As a tech writer, one of my biggest pet peeves is the plethora of bad advice littered across almost every web site dedicated to system tweaking. Besides the tweaks that simply don't work, some of them will actually cause your computer to run even slower—or worse. Let's examine some of the most offensive myths out there regarding PC performance tweaking, and debunk them once and for all.

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Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, but too much of the time they can be frustrating, time-wasting, stubborn machines. From the irritating "Access Denied" message when you can't remember your 147th password, to all the useless email that clutters your inbox, to IT lockdown restrictions that keep you from getting your job done, let's take a look at 10 of the more common gripes amongst computer users and our humble suggestions for fixing them. Photo by basykes.

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Mac OS X only: Freeware application xMod tweaks OS X Leopard system settings through a easy-to-use—albeit clunky—interface. Similar to previously mentioned LeopardMOD, xMod tweaks everything from Finder to Safari, and offers tools to check the status of your hard drives or change the default screenshot behaviour. xMod is freeware, Mac OS X only. For more obscure but arguably cooler set of hidden tweaks, check out previously mentioned Secrets.

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Mac only: Free utility Shades adds finer screen brightness controls to your Mac than the defaults. Once you install the Shades Preference pane and turn it on, you can brighten or darken your screen across a much wider range than the Mac's built-in controls, and make your laptop in bed much more bearable to your sleepy significant other or the guy on the red-eye flight in the next seat. Shades doesn't affect OS X's default controls and colour profiles. If you get carried away by the range Shades provides and dim your screen too dark, Alt+Esc will set it back to the default brightness. Thanks eyeRmonkey!

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Windows only: X-Mouse Button Control, a free Windows mouse utility, is a highly-configurable tool that you set your extra mouse buttons, or even your standard set of three, to do all kinds of helpful tasks. Like the less-configurable X-Mouse Gizmo, you can add copy/paste functionality to a button, but you can also have a right rocker button perform a Print Screen capture, or set the two buttons to act as back and forward buttons only when Firefox is open. For those looking for more control over their pointers, X-Mouse Button Control is a powerful tweaking tool. X-Mouse Button Control is a free download for Windows systems only.

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Most Firefox 3 testers agree that the preview release of the new browser promises faster and all-around better surfing—but one of the most noticeable interface changes, the big Back button, has gotten mixed reviews. If you're not a fan of Firefox 3's large back button, you don't have to wrangle with CSS or themes to adjust its size. Simply right-click on Firefox's toolbar, and choose Customise. In the dialogue box, select "Use small icons"—and voila! Your back button will be the same size as reload. Thanks, zaxour!

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You've just finished carefully control-selecting all those files you need to move off your desktop and into a container folder, and then, one hand slip later, you have twice as many to deal with. The How-To Geek finds the fix, both inside Microsoft's Swiss-Army-Fixer, TweakUI, and in two registry values you can find inside the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop key. Change DragHeight and DragWidth to somewhere North of 10, and you'll get far fewer accidental copies. Hit the link for a pre-compiled fix and detailed instructions.

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Windows only: Free customisation utility XNeat adds a few unique functions to the rich library of tweaking utilities, and some might become must-installs for Windows power-users. The most notable are the additions to the standard "Save As" dialog: an option to create a numbered "clone" file when you're about to save over an existing document (i.e. "Paper(1).doc"), and a time-stamping utility that adds numbered dates to filenames automatically. XNeat also lets you enable drag-and-drop taskbar re-ordering, giving you your preference of left-to-right app layout, and a full set of windows management tools, including transparency and system tray docking. XNeat is a free download for Windows XP and Vista only.

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Windows only: Anyone who's edited their system path entries—the places where you tell Windows to look for programs you type into the command line—knows how awkwardly small the space given is to edit a huge string of text, and one misplaced character can nuke the whole thing. Redmond Path, a free download for Windows systems, offers a graphical multi-line interface, roll-back points for experimental changes, and verification that you're pointing Windows to a valid location. Now it shouldn't be so hard to have append to text files, use Unix commands from the command prompt, or give yourself easy access to oft-launched programs. Redmond Path is a free download for Windows systems only.

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There are a scant few features of the latest release of Safari for Windows and Mac OS X that you can't recreate in Firefox with the help of a few add-ons and tweaks—except for Safari's intuitive inline search. It's not a direct port, but the CyberNet blog has put together a package that gives you the same darkened-screen highlighting that makes it easier to spot your key words on a page—and even gives them that little bounce in case you're not sure where Firefox found the highlighted term. The download is three JavaScript files that you'll drop into a profile folder and a single extension to install, and all of it should be pretty easily removed for most users. I tested it in the Firefox 3 beta in Linux, and it works as promised. Hit the link for the package and installation instructions.

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