Monday, January 20, 2014

Removing The Ask Jeeves Toolbar From Your System

Those that have the Ask toolbar in their systems would know how annoying it could turn out to be. Indeed, the Ask toolbar acts as an adware toolbar for the Ask website (formerly the Ask Jeeves website). The Ask toolbar is supposed to take you to this website to help in performing your search.

Normally, you would have to visit the Ask website, where you can enter your query in a question form. This website is indeed useful in getting the information that you are looking for. However, the Ask toolbar would affect the functioning of your browser.

About the Ask toolbar removal

Acting as an adware toolbar, this application would change your browser settings and take you to the wrong page – most often the official Ask website. Sometimes, when you want to use the search engines like Google or Yahoo, the Ask toolbar would make sure that reach the Ask search website instead. These things are indeed annoying, and it would be better to get rid of the Ask toolbar from the system, than let it control your browser.

Ask toolbar removal is actually very easy, if you know the correct steps involved in the process. However, most people assume that the mere un-installation of the toolbar from the browser would get rid of it. It would not. You have to make sure that the application running in the background is also removed from the system.

You can start by removing the toolbar from the browser. The toolbar would be found in the Extensions or Add-ons section in your browser. Go there and uninstall it. Now go through the browser settings for the search bar and the homepage, and change it from Ask to any other website or search engine of your choice.

After this close the browser and go to the Control Panel. The Ask toolbar application would be there in the Add or Remove Programs section. Uninstall it. Now restart the system and check your browser to make sure that the toolbar is removed completely from the system.

If not, then you would have to clean the registry to get rid of the remaining bits of the Ask toolbar application in your system. For this download and use an adware removal tool - this would do the job for you. Good luck with getting rid of this annoying toolbar from your system.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Windows 8 Tile Screen App

One of the most revolutionary ideas implemented in the Windows 8 operating system is the tiled Start page or the Start screen, giving it a more touch friendly look. It looks very refreshing and different, and is unique, especially when such a screen appears on desktops and laptops.

However, there is a major drawback when using the Tile interface, also known as the Metro Style interface. If you were to add some new third party programs, the start tile comes out like a mess. This may totally ruin the appearance of the Start screen. But the small portable app called OblyTile allows you to generate good-looking tiles for third party programs, which returns the aesthetic look of the Start screen.

When a third party program is installed on a Windows 8 device, the tile looks strange because the programs pulls out the default logo stored in the program’s installation folder. As most of these logos have not been optimized to adapt better to the Windows 8 Tile menu, these logos end up messy. The main problem is that the logo is probably too small, low definition, or a mixture of both. The only way to make it more presentable on the Windows 8 tile screen, is to expand the logo in size, with proper definition so that it looks better on the tile screen.

The great thing about OblyTile is that it doesn’t need installation. Once you get the programs, just search for that program whose tile needs to be changed. You can search manually or pull out the Manager tool, which produces a list of installed programs in the system. The Manager tool also provides a list of the current program shortcuts in the computer, with the ability to covert these shortcuts to tiles.

OblyTile has a very simple and straightforward interface. To manually set up a tile, go to the manual route, and enter all the details pertaining to the application. Navigate to both the installed folder as well as the icon on the PC. Here you get to choose between different background colors and the title text color. Now click Create tile to generate the tile on the Start screen. The new tile will replace the old tile on the Windows 8 Start screen.

If you do not have the Windows 8 OS, it’s time to consider about a Windows 8 transfer. If you have already had a Windows 8 transfer, then check on Windows Store for the new Windows 8.1 operating system. OblyTile also allows you to place apps on the desktop. This is helpful for those users who do not like the Start tile screen too much.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Windows 8.1 Update Has Not Solved The OS Problems

An update to the Windows 8 operating system was recently released, called Windows 8.1. The new software would fix the many imperfections in Windows 8 but you should not expect it to fix all of them. As you are aware, Windows 8 was launched in October of last year and the same was expected to be a huge hit.
Even though Windows 8 turned out to be different from the rest of its genre, there were several flaws in it that were pointed out by the users. The Windows 8 OS was launched by Microsoft with a view to help touch screen users. Even the new interface was designed accordingly. However, the non-touch screen users could not enjoy the interface much like the touch screen users. Even the tile-based UI for accessing various apps could be enjoyed only by the touch screen users.
The Windows 8.1 upgrade is found to fix a few of the problems faced by Windows 8. Owing to the problems in Windows 8, many people contacted Windows 8 support for assistance regarding various interface issues. They were confused with the various features and options as the locations for these were different from that in its predecessor.
The new update that will be released could take the user directly to the traditional desktop interface after turning on the computer and this has been introduced as people had some difficulty with the new interface in Windows 8. The most important feature that has been included is the Start button on the desktop. Many Windows 8 users contacted the Windows 8 support regarding the absence of the Start button.
The Windows 8 users could now split their application screen in Windows 8.1, but only a quarter could be used for one app and the other portion could be used by the next application. The new update offers the customers the ability to try more than two applications at a time.
Now Microsoft is working on something to increasing the app quality and they have been increasing the number of apps developed for Windows 8 so that users could choose any from these numerous apps.  Already 100000 and more apps are introduced and these give more priority to the social networking apps like Facebook, Flipboard, NFL and others.
Even after the release of new update, the problems faced by Windows 8 has not been solved completely. Let us expect that these problems will be solved with the next update.