Pioneer Ships First Blu-ray Computer Drive (Article)

Pioneer Electronics recently announced that it is shipping the industry's first Blu-ray computer drive (BDR-101A). This drive can burn up to 25GB of data onto a single-layer Blu-ray disc. The drive will ships with Roxio Blu-ray Disc software and a blank TDK Blu-ray discs. You can have all this for only $1,000.

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For informational purposes, I have included a brief breakdown of all the types of media (CD, DVD, BD) that are available.

Compact Disks

• CD-R (650MB, write once)
• CD-RW (650MB, rewriteable)

DVD Disks

• DVD+R SL (4.7GB, write once, single-layer)
• DVD+RW SL (4.7GB, rewriteable, single-layer)
• DVD-R SL (4.7GB, write once, single-layer)
• DVD-RW SL (4.7GB, rewriteable, single-layer)
• DVD+R DL (9GB, write once, double-layer)
• DVD+RW DL (9GB, rewriteable, double-layer)
• DVD-R DL (9GB, write once, double-layer)
• DVD-RW DL (9GB, rewriteable, double-layer)

Blu-Ray Disks

• BD-R (25GB, write once)
• BD-RE (25GB, rewriteable)

What is Microsoft Max?

Do you like trying out the latest technologies, well here is a new one from Microsoft codenamed: Microsoft Max. If you're curious what it is, here is excerpt from the web site: "Max lets you make beautiful photo slideshows to share with your family and friends. And it recently began showing you the latest news updates from around the world."

With Max you can get the latest news on technology, health, sports, and etc. You can manage your photos, share and annotate them.

Here are some screen shots of the application. You can download the program from here.

Microsoft unveils new betas for Office, Vista

Cnet reports, "The software maker announced Tuesday that it is ready with broader test versions of both Windows Vista and Office 2007. The company also has an updated test version of Longhorn Server, the next version of its server operating system."

This article contains the latest news about Microsoft's upcoming versions of Office and Windows. If you want to see a lot of screen shots of Windows Vista, check out this article from ExtremeTech.

Vista Gets Support for IEEE 1394b (AKA FireWire 800).

I thought this was interesting, Microsoft announced Windows Vista support for the IEEE 1394b (AKA FireWire 800) standard. If you do any digital video editing then you're probably familiar with the IEEE1394 connection.

If you don't know what the IEEE1394, then let me briefly explain. This is a popular connection used by several digital video cameras, to transfer video from the camera to the computer. The use of this port is not limited to digital video cameras, but those are the devices that primarily use it. Just to be fair, I need to note some hard drives support this connection.

The older standard IEEE1394 (AKA FireWire or FireWire 400) was able to support data transfers rates as fast as 400Mbps. The newer IEEE1384b is designed to support data transfer rates as fast as 800Mbps. In comparison, USB v1.0 supports a data transfer rate up 12Mbps, while USB v2.0 supports data transfer rate as fast as 480Mbps.

The 1394 Trade Association has estimated that by the end of 2006, there will be more than five million 1394b equipped Windows and Macintosh computers. For more information read the following press release.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (BETA)

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a small application that checks your current computer to see if it can be upgraded to Windows Vista. The program is designed to run under Windows XP, so if you have an older Windows OS (i.e.: Windows 95/98/ME/2000) it may not run.

When you run the Upgrade Advisor, it will scan your system and generate a report of all devices that are attached to your computer that it can recognize. The report will list compatibility issues, along with recommendations on how to get your computer and its hardware ready to run Vista.

The current version of the program only checks the compatibility of your hardware. In later versions of this program, it will be able to check the Vista compatibility of the applications on your hard drive.

Note: Before you run this program, make sure all your USB peripheral devices (such as: external hard drives, scanners, printers, etc.) are attached to your computer and turned on.

System Requirements to Run Windows Vista

When a new operating system is released, it always comes with a 'minimum' set of hardware system requirements. For example you have a CPU that is ...GHz, and you have ...GB of RAM, etc.

Minimum system requirements generally only enough to basically allow the OS to boot. If you want the system to be usable, then you will need more hardware. For example, minimum system hardware requirements to run the basic version of Windows Vista are:

• 800MHz or faster CPU
• 512MB of RAM or more
• Your graphics card needs to support DirectX v9.

If you want to run Aero, which is part of the Windows Vista's Premium version. Then the minimum system requirements are different:

• 1GHz or faster CPU [32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)]
• 1GB of RAM or more
• DirectX v9 capable 3D graphics card, with 128MB of graphics memory.
• 15GB free space on your hard drive.
• DVD-ROM Drive

If you don't know what Aero is, it's the new Windows Vista subsystem that offers an extra graphic rich environment, such as transparent menus and 3D looking graphical elements.

Personally I would recommend the following hardware requirements to get the best experience from Windows Vista:

• 3GHz or faster 64-bit CPU
• 2GB of RAM or more
• DirectX v9 capable 3D graphics card, with 256MB or more of graphics memory.
• 30GB free space on your hard drive.
• DVD-ROM Drive
• Broadband Internet access.
• Sound card w/speakers

Must Have Free System Administrator Tools

Here is my list of free must have system administrator tools for performing system tasks and troubleshooting. These tools can perform different functions, for example: checking your hard drive's S.M.A.R.T. counters to see if its healthy, backup your Windows registry, manage the system processes that are running, etc.

All of these tools can be stored and run from a USB flash drive. So that you can always have them with you when you need them most.

