Q: I don't have one of those multimedia keyboards with volume control, or those media control mice. I still want to control my volume in a hurry, preferably with my mouse. Any suggestions?
A: Try VolumeTouch, a freebie app. It installs as a tray app. Once installed, hold Ctrl-Shift, then use your mouse scroll wheels (or vertical / horizontal position if you don't have a scroll wheel) to adjust volume.

Q:Do you know where I can get apps that will run straight off a USB flash drive without installation?
A: Best index of such apps is at http://portableapps.com , including OpenOffice Writer, CoolPlayer+, and many more.

Q: Can you recommend a program to record my screen or my webcam?
A: Thanks to AppScout, I now recommend Debut

Q: The built-in defrag is taking forever. Are there something better / more sophisticated?
A: I used to like Diskeeper Lite and UltraDefrag. Diskeeper Lite is too limiting as it will only do one volume at a time, and at times you need to repeat the defrag a few times, and you can't do it in the lite version except manually. UltraDefrag doesn't have many options.

I was just introduced to UltimateDefrag, and I prefer this one to the others.

Q: How do I split a large file so I can burn each piece to a media (CD or DVD), and reassemble them later?
A: PKZIP/WinZIP/WinRAR/7-Zip and any of those archiving programs should be able to generate "spanning" files of appropriate sizes.

If you don't want to use compression, use HJSplit at (http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/)

Q: Can static electricity cause damage to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs and variants? What about CD-ROMs and DVDs?
A: CDs and DVDs rely on chemical process (laser burning for recordable media, and phase change for rewritable media) to record the information. Thus, static electricity cannot affect them.

Q: Is there a new mainboard that supports both PCI-E and AGP8X, but still the new features like DDR2 and such?
A: I originally thought no, but then I was pointed to this board. I have no idea about availability though, or its ratings, if any. At least they do exist!

Q: I have a Linksys router and I saved the config.bin backup file. Now that I forgot the password to the router, is there a way to see what the password is from the file?
A: Yes, you'll need to browse the file (i.e. read it directly) in text mode and go down to about 45% mark. It's about a line or two after the word "admin".

Q: I have a mainboard with ALI PCI IDE controller. I was told that driver was out of date, but I can't find the replacement update. ALI's website in Taiwan lists nothing. Help?
A: ALi actually turned into ULi Electronics. The Original ALi (which was Acer Lab Inc) is a purely research and development unit now. And NVIDIA just acquired ULi so that NVIDIA now actually have chip building facilities. For now, all ALI and ULI stuff can be downloaded at http://www.uli.com.tw/eng/support/drivers.php

The catch is they are listed by southbridge model number, NOT the individual drivers. You'll need to do a search on Google or such to locate your southbridge model of your specific mainboard, then you can find the proper driver.

What's better, NVIDIA also hosts the same files ftp://download.nvidia.com/ULi/ULI_filename

where filename is the filename on the ULI server.

Bugmenot.com - login with these free web passwords to bypass compulsory registration

Q: In order to read some websites I have to register. Is there any way to bypass that? I really don't want to give away my e-mail address due to spam issues, and it's too much hassle to get additional e-mail addresses and remember to check and purge them.
A:Try Bugmenot.com. They maintain a list of web account and passwords to bypass compulsory registration, so you don't have to give out your information. If you use Firefox browser they even have an extension that will download the account and password for you.

Q: What if the website I want is not listed by BugMeNot?
A: Go ahead and register, but use the e-mail proxy from http://email.bugmenot.com. Basically, you make up an address, like JohnDoe, or just a random bunch of letters like dyfujehfq. Add @bugmenot.com to that, and that's your proxy e-mail address. For example, if you picked dyfujehgq, then your proxy address is dyfujehgq@bugmenot.com. Register using that address. The verification e-mail will be sent there. Then go to http://e-mail.bugmenot.com, enter your address dyfujehgq, and you'll see your verification e-mail there. Do it quickly, it'll be wiped in 24 hours. After that, any spam the site sends goes into a blackhole and is lost forever!