Dennis Faas

Synopsis: Add eye candy and extend the functionality of Windows XP (you won't want to miss this one)! AlphaXP is a *very* cool desktop enhancement utility that adds advanced transparency effects to any Windows 2000/XP computer. It has won many ... five-star awards for excellence and is regarded by thousands of users worldwide. Some of the features have been incorporated into AlphaXP include: three direct ways to set transparency, two automatic ways to set transparency, smooth fade effects, menu transparency, tooltip transparency, taskbar transparency, and much more! To get a better idea of what ... (view more)

A mouse is a handheld pointing device for computers, involving a small object fitted with one or more buttons and shaped to sit naturally under the hand. The underside of the mouse houses a device that detects the mouse's motion relative to the flat ... surface on which it sits. The mouse's 2D motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on the display. A mouse is called a 'mouse' primarily because the cord on early models resembled the rodent's tail, and also because the motion of the pointer on the screen can be mouse-like. In popular usage, the plural can be either mice or ' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jamie T. from the UK writes: " Dear Dennis, When I hover my mouse pointer over a window, it automatically brings that window to the front. I don't understand why this happening all the sudden. I can't seem to find any settings in ... the Control Panel where I can stop the mouse from stealing focus. Can you help? " My response: The mouse focus setting may be the result of a program you recently installed. At any rate, you can adjust mouse focus (enable or disable) it with a freeware Microsoft utility, called TweakUI (a part of the PowerToys collection). A download link ... (view more)

Synopsis: Are you a download-a-holic? Do you suffer from slower than average download speeds? Do you often get disconnected in the middle of a download? Do you use Internet Explorer and wish there was a way you could resume a broken download (and ... avoid having to start from the beginning)? Do you have trouble remembering where your last downloaded file was saved to? If you answered 'Yes' to any of these questions, then you'll definitely want to find out why PC Magazine bestowed the Editors' Choice Award to Conceiva DownloadStudio for best Internet Download Manager -- but only if you read ... (view more)

The term Internet fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses email, web sites, chat rooms or message boards to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions or to transmit the proceeds of fraud ... to financial institutions or to other connected with the scheme. Identity theft schemes Most Internet fraud is done through the use of stolen credit card information which is obtained in many ways, the simplest being copying information from retailers, either (online or offline). There have been many cases of hackers obtaining huge quantities of ... (view more)

Synopsis: It is estimated that digital cameras account for half the cameras in the world and now represent well over 50% of all photographic devices (Source: analysphere.com ). If you're a digital camera owner, then you most likely store your photos ... on your computer. However, what most folks don't take into consideration is that fact that by storing your photos on the computer, your precious memories are also at the mercy of a hacker, a new strain of virus, or even a disasterous computer crash! So what would you do if you lost all your photos? Introducing: Acoustica Photos Forever If you have ... (view more)

Fraud Alert! I just wanted to alert everyone of the latest email fraud / phishing scam that claims to pay eBay / Paypal customers $20 dollars for answering a supposed eBay-related survey. On the reward-survey.com, the page states that you must ... "enter your credit card information linked with your eBay and/or Paypal account ... [and then they] will deposit the $20 cash back directly to your account within three business days of your next purchase." Of course, nothing of the sort will happen -- and quite the opposite, I might add! At the time of composing this article, the reward- ... (view more)

Packet writing is a technique used to allow writeable CD-ROM and DVD-ROM media to be used in a similar manner to a floppy disk. Packet writing can be used both with write-once read-many (WORM media) such as CD-R, DVD+R and DVD-R, and also with ... rewriteable media such as CD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RW. WORM media, however, cannot recover space once it is written to the disc; furthermore, a deleted file does not free space on the disk, and a modified or overwritten file occupies additional space even if the file size has not increased. When the free space on a once-writeable disk is exhausted, no ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dan R. writes: " Dear Dennis, After reviewing yesterday's article entitled, " Play .JPG on DVD (Picture / Photo CD)? ", it prompted me to ask a related question about CD and DVD data recovery. My situation is this: a little while ... back I created a CD full of important photos. I lent the disc to a friend who was going to add more photos to the disc. Somehow, my friend managed to completely wipe out my previous session when she added her photos, and now I'm afraid I've lost all my data. Can you please tell me if there is a way I can recover my data on the ... (view more)

Synopsis: Sick and tired of guessing what songs or files are on your CDs and DVDs? Then stop wondering and start creating with the amazing Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker! With the ease and flexibility of Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker, you can create CD ... and DVD labels for any occasion -- and best of all: Label Maker comes chock-full of custom clipart for holidays and special occasions like Christmas, Valentines, birthdays, vacations, weddings and more! Supports 99% of stock CD labels and CD jewel case templates! Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker: Screenshots Click to view: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | ... (view more)