Tuesday's Tech Tip: Cleaning your notifications area

We spent the last two weeks trying to clean up your Windows desktops. We started by pinning stuff to your Start menu and then worked on your Quick Launch toolbar. This week we'll spend some time on your Windows notifications area.





See where the arrow points in the above image? You can click the image to enlarge it. That's the Windows notifications area. Most people have them littered, littered, sir, with junk they don't need. You only want to see what you need.

If you right-click on a blank spot on your bar (for example to the right of Adobe Photoshop), you can click on Properties in the context-sensitive menu that pops up.

Make sure the box next to "Hide inactive icons" is checked. Then click on "Customize..." and you'll see a complete list of icons hiding in your notifications area.

Each icon has a behavior (like "always hide this icon"), so feel free to hide whatever you don't need to see.