Monday, January 14, 2008

View your System Tray - all the time

The System Tray is that little row of icons in the lower right corner of your screen. It is one of the best indicators of what programs are running at any given time. However, in Windows "default" mode, most of those icons are hidden. That's why you see this:

You can click that little blue circle on the left end to see the rest of the icons for a second or so. Windows thinks you don't really want to see that row of icons. But you do! The more programs you have running, the slower they all run. So if there is a program running and you don't need it at the time, you can just close it for the time being. A common example is MSN Messenger - when you install it, it automatically sets itself to run every time you turn on the computer. And if you can't see your System Tray icons, you don't even know it is running.

Here's how you can always see your whole System Tray:

The taskbar is the bottom of your screen. In fact, the System Tray is the right-end of the taskbar itself. Somewhere in a blank area of the task bar, do a right-click and choose Properties. In the new window that comes up, UNcheck the box that says "Hide Inactive icons". Click Apply and OK. Now the little blue circle disappears, and your System Tray is fully visible at all times.

This week's video is a clip of just a man, singing a simple song that we all know. Can you guess what the song is, before the halfway mark of the video?