Sites

Gizmo's Tech Support Alert      

Gizmo lists his 46 Best Freeware Utilities, has 29 How-To guides (well, actually many more), over 34 links to other sites that are Technical resources, 19 sites for Windows help, and more. Plus, you can also get a monthly newsletter from him.

SpyChecker

If you are about to download a program and you wonder if it contains spyware, come to SpyChecker and find out. You enter the name of the program, or the first few letters of it, and it will tell you which spyware software it loads, if any. Actually, you are transferred to Spyware Guide for the search. Spyware Guide is an excellent source for information on spyware. It also lets you look up programs with spyware by category or by the company that writes the software. It tells you for each program how to remove it manually and what program will remove it for you.
SpyChecker provides you with links to programs you can use for searching for spyware.
Another site to get good information on spyware programs is Doxdesk.

Spyware Warrior has a list of spyware programs you should avoid. They might be spyware themselves, or provide you with false positive results to get you to buy them. I'd recommend checking here for any spyware product you might be interested in downloading.

Warning:

While I am talking about spyware, let me provide a warning for all users of good spyware programs, like Ad-aware and Spybot. Never just do what they say. They provide information about files you have that MAY be spyware, not that it is spyware. You have to decide if they are correct. I'll give just one simple example: Spybot found the .b3d extension. Told me it was from Brilliant Digital, which contains spyware. The problem is, other programs also use the same extension. One of these is Blitz3D, a 3D programming language, used in animation. Spybot does not know the difference. In my case, it was put in my registry by IrfanView to process some type of b3d extensions.

Tech Encyclopedia

If you have a technical word that you are interested in, here is a simple place to check it out. Search on the word and get a good explanation, with graphics to help. If you want more ways of researching technical information check the next link below.

What Is

Another good site to look up technical words. They also have a lot more ways to search out technical information. A really good place to learn about all this technical stuff.

Windows Support Center

This site has a lot of interesting information on using Windows. Articles on all kinds of topics makes it worth reading through. And, it appears to be kept current.

Computer Bob

Another site with a lot of information. The info comes in the way of guides, question and answer forums, a good list and description of his favorite software, links to freeware and shareware sites, and more. His guides are quite useful, especially for the novice, and the forums are very helpful.

Black Viper        

Black Viper has a lot of technical information that I haven't looked at yet, but what I Have used them for is to check out what XP services I should disable or make manual. If they are automatic, then they are enabled on startup. When manual, they are enabled when needed. In the left hand column, under 'Features', click on which OS you are using: XP, Vista or 2000.

Gil's Method        

Gil's Method is a vast collection of How-To guides for Windows, that Gil wrote. A number of interesting ideas.

DLL Files

Need a DLL? The sites that provide them come and go. Mostly they are gone now. This is one of the older ones. It only has DLL files, one of each, and takes several steps before the download starts. There are so many versions of each DLL file, and hopefully it has the version you need. Now if you'd like to find out more about the different versions of a DLL file, you can get that at Microsoft at DLL Help.

HiJack This Log Analyzer

If you are using HiJack This, then you should be aware of this site. It will analyze your log and give you a report on what you need to look at. Another site that does this, and gives you steps to follow based on what it finds is Help2Go Detective. If you want a detailed description to understand the log, then visit Merijn.org to read the author's guide.
I Am Not a Geek will parse your Hijack This log and color code the results, also identifying what many of the files are. But, many of their negative comments are incorrect. For instance, it says WgaLogon.dll is 'frequently used by VERY bad hijackers' and has 'very few *good* purposes'. But liutilities.com says 'This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated'. So be careful of the warnings.

Cookie Central

You've all heard of cookies that you might receive when you access internet site. But I bet you have some questions about them. Well this is the site to learn what they are and what they do, the good and the bad.

DNS Index

Would you like to know who a site is registered to. Enter the site's domain name, and you'll be told the mailing address, and who to contact with a phone number. If you wonder what the domain name is, 'net-gate' is the domain name here: www.net-gate.com.
You can also download a small program Whois Ultra at AnalogX and do it all from your desktop. Or use ARIN WHOIS Database Search.
Also see NetCraft in my Search Engines area to find domain names.
If you would like to browse through who owns what IP address range then go to IP Index Encyclopedia.

Flaming Text

Would you like a great logo with your name or other letters in it? Try Flaming Text . They have many designs, and you choose the colors and font (look of characters). They build it and you easily download it. It comes in the form of a gif file. The logos at the top of my home page come from Flaming Text .

Mask Email Image Generator      

The Mask Email Image Generator will create a JPG image of your email address. Use it in place of text to fool those evil spiders that seek out email addresses for purposes of sending junk email. So easy to create.

Surf Start

Surf Start has the main purpose of getting you started in surfing the internet. They also have many good links. This site also has some great images of natural phenomena: images of earth from the sky, lightning, sunsets, etc.

News

ZD Net News

ZD Net itself is a great source for all types of technical information. But this is the section of their site providing technical news. It's one of the best sources.

NetWorld

News in the Computer Network world. Keep up-to-date on what's happening.

Information Week

Information Week is another good source, but NetWorld has more.

Magazines

PC World
At the top of the page click on the Magazine tab. From there can also get previous issues by clicking on back issue archives on the left column of the page.

Smart Computing
Read articles not just from Smart Computing, but also from their other computer magazines. Since I subscribe to this one, I am not sure how much you can read without the subscription, but they do limit it.