• Autoruns: Allows you to view and manage which programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login.
• Process Explorer: Allows you to view and manage system process. Here is a brief excerpt from the Sysinternals site, explaining what this program can do: "shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, ... you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded."
• EURNT: Backs up the Windows Registry on your local computer.
• If you don't want to use EURNT, check out MSKB 322756: How to back up, edit, and restore the registry in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
• Ethereal: Great for network diagnostics and troubleshooting.
• HDTune: View the S.M.A.R.T. information on your hard disk. S.M.A.R.T. is a technology that tracks the current condition of your drive (such as temperature, hours used, etc.).
• PsTools suite: Contains great tools like: PsExec, PsUptime, PsShutdown, PsLoggedOn, and more.

Internet Explorer: Free Spelling Checker

When filling out web forms (such as: e-mail, blogs, etc.) in the Internet Explorer browser, how many times have you needed a spelling checker to check the information you inputted. Well your desires have been answered, there is a free I.E. plug-in called 'ieSpell' that will check what you typed and make sure its spelled correctly.

Below is a brief list of ieSpell features:

• Supports a wide range of web applications.
• Spell check in any of the 3 variants of the English language (US, UK and Canadian).
• Intelligent suggesting for misspelled words using typographic “looks like” matching.
• And more.

Now all we need is a really good grammar checker..

Internet Explorer: Sorting Your Favorites

Do you have a long list of links under the Favorites menu in the Internet Explorer? Are you having problem finding your favorite web site because your links are not organized logically. The following trick will alphabetize your favorite links so their easier to find.

First, make sure you have the Internet Explorer open. From the Favorites menu, right-click one of the link icons in the menu and select 'Sort by Name' from the drop-down menu. Your links should now be in alphabetical order.

Bonus tip, you can also rearrange the order of the links by moving them higher or lower in the menu. To do this, click-and-hold on one of link icons that you want to move under the Favorites menu, then drag it to its new location.

Napster: Free and Legal Songs (with a catch)

Napter is now offering free access to their two million+ song library, and its all legal. Now the catch, you can only listen to a song five times, then if you want to listen to it more you have to buy it.

Its really not a bad deal, personally there's not a lot songs out there that I enjoy that much that I would want to buy them. Although, with the way they have there service setup there is a much better chance that I would buy the songs that I really like from them. Another great feature about Napster is that you don't have to download and install any special software to listen to the music (unlike other music services).

To take advantage of the offer you have to register with the site. What this means is that you have to choose a user name, enter your email address, and select a password.

Windows XP: Creating an Exception with the Windows Firewall

The Windows XP Service Pack 2 firewall has several security improvements over the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) which originally came with the OS. Although, sometimes a firewall's rules can be too restrictive and have to be relaxed in order to let your computer do what it needs to do. Such as opening specific TCP/IP ports that allow other computers to communicate with your computer.

If you don't know what a TCP/IP port is, they're basically virtual connections on your computer that the OS or applications listen to for communication purposes. When another computer wants to talk to your computer it talks to a specific port to get the information it needs. For example, if your computer has a web service on it that runs on port 80, then when an other computer wants to access that service it will talk to port 80.

Note/Warning: Opening up ports on the Windows Firewall requires knowledge of TCP/IP. Also, if you're not careful by opening up the wrong port on your computer you can make it more vulnerable to certain types of network attacks.

To create an TCP/IP port exception to allow other computers to talk to your computer follow the instructions below:

• Open the Control Panel folder from under the Start menu, and select the Windows Firewall applet.
• Click the Exceptions tab.
• Press the "Add Port" button
• In the dialog that display, enter the name for the port that you want to open, and enter the port number(s), and finally select TCP or UDP.
• Press the OK button when done to close the dialog.
• Press the OK button when done to close the control panel

Besides blocking TCP/IP ports, the Windows firewall also blocks applications and services from talking to the Internet without your permission. For example, the 'File and Printer Sharing' service is automatically block by default. To allow other computers to access this service on your local computer, you have unblock it in the firewall.

To enable File and Printer Sharing, do the following:

• Open the Control Panel folder from under the Start menu, and select the Windows Firewall applet.
• Click the Exceptions tab.
• Find and check the 'File and Printer Sharing' checkbox.
• Press the OK button when done to close the control panel

Windows OneCare Live

A few months back I told you about the beta version of Microsoft new security subscription service called 'Windows OneCare Live'. Well its no longer in beta, it has now been released.

Some of the features of the new service are: an improved software firewall, anti-virus/anti-spyware services, a data backup and a computer tune-up service. Below is a brief description of the new features:

• Two-Way Firewall: Monitors incoming and outgoing network traffic. A two-way firewall not only prevent other computers from attacking your computer, but also prevents programs on your computer from talking on the Internet without your permission.
• Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware: Protects your system from malicious software such as viruses, worms, spyware, etc. It also updates itself on a regular basis to make sure that it can protect you against the latest threats.
  
• Updates: OneCare keeps your OS up-to-date with the latest patches from Windows Update.
• Tuneup: performs routine maintenance tasks, such as defragmenting hard disk, and deleting obsolete files.
• Backup: Backup your files to different types of removable media, such as an: external hard disk, CDs, DVDs, and more. The software can remind you when you need to backup your files, or can automatically back them up an external hard drive if you already have one..

The pricing for the new service will be: $49.95 per year to protect three PCs. You can also try Windows Live OneCare free for 90 days.

Internet: Google Spreadsheets

It looks like Google is getting ready to release a its own online office suite. First it had Gmail, then Google Calendar, and now the 'Google Spreadsheets'. This is a browser based spread sheet that you can perform some basic mathematical operations.

Its no real replacement for Microsoft Excel. Although, if you have a quick list of stuff you have to calculate or a list of things that you want to track, this is a great application for it. Check out this quick tour of the program.

Outlook Express: Unblock Images

When you install Windows XP Service Pack 2, graphics in emails will no longer be displayed by default. This is a security measure to prevent spammers from using web beacons from validating your email address.

