Here’s a weird little freeware program unearthered by Propellerhead. It’s called HeavyLoad and the idea is it deliberately puts a big strain on your PC’s resources (operating system, CPU, RAM, hard drives, network etc.) in an effort to expose any weaknesses and check to see if it will perform reliably when stressed.

Driving a PC hard, by writing large files to temporary folders, drawing patterns on the screen and gobbling up large chunks of memory will soon show if your PC’s cooling system is up to the job, and just how much punishment it can take.

As Propellerhead points out Microsoft Word documents are not always what they seem. They can contain a wealth of hidden information and every so often this forgotten privacy and security flaw is forgotten as someone -- usually a smart journalist -- disassembles and finds something embarrassing inside a Word document sent to them on disc or in an email.

There are several different types of data concealed in documents and one of the easiest to remove is Metadata. This contains information about you, your PC, document revisions, comments and all sorts of other things. If you are using Word 2000 you should read Microsoft KB article 237361 for Word 2003 users the place to go is KB 825576. Your documents could also be concealing Field Codes and links so you might want to have a look at a little freeware add-on called the Hidden File Detector.

  Propellerhead has uncovered another one of those hidden programs inside Windows XP, this one goes under the rather grand name of the Private Character Editor. In fact it’s a very useful graphics tool for designing your own fonts special characters and, logos and icons.

To start the program go to Run on the Start menu and type ‘eudcedit’ (without the quotes) and click OK.  Once it opens start by selecting a hexadecimal code for your first character from the grid, click OK and you are ready to begin designing, using the set of drawing tools on the left.

Here’s another freebie from Uncle Bill, via Propellerhead, this time it’s a little add on called Time Zone, and it does exactly what it says, displaying the time in a choice of world wide locations.

The defaults are London, Los Angeles, New Delhi, New York and Sydney, but you can choose from scores of cities, from Abu Dhabi to Zagreb. Incidentally, if it doesn’t work you may have followed one of our previous tips and disabled ‘Balloon Tips’.

As Propellerhead can confirm sitting staring at a computer monitor all day is bad news, health-wise, but if you just can’t spare the time to get down the gym then take a break and try a few simple exercises. Here’s a couple of websites to get you started. Deskercize from the University of California Human Resources and Benefits department has a particularly imaginative selection. ‘Firm your Fanny’ and ‘Seventh Inning Reach and Stretch’ sound quite interesting and fellow workers will treat you with new respect after seeing you doing a ‘Ready for Fight’ workout.

If that sounds a bit too much like hard work then head over to Desktop Yoga with Ellen Serber, and she will take you through a series of exercises to alleviate the strain of working at a computer and help you to avoid Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and begin, I can set yourself up for a calmer, happier, more productive day, Just don’t fall asleep… Looking for more PC health and safety tips? Then head over to the archive at PCTopTips

You should listen to your PC, say’s Propellerhead and he’s not talking about MP3 tracks but the noises it makes when you first boot up, and whilst it is running. Any change to the sound of your PC should ring alarm bells.

A low level whine that gradually disappears after a while is almost certainly the first sign of a CPU cooling fan failure. Get it seen to immediately, when it finally dies, and it will, the CPU can go into meltdown in less than a minute. At best it will automatically shut down and you’ll loose whatever you were working on; at worst the chip could fry and you’ll face a hefty repair bill.

A sudden increase or change in hard disc chatter, could be a sign of trouble to come, or more likely a badly fragmented drive, either way make sure your backups are in good order then at your earliest convenience run Defrag and the hard disc Error Checker (right-click the disc icon in Windows Explorer and select the Tools tab).

How would you like to playback tunes stored on your PC on your home hi-fi? If the PC and hi-fi are in the same room, or you have a laptop, then it’s not too difficult to hook up the PC’s audio out to the hi-fi’s audio input using a stereo connecting cable, but there’s an easier way.

Last week at a local computer fair Propellerhead picked up a wireless ‘sender’ (basically an iTrip knockoff) designed for portable MP3 players, iPods and the like, for the princely sum of £7.50. Judging by the number of different models on sale -- and they’re starting to appear on ebay -- It looks as though we’re about to be flooded with the things.

It’s a low power FM stereo transmitter, for sending sounds from an MP3 player to a nearby radio -- they’re a handy way to play your digital tunes through a car radio, for example. Well, they work just as well with the tuners in hi-fi systems, and the audio outputs on PCs, and the quality is not half bad. Technically they’re still illegal but plans are afoot to amend the law (or at least turn a blind eye to them).

Did you know than on most PCs you can have two mice running at the same time? But why would anyone want to do such a thing? Well, there is this new game Propellerhead has just invented, called Duelling Mice, where two users are given a mouse each and the winner is the one who manages to crash the PC …

But seriously, if you’re into high-end graphics you might want a regular mouse for day-to-day Windows stuff, and a precision mouse or trackball for delicate work. The second mouse could also be a graphics tablet or even a wireless device, used for presentations. So how do you go about connecting two mice?

Remember the Slingbox? It was the Summer’s hot gadget and it allowed you to stream live TV, video and music from your PC to any other PC with a net connection. Propellerhead has found a way of doing all that for free, with a program called Orb.

Simply install Orb on your PC; set up the password protected login and you’re away. When you are away from home or the office all you have to do is open a browser on a PC, laptop or mobile device, logon to your Orb account and you can stream media direct from your PC to wherever you are. If your home PC has a tuner you can watch live TV, or you can watch videos, listen to music or view images stored on your hard drive. So what’s the catch?

You may recall a few weeks ago Propellerhead mentioned a little freeware utility called ‘One Click Volume that simplified the clunky Windows System Tray volume control, well, here’s an even better one, called Volumouse. Simply hold down the Alt key (or one of sixteen other actions) and spin the mouse wheel and the volume goes up or down.

