@Denver80203: If I remember correctly, the patches Microsoft released last Tuesday fixed vulnerabilities that have been known for weeks or even months. And I think there's still one IE vulnerability out there that the patches don't cover.

I haven't tried this but should (there are lots of ethnic markets in my area). Farmer's markets and produce stands are also usually cheaper than a supermarket, for those who don't have any ethnic markets nearby. I used to have a fantastic produce stand about two miles from my house but it closed a couple of years ago.

For some reason, giving a battery a good hard shake can get you a little more energy.

@FooSchnickens: Some people have no desire to build their own PCs. They may lack the ability or the time. It's like people who build their own bikes. Some want to, and you can get a better one that way, but most people just want to walk into a store, plunk down some cash, and take a package home and unbox it.

If you're worried about early birds, there's an easy cure. Don't post your exact address. In your ad, just say, "Yard sale, single family, 23xx Jefferson St., 8am" instead of giving the exact address. Same thing for your signs. Then, when you're ready to go, put a sign out in your front yard. People will follow the…

Steve Ballmer's mantra has always been that Microsoft undercharged for the OS. So ever since he took over the CEO position, he's been raising prices for the OS, on the idea that people ought to pay more for increased reliability, functionality, or whatever.

Not only do I have a landline, I have three Western Electric rotary phones like the one in the picture. I love those things.

This works. My wife and I paid off our cars and mortgage in about five years (starting in 2003) by using this method. I called it the windfall rule—any time I had any kind of a windfall, large or small, I applied it to whatever debt I was trying to pay off at the time. Of course you want to be sane about it—you'll…

The biggest barrier to contributing to Wikipedia isn't the interface. I'd say it's a toss-up between overzealous, power-hungry editors and policies that are constantly changing. At one time I was a top-1,000 contributor there, but I got sick of editors nitpicking about how I cited images or sources (or their size),…

I'd never thought of using a tool like this to slow a card down, but that could be really good. On the computer my wife and I use just for word processing and e-mail, I put an ATI card in to keep the motherboard's integrated video from stealing precious system memory. The ATI card is serious overkill for what we're…

I downgraded from an Amiga to a 486 running Windows 3.1 in 1994. Amiga spoiled me; I routinely kept 3-4 programs running at once and switched between them. I couldn't do that on my 486. The system crashed all the time, and programs in the background would screech to a halt. So I went and bought OS/2 3.0 to get real…

@Gryphin: It puts you in the right direction. At one point in my life when I was in between jobs, I sold off some stuff I knew I'd never use again. I freed up some space (brownie points with the wife) and put a couple hundred much-needed dollars in our pocket.

@Deadhacker: Not necessarily. For many people, it's possible to save not just $1,000, but potentially up to $3,000, depending on how aggressively you're willing to cut.

@Torley: I probably keyed in hundreds of those things over the years. Speedscript 128 was probably the longest thing I ever typed in.

The advice to disable antivirus and firewalls is troubling. Yes, if you're using an external router, you don't need the Windows firewall. But disabling antivirus? That's suicide. Much better advice would be to replace slow and bloated antivirus software with something like NOD32 that runs faster. Any Symantec and…

@Zepth: I think it depends on what you're doing and how fast you can type. At work where I just type in short bursts, the $10 cheapies that come with the system are OK. Not great, but adequate. At home where I do serious writing (and I can type at 100+ WPM), I won't be without my Model Ms. Typing on the cheaper boards…

How do they compare with Robocopy from the Windows resource kit? I typically use Robocopy when I need to schlep lots of large files around a network, mostly because if the network drops, it will stop, wait a default of 30 seconds, then try again. It's faster than Explorer but the main reason I use it is because I know…

I'll join the legions of people voting for the IBM Model M. I think the earlier ones (with the black IBM logo) feel better than the later ones. The ones made in the mid 1990s felt a bit cheaper than the older ones, but I'll still take one of those over a modern $10 keyboard.

I can often fix tears in covers by dabbing a bit of good quality PVA glue from an art supply store onto the torn pieces, positioning the pieces in place, and then covering with wax paper on both sides to keep excess glue from getting onto the other pages. Then I put some weight on the book and let it sit overnight.…

The first thing I do when I log onto a Windows box for the first time is turn off all the eye candy, so no. When I build a Linux box, I use a lightweight environment like IceWM. I care a lot more about speed than I do about what the thing looks like.