Gleanings

When you are looking at Apple hardware, always remember to look at Apple’s refurbished store too. When you are in the online Apple store, look for the link to the Refurbished & Clearance section down at the bottom of the store page. Apple checks all items and offers their same one-year warranty. If you find what you need there, you can save 15% or more.

Windows uninstallers, for those times you are pretty certain the “official” uninstaller left things behind, include Revo Uninstaller, Comodo Programs Manager, and IObit Uninstaller 2. Although there are many more, these have different strengths, IObit being one of the simpler to use, Comodo being good at actively monitoring all the actions an installer does as it runs, and Revo Uninstaller being a long term favorite of many techies. All are free.

It is easy to have a file safety net in Windows 8 so that if you delete a file, empty the trash and then want it back, you can. You have to turn on File History, easy to get to by searching for File History in that fun search box, and make sure you are looking in Settings. Once set up, you will have a History button in the menu bar or ribbon when looking at folders.

Sometimes, you just want to delete as much of your Web presence, or at least the accounts you control, as you can. There is a service, JustDelete.Me, which is a directory to the actual account deletion page for quite a few services so you don’t have to try (and likely fail) to find that information yourself. Notice their assessment of ease or difficulty.

Do you have an android phone and would like to feel like a hacker? For quite a few android based phones, you can change out the basic, possibly outdated operating system (ROM) for something better and newer. The big daddy site to find all of these options, very daunting even, is the xda-developers forum. The CyanogenMod ROM is often viewed as the closest to what a Nexus device would run with PAC ROM seen as a mash-up of the best features from the top ROMs.