Being able to quickly and easily convert from one language to another on a website helps bring people of all nationalities together. There are no doubt many different language translation services being offered today but I like things that are simple and yet efficient. I’m not an HTML expert and so coding is not what I want to do. Luckily, both Google and Microsoft comes to the rescue. When you visit a website that is in a different language, you are bound to look for a translation button. There are many different ways to convert that foreign website into a language you are more familiar with. Many users may already know firsthand how to convert a website to a different language. Being as how English is a widely used language, there are still many people in the world that aren’t fluent in it, however. These users no doubt need to have translation tools at their fingertips at all times.

Auto-Translation

As you can tell, this happens almost automatically and the user does not have to do a thing besides confirming to go ahead with the translation. The best part is that the translation happens directly on that same webpage! The words will magically change to the language your are translating to. If you haven’t seen this in action before, you’re sorely missing out! This action minimizes interference between the user and the webpage as they aren’t required to view the page in a new tab or window. The bad news is that not everyone uses the Google Chrome (or Chromium) browser. Therefore, if you want your blog to reach the widest audience as possible, you’ll need to incorporate some type of language translation service on your own.

Google Translate and Microsoft Translator Widget

Like I said earlier, there are many different ways for you to help a foreign visitor get the most out of your blog. In my honest opinion, I like the behavior of what I’ve described above with the Chrome browser. Therefore, I’m going to talk about how you can also apply that same language translation service right within your own blog absolutely free of charge. By implementing one of this service, it wouldn’t matter what browser your visitor is viewing your blog with because the translation service is now baked within your site and is not dependent on the browser itself. Trust me, this is some really cool stuff!

I know that many reading are probably wondering why I don’t just use a plugin. Technically, there are dozens among dozens of offered plugins that help to translate my blog. However, I tend to try and stay away from plugins whenever possible. Not that they are bad (one main reason I moved to WordPress was due to plugins offered) but for something so simple, I find that both Google and Microsoft have offered a brilliant solution with only a few lines of code. The translation is all done on their side of things and so there really isn’t any special settings or configuration I need to perform afterwards.

Google Translate

Seriously, is there anything that Google can’t do?! The Google Translate service offers any blog creator to easily use their rich language translation services for free. All it takes is a little customization and some code pasting.

Step 1:  Here you specify where the translation should occur within your site. You have the options of translating your entire site or just a portion of it. In my opinion, you’ll want to leave it at the default of translating the entire site.

Step 2: Simply select the language your are currently using on your site. For me, it would be set to English.

Step 3: You definitely want to see the optional settings so click on the link here. First you’ll get to choose specifically what languages are offered to be translated into on your site. For example, if you know that the majority of your visitors are Chinese speakers and readers, then you can limit the options to just this language. However, it’s best to just leave this to the default of all languages. This covers all of your potential visitors. You can select the Specific Languages radio button to view the list of all the languages that Google offers. Quite impressive!

Next you’ll choose the display mode. Google allows you to display a language selection widget so that your users can manually select the language they want translated into. You can play around with this portion to see how each style fits in your blog. However, if you want the same behavior as in Chrome (mentioned earlier), than you’ll want to select the Display Mode to Automatic. This option automatically displays the Google Translate toolbar whenever it detects a visitor on your blog with a different language set to the default in their browser. In my example, anyone with a default browser language other than English. This option is best for bloggers who don’t want to display a widget of any kind on their sidebar.

Under the Advanced section, you’ll have three options. The first should be selected if you have opted for the Automatic display mode mentioned above. The second option allows you to specify whether your page contains more than one language. Typically this is not needed but it’s nice for Google to have that option. Lastly, you can track translation usage on your blog by implementing Google Analytics.

Step 4: The code snippet shown in the box is what you will need to copy and paste into your blog. This is typically the hardest part of the procedure, especially if you are using WordPress. The script code needs to be inserted into your blog’s header.php or footer.php file. Technically, you can also paste this code into a Text/HTML widget but because we have opted to not display a Google Translate widget, it might look weird as it will be blank. If you are absolutely stuck on not knowing where to add the code, then choose a display mode other than Automatic and then pasting the code again into a sidebar widget. However, this will display the Google Translate widget. Blogger users can simply click on the Add to Blogger button.

Microsoft Translator Widget

Microsoft also offers a very cool language translation service for your blog free of charge as well. The behavior of the widget functions very similar to Google Translate.

Step 1: First you’ll need to specify your website’s URL and primary language.

Step 2: You also have the option of whether to display the Microsoft Translator widget or not. Unlike Google, you don’t have any options whatsoever style wise, but you do get to choose different colors for the widget to match the theme of your site along with the width of the widget. Under Translation Settings, you have three options of Manual, Notify and Auto. With Manual, your visitors are required to use the widget to select the language for translation. With Notify, this will alert the user if their browser’s language is set to a language other than what you have specified for your site. The user will see a toolbar at the top of the site and will be able to confirm the translation into their language. With Auto, Microsoft will automatically perform the translation for the user without any intervention.

Step 3: Once you are satisfied with your selection, head to the very bottom of the page (skip the Collaborative Translations section), select the agreement checkbox and hit the Generate Code button. Again, you can select to copy and paste the code in a widget in your WordPress blog but if you choose not to display the widget, it might look weird as it will be blank. However, if you’re not sure of how to manually insert the code into a template file, you’ll have no choice.

Testing your New Translation Service

Once you have implemented the translation service of your choice, it’s now time to actually test it! Technically, it’s hard to test it as is because your browser is configured for the language of your blog. In my case, English. Therefore, browsing to my site will not cause the translator to automatically give me a notification to translate the page. However, if you have chosen to display the actual widget, manual translation is of course possible. To see the notification popup, you’ll need to do a little tinkering.

Open up Internet Explorer and hit the settings button. Then select the Internet Options menu option.

Next, select the Languages button towards the bottom.

In the Language Preference window, you should see your native language. Take note of it and select the Remove button. In my case, I’m removing English (United States). Next, hit the Add button. In this huge list, select a language other than what is used for your blog. Of course, the language you select here also needs to be compatible with what the Google or Microsoft translation service offers. In my