Another of the things that Windows could be a lot more helpful about is networking.
Troubleshooting advice that ends in "consult your network administrator" sounds like a joke when you are your home's network administrator. Most software utilities that purport to simplify networking are lying through their routers. So I wasn't too excited about trying Network Magic--nothing about networking is magical, unless you include voodoo curses.
But whattayaknow? It's a program that lives up to its hype. Now when my network abruptly disappears, I click on Network Magic and it starts trying different methods to resuscitate the ethernet. It doesn't always succeed, and Network Magic has to resort to telling me which cable to unplug, how long to wait, and what to try next. Between the two of us, though, this networking stuff is child's play. A very big, mean child, but Magic and I can take him.
To download(Free Program), go to: http://www.networkmagic.com
Considering that many people have moved their permanent residence to the Internet, you'd think folks would want better digs than Internet Explorer. Sure, there's Firefox; it's sort of the DIY log cabin that Linux devotees build themselves because, you know, Microsoft is evil. There's Opera, too--I have no clue why people use it. And then there's Maxthon, the Rodney Dangerfield of browsers--if Dangerfield looked like Brad Pitt and thought like Frank Lloyd Wright.
One possible reason Maxthon can't get no respect is that it originated in China and has never been properly marketed in the United States or Europe. But the people who have discovered it, as I did a couple of years ago, love it because it packs an arsenal of tools for blazing your way through the morass that the Web can become.
Maxthon, of course, has tabs--it had them before IE and Firefox did. But here's one example of why its tabs work better: When you reopen Maxthon, you're presented with a list of the tabs what were open when you last closed it, and you can pick up where you left off easily. Tabs can be renamed, locked in place, scooted around, tiled, constantly refreshed, and saved in groups that you can later recall in toto.
Other tools translate dozens of languages, let you edit a Web page to eliminate parts you don't want to appear in a printout, and zoom images or the entire screen.
A treelike history helps you find your way back to a certain page. The browser also lets you suck all the images off a page or collect notes and search with multiple engines. There's no way I can tell you all the things that have made me a die-hard Maxthon user. It's free. Try it yourself.
To download(Free Program), go to: http://www.maxthon.com