Delete files permanently (without moving them to recycle bin)

If you continuously delete and add new files to your Windows computer, then you’ll understand the pain of delete files twice (Deleting the file and removing it from the recycle bin).

Skype - Unable to sign in and other errors (September 21, 2015)

Update: Skype access is restored and everything is working properly.

If you’ve tried to sign in to your Skype account but wasn’t able to do so then you are not the only one. Skype is having issues and Microsoft knows about them and is trying to fix them.

Microsoft realizes, its time to move to Windows 9 instead of Windows 8.2

Finally, Microsoft realized that Windows 8 is not going to be users’ favorite OS because of some changes they made to it.

Microsoft has announced Windows 10

Microsoft has announced Windows 10 and skipped windows 9 and it is gonna release in 2015. According the Microsoft a large number of devices are going to run this because of its compatibility with all of them.

CEO of Facebook and Microsoft took ice bucket challenge

Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Facebook) accepted and completed ice bucket challenge in support for charity to ALS. Both of them dumped a bucket of ice water on themselves.

Windows XP is still 2nd most popular OS even after the end of its support

Windows XP is gone and Microsoft will not provide updates or security patches for it anymore, but still it is 2nd most popular OS according to the comparison on statcounter (with 16.89% of total OS users from around the globe).

How to change icons of desktop shortcuts?

Every shortcut on desktop has replaceable icons. You can simply change their icons from the properties, but you cannot change icons of some default (system) shortcuts by this simple technique. There is another way to change icons of such shortcuts and is extremely easy. I am using Windows 7, so I am going to guide you with this (other versions can have slightly different methods).

What avast! wanna say about current usage of Windows XP?

Everyone knows Microsoft is going to end support for Windows XP on April 8, so most XP users are upgrading to Windows 7 and some are going to fot latest one (Windows 8). But lots of users are not willing to upgrade.

Google drive vs OneDrive vs Dropbox pricing. Which one is low-priced?

Everyone needs some safe place to store backup of their files. Google Drive, OneDrive (SkyDrive), Dropbox and some other such cloud storage companies are available which provide you storage to put your files in. Most of them offer some free storage e.g. Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox offers 15GB, 7GB and 2GB respectively.

Get extra free bonus storage by OneDrive (up to 8GB)

Recently SkyDrive changed its name because of some copyright issues to OneDrive and is finally live now (OneDrive is live since 19 of February). I'm pretty sure you have your stuff in same way as it was in SkyDrive. SkyDrive used to give 7GB for free to all users and OneDrive is doing the same but it is also offering some more as bonus space.

Why my Windows device is not going to sleep? (Explained)

Recently my PC was not going to sleep mode even I left it idle for more than an hour. So I dug a little bit and came up with some solutions. Solution to my problem was really short. I had switched to High performance power plan and I forgot to switch back to Balanced.

There are some tools/programs which prevent system from sleep mode i.e. Media players will prevent your system from sleep mode so that your PC screen must not go black while you are watching some movie. Some drivers can also prevent sleep mode if they are being used e.g. Audio drivers.

What is OneDrive?

This name is almost getting trending on internet. Maybe you are thinking, is OneDrive a new company? No, it is not! Microsoft is changing name of SkyDrive to OneDrive because of trademark infringement. British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) claimed that SkyDrive of Microsoft is infringing their trademark.

You may like: 34GB of free cloud storage (Free cloud storage providers)

How to write symbols or words of other languages not available on your keyboard

There are lots of symbols (alpha, beta, gamma, degree …) which don’t have buttons on your keyboard but you can still use them in documents or anywhere you want.

Different OS have different built-in tools for adding such symbols. In Windows and Linux there is tool for adding symbols, named as Character Map. Tool with similar functionality in Mac OS is named as Special Character Viewer. Here is how to access them in different Operating systems.

Microsoft doesn’t want to keep Windows XP and China doesn’t want to leave it

Everyone use or used Windows for their PCs and among all the older versions windows XP was the best OS from Microsoft. It was released on 24 august 2001 and was most popular till windows 7 came out. Microsoft is going to give up Support for XP on April 8, 2014.

Internet explorer 11 is now available for Windows 7

Internet explorer is now available for Windows 7 which was shipped as default browser of Windows 8.1. Microsoft will update Internet explorer of windows 7 automatically to IE 11. IE 11 came with improved security, performance and privacy. You can enjoy using IE11 if you are using Windows 7 or 8.1.

How to configure thunderbird for Outlook.com through IMAP

Outlook had no support for IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) till two days ago but now you can use IMAP with applications to get emails from Outlook. Previously Outlook had support for EAS and POP protocol but maybe now they realized there are some apps that don't support EAS protocol and some users don't want to use POP so finally they added IMAP for better email experience. If you are stuck between POP and IMAP and don’t know which one you should use then have a look on this post: little information about POP and IMAP and which is better for you?

Speed up your Windows with ReadyBoost (Should you use it or not)

Maybe some of you still have question, what is ReadyBoost, Should I use it or not. Two days ago in a forum I read this question. Because of that I thought to make a post on this topic. I am just going to cover some features and things you may want to know about ReadyBoost.

Some free cloud storage providers (34 GB for free)

These days cloud storage is really not too much expensive but still there are people like me who don't want to spend money for such purpose. I am only using 1.3GB Google Drive storage because I only uploaded some important documents there and rest of my important files in some external Hard Drives. Because of this I don't need to upgrade my storage plan but if you want to backup your files on cloud without paying for it then you can go for free cloud storage providers e.g. Google Drive or SkyDrive. I am going to explain how you can get 34GB for free.

Free 15GB (extra) by SkyDrive for users of iCloud

Users of MobileMe got 20 GB of free storage when they moved to iCloud. Now that plan is going to expire on 30/09/2013 and apple will downgrade users to free plan that is providing 5 GB of storage.

What if you have more than 5 GB of storage used?
You have to free up space by deleting unused files or upgrade to some paid plan.

But Microsoft (SkyDrive) is taking benefit from this downgrade. They are giving away free 15 GB additional storage for one year to users of iCloud who got downgrade email from apple. Free storage provided to everyone by SkyDrive is 7 GB and if you get 15 GB more you'll have 22 GB of free storage.

Format hard drives with FAT32 having more than 32 GB

FAT32 was developed for older versions of windows (For Windows NT). It has less security than NTFS. It was included with Windows 95, 98 and Windows Me. It is suitable if you want to install some old version of windows i.e. You can install windows 98, or other older versions along with newer version. But you'll need FAT32 file system for better performance of older windows because they do not support NTFS. FAT32 only support hard drive of upta 2TB in size and microsoft Windows 2000 can only work with FAT32 partition having no more than 32 GB of space and windows XP does not let you format partition or drive having more than 32GB of space.