(This is the fourth in a series of posts covering information taken from my latest book, Upgrading and Fixing Computers Do-It-Yourself For Dummies.)

Let your computer double as a TV set by adding a TV tuner — a gadget that pulls in a TV signal, letting you channel surf and watch shows on your monitor.

The easiest TV tuners simply plug into a USB port, available on every computer, laptop, and netbook. When combined with the Windows Media Center found in certain versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, TV Tuners also double as digital video recorders: Like a TiVo, they automatically record your favorite TV shows, letting you watch your faves whenever you’re ready.

USB tuners are easy to install, and they’re easily moved from one computer to another. (Keep an eye on your roommates.)

You’ll only pull in free HDTV station broadcasts if you’re within broadcast range, however, so your luck will vary considerably depending on where you live. Click to read more »

Q: I was recently scanning for viruses and defragmenting my hard drive while playing a computer game. Then my Windows 7 computer BSoD’ed. I’m not really surprised, because I was making my hard drive do so many things at once.

But lately, my computer has BSoD’ed a few times, and in the past few weeks it just completely shut down for no reason. I’ll be playing a game, browsing the web, and once I was browsing files in Explorer with nothing else open, and my laptop just shut down.

When it shuts down while plugged in, the charge light turns off, and the laptop won’t come on for a minute or two after the crash. What do you think the issue is? And what can I do about it?

A: BSOD, an acronym for Blue Screen of Death, appears when Windows rudely stops working, leaving you gaping at cryptic wording across a blue screen. Unfortunately, the wording neither explains exactly why your computer crashed, nor does it apologize for all the unsaved work you’ve just lost.

Sometimes it’s obvious why your computer suddenly went on furlough: You’ve just restarted after installing a new piece of hardware, for example, or installed a new driver for a part inside your PC. But when the reason’s not obvious, it’s up to you to do the sleuthing. To narrow down the culprit, follow these steps: Click to read more »

Photo by dno1967 from Flickr

A: When writing information to your hard drive, Windows usually breaks the files into pieces, stuffing them into whatever empty space it can find.

When retrieving a file, Windows rummages for those scattered pieces, which takes a little time. To speed things up, Windows includes a disk defragmentation program: The program gathers up all those scattered bits, and files them away next to each other, so Windows can grab them more quickly.

Unlike early Windows versions, Windows 7 automatically defragments your drives every week, usually at 1 am on Wednesday. (Early Windows versions made you run the Disk Defragmentation program manually, a chore many people simply forgot about.)

You can see Windows 7’s automated defragmentation schedule (and make sure that it’s running on schedule) by following these steps: Click to read more »

Q: What is the difference between the Windows 7 System Recovery disc that came with my computer, and the System Image you describe how to make in Windows 7 For Dummies?

And in what order do I use those if something goes wrong? Do I have to use them all?

A: Earlier, I explained how to create a System Image – a complete backup of your C: drive, which includes Windows, your programs, and the files in your libraries.

I also explained how a System Recovery disc differs from a Windows 7 System Repair disc. Here’s some more information to help you use them each in the right way: Click to read more »

Q: Whenever I clicked my browser’s New Tab button, the new tabbed page used to show thumbnail views of my most visited Web sites, so I could select one at ease. This feature has now disappeared. Can I get it back or have I done something to banish it forever?

A: No, you didn’t do something to banish that thumbnail view. Microsoft is the culprit here, and you won’t find that feature reappearing in Internet Explorer.

On most browsers, you can fetch an empty tab by clicking that stub of a tab to the right of all your open tabs.

Once that new tabbed page appears, you can fill it by visiting a Web page of your choosing.

Google’s Toolbar, which rides atop browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox, filled that formerly empty tab with thumbnail views of your most visited Web sites.

Microsoft, however, preferred to fill that empty space by touting Internet Explorer 8’s new features. Not happy that Google had covered its promos, Microsoft forced Google to “retire” that feature from their toolbar.

So, to get that feature back, you can install either Firefox or Google’s own Chrome browser. Both work fairly similarly to Internet Explorer. Personally, I use Firefox, as I find it more secure than Internet Explorer.