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Getting the most out of your computer involves using the right software. There is a such a lot of free and paid software out there that despite lots of reviews it can be difficult to find the right ones. Here are three great applications you might have missed:

Teamviewer

You can use teamviewer to connect and take control of another computer (with their permission, of course). But more importantly, it allows you to connect to your computer from a remote location. This is useful for connecting to your home pc to either shut it down, copy some data to a dropbox or even help someone who is using the computer.

7-zip

This is the single archive file manager that can take care of most of the major archive types. The most important part here is that it is free. You can create or access zip and rar files, or just use 7zip format. For the power use 7zip has several advanced features that most basic archival programs lack. This includes features such as security, test and zip etc.

Notepad++

A great replacement for Notepad. Notepad++ has some advanced options and is perfect for coders or anyone who has to deal with a lot of text files. You can search all text files within directories with specific wildcards.

If you can’t see the mouse pointer when you move the mouse around, then it’s time change how the pointer looks and behaves.

Of course, the simplest way to do this is by making these changes through the Control Panel’s Mouse tool.

As you should know, there are different procedures for each version of Windows.

Let’s look at these procedures for Windows 7,8 and 10:

 Windows 7: This method is the simplest of the lot. First, click Start, select Mouse in the Control Panel section. Now, make the changes necessary.

Windows 8: Go to the Charm bar,type ‘mouse’ in the text box. Select the option that says Mouse. Avoid the Ease of Access mouse settings. It doesn’t have as many options as the Control Panel tool.

Windows 10: For this, type Mouse in the search field. Now select ‘Change your mouse settings’. After this, click ‘Additional mouse settings’ in the Settings app.

Regardless of whichever version of Windows you use, you should be in the Mouse properties dialog box.

Now select the Pointers tab and the Scheme menu and pick something. There will be a variety of colors, schemes and fonts to select from.

When you pick one scheme, it won’t change the mouse pointer but will display your selection in the box to the right of the Scheme menu.

If you want to see how the mouse pointer actually looks, then click Apply.

Also look at the Pointer Options tab as you will find more possibilities there to make your mouse pointer visible.

Contrary to popular opinion, malware is usually created in such a manner that you will never notice that it is on your PC. The reason for this is the people who write them do not want you to get rid of them from your computer.

Yet despite this ability to stay hidden, there are certain symptoms that will give you clues as to whether you have malware on your system or not.

And while in some cases, ransomware will announce its presence on your system while the presence of others will not be so obvious.

That said, here are 4 ways by which you can tell if malware exists on your system:

#1: Poor PC Performance

If you PC is running slower than ever or several unwanted, unrecognizable programs in the background, then you can attribute this to malware.

#2: Toolbars that don’t seem to go away

A number of programs usually install toolbars on your system and which can be uninstalled in one go. However, if this isn’t possible, then there’s probably malware on your system and which will require you to do more.

#3: Home and Search Pages change

Similar to the issue with toolbars, if your Home and Search Pages cannot be reset back to the URLs that you prefer, then it’s probably because of malware too.

#4: Maintenance programs do not work

Malware protects itself by disabling programs that have been designed to recognize and remove it in the process. Some of these programs include Task Manager, Windows Update, System Restore, Msconfig, Regedit or even your antivirus program.

There are a number of features in Windows that can make your Life easier. One such feature involves being able to keep track of a number of time zones at the same time.

While it’s easier to use Google by typing “time (city name)”, both Windows 7 and 8.1 can help you view these time zones at a glance.

For this, click on the lower right hand corner of your screen to open a window that displays the time and date. After this, click ‘Time and date settings’. Now, with the window that opens up, click the ‘Additional Clocks’ tab.

Click the checkbox next to the ‘Show this clock’ and select the time zone as well which is based on hours before or after Universal Coordinated Time.

Once you’ve done this, then enter the appropriate names for each of the clocks in the given boxes ‘Enter display name’. Once you’re done, then click ‘Add’ and ‘OK’ and that’s it!

As for wanting to see the time zones together, move your mouse pointer to the bottom right-hand corner and click to a see a window with all the clocks showing the times you selected earlier.

Another simpler way to see the time is to hover the mouse pointer in the same area and a yellow pop-up window will appear listing the three time zones alongwith their display names.

Finally, even though Windows doesn’t provide a shortcut key to display these clocks, one can use the Windows key + B and the arrow keys to open them once the time and date option is highlighted.

If you want to transfer files from your PC to an Android device, the most popular method involves using AirDroid for Android.

However, there a new feature provided on the free app Pushbullet for iOS and Android that is worthy of attention as well.

All it takes is a just a couple of clicks which makes it ridiculously easy as the connection between both devices remain.

But why pick Pushbullet over Airdroid if you are already using the latter?

This is for the simple reason that Pushbullet pushes all notifications on your phone to desktop and this could include incoming calls, email notifications, texts and alerts from your news apps.

Now, in order to use Pushbullet, you need to download the app from Google Play while running the desktop app too. All you have to do is sign-in on both devices and you can begin swapping files too.

So, let’s say you want to move a music file from a particular folder. First, you open File Explorer and move to the folder. Next, right-click the file and move the mouse pointer over Pushbullet in the context menu.

If your mouse pointer stays over the selection, you’ll find that another menu opens up with a list of devices. Pick the one you wish to transfer the file to by clicking on the selection.

Soon, you will get a desktop notification saying that your song is being uploaded. And you’re done!