Welcome to the fourth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice. As ever many blog authors contributed their posts, and as ever limitation of space means that some did not make it into the carnival.

We start with a carnival regular: Andrew Edgington writes posts on the subject of digital imagery. In Edit Your Digital Photos Andrew says Emailing your photos? A few tips. For those of you who use Photoshop he writes the Learn Photoshop Now blog, which has included the following recent posts: Brightening Dark Shadows; Screen Blending Mode; and, Create an image with a transparent background.

Eerik Toom presents more general advice for Windows users with How to make an older program run in Windows XP posted at Cool Windows XP tips & tricks. More useful advice from Jon Knight who lists 5 Things You Can Do to Start Your PC Faster at his Wordout blog. On the subject of lists, Paul Wilcox of Security Manor explains The Three Things You Need To Protect Against Internet Security Risks.

Phil for Humanity eulogises on The Merits of Two Backups - very good advice, the more backups the better. For all the webmasters out there Fred Black praises Google WebMaster Tools at his Internet Business Blog. Finally, ChristianPF advises us on How to watch HD TV on your computer at ChristianPF.com.

If you would like to host the next carnival leave a comment on this post or use the contact form over at our Blog Carnival page where you can also submit your blog posts for inclusion.

More next month.

I am pleased to announce that the Third Carnival of Computer Help and Advice has been published at http://prash-babu.blogspot.com/2008/03/third-carnival-of-computer-help-and.html.

Many thanks to this months host Prashanth and all our contributors and readers.

p.s. If you would like to submit an article for the next carnival or host a future carnival on your blog use the contact forms over at the Carnival of Computer Help and Advice page.

The 3rd Carnival of Computer Help and Advice will probably be a couple of days late this month (it is due to be published on the 27th March). This is due to me having been ill for the last few days, and so I haven’t had chance to pass the Carnival on to this month’s host Prashanth.

Apologies for the delay.
K

Firstly, let me thank everyone who submitted an article for inclusion on this carnival. I received forty-eight submissions and I am sorry that I could not include them all.

Getting us started this month, Ashutosh Mishra presents an article containing fourteen tips for making Windows run faster in Speed Up Your Computer at PC TON!C. In a similar vein Jose DeJesus MD gives advice for Tuning up Windows on his Physician Entrepreneur blog. Jose also identifies a common problem and a software solution for it in his article, Renaming All those Files Your Camera Makes.

While we are on the subject of software, “Here’s a very useful free pdf download for you” says Andrew Edgington of Learn Photoshop Now with reference to Getting Started With Photoshop - Volume 1 and Volume 2. Nesher at Freeware Reviews wrote two excellent freeware round-up articles: the first a list of 18 Free Password Managers, the second 17 Free Utilities for PDF Files Reading. For the network analysts out there, Nim at dixlinx presents a review article of Wireshark - network protocol analyzer (packet sniffer) , which includes a useful video tutorial of the software in action. In the last software based article for this carnival, Steven Stoddard of Steve’s Tech Guide tells you how to Secure Your Computer and Network With Free Software.

Steve’s guide may be of use for those who answer ‘yes’ to jsanderz‘ question, Could Your Computer be Infected With a Virus? that was posed at Information Addicts. Similarly Aa’ed Alqarta offers the first part of an article advising on how to Analyze Malware-infections on your own – Part I at Extreme Security — Do It Securely or Not at all!. The Emperor at The Tech Empire presents a way of getting past a problem that can result from a viral infection in his article Can’t get to the Control Panel, Task Manager, or Registry Editor?.

Even without viral infections and malware wreaking havoc we can cause problems on our own computers. Accidentally deleting files is one such mistake, thankfully andyar85 at PC issues - DIY offers help in his article Retrieve deleted information from hard-drives. In his article HDD cloning/image backup, Andy also offers advice on (in his own words) “the best way to reinstall/install an operating system is to use the old one you are still running. Try these methods, you won’t regret it.” Prash also looks at operating systems in an article on his blog in an article in which he pits ubuntu vs windows.

Two ‘look and feel’ tips to round off this edition of the carnival, Shaswata Mukherjee shows us what to do if we Want to change windows to your name at Cool Computers Tricks and Tips, and James Lewitzke presents 5 Ways to Enhance Your Web Browsing Experience at Lightning Shock. James tells us “these tips are what I use to have a great online experience.”

On that note, I hope this issue of the Carnival of Computer Help and Advice was also a great online experience. More next month.

p.s. If you would like to host the next carnival leave a comment on this post or use the contact form over at our Blog Carnival page. Cheers, K.