M.A.S. Electronics' Blog

If you’re supporting a small organization with an even smaller budget, consider one of these free software management solutions. Poor planning is the root of most project failures and interestingly, the smaller the project, the less scrutiny the plan gets! If you’re managing projects, execution will benefit from tight tracking. Unfortunately, proprietary software is usually expensive or ransomed via subscription fees. If you’re supporting a small organization with an even smaller budget, consider one of these free software management solutions….

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Chances are good that you already know that if you have multiple windows in a certain application open at the same time; you can hover over the icon on the taskbar and use the Live Thumbnails feature to see each window. However, there’s another quicker way to switch between windows of a specific application – all you have to do is hold down [Ctrl] key as you click on the icon. Let’s take a closer look. As you know, with…

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If you are a serious browser/user of the web, you know Mozilla Firefox is tops when it comes to remaining secure. But even Firefox is not perfect. There are always ways to improve the already outstanding security in the open source browser with add-ons. The Firefox add-on library is massive and includes nearly any additional feature you could want. Included in the library is an ever-growing number of security add-ons. For those that do not want to wade through the…

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There are plenty of reasons you might want/need to put together a DVD. Sure, you might want to put together that family DVD to send to everyone at Christmas time – but there are also training videos, marketing materials, and even products. But without the right software, creating those DVDs would be an exercise in futility. For those on a tight-as-nails budget, I have found five free DVD authoring tools that are not only spot on for your spending limit,…

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With a quick registry edit and the right type of font, you can add to the font list on the Command Prompt’s Font tab. This technique will work in Windows XP, 7, and 8. Let’s take a closer look. Many of you noticed that the Font tab on the Command Prompt Properties dialog box, shown in Figure A, contains two TrueType fonts. Figure A The Command Prompt’s Font list contains two TrueType fonts. Understanding the Fonts To begin with, it…

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If you’ve used the Windows operating system, chances are you’ve had to use the built-in Task Manager. If applications refuse to close or you need to troubleshoot why your machine has slowed to a crawl, you need the Task Manager. For some, the default does just fine. For others, the default client isn’t powerful enough or doesn’t offer the necessary options to really take control of a machine. Fortunately, for the power users, there are options available that not only…

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The proliferation of mobile devices has driven the demand for portable video. Unfortunately, not every device can play every video format. Thankfully, there are a number of utilities available that can convert video from its native format into a format that is supported by the device on which a user wants to play the video. 1. Free CUDA Video Converter Free CUDA Video Converter is a free utility for performing video conversions. There is also a paid version. The free…

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If you’re trying to stretch a thin IT budget, you probably can’t afford a lot of pricey tools. Luckily, a number of highly useful tools are available for free. Some of them even work better and are more efficient than their costlier alternatives. 1: ComboFix When the standard antivirus/malware software can’t seem to find the problem, ComboFix almost always does. It also looks for and removes most rootkits and Trojans. To use this tool, you must completely disable all antivirus…

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As IT professionals, we work in an industry that is constantly looking to improve its organizational productivity through the use of software and hardware. We contribute to this by what we do in our jobs. However, there are ways we improve our own productivity by using applications, which will benefit you and the company you work for. Let’s take a look at seven different applications that I think improve our productivity. Launchy Launchy is a small little program that you…

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It’s nice to know there are backup tools that can be installed, free of charge, which can handle one, simple task. It’s simple: If you’re not backing up your data, at some point you’re going to regret that mistake. For many medium to large businesses, data is typically backed up via shared directories on a server. But for smaller companies, or end users who have needs outside of shared directories, it’s nice to know there are backup tools that can…

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