If you don't know what web beacons are, here is a quick summary: they're specially coded images that are embedded into emails to validate an e-mail address.

If you don't like this feature and you want to turn it off, follow the instructions below:

• Open Outlook Express
• From the Tools menu, select Options.
• Click the Security tab.
• Uncheck the "Block images and other external content in HTML e-mail." checkbox.
• Press the OK button.

Software: AMD Live! vs Intel Viiv

Have you been hearing about Intel Viiv or AMD Live!, and wondered what exactly they are? Well I am going to provide you with a brief explanation, then point you to a great article that explains them in more detail.

The Intel's Viiv's marketing program is based around a collection of premium content providers, that provide movies, music, games, etc. AMD Live! is basically a set of rebranded third-party applications that is being offered as a suite.

Check out the following article: "AMD Live! PC Launch Backed By Free Media Apps" for all the latest information.

Windows Product Activation Explained

With Window XP, if you're installing it for the first time, or reinstalling the OS, then you will have to go through the Windows Product Activation (WPA) process to activate your copy of Windows. The WPA process was created to help eliminate causal piracy of the Windows operating system. The WPA ensures that only one copy of the product key is being used on one computer, and not on multiple computers (this would violate the End User License Agreement [EULA]).

When you first install Windows you're requested to enter the product key, then after the installation process finishes you will be requested to validate that product key with the WPA. You can do this in a few ways, either over the Internet or by phone. If you don't validate your copy of Windows XP in 30-days, it will prevent you from logging into the OS until you have done so.

If you make upgrades to your computer with new components (such as a new: motherboard, hard drive, etc.), you're copy of Windows might require re-activation. This is cause by the fact that WPA thinks it might have been copied to another computer, and will force you to reactivate Windows XP by calling a telephone number listed on the activation screen.

Here is a video (in three sizes 300k | 100k | 56k) if you want to learn more.

Google Desktop

Google Desktop gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, files, music, photos, chats, Gmail, web pages that you've viewed, and more.

By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks. It makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google.

Here is a brief list of features:

• Quickly search your computer
• View news, photos and more
• Add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop and Sidebar

Google Browser Sync for Firefox

Google recently released a new Firefox extension called 'Browser Sync'. This extension continuously synchronizes your browser settings (bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords) across multiple computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.
If you only want to install the Browser Sync extension on a single computer, you can use this program to backup your browser settings and to restore your open tabs and windows across browser sessions.Note: a Google Account is required to complete the setup process; if you don't already have one, you can create one here.
To install and configure the extension, follow the instructions below:

• Download and install the extension in Firefox, then restart the browser.
• When the browser restarts a setup wizard will display, this where you can configure the extension settings.
• In the wizard you can choose which browser components you will want to make available to other computers. You will also be required to choose a PIN to protect your sensitive information.

For more info, please visit Google's Browser Sync for Firefox FAQ.
Note: Google Browser Sync must update your browser settings whenever you start Firefox. This will increase the start-up time of the browser. Google is working to decrease this delay.

Google Earth (Updated)

Google recently released an updated version of its Google Earth. If you don't know what Google Earth is, it's a program that allows you to explore the Earth from a desktop computer. You can zoom in to just about any point on the planet, and see satellite photography of it.

Some of the new features of the program include:

• New navigation controls. The old navigation controls at the bottom the screen are now gone, and have been replaced with a newer set of controls.
• The data layers are easier to use. This feature allows you to display specific information on top of the satellite maps, such as schools, businesses, parks, etc.
• Support for 3D textured buildings. Meaning bricks looks like real bricks, glass looks like real glass, etc.
• Expanded the capabilities of the .KML file. The .KML file is used by Google Earth to add and share data. You can use the SketchUp's 3D warehouse to add realistic looking objects into Google Earth.

Security: June 2006 Security Updates Are Ready

Microsoft regularly releases new security patches the second Tuesday of every month for Windows, and other applications the company has created (i.e.: Office, Internet Explorer, etc.). Recently 12 new security patches were released. 8 of these patches are marked as critical, 2 as moderate, and 2 as important.

To make sure that your system gets patched with all the latest security updates, you can do one of two things. One, go to the Microsoft Update site in the Internet Explorer, or two, enable the Automatic Updates service in the System control panel.

To enable the Automatic Updates service:

• From the Start menu, click Control Panel.
• Double-click the System control panel
• Click the 'Automatic Updates' tab.
• Select the type of update or notification that you want.
• Press the OK button when done.

Article: New DOE Energy-Assessment Software is Vital for Home Repair

AppScout: "The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday announced the release of EnergyPlus 2.0, the second generation of its free software tool to help homeowners and home builders 'model their energy flows' as the summer approaches."

This is very interesting software for home builders interested in modeling heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating, and more. For more information read the article.

Software: Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft just release Silverlight, which is basically a interactive media technology that is similar in functionality to Adobe's Flash. Here is a excerpt from the site: "Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web."

Silverlight is a browser plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. The plug-in will run on Windows XP SP2 & Vista (on IE and Firefox) or the Mac OS X (on Firefox and Safari). You can download the plug from this page.

Software: Mozilla Thunderbird 2

Mozilla recently released Thunderbird v2, a free open source e-mail client. Some of the new features of the program include: message tagging, refined folder controls, searching and customization (such as: designing message template). Thunderbird also has hundreds of plug-ins available for it to enhance its features and functionality.

TechRepublic has posted several screen shots of this new e-mail client and its new features so that you can see what it looks like before installing it.

Video: How To Install Computer Memory

Operating systems like Windows XP or Vista run best on computers that have a lot of available RAM. Windows XP runs well with about 1GB of RAM, while Windows Vista I recommend 2GB.

