Today we will start a series of articles showing how to keep your Windows Vista system safe from threats such as viruses, spyware, hackers, etc. In this article I will present to you a few anti-spyware solutions that can be used with no charge. Unfortunately there are not to many options available and some of the free solutions are just "crippled" versions of their commercial alternatives. However, you can keep your PC safe without paying any extra cash. The best strategy is to combine two complementary applications and benefit from their added features.

For example, you can use a free anti-spyware prevention tool such as Comodo BOClean Anti-Malware in combination with an on-demand scanner such as Ad-Aware 2007 Free. Or, you can go for my personal favorite - Spyware Terminator and use Spybot Search & Destroy as a backup, to double check your system from time to time. The choice is yours. What is important is the fact that you can keep your system safe from spyware for free.

Sharing computer experiences has become a common practice among internet users and that's why capturing the right moments on screen is a frequent activity. I often happened to send and receive images with unexpected or funny error messages, benchmark results or desktop captures. I must admit it wasn't easy to do it without the appropriate software for this.

I have thus decided to get rid of the old-fashioned and rigid PrintScreen method and began trying out professional software applications that are specially designed for this. Screen Capture Software - ACA Capture Pro is one of them and, since the 30 days trial version of this application is fully functional, I allowed myself to explore its features and capabilities. You can also download it and try it for free.

I must admit that I was a bit reticent about this software at the beginning as I kept wondering why one should pay for such an application when there are many free products out there which are said to be doing approximately the same things. And yet, after exploring and configuring ACA Capture Pro's features, I have agreed that a well done job can only be made by a well done software, whereas the well done software is done by professional programmers.

So let's see then what this 'Pro' product can do and why should it worth the price to pay for!

One of the novelties in Windows Vista is the inclusion of the Windows Network Diagnostic tool. This tool can help you identify and resolve with ease most of your network problems. You don't have to be a specialist in computer networks to find out what is wrong with your network or internet connection. You just run the tool and it will report to you the problems that were discovered.

In this tutorial we will show how to use Windows Network Diagnostics to successfully identify connectivity problems.

One of the best tips i have learned since the beginning of my career in IT is to never keep my personal files and folders (such as My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc) in their default locations. In Windows Vista, all the personal folders are stored on the drive where the operating system is installed. For example, if your user is called "George" and you installed Windows Vista on the "C:" drive, your personal files and folders will be stored by default in "C:\Users\George\". By leaving them in their default location, each time you have problems with the operating system there is a risk that you might lose them. If something happens and you need to format the "C:" drive that means all your documents, music, pictures, etc will be lost.

To avoid such problems you can always move them and store everything on a separate partition. This way, you can format the "C:" drive and reinstall the operating system how many times you need without risking your data. As a general advice, it is always better to keep on your "C:" drive only the operating system and the applications you use. All of your data, including documents or saved games should be kept on a separate partition.

In this tutorial we will show you how to move your personal files and folders to other partitions.

Disk Cleanup is one of the applications that did not change much in Windows Vista. It's functionality has remained the same and the interface was changed here and there. No additional features were added. Just like in the previous versions, Disk Cleanup scans your disks, finds unnecessary files and helps you remove them to cleanup some space and make your computer run a bit faster. In this article we will show you how to work with it and save some valuable space from your hard disk.

A few weeks ago we have been contacted by James A. White who asked us if we would be interested in reviewing a book he just published. Until now we did not review any books, but considering the fact that it is about Windows Vista and computer basics we decided to give it a try. So... here you have our first book review.

Continuing our "How to" series on configuring Windows Mail for different e-mail providers, today we are going to show you, step by step, how to configure Windows Mail to connect to your Gmail account. As you might now, Gmail offers free POP3 support for all accounts. However, in order to use it, you might need to activate it from the Gmail web interface.

We have received a lot of e-mails from people asking how to configure Windows Mail to connect to their e-mail accounts from Yahoo Mail. In this tutorial we will guide you step-by-step on how to connect to the popular Yahoo Mail Plus service. Before we continue, please note that the free Yahoo Mail service does not support POP3, and you will have to subscribe to a Yahoo Mail Plus account in order to use this feature.

AutoPlay is a useful feature of Windows Vista which helps you choose which programs to use for different types of digital media, such as audio CDs, movie DVDs or pictures from your digital camera. In this tutorial we will show you how to configure AutoPlay to suit your needs and preferences. As you will see for yourself, working with AutoPlay is very easy and it doesn't require too much effort. With just a few clicks you will configure it to behave in the way you want.