You can also use it to control a variety of other functions from the mouse wheel, using four ‘Rules’ or presets and these include varying screen brightness and transparency, adjusting bass boost and a number of audio actions.

Here’s another freebie from Bill, via Propellerhead, this time it’s a little add on called Time Zone, and it does exactly what it says, displaying the time in a choice of world wide locations.

The defaults are London, Los Angeles, New Delhi, New York and Sydney, but you can choose from scores of cities, from Abu Dhabi to Zagreb.

Incidentally, if it doesn’t work you may have followed one of our previous tips and disabled ‘Balloon Tips’ in which

Remember those little flipbooks you used to get in comics (Propellerhead is showing his age now), or maybe you’ve made your own by drawing ‘stickmen’ on the corners of an exercise book?  Now you can make your own with this simple to use ‘donationware’ utility (it’s free but if you like it then you are encouraged to make a small donation).

It’s called Flipbook Printer and it creates custom flipbooks from video files shot on a camcorder or digital camera. It’s really easy to use, just select the movie file you want to use, set up your print options, click the Print icon and away it goes.

As you (hopefully) know browsing the Internet is not a private activity and it leaves a trail half a mile wide that almost anyone with a mind to can easily track back to your PC. Everything from Windows to your ISP and the websites you visit maintain records of your activities but there are ways to protect your privacy.

Propellerhead suggests that there are plenty of ways to protect your identity, one of which is to use a website like EverPrivate.com. It’s a free ‘proxy’ browser that lets you visit websites, without leaving any traces behind. If you want to take up the paid-for option you’ll be issued with a ‘virtual’ debit card that let’s you make on-line purchases,

Bored with your backdrop? Weary of your wallpaper? There’s no need to be, according to Propellerhead, Uncle Bill has kindly developed a small free utility, part of the PowerToys suite, called Wallpaper Changer.

This simple little program automatically switches your wallpaper as often as you like, from every 15 minutes to once a week.

If you use the Firefox browser (and if not why not?) then you’ll know all about the useful Password Manager facility, which makes logging onto protected websites a doddle, but as Propellerhead  points out, it is not very secure. Anyone using your PC can access your websites and see all of your saved passwords without let or hindrance.

To protect your security you should set a password for the Password Manager and you, (and anyone else using your PC) will be asked to enter the Master password at the first attempt to log on to a password protected website. To set it up open Firefox then go to Tools > Options and select the Privacy tab.

How many times have you viewed a digital photograph on your PC and wondered where on earth it was taken? In the not too distant future, digital cameras with built-in GPS facilities will record latitude and longitude in the image’s hidden EXIF data file, which is currently used to store time, date and camera settings.

However, with this top tip from Propellerhead you can get a flavour of things to come right now with a tiny little program called Panorado Flyer, which records location data on your images. After that all you have to do is right-click on the file and you’ll be transported by Google Earth to the exact location.

If you’ve had anything to do with Blogs or Blogging then you’ll know there’s a multitude of sites and software applications, of varying sophistication, designed to help you organise your words and pictures and published them on the web, so when Microsoft get involved it’s times to sit up and pay attention.

Propellerhead has been trying out Windows LiveWriter, which is a fully featured desktop blogging application, it’s still in Beta form but it’s pretty well finished and available now as a free download. LiveWriter (and get used to the word Live in MS apps and add-ons from now on) is meant for the Windows LiveSpaces blogging site but it’s compatible with other weblogs. including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad. WordPress and so on.

It supports all popular modes and protocols, configures itself to your Weblog software in just a few moments and is incredibly easy to use through its friendly wysiwyg (‘wizzywig’ or what you see is what you get) interface.

The next time you go flying you might want to think twice about taking your laptop with you, following the events of the past few weeks. If a terrorist alert licks off while you are waiting to check in there’s a good chance you laptop and all of your electronic goodies will part company and end up going into the hold, with no guarantee you’ll see them again at the other end.

Losing a laptop could be a major problem, especially if it contains a lot of personal, sensitive or irreplaceable data, and it may not be covered by your travel insurance if it’s lost of damaged, so Propellerhead says leave it behind.

If you need a laptop you can hire one at your destination; take any data or files you’ll need on a flash drive or CD, or better still, upload it to the web and then you can get at it on a borrowed or rented PC, or in an Internet café. It needn’t cost you a bean, either. There’s 25Gb of free online storage at Streamload, no hidden fees, no credit card details.

Here’s a weird little tip that has been doing the rounds for a while -- it first came to Propellerhead’s attention in the late 1980’s -- and over the years quite a few people claim to have temporarily revived a dead or dying hard drive simply by popping it in the freezer for a few hours.

The drive should be tightly sealed inside a 'Ziplock' plastic bag, to prevent condensation and left in the freezer compartment for at least two or three hours. It’s not a permanent fix and once back inside the case the drives apparently work long enough for the user to recover data, maybe 20 minutes to half an hour.

The web has been abuzz with an apparent leak of Canadian prices for Windows Vista on a Microsoft website, that has subsequently been withdrawn. However, a price list has been on Amazon’s pre-order pages for at least the past two weeks, with a predicted release date of January 30th. In case you are interested, or want to start saving your pennies the US prices are as follows: Vista Home Basic will be $199 for the full version and $99 for the upgrade (approx £105/52). The Vista Home Premium Full/Upgrade will set you back $239/$159 (£126/£84), Vista Business will be $299/$199 (£158/£105) and Vista Ultimate will be $399/$259 (£210/£136). Don’t forget it’s all speculation and conjecture and these are US prices but so far Microsoft hasn’t denied it and it sounds about right so they’re probably in the ballpark