Upgrading the RAM in your computer is pretty easy. By doing it yourself, you can save $50-100, or whatever a computer repair service will charge you for this procedure.

• The first thing that you need to do before you buy the RAM is open your computer and find out how many of your DIMM slots are used and how many are available. The DIMM slots are where you add the RAM to your computer's motherboard. Depending on how many you have will determine if you can use your old memory or just replace it with new memory.

Notes:

• Watch the video first to get an idea on how to properly open your computer, and ground yourself.
• Make sure that you unplug your computer's power supply before you start this upgrade.

• Find the brand name and model of your computer/motherboard.
• Check a site like Kingston to find and buy the memory for your computer/motherboard
• Watch the video below to see how its done.

Note: This video only provides basic instructions for performing this procedure. The actual process will vary from computer to computer. Refer to your computer/motherboard's manual for specific instructions. And as always, proceed at your own risk.

Security: Does a program contain malware?

Downloading programs off the Internet is a pretty scary thing to do these days, you never know if it contains malware (i.e.: spyware, virus, etc.). Even if you used a program in the pass and it was perfectly safe to run, tomorrow it can be full of malware.

The only way to protect yourself is to use good judgment, and make sure you have good real-time anti-virus and anti-spyware scanners installed with up-to-date signature. I also helps to make sure that your computers OS is up-to-date, and you're running a good two-way firewall.

Before you download anything, you should always question the source of the program. If it comes from a seedy looking web site then I would think twice before running it. Even after I download the executable to my local computer, it and passes through my anti-malware scanners I still question if the program can contain viruses or spyware.

As an extra step, you can run a Google search on the executable's name ( i.e.: programname.exe), or the name of the program in quotes. Then I add the following words to the end of the query: spyware OR virus OR malware. For example, programname.exe spyware OR virus OR malware.

For those who want more information about computer viruses, worms, and botnets, check out the following video. They make it really easy to understand these topics for those who might need some help with this topic. There is also my free ebook that I released few months ago called "Defending Yourself in the Information Age".

Software: Shortcuts to Web Browsing

A site called OpenDNS allows people to surf their favorite web sites by typing keywords that they create. For example, lets say you bank at 'Bank of America', you can create a shortcut called 'BOA' that would take you to their web site when you typed it.

To use this service, you have to do a few things:

1. Log in to your account on the OpenDNS web site, if you don't have an account there then you can create one.
2. Setup your computer to use the OpenDNS servers for DNS lookups.
• See the site for detailed instructions.
3. After you're logged in to your account you can start creating your keyword shortcuts.

Software: Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

If you run anti-malware scanners, a firewall and keep your OS and applications updated, you're going to be able to protect yourself from most types of infections that can attack your system. To help make your system more secure, consider running the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA).

The MBSA is a free standalone vulnerability assessment tool that can scan your Windows systems to identify common security mis-configurations and missing security updates. The MBSA also includes a graphical and command line interface that can perform scans on local or remote systems.

This version of MBSA works on Windows Server 2003, 2000, and XP systems. It also supports the following Microsoft technologies: Internet Information Server (IIS) (v4.0-6.0), SQL Server (v7.0, 2000), Internet Explorer (IE) (5.01 and later), and Office (v2000, 2002 and 2003).

Firefox: The Unoffical Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Reference Guide

Everyone loves keyboard shortcuts. Those little keyboard tricks that you can use to perform program operations quickly (such as: opening or closing tabs, finding text, etc.). The only problem with these shortcuts is memorizing them.

Below is my: Unofficial Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Reference Guide. I have tried to group the shortcuts into logical groups so that you can easily find them.

Page/Tab Navigation:

• [Alt]+[Home]: Opens the Home page in the current tab
• [Alt]+[Right Arrow]: Moves one page forward in cache
• [Alt]+[Left Arrow]: Moves one page back in cache
• [Backspace]: Moves one page back in cache
• [Shift]+[Backspace]: Moves one page forward in cache
• [Alt]+F4: Closes the active window
• [Ctrl]+F4: Closes the active tab
• [Ctrl]+1: Opens the first tab
• [Ctrl]+2: Opens the second tab
• [Ctrl]+3: Opens the third tab
• [Ctrl]+4: Opens the forth tab
• [Ctrl]+5: Opens the fifth tab
• [Ctrl]+6: Opens the sixth tab
• [Ctrl]+7: Opens the seventh tab
• [Ctrl]+8: Opens the eigth tab
• [Ctrl]+9: Opens the nineth tab
• [Ctrl]+N: Opens a new window
• [Ctrl]+T: Opens a new tab in the current window
• [Ctrl]+W: Closes the active tab in the current window
• [Ctrl]+[Tab] ([Ctrl]+[Page Down]): Selects the next tab within the current window
• [Ctrl]+[Shift]+Tab ([Ctrl]+[Page Up]): Selects the previous tab within the current window

Page Shortcuts

• Esc: Stops loading the current page
• [Ctrl]+0 (zero): Restore normal text size
• [Ctrl]+[+] (plus sign): Increases the font size
• [Ctrl]+[-] (minus sign): Decreases the font size
• [End]: Moves to the bottom of a page
• [Home]: Moves to the top of a page
• [Ctrl]+F: Find
• [Ctrl]+G (or [F3]): Find again
• [Shift]+[F3]: Find previous
• [F5]: Refresh
• [Ctrl]+[F5] ([Ctrl]+[Shift]+R): Refresh (overrides page cache)
• [Ctrl]+A: Selects all object on the page
• [Ctrl]+B: Opens/closes the Bookmarks pane
• [Ctrl]+H: Opens/closes the History pane
• [Ctrl]+I: Opens/closes the Bookmarks pane
• [Ctrl]+J: Opens/closes the Downloads dialog box
• [F6]: Selects the current Location bar text Move or moves to the next frame
• [Shift]+[F6]: Moves to the previous frame

