Windows SkyDrive (explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive) is Microsoft’s solution for online storage, giving users a free 25 GB of space for online storage of files and data. The SkyDrive web-based interface was recently updated to support HTML5 – the latest standard for web pages – to make the entire SkyDrive interface more seamless and responsive without the need to download plug-ins. Modern browsers such as Internet Explorer 9 along with the latest version of Firefox and Chrome (amongst others) can support these advanced features. For more information on the SkyDrive improvements visit: tinyurl.com/3stwrjk .

Often people use their ISP provided email address (e.g. siliconkid@.com) as their primary email address. However, this creates problems should you wish to change ISPs in the future since you need to advise everyone about your new email address. A good way around this issue is to use a separate email service such as Gmail. This means that all your email is directed to a service which is independent of your ISP, so that you don’t need to worry if you decide to change in the future. This also has the additional benefit of your email being stored centrally on a server, allowing you to access all of your email from any computer along with spam filtering and loads of storage space. These services also integrate with standard email clients so you don’t need to use a webmail interface all the time when you are at home but can instead use an email program on your computer.

For all the readers who use a Mac you are probably aware that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was recently released. Lion brings many new features to the Mac computers including new ways to interact with your computer and navigate through screens, much more efficient ways to organise your desktop, and some really handy features such as Resume, Auto Save and Versions. More information on all these features is available on the Apple website at www.apple.com/au/macosx. Lion is available from the Mac App Store for $31.99.

Most users of Microsoft Excel are aware of the fill-down handle, allowing you to click and drag on the small square at the bottom right-hand corner of a cell to fill the contents of subsequent cells with the same data or data fitting the pattern of the selected cells. If you would like a quicker way to fill-down, then simply double-click on the fill-down handle (small square) and it will automatically fill-down. Be aware, in order for this to work there must be data in other columns as Excel will determine where that data ends and stop the fill-down at that point.

On your recommendation many years ago I installed the free version of ZoneAlarm as my firewall. It was very successful and I recommended it to many others. Last week I received a major update to my McAfee Virus Scan Plus which immediately and regularly locked up my system and frequently switched off McAfee. It was fully resolved by removing ZoneAlarm and using the Microsoft firewall. I understand this is a common problem for McAfee and ZoneAlarm. My question to you is how effective is the Microsoft firewall? Can we rely on it as we did with ZoneAlarm? I have researched the Microsoft firewall for Windows XP (SP3) and it appears to be fairly basic and limited in its effectiveness. Do you have any comments or advice? (more…)