What is the best way to monitor our teens’ Facebook activity? To my mind, this is more a parenting issue than a technology one. The easiest method would be to join Facebook yourself and become one of your teens’ ”friends” on each account they have. That might not sit wel...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. Does the new Palm Pre smart phone use the traditional Palm operating system and the many programs that have been written for it? Palm’s P...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. I want to purchase an e-reader. Currently I use my Palm Tungsten, but the screen is rather small for reading books. I purchased the Amazon Kind...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. Should I install Microsoft’s “SP3″ upgrade to Windows XP? I hear opinions on both sides. In general, I recommend this upgrade...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. I read your recent column about running Windows on a Mac. Is there a way to run the Mac OS X operating system on a PC, like a Dell or a Sony? Y...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. A friend of mine suggested that I “defragment” my computer every once in a while. He says it will boost performance, but he also sa...

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help. Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have ed...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. Does any PC manufacturer offer an option to order a Windows (MSFT) PC without any extra software preinstalled? Dell’s XPS models can be o...

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. I recently lost my cellphone for a few hours. What was most upsetting was that I have nearly three years of family photos stored on my phone...

There’s no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help. Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have ed...