Miscellaneous Shortcuts

• [Alt]+[Enter]: Opens a URL in a new tab
• [Ctrl]+[Enter]: Adds "www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end of a domain name in the Location bar
• [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Enter]: Adds "www." to the beginning and ".org" to the end of a domain name in the Location bar
• [Shift]+[Enter]: Adds "www." to the beginning and ".net" to the end of a domain name in the Location bar
• [Ctrl]+D: Adds a bookmark
• [Ctrl]+E (or [Ctrl]+K): Activates Web Search bar
• [Ctrl]+Down Arrow: Selects the next search engine
• [Ctrl]+Up Arrow: Selects the previous search engine
• [Ctrl]+L: Select the current Location bar text
• [Ctrl]+U: View source code for the current page
• [F7]: Toggle on/off Caret Browsing
• [F11]: Toggle full-screen/normal view

Common Shortcuts

• [Ctrl]+C: Copy
• [Ctrl]+O: Open a file
• [Ctrl]+P: Print
• [Ctrl]+R: Refresh
• [Ctrl]+S: Save As
• [Ctrl]+V: Paste
• [Ctrl]+Y: Redo
• [Ctrl]+X: Cut
• [Ctrl]+Z: Undo
• [F1]: Opens Help

Other keyboard shortcuts:

• Internet Explorer 7: Keyboard Shortcut Tricks
• Internet Explorer 7: Keyboard Shortcuts
• Keyboard Shortcuts for Internet Explorer
• Windows Logo Key Shortcuts

Firefox: Improve Firefoxing Networking

By making a few modifications to your Firefox browser you can reduce page load times by using a technique known as Pipelining. Pipelining is a feature of your browser that allows it to make multiple download requests for objects on a web page from a site.
Note: This technique requires modifying low-level application preferences, you need to be careful when modifying this area. By changing the wrong value you can prevent your browser from functioning properly. For more information about this subject see the following article.

• Open Firefox
• In the in the address type "about:config"
• Find the following preferences, change their value:
• Change: network.http.pipelining to True (default = False)
• Change: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 10 (default = 4)

Other related Firefox articles:

• Make Firefox Run Better
• Firefox: Open Multiple Home Pages

Windows Vista: Windows Mobile Device Center

If you have Windows Vista installed on your computer, and own a Windows Mobile device here is a quick premier to get you started. First thing that you have to learn about Windows Vista syncing with a Windows Mobile device is that ActiveSync doesn't exist any more. The second thing that you have to learn is that the Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) is your new best friend.

You use the WMDC to sync your computer to your Windows Mobile device. Make sure to download the latest version of the software from the Download Center (x86 and x64). After you download and install the software you will need to set up a partnership with your device.

Note: If you're an existing ActiveSync user, and are having problems getting Windows Mobile Device Center to sync with your mobile device. Delete your existing setting in ActiveSync on your device and setup a new partnership.

Article: 5 Free Online Video Editing Sites Reviewed at ExtremeTech

ExtremeTech reports: "Some people would be surprised that you can edit photos online without locally installed software, but surely video editing is too resource-intensive to be done over the web, right? Wrong! We review five online services that let you do things like scene transitions, cuts, splices, loops, audio overlays—and they're all free."

I thought this was an interesting article about a new type of service that is available on the Internet. Manipulating video using just your browser without locally installing software on your computer seems pretty impressive. The computing resources (i.e.: CPU, RAM, storage, and now add network bandwidth) required for editing video are really intensive.

Although the best news of all is that these services are FREE. Read the article for more information.

Windows Vista: Re-enable the Administrator

The Administrator account doesn't show up in the User Accounts control panel, this is because its disabled by default. For the average user I would not recommend re-enabling this account because it can expose your system to different types of attacks.

For those people who need access to this account, follow the instructions below to re-enable it.

• Click Start, type "cmd" in the search field.
• Right-click the cmd.exe item at top of the Start menu, and select 'Run as administrator'.
• In the MS-DOS command prompt type "net user administrator /active:yes".

Software: XML Notepad 2007 (Programming)

If you're a programmer or web developer that deals with XML files, then you might want to check out XML Notepad 2007. This program provides a simple user interface for browsing and editing XML documents.

Features:

• Tree View synchronized with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values.
• Incremental search (Ctrl+I) in both tree and text views, so as you type it navigates to matching nodes.
• Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support.
• Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
• Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
• In place popup multi-line editing of large text node values.
• Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
• Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath.
• Good performance on large XML documents, loading a 3mb document in about one second.
• Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
• Intellisense based on expected elements and attributes and enumerated simple type values.
• Support for custom editors for date, dateTime and time datatypes and other types like color.
• Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree.
• Inplace HTML viewer for processing xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
• Built-in XML Diff tool.
• Support for XInclude
• Dynamic help from XSD annotations.
• Goto definition to navigate includes and XSD schema information.

Security: Microsoft Patch Tuesday (May)

The second Tuesday of the month is just about to passed again, which means that Microsoft just published a new round of security fixes for Windows and it's applications. This date is meant to be a predictable date so that individuals or companies only have to patch their desktop computers and servers once a month. This month there are new seven patches that are marked as critical, 3 of them patch MS Office, another 3 are for the OS or server based application, and 1 is for Internet Explorer.

For the average user, if you have 'Automatic Updates' enabled your computer will download these updates for you in the background. Then when you shutdown your system these patches will be applied to your system. If you leave your computer on overnight they will automatically be installed and your system rebooted if necessary.

