Don’t Tell Your Boss About These Computer Tips

The Super Alt-Tab Computer Tips

Your boss probably already knows that alt-tab lets you quickly switch from your Web browser (displaying Digg.com) to a more productive-looking application, so your boss may make a habit of glancing at your Windows taskbar whenever he’s standing behind your computer to see what you’re really up to.

But you can one-up your boss by installing a special application that completely hides certain windows when you press a particular key combination. No matter how hard your boss looks, he won’t find these hidden windows (unless he knows your secret key combination).

Warning: if you install an application like Hide Window Plus, you may get in more trouble than you would for just surfing the Internet. If you can see your boss coming, you may have more luck by pressing Alt-Home in your Web browser to view your boring default home page before pressing Alt-Tab to switch to an even more boring application.

Computer Tips To Get Around Blocked Sites

Tech savvy bosses and larger organizations will often block the major time-wasting Web sites. When you try to visit Reddit or Digg or Slashdot, the blocking software displays a “get back to work screen” or—worse—a message saying that your visit has been logged with your boss.

But most of these blocking tools use what computer security professionals call a blacklist—they only list the sites you can’t visit. You can still visit any site not on that list.

Getting around a blacklist on the modern Internet is easy. Just search for “free proxy.” These sites will download a copy of the Digg homepage and show it to you on their domain name—which probably isn’t blocked.

Be careful—if you login to a site through a free proxy, you share your login details with them. Never use them to login to your main email account or any financial account. This is just a precaution you need to take to protect your on line accounts.

Also be careful of crafty bosses or overstaffed IT departments. If they see you frequently visiting FreeProxy.example.com, they might get suspicious and see what you’re really doing. Again, the punishment for trying to cover up your actions might be worse than the punishment for those actions themselves.

How To Access Hidden Applications

At a company my friend used to work for, the IT department deleted the Games directory from the Windows Start menu so we no longer had access to Solitaire, Hearts, and Minesweeper.

This was no big deal until one day my friend casually asked me how to get Solitaire back. I was puzzled as to why she needed to do this. The reason was simple. She was the boss and her employees were still using the games that she had the IT department remove. That’s when I showed her one of the simplest computer tips:

Windows stores most of its default computer programs in the same directory. Any program stored in that directory can be started by typing a single word—the program name—into the Windows Run… dialog.

So open the Start menu, open the Run… dialog, and type solfor Solitaire. Almost immediately Solitaire will start running, even if it doesn’t appear in the start menu.

You can also hide applications from your boss this way, although (again) be careful of the consequences of getting caught. Just install the app like normal, find the application name and start it from the Run… dialog, and then delete its icons or folder from the Start menu.

Computer Tips To Really Hide Applications

Of course a savvy boss or diligent IT department will simply block you from installing new applications on your computer, so it doesn’t matter how well you hide them—or does it?

If you really need to hide an application and you have a computer at home, you may be able to install it on a USB device. Lots of applications today have what they call “portable” editions that install entirely to USB keychains and keep all of their data there.

If you use, for example, a portable game, you’ll be able to play it at work but never leave any trace on your work computer. There will be no program file, no data files, no Start Menu entry. Plus—even better—you’ll be able to play the same game at home too, picking up from where you left off.

I suggest you start with a portable Web browser and see how it works at work. You can always claim that you like the interface of the portable browser better than the browser at work if you get caught.

Computer Tips To Prevent Your Boss From Spying On You

Several offices have security cameras for security—and for monitoring employee productivity. But these days there’s a new less obvious way to spy on employees.

You’ve probably see screencasts here on Tips4PC, but the same software that lets us record videos of our desktops also lets bosses secretly record videos of your desktop.

Most of this software doesn’t save these videos. It just lets your boss tune in and spy on you whenever he wants. That could suck if you want to just relax on the Internet for a bit.

Luckily, you can easily defeat this software—you simply need to kill it. Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and switch to the processes tab. One of these processes is the spy software—it’s usually called something like Remote Viewer. Highlight the software and press End Process.

The next time your boss tries to spy on your desktop, he’ll get a “cannot connect” error. If you kill this software everyday and he gets suspicious, just tell him that you thought it might have been a virus, and since terminating it didn’t harm your computer you thought it was ok.

If you do it right, this is the least likely of the computer tips to get you in trouble. (And just remember you didn’t find out any of this from me)