How to remove 'Permanently shred with AVG' from your context menu

By Mike Lewis

If you have recently installed – or upgraded to – AVG 2014, you might have noticed a new item on context menus in Windows Explorer. The item reads 'Permanently shred with AVG', and it does what its name suggests: It completely destroys the file or folder you are pointing to, without any chance of recovery.

Now, it could be that you will find this feature useful. If you want to place some confidential information beyond the reach of the Recycle Bin or a file recovery tool, this is a good way of doing it. But if, like me, you are worried about accidentally shredding an important file, you might prefer to remove this menu option. Here's how to go about it.

How to stop the Samsung Galaxy from vibrating

By Mike Lewis

One of the things I dislike about my new Samsung Galaxy tablet is the way it vibrates at every opportunity – whether I want it to or not. It does this when I switch the device on, press the Home button, press and hold the Power button, and at several other times too.

This is irritating, not least because it’s unnecessary. I could understand it if the vibrations alerted me to an important event, such as an incoming message. But there is no reason to have this kind of haptic feedback every time I press certain buttons. (It’s also adds to the drain on the battery.)

New tracks not appearing in the iTunes music library

By Mike Lewis

For several years, I've been happily using iTunes to organize my music collection and transfer tracks to my iPod. Then, quite suddenly, it stopped working. More specifically, I found I could no longer add new tracks to my music library. There was no error message, no unusual behavior. The newly-added tracks were simply nowhere in sight.

I eventually found a solution, but only after much searching and experimenting. I'll summarize the steps here, for the benefit of any Hex Central readers who face the same issue.

Opt out of Google's interest-based ads

By Mike Lewis

Imagine this scenario. It's your lunch break, and you start thinking about your next vacation. Out of idle curiosity, you use Google to search for accommodation on your dream Caribbean island. You visit a few of the sites that the search throws up. Then you get back to work.

For the next few weeks, whenever you do a work-related search or visit a work-related site, you see advertisements for tropical resorts, exotic hotels, and up-market tour operators.

What you are seeing are so-called "interest-based ads". They are ads served by Google, based on what Google knows about you. And you might be surprised at just how much Google does know about you. As well as your geographic location, Google knows about the things you're interested in (based on your search history and the types of sites you visit), where you hang out in social media, what mobile devices you use and where you use them, and quite a lot more. It also makes a good guess at your age, sex, marital status, and even your family income. It uses all that information to decide what ads to show.

You might not care about this. It might not matter to you that Google uses your personal information to send you targeted ads in this way. if so, that's fine.

Recover the Google Toolbar in Firefox

By Lynn Evans

When I recently upgraded my Firefox browser, I was dismayed to discover that my favorite add-on, the Google Toolbar, no longer worked. It seems that Google has withdrawn all support for the product, which now only functions in Firefox 4.x and below.

This was a minor disaster for me. The Google Toolbar is something I use constantly, every working day. It's true that some of its features are now built into Firefox itself. Others can be obtained from other add-ons. I've tried a few of these, but none of them could compare to the sheer convenience of the original product. Several weeks after upgrading, I was still finding the Google Toolbar hard to live without.

Deleting files from an external drive: Why is it so slow?

By Lynn Evans

If you've ever tried to delete a large number of files (or a small number of large files) from an external disk drive, you'll know that the process can take an inordinately long time.

I found this out the other day. I was cleaning up my external backup drive, and I needed to delete a couple of gigabytes of data to make way for my new backup folders. The "Deleting …" message appeared as usual - and was still there 15 minutes later. I clicked the Cancel button, only to find that just a small fraction of the files had actually been erased.

Fortunately, it didn't take me long to realize why deleting these files was so slow - and what I could do to speed it up.

Little-known keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word

By Lynn Evans

I love keyboard shortcuts, but I have a tough time keeping the less common ones in my head. Microsoft Word alone has well over 200 documented shortcuts, so I'm sure I'm not alone.

Here is my list of some particularly useful Word shortcuts which I've either recently discovered or which I knew before but had forgotten. These work with all versions of Word going back to at least 2000. (I've only tested these with a US keyboard; they should work fine with other layouts, but I can't be sure of that.)