Warning: Before you leave your computer at night make sure you save all your work or you run the risk of losing it if your system has to be rebooted.

Enabling Automatic Updates
If you don't have 'Automatic Updates' enabled I would suggest that you turn it on as soon as possible. If you don't want to enable this feature, you can always update your computer by visiting the Windows Update site and downloading and installing the patches manually.

To enable Automatic Updates:

• From the Start menu, select the Control Panel folder.
• Double-click the System applet in the control panel folder.
• Click the 'Automatic Updates' tab.
• Check the 'Automatic (recommended)' option. (optional: if you don't like this feature, you can set it to: 'download but not install the update', 'just notify you', or 'disable this feature altogether' [not recommended])
• Press the OK button when done.

Article: Security Super Guide

PC Magazine wrote a good article about some of the latest security applications that are available to protect your PC. The article gives recommendations on anti-malware products (such as: virus, spyware, rootkits, etc.), parental control software, and security suites.

Read the article for all the information.

Windows Vista: ISO Recorder v3

Do you have Widnows Vista and .ISO files (file image of a CD or DVD) that want to burn to a disk and don't have any software that can do that for you? ISO Recorder could be the answer to your problems, and best of all its free.

Below is a list of the new features in this program:

• Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit versions).
• Supports DVD recording, including bootable images.
• DVD image creation.

Software: Sandboxie

Have you wanted a way to surf the Internet safely? There is a program called Sandboxie that creates an virtual storage area in your computer's memory that applications can write too. This area is known as a 'sandbox' because once you close the program all the changes that were made go away, so no information is written to your local hard drive.

So in theory, if you can go to a web site and a rogue program makes it passed all your computer's defenses, it shouldn't be able to infect your computer. Also if your applications get compromised all you have to do is kill the sandbox, and all the changes are lost.

Note: Be aware when you download files with a program running within Sandboxie all the files will automatically be deleted when you close the application.

The program is free, but the creator ask you to register the program if you use it and to pay a license fee ($25 for lifetime registration).

Preview: Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Microsoft has made available a preview version of its new 'Malware Protection Center' web portal to provide consumers with information about viruses, spyware and other malicious software. The site is schedule to go live in July.

The main features of the site are:

• Top Desktop Threats
• Most Active Email Threats
• Top MSRT Detections
• Top Adware/Spyware Removed
• Windows Defender Definitions
• Forefront Security Client
• Malware Encyclopedia

Firefox: Keyword Bookmarks

Want to get to your favorite web sites faster in Firefox? You can use bookmark keywords to quickly get to your favorite web sites by typing specific words or abbreviations in the address bar that you select. For example, you could create on for 'http://www.google.com' by typing "g" or "gg" in the address bar and pressing enter.

To setup keyword bookmarks:

• Open Firefox, and navigate to a web page that you want to bookmark.
• Create a bookmark by pressing CTRL+D, or select the Bookmarks menu and select 'Bookmark This Page...'
• From the Bookmarks menu, right-click the bookmark you just added and select Properties.
• In the bookmark properties dialog box, type a word or letter in the Keyword field. Then press the OK button when done.

Now all you have to do is type your keyword in the address field, and you will be taken to that page.

Article: Shootout at the Antivirus Corral

PC Magazine reports: "AV-Test.org, an independent testing group at the Otto-von-Guericke-University (Magdeburg, Germany), tested 29 anti-malware products with a very large set of files (606,901 to be specific). The goal was to test detection capabilities only, not cleaning. Products were set with their most aggressive detection options, such as using all heuristics and testing inside archives."

Want to know which is the best and worst virus scanner, the results are very interesting....

Internet: Using Windows Explorer to Manage Your SkyDrive Files

Microsoft Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25GB of free Internet based storage.  However, uploading files via a web browser can be cumbersome.  Without any extra software, there's a way to connect SkyDrive via Windows Explorer.

Follow the steps below to map a network drive (e.g. X:\ drive) to a SkyDrive folder.

• Go to http://skydrive.live.com/ in your web browser.
• Sign in to the Live.com site with your Windows Live ID.
• Copy the UID (highlighted in red) from the displayed URL, e.g.: https://cid-1234567890abcdef.skydrive.live.com/.
• Open Windows Explorer, in the left sidebar, right-click on Network, and select Map network drive...
• Enter the following UNC: \\cdckda.docs.live.net@SSL\1234567890abcdef\Document
• Notes:  
• Replace highlight the UID in the UNC with the UID from step 3.
• Replace “Documents” with the folder name with as appropriate.
• Choose a drive letter, check Connect using different credentials, and press the Finish button
• You will be prompted for your Windows Live ID.

Note: I am finding you connect and browse the files on the SkyDrive, but I am not finding you can upload to the drive from the Windows Explorer.  Although, I still find this a cool tip.

Amazing and unusual places in Google Earth

To download links to all the places in the video, you need the following .KML file. To download it, right-click, select Save Link As..., save it to your desktop, then double-click the file to open it with Google Earth.

Windows 7: Checking USB Device Power Usage

Did you know that there's preset limit on the available amount of power on a USB bus? If you have several USB devices plugged into your computer's USB ports, you need to be aware there is only a small amount power available for them.  Most computers have multiple what are known 'USB root hubs', and each hub can  deliver a maximum of 500 milliamps of power to attached devices. If the energy demands of the connected USB devices exceeds that limit, the USB bus can shutdown.

To check power draw of the USB devices connected to your computer:

• In the Start menu search field, type: Device Manager and press the Enter key
• In the Device Manager window, expand the node Universal Serial Bus controllers
• Double-click on one of the USB Root Hub entries.
• Click the Power tab. 

