings charm, select the Privacy tab.

3.      3  In Privacy, scroll down to get the Cookies Section and set the Block all third-party cookies switch to ON.

 4.       The Internet Explorer app has now blocked the third-party cookies.

5.      NOTE: If you are using Windows 8  or later, you have both desktop and the app version of Internet Explorer installed on your device. Though, the IE for desktop and IE app look and work differently, they share the same settings. Therefore, if you have disabled third-party cookies in the desktop variant of the browser then you don’t have to repeat the process for the Internet Explorer App.

How to open Internet Explorer in Windows 10

Microsoft Edge is the default browser in Windows 10. But if you prefer to use IE, then this post will show you how to open Internet Explorer in Windows 10 and how you can pin it to your Start Menu or Taskbar for easy access and how you can even set it as your

Open Internet Explorer in Windows 10

In the Windows 10 taskbar search, type Internet Explorer and you will see it appear in the results.

Clicking on it will open Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Pin IE icon to Windows 10 Start or Taskbar

Right-click on the Start search result and select Pin to Start or Pin to taskbar, according to your preference. The IE icon will get pinned.

Set IE as default browser in Windows 10

If you use it frequently, you can set it as your default browser via Internet Options > Programs tab > Internet programs > Set programs. Control Panel will open. You can set Internet Explorer as the default browser under Set your Default Programs applet.

This is how you can open Internet Explorer 11 in Windows 10, and how you can pin it to your Start Menu or Taskbar for quick frequent access and set it as your default browser.

In the Windows 10 taskbar search, type Internet Explorer and you will see it appear in the results.

Clicking on it will open Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Remove or Turn System Icons like Clock On or Off in Windows 10 Taskbar

Windows 10 OS is different from its earlier versions, but retains some of the old features. For instance, Windows 10 displays a clock icon in desktop taskbar. The icon resides in the lower-right corner of the screen. The option proves handy for knowing current date and time however, some users find it of little use. As such they prefer removing it from the taskbar properties. This guide will walk you through the process of removing the clock from Windows 10 Taskbar.

Remove Clock from Windows 10 Taskbar

For removing the Windows 10 desktop taskbar clock, you’ll have to make some changes in the Notifications & Actions section of the Windows 10 Settings app. To do so, move the mouse cursor to the lower right corner of your computer screen, right-click on the clock and select Customize notification icons as shown in the screenshot below.

Turn System Icons On or Off in Windows 10

Instantly, Quick Actions screen will be launched. The section primarily displays the apps that appear under the taskbar settings. In the right pane look for the option with the heading ‘Turn System Icons On or Off‘. Click this option and proceed to the next step.

the screenshot below.

Here, you will find, most of the icons are set “On” by default, with some exceptions depending on your configuration. ignoring these options, look for the clock option and to remove the clock from the Windows 10 taskbar, simply set the Clock entry to Off.

Fixing Windows 7: Prevent Windows Waking from Sleep

If you’re trying to save a few bucks on power, setting your computer go to sleep after some time of inactivity in power settings is a good solution. However, devices that are connected can cause the computer to wake up. For instance, a slight movement of the keyboard or mouse can wake it up.

It’s also quite annoying when you put your computer to sleep before bed, and when you wake up, it turns out the system was running all night. Here’s how to fix the problem of your computer waking up.

Disable Mouse or Keyboard from Waking Windows

It’s easy to prevent mouse movement to not wake up you computer in either Windows 7 or 8.1. From the desktop open Control Panel and click on Mouse

Or in Windows 7 click the Start button and type: mouse and hit Enter.

In the windows that comes up, select the Hardware tab and click Properties.

Next click the Change Settings button under the General tab.

In the next screen under the Power Management tab, uncheck Allow this Device to Wake the Computer and click OK

The process is the same for the Keyboard as well. Select Keyboard from Control Panel and follow the same path to Power Management and uncheck Allow this Device to Wake the Computer and click OK

Other Devices and Network Activity that Wake Windows from Sleep

While it’s usually the mouse or keyboard that wakes up your computer, other hardware can cause your computer from waking as well. To find out what is waking it up, you can use a couple of handy commands.

powercfg –lastwake

If that doesn’t work, here’s a more powerful command you can use. This will list every hardware device that has permission to wake your computer.

powercfg –devicequery wake_armed

It’s also worth noting that network activity can wake you computer up too. med

How To Disable the Windows Startup Splash Screen

If you’re tired of seeing the Windows 7 logo splash screen every time you restart your system, it’s easy to disable it. Here’s how.

In Windows 7 or Vista, click Start and type: msconfig into the search field and hit Enter

The System Configuration windows opens. Select the Boot tab, then check No GUI Boot. Click OK

The next time you restart your system, the Windows splash screen will no longer be displayed, and you’ll go directly to the log in screen. It’s debatable whether this helps Windows boot faster, but at least the annoying screen is gone.

You can use this trick in XP and Vista too. In XP, open msconfig, click the BOOT.INI tab and check /NOGUIBOOT, click OK and restart the system

If you’re sick of hearing the Windows start up sound, you can disable that too.

