PC Mechanic, New Article

How To Use @ In Facebook For Quick Links
Do You Really Need Java Installed On Your System Anymore?
Firefox 5 And 6 – Anything New Yet?

How To Use @ In Facebook For Quick Links

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 03:00 AM PDT

One of the lesser known features when typing up Facebook status updates is the @ symbol. This can be used to quickly link to other people in your friend list or pages you’ve marked as being a "fan" of.

All you have to do is when typing an update, enter @ followed by the beginning of the name of the person or page you want to link to. A drop-down menu will appear, and you simply click the name you want to link in your update:

Once you’ve done that, the linked text is highlighted in blue, and then you continue typing the rest of your update:

Important notes:

This does not work when you’re administering a page (or at least not yet); it only works for personal profiles.

Again it will be mentioned you can only link to that are already on your friend list, or pages you’ve already labeled as being a fan of.

If you want to link outbound to other sites that are not Facebook friends or pages, use the URL directly, such as http://www.example.com and Facebook will auto-link it on post.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

How To Use @ In Facebook For Quick Links

Do You Really Need Java Installed On Your System Anymore?

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 12:00 PM PDT

The other day, I got prompted that a new version of Java was available and I should upgrade. This got me to thinking "what on my system actually uses Java?". As it turns out, nothing that I can find.

Java (not to be confused with Javascript) seems to be one of those things we think we need when in actuality, a lot of us do not need it. Of course there are certain web sites and applications which require Java to function, but for the most part the web uses Flash (or a similar alternative) for most of its intense interactive content and not very many desktop applications are built on Java anymore (other than OpenOffice, I can’t think of any but if you know of popular apps built on Java, please post in the comments).

So do you really need Java on your system? I uninstalled it several days ago and haven’t noticed anything. If you don’t use anything which requires Java, it does no good on your system so just remove it. After all, you can always easily add it back if you ever need it.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Do You Really Need Java Installed On Your System Anymore?

Firefox 5 And 6 – Anything New Yet?

Posted: 19 Apr 2011 07:00 AM PDT

I downloaded and briefly tested Fx 5 and 6 to see how the browser is coming along. As far as features go, there’s really not much to talk about other than the fact in version 5 the add-ons area has a new nicer "get to know you" intro screen:

(Yes, I used Windows 2000 to test because.. well.. why not?)

I consider this a good thing because for those who’ve never experience add-ons/extensions/plugins before, it’s nice to have something that actually tells you what they are and why you would even want to use them.

Other than that, the only thing to report presently is that Fx 5 (Aurora) and Fx 6 (Nightly) have some of the coolest looking "About" logos I’ve seen in a long time.