This tab displays a listing of attached USB devices, how much power they use and how much is available.  If you have more USB devices then you have available ports or power.  Consider buying a power USB hub that uses energy from the wall socket and not your computer's motherboard.

IE9 and Privacy: Introducing Tracking Protection

• 72

The feedback and conversation on IE9’s Platform Previews and Beta to date from many different communities has made the IE9 development process, and product, substantially better than previous releases. The discussions around hardware-accelerated HTML5 and same markup with the developer community, for example, have informed many changes to the product. Thank you for using it and providing feedback.
In general, we’ve focused this blog on engineering issues. In this post, still continuing our pattern of transparency, let’s look at the increasingly important topic of privacy online through the lens of a consumer concerned about being tracked on the web. Here is a brief summary (warning, what follows it is long) of what we intend to deliver in the release candidate of IE9.
Today, consumers have very little awareness or control over who can track their online activity. Much has been written about this topic. With the release candidate:

1. IE9 will offer consumers a new opt-in mechanism (“Tracking Protection”) to identify and block many forms of undesired tracking.
2. “Tracking Protection Lists” will enable consumers to control what third-party site content can track them when they’re online.

We believe that the combination of consumer opt-in, an open platform for publishing of Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs), and the underlying technology mechanism for Tracking Protection offer new options and a good balance between empowering consumers and online industry needs.

Windows 7: HOSTS File

When you type in a Web address such as www.example.com into a browser, the application contacts a DNS (Domain Name Services) server looks up the DNS name and translates it in to a numeric IP address. When Windows does a DNS lookup it first checks a file called HOSTS which is like a mini-DNS server before it checks the regular DNS server.  This file is a legacy technology from the past, but its left in the OS for backwards compatibility.

This file is a popular target of malware, which tries to use it redirect traffic from real sites to phishing sites to steal your personal information. The file is located in the following directory C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC, and the file name is HOSTS with no file extension.

Note: Lines with pound signs (#) are comments.

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.

#

# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.

#

# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each

# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should

# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.

# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one

# space.

#

# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual

# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.

#

# For example:

#

# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server

# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.

# 127.0.0.1 localhost

# ::1 localhost

Command Line: Display File Attribute with WMIC

If you do any command line scripting occasionally you need to get some extended file attributes, such as version information from an .EXE file. The WMIC command line utility allows you to extract this information and whole lot more.  Over the next few weeks I hope to highlight some of it's power.

I have included some examples of how to use this command below.

Displays All Attributes of the NOTEPAD.EXE
(This command generates a space delimited table of values)
wmic datafile where name='c:\\windows\\system32\\notepad.exe'
- OR -
wmic datafile where name='c:\\windows\\system32\\notepad.exe' > output.txt

Displays Select Attributes of the NOTEPAD.EXE (e.g.: Version Info) 
wmic datafile where name='c:\\windows\\system32\\notepad.exe' get version 

Displays the help information
wmic datafile get /?

Troubleshooting: Account Lock Out Issues

If an account keeps getting locked out whether its on a local computer or a domain controller (depending on the type of network the machine is on).  There are some basic steps you can follow to try to troubleshoot the lockout issue.

One of the first places to start is to search the event logs on the local computer or a domain controller for account lockout problems.

Below is a list of common problems that can cause an account to get locked out: 

• Is the account logged onto more than one machine?
• Check the following area for processes that could be running under invalid cached credentials:
• Mapped drives
• Task Scheduler tasks 
• System services 
• Proxy or firewall authentication 
• Run a malware scan on the local computer.

Note: This problems can also be caused by badly configured security policies on a large network.

Microsoft also offers the Account Lockout and Management Tools that can be used to help troubleshoot these types of problems.  Check out a tool called EVENTCOMBMT.EXE.

Networking: Enabling/Disabling Network Protocols

To view the available network protocols installed and active on the various network adapters installed on your computer, follow the instructions below:

• Click the Start button, right-click Network, and then select Properties.
• In the left pane click Change adapter settings link. This will display a list of all the network devices installed on the local computer.
• Right-click any of the devices and select Properties.

This will bring up a list of the network protocols installed and active on an adapter. The protocols that are installed but are inactive are indicated by the absence of a check in the box next to them.   To enable or disable a network protocol, check or uncheck the checkbox next to it.

The list below includes names of the default Windows networking protocols and a brief description of what they're used for:

• Client for Microsoft Networks: Allows access to shared network resources (such as, file and printer sharing that utilize this Microsoft protocol) on the local LAN.
• QOS Packet Scheduler: Provides network traffic management on the network for applications and devices that support this service.
• File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks: Used for sharing printers and files attached to the local computer with other systems on the local network.
• Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6): Next generation TCP/IP network communication protocol for communicating on LANs, WANs or the Internet.
• Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4): Primary network communication protocol for communicating on LANs, WANs or the Internet.
• Link Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver: Used to discover computers connected to the local network.
• Link Layer Topology Responder: Used to identify computers connected to the local network.

Windows 7: Resizing Desktop Icons

Want to easily change the size (larger or smaller) of the icons on the desktop? All you have to do is click on an empty part of the desktop, hold down the CTRL key, then using the scroll wheel on your mouse, scroll up or down to re-size the icons.

Windows 7: Windows Explorer - Changing the Icon Views

In Windows Explorer you can quickly change the file and folder icons size and appearance by using the slider in the Views drop-down menu in the toolbar. For example, some of the View menu options include extra large to small icons sizes (from 16x16 to 256x256 pixels), as well List, Details, Tiles, and content views.

Another way to achive the same results is by holding down the CTRL key, then use the scroll wheel on your mouse wheel to resize the icons or change the icon views by moving it up or down.

