This week we take a look at how to incorporate Dropbox into your Windows Start Menu, understanding and using symbolic links, and how to rip your TV series DVDs right to unique and high-quality episode files. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see our fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas....

Once a week we round up some of the interesting questions we’ve answered from the Ask How-To Geek mailbox and share them with the greater readership. This week we’re looking at Xbox 360 upgrades, Christmas light wiring, and stripping Kindle DRM. How Can I Upgrade the Hard Drive on my Xbox 360 Slim? Dear Hard Drive Hacking, Hi! I have a new Xbox 360 Slim 4GB. It doesn’t come with a hard drive and I can’t afford the 250GB hard drive add-on....

First, open up Internet Explorer, and then click the little search dropdown: You should see a page with Google Web Search on it: Click Google as fast as you can! Make sure you check the default search provider box. This will also work in IE7 on XP as well.

By default, Windows 8 automatically sets the number of rows of tiles to fit your screen, depending on your monitor size and resolution. However, you can tell Windows 8 to display a certain number of rows of tiles at all times, despite the screen resolution. To do this, we will make a change to the registry. If you are not already on the Desktop, click the Desktop tile on the Start screen....

If you use Internet Explorer 9, we found a useful program, called IE Tweaker Plus, that allows you to easily tweak and customize over 27 settings in the browser, as well as create customized IE9 shortcuts that automatically open IE in InPrivate mode. IE9 Tweaker Plus does not need to be installed. To run it, simply extract the .zip file you downloaded (see the link at the end of this article) and double-click on the ....

You’re a reader on the move and you don’t have time for a tethered sync—that’s no problem. Today we’ll show you how to keep your ebook library synced to your iPad via Dropbox. Whether you’re reading novels, brushing up on your favorite RPG manuals, or otherwise consuming ebooks on the go, this tutorial will show you how you can leverage your Dropbox account to keep your documents at your finger tips....

We’ve shown you how to statically set the IPs on your network, now lets flip that DNS switch for added elegance and ease of use. Today’s guide will show you how to access your machines using DNS names on your DD-WRT enabled router. Image by Henk L Preface On our How To Set Up Static DHCP on Your DD-WRT Router guide, we’ve talked about making sure that your clients will always get the same IP address from the router....

Oracle’s MySQL Operator for Kubernetes is a convenient way to automate MySQL database provisioning within your cluster. One of the operator’s headline features is integrated hands-off backup support that increases your resiliency. Backups copy your database to external storage on a recurring schedule. Preparing a Database Cluster Install the MySQL operator in your Kubernetes cluster and create a simple database instance for testing purposes. Copy the YAML below and save it to mysql....

The window borders on Windows 8’s desktop are fairly thick by default, but they don’t have to be – you can customize the side of the window borders with an easy-to-use application or a quick registry tweak. You can shrink the window borders and make them fairly thin, just as they were on previous versions of Windows. Or you can increase the window border size and make them extremely thick, if you prefer....

Microsoft’s new Outlook.com allows you to see email from all your email accounts in one inbox and send messages from other email addresses in one familiar interface. if you’re tired of checking multiple inboxes, try combining them. We’ve previously covered combining all your email addresses into one Gmail inbox, and this is a similar process for Outlook.com. Each process turns your webmail account’s inbox into a powerful, all-in-one interface for all your email needs....

Wait—It’s Not For Installing Software? The install command might have the most misleading name of any of the Linux commands. It doesn’t actually install any software. If you’re trying to install a software package from the command line in Ubuntu or another Debian-based distribution use the apt-get command. On other Linux distributions, use your Linux distribution’s package management tool instead—for example, dnf on Fedora or zypper on openSUSE. So What Does install Do?...

An easy way to share your computer is to use a dedicated guest account. They can have their own space without access to your personal stuff. We’ll show you how to create a guest account in Windows 11. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it once was to create a guest account in Windows. There are two ways we can get around this. Both methods will create password-free local accounts that anyone can use....

A Linux live USB drive is normally a blank slate each time you boot it. You can boot it up, install programs, save files, and change settings. But, as soon as you reboot, all your changes are wiped away and you’re back to a fresh system. This can be useful, but if you want a system that picks up where you left off, you can create a live USB with persistent storage....

If you reply to the emails with the same answer over and over, it will save you a lot of time to create a template that you can use over and over. We have previously show you how to create templates in Outlook 2003, so lets take a look at using Outlook 2010. When creating a template you get started as if you were creating a new email, that is choose new email from the Home tab....

YouTube playlists aren’t meant to be kept forever. If you’ve finished watching all contents of a playlist, you can delete the playlist so your list is not cluttered. Here’s how to do just that on YouTube from your desktop or mobile phone. Keep in mind that YouTube doesn’t allow you to delete certain playlists, like the “Watch Later” one. However, you can clear all contents of this playlist if you want....

Like many other AWS services, you can manage RDS databases in a few different ways, such as through the AWS Management Console, AWS CLI tool, any number of SDKs, or with PowerShell. The choice of which method is best is yours. (If you’re on a team with PowerShell gurus or already have some AWS automation scripts written in PowerShell, a PowerShell script can get the job done well though.)...

The toaster notifications in Windows 8 are a nice addition, however they can be annoying at times and you may wish to disable them temporarily, or maybe even permanently, here’s how. Disabling Toaster Notifications Disabling the toaster notifications in Windows 8 is done through the charms menu, so press the Win+C keyboard combination and click on Settings. At the bottom of the sidebar, you will see the Notifications Icon....

We’ve already shown you the classic method of dual booting Windows 8, but that requires tweaking your partitions. If that’s something you’re not ready for, here’s how to use a virtual hard drive (VHD) to boot Windows 8 on your Windows 7 PC. There’s a lot of different methods to do this, and we’re just going to show you the most user friendly method, using the GUI to create a blank VHD, a PowerShell script to expand the ....

Although most people prefer to forget about Windows 8 entirely, some people did enjoy the full-screen Start menu—especially those on tablets with touchscreens. Here’s how to get it back in Windows 10. Hit Windows+I to open up the Settings app. On the main page, click on the “Personalization” category. On the left, choose the “Start” tab. On the right, turn on the “Use Start Full Screen” toggle. It’s just that easy....

You’ve got an ebook reader (or a laptop or netbook with ebook reading software) now you just need some free books to put it to good use. Read on as we show you the best places to score free books online. Second, If you’re going to be converting between ebook formats (such as converting ePUB books to MOBI books for use on your Kindle) we highly recommend the robust and powerful open-source ebook management software Calibre—we can’t stress enough how awesome Calibre is for managing and converting your ebook collection....