ENJOY WINDOWS 8 WITH A KEYBOARD AND MOUSE!

Here's a keyboard from logitech that will end your frustration of using a keyboard/mouse combination with Windows 8...can't find those hidden menus?  This should rid that problem forever:
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/wireless-all-in-onekeyboard-tk820?crid=26&ClickID=akwlzayvzvzlnwoyottvkvz59lya09atwsaa

LOVE THAT OLDER INTERNET EXPLORER (8 OR 9)?

If you can't seem to get rid of IE 8 or 9...maybe you're using XP and 9 is your latest update there are some vulnerabilities you might want to patch.  Microsoft has a 'Fix It' patch and another to remove it here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2013/09/17/cve-2013-3893-fix-it-workaround-available.aspx
You might want to have a look.

LAST PASS...Password Manager

Passwords...passwords...annoying perhaps but the reality in today's computing.  Here's a program that takes the hassle and the worry out of creating sufficiently complex passwords as well as remembering the ones that we have:
https://lastpass.com/

DROPBOX TOOLS

If you use Dropbox here's a very interesting article from PC World magazine explaining 5 very useful tools.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2046475/five-free-dropbox-tools-youre-not-using-but-should-be-.html#tk.nl_pcwbest

Eye-Fi Mobi--Wireless Photo Transfer

Here's a long overdue device for 'sharing' photos from a camera without built-in sharing features:
http://www.eye.fi/
I can't wait to try it out on my older Nikon Coolpix!

A BITLOCKER PRIMER

The Best Info on BitLocker
There are many valuable sources of information out there about bitlocker and one can read endlessly about how it was first developed etc etc.  With Windows 8 it is becoming easier and more available than ever before to implement and use.  Here's a great source of information that I found very helpful and hopefully if you are interested you will too:
http://www.technibble.com/bitlocker-101-easy-free-full-drive-encryption-for-windows/

PROTECT THAT VALUABLE PORTABLE DEVICE

PREY PROJECT--Here's a great tool to protect your laptop or other portable device. Visit their site, download the application/app, install it and create a user account and off you go. Is supported on PCs, Macs and Linux. For more information visit their site first via this link.
www.preyproject.com
Watch the short video clip and if you are like me you will have the program installed pronto. I haven't tried it on my phone yet but on my laptop I had the siren wailing in no time (testing of course) and the camera was flashing my photo just as advertised.

SOLID STATE DRIVES---An overview:
For a rather in depth article on those fantastic, fast and more affordable solid state drives some of us are experiencing in new computers follow this link:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038511/the-care-and-feeding-of-ssds-what-makes-these-speedy-drives-hum.html#tk.nl_pcwbest
A bit technical but worth the read.

HOW TO GET AROUND WINDOWS 8 EMAIL
As you probably know using Windows 8 'Mail' client doesn't support POP mail accounts (yahoo, earthlink etc).  A way around this is to use Windows Mail from the Essentials programs collection and configure it to then access your POP email account.  However, in order to do this you must make an important change--Essentials requires .NET Framework 3.5 and Windows 8 comes with 4.5 already installed.  In order to make Essentials Windows Mail compatible do this before installing Essentials--go to Control Panel, then type Features in the search box, then click 'Turn Windows features on or off'.  In the resulting dialog box check .NET Framework 3.5.  Windows may  need to download the required files from Windows update...When finished you can install Mail.

ENCRYPT THAT EMAIL

For those of us needing to send secure/encrypted email periodically or frequently here's a service that really takes care of it:
http://www.sendinc.com/
This service only requires you (the sender) and the recipient(s) to each have an account with sendinc.  The email is created on their site and sent with an encryption key to the recipient.
Read the information from this link if you think you might be a candidate...it even includes an 'add-on' for Outlook so you can create encrypted emails without logging into their site:
http://www.sendinc.com/about/how-it-works