Firefox: Moving Your Cache to RAM (Performance Tip)

For a long time browsers have kept local copies of web page objects (such as HTML files, graphics, flash, and other files) on the hard drive. This allows the browser to access these files much more quickly if they're needed again without having to download them from the Internet.

Firefox has a setting that allows the browser's cache to be moved to RAM instead of the hard drive. Since RAM can be access much faster then the hard drive, this means that you can see much faster returns on any cache hits from your browser.

Warnings: 

• This tip may cause problems with browser plug-ins.
• Follow the advice of this tip at you're own risk, if implemented incorrectly it could disable the browser until its reversed.

• Luanch Firefox
• In the address bar type: about:config
• Type browser.cache into the filter bar at the top.
• Search for: browser.cache.disk.enable and set it to false (double-click it).
• Search for: browser.cache.memory.enable and set it to true (double-click it).
• Right-click anywhere, in the menu select New > Integer.
• For the preference name, type: browser.cache.memory.capacity and press OK button.
• In the next window, enter the size you want the cache in kilobytes (for example, typing 200000 would create a cache of 200,000 kilobytes or about 200 megabytes). A value of -1 forces Firefox to dynamically determine the cache size depending on the available system RAM.

Note: Since files are no longer stored on the disk, Firefox start-up can take longer. Also fewer objects are generally cached in RAM because of limited available system resources.

Web Site: Creating Craigslist Alerts

Craigslist has single-handedly destroyed newspaper classified ads.  To be honest I don't miss them.  Although, with the popularity of this site there are great deal of scams so you have to be careful.

If you're trying to find a great deal, its hard to beat Craigslist. Although, I find it annoying that you can't setup e-mail alerts on the site for my favorite searches.

What I recently discover is that you can get RSS feeds from the site for any search. To subscribe to a Craigslist's RSS feeds:

• Go to your city's Craigslist site.
• Enter your search terms (keywords for what you're looking for), then press the search button 
• Scroll to the bottom of the page, there's an orange button with the letters RSS, click on the button.
• Copy that page's URL and paste it into your favorite RSS feed reader.

Using your RSS feed reader, you can be notified every time an item is posted on Craigslist that matches your search criteria.

If you don't like the suggestion above, search for "Craigslist email Alerts" to find companies that offer this type of service.

Windows 7: Service Pack 1 (SP1) is Now Available

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 contains previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows, and a few small bug fixes and minor enhancements for the OS.  For example, there's a bug fix for HDMI audio devices, a fix for printing mixed-orientation XPS documents, and a fix for "Restore previous folders at logon" functionality.

SP1 is available via Windows Update, downloading from the Microsoft web site or by ording a DVD from Microsoft.

SP1 installs in roughly 30 minutes, and does require that your computer is restarted.  System requirements and detailed installation instructions can also be found on Microsoft's Web site.

Don't forget to backup your computer before installing this update you never know if its going to break something.

Testing IPv6 Connectivity

You may have heard our old friend IPv4, the protocol that handles most of the data moving across the Internet and its 4.3 billion addresses are now depleted (for more information see, Wikipedia "IPv4 address exhaustion").

Is this the end of the Internet? The answer is no, but it will force us to move to the next generation of the Internet protocol known as IPv6 sooner then later.

Recently I started playing with IPv6 on my Windows 7 client, behind my router.  After doing some research I discovered that every modern operating systems should support IPv6.  Although how its enabled will vary between operating systems.  For example Windows 7 has IPv6 enabled by default, and so do other OS.

When I bought my router one of the requirements was that it supported IPv6.  I enable the IPv6 auto-detect feature on my router to see what would happen, and discovered that my ISP supported a IPv6 transition technology called "6to4 Tunnel".

There are a few different IPv6 transition technologies, the "6to4 Tunnel" is able to encapsulate IPv6 packets within IPv4.  Basically what it is does is take one type of network data (e.g. IPv6) and translate to another type of network data (e.g. IPv4).

Soon after that feature was enabled on the router my OS and browser started to access IPv6 web sites, such as http://ipv6.google.com.

Find out your IPv6 readiness

The site http://test-ipv6.com  runs a series of IPv4 and IPv6 browser, connectivity, and DNS tests against your computer and connection to find out if you're IPv6 ready.

IPv6 Checklist

Below is a checklist of items that you have to have in order to use IPv6 on your computer and network.

• An operating System that supports IPv6 
• Windows Vista and above, and most current versions of Linux and Mac OS X).
• A router appliance (commercial or consumer) that supports IPv6.
• Most modern routers  support IPv6, older models may require firmware update if available (check hardware manufacture's web site for more information).
• An ISP with IPv6 protocol and DNS support.
• IPv6 readiness will vary between companies.  Contact your ISP to find out the type of IPv6 support they offer.
• If you're ISP doesn't support IPv6 you can use an IPv6 Tunnel Broker like Hurricane Electric to allow your computer to access the IPv6 Internet.

Windows 7: Alternate IP Address Configuration

Laptop computers often have to connect to multiple network (e.g. home, office, retail, etc.). In the past If one of the networks required a static IP address, while the other networks assigned addresses via DHCP you had to manually change the TCP/IP properties every time you switched networks. Since Windows Vista, you now have the ability to setup an alternate IP address configuration.

• In the Start menu search field, type Network Connections and select View network connections.
• In the Network Connections window, right-click a connection that needs an alternate IP address configuration (e.g., Local Area Connection) and select Properties.
• In the Properties dialog box, on the Networking tab, scroll down and click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP v4) and press the Properties button.
• In the General tab, enter the information for the main network you use (such as a static IP, subnet mask, default gateway and DNS server information).
• Click the Alternate Configuration tab, then click Automatic Private IP Address so the computer will obtain an IP address via DHCP.
• Press OK button twice to close the dialog boxes.