How to Use Windows

Seven months ago, the New York Attorney General’s office slapped both Symantec and McAfee with $375,000 in fines to settle charges that they automatically charged customers software subscription renewal fees without their consent. Symantec may have been slow to learn its lesson, because now a New York man is suing the security software maker for the same reason. In the lawsuit, Kenneth Elan says he purchased a copy of Norton Antivirus in 2007. According to Elan, Symantec notified him in early 2009 that his software license had been automatically renewed and his credit card charged $76.03. Now Elan is taking Symantec to court, claiming the company did not abide by the above-mentioned settlement, in which Symantec and McAfee agreed to “provide electronics notification to consumers before and after renewal of the subscription.” “Prior to the automatic renewal, defendant failed to offer plaintiff an opportunity to decline to renew the license for another year,” the lawsuit alleges

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

The free preview version of Windows 7 runs out next month, with users still running Win 7 RC set to face PC shut-downs unless they upgrade to the full, paid-for version of Microsoft’s new operating system. Shut-down notices will begin on 15 February, with Windows 7 Release Candidate – or, as it is widely known, ‘the cheapskate version’ – showing a warning notice every few hours that users will need to upgrade to the full version of the OS by 1 March. 28 days to comply If they do not comply, then their PC will start to automatically shut down every two hours after 1 March, which we imagine would become rather bothersome. “To avoid any data loss, I suggest making plans to move to a released version of Windows 7 before the automatic shutdowns start,” Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc posted on The Windows Blog. “During these shutdowns, your work will not be saved.” The shutdowns will run through to 1 June, after which the PC’s wallpaper will display a “this copy of Windows is not genuine” notification on the lower right corner of the taskbar and users will no longer receive any optional updates or downloads that need Windows validation.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

Flickr’s a monster, housing billions of photos with varying licences. Finding images is time-consuming, and this was the impetus behind Viewfinder – the author had been driven to the brink searching for relevant, high-quality Creative Commons images for a presentation. Viewfinder takes Flickr, ditches everything bar the search, and encases what’s left in a sleek interface. Type a search term (the search menu enables titles or tags to be targeted), tap the Enter key and results appear in a grid format

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

While it would be nice to have unlimited access to a T1 connection for huge downloads (here’s looking at you, World of Warcraft patches), that’s just not the case for a majority of users today. We can’t all download Linux builds at our work computers. Sometimes, one just has to grin and bear it–”it” being the act of leaving one’s computer on overnight for a furious session of non-peak-hour downloading. Here’s the problem: When said download finishes sometime in the wee hours of the night, your computer stays on.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

BatteryCare is an excellent utility for Windows to optimize the usage and performance of your laptop’s battery. BatteryCare comes with several handy features such as automatic power plans switching, complete battery information, control over Windows Aero and more. With complete battery information, you get detailed information such as manufacturer name, designed capacity, current capacity, charge/discharge rate, tension, wear level, last calibration rate and total calibration performed.

The full story can be found on Into Windows