How to enable Spelling check in Google Chrome

Correct spellings are very important specially while filling online forms. Google Chrome users can enable automatic spell checker for fixing incorrect spellings quickly. Once Google Chrome’s spellings check feature is activated, it will highlight wrong spellings which can be corrected in few simple clicks. Besides standard spell check, you can also enable ‘better’ spell check in the form of “Ask Google for Suggestions

Turn On Spellings check feature in Google Chrome

1. In Google Chrome browser, click on icon at top right and then goto “Settings” option. Scroll down to bottom of Google Chrome’s Settings page. Then click on “Show Advanced Settings” option.

2. Now scroll to “Languages” section. Here click on “Language and Input Settings” option to open a pop-up box. Click on “Enable spell checking” option at bottom left part to activate automatic spell check feature in Chrome browser

3. You can also add custom words to spell checking dictionary in Chrome browser on your computer. Just click on “Custom Spelling Dictionary” and then add custom words to be marked as correct spelling by Chrome’s Spell checker

Enable better “Ask Google for Suggestions” spell check

1. For more accurate and better spell checking experience, you can enable “Ask Google for Suggestions“. When enabled, spellings in the form field are sent to Google servers for spell check. So in this process you are using same spell checker as used on Google Search.

2. To enable this, open any form like here and then right click on the text field. Goto “Spell-Checker options” and then click on “Ask Google for Suggestions“. You should see small floating box which reads:

“Google Chrome can provide smarter spell checking by sending what you type in the browser to Google servers, allowing you to use the small spell checking technology used by Google Search.”

3. Click Enable button to activate  “Ask Google for Suggestions” option for better spellings check in Google Chrome. With these options activated, there will be no more wrong spellings while entering data in online forms within Google Chrome browser.

Windows 8 – Add or Remove Lock from the User Tile Menu

The new Windows 8 start screen has been fascinating many users out there. As we all are aware that Windows 8 has been developed for both Windows 8 PC and Smartphone’s. The start screen is an assembly of various applications all under the same screen. Windows 8 includes lock screen which locks your screen to prevent access of your account when you are not around your system. You can see the screen lock upon clicking the Username and then click on LOCK. Here is the tutorial how you can add or remove Lock from User Time in Windows 8.

The new OS brings out features that are never seen before comparing with the earlier version of Windows OS. The lock screen maintains privacy on your system.

The lock feature can be turned ON or OFF depending on your preferences or requirements. The tutorial here will show you how to add or Remove Lock from User Time in Windows 8.

How to Add or Remove Lock from the User Tile Menu in Windows 8

Follow the steps given below to add or remove lock from user tile menu in Windows 8

First hold down Windows key + X and then hit P to open Control panel

Next, click on System and Security

Now click on Power Options

In the power options window, click on Choose what the power button does link

Next, click on Change settings that are currently unavailable to activate the items that are grayed out

If you want to add Lock from the User Tile Menu, check the box beside Lock in the window

 In order to remove Lock from User Tile Menu uncheck the box.

Upon completion of all the steps described you can find that the lock is added or removed as per your set preference.

The tutorial here will show you how you can add or remove Lock from the User Tile Menu in Windows 8.

How to boot win 8 fast

Startup programs are that applications that gets started as soon as you login your system. Among all the startup programs some are essential at startup but excess of programs at start up can delay Windows startup. As all the startup programs require some time to be triggered. But one day all of a sudden you find that the startup programs are not started or say the programs that are supposed to startup at boot are not started. To fix this issue we have come up with some possible fixes to resolve this issue on Windows 8

Startup programs are abruptly stops functioning or running at startup can prevent Windows boot. When you find that the startup programs are not starting at boot, try out the simple troubleshooting steps described below to resolve this issue on Windows 8.

Firstly check the system configuration and verify that the startup programs are not disabled. If so, then enable them. You or other user on the system might have disabled this program but you might have forgotten this. So, open system configuration and go to startup tan and enable all the startup programs.

started or say the programs that are supposed to startup at boot are not started. To fix this issue we have come up with some possible fixes to resolve this issue on Windows 8

You can also go for Windows 8 Refresh. This will uninstall all the non-Microsoft programs and help fixing many issues on the system. This doesn’t remove or delete you personal files or say all your data and information files are kept intact. You can later re-install the non-Microsoft programs

For faster startup Windows 8 includes fast startup or Hybrid Shutdown. But this hybrid shutdown can also be the culprit for not starting the startup programs. Disable the fast startup option and see if this helps you to get rid of this problem.

To disable Hybrid Shutdown or fast startup, follow the steps given below

Open power options from control panel or taskbar

Next, click on the link Change what the power buttons do in the left pane

A new window opens, here scroll down and uncheck the option Turn on fast startup (recommended) under Shutdown settings.

Once all the steps described above are completed, you can see all the startup programs running at boot.

Upon following the steps described above in this tutorial you can easily resolve issues with programs not starting at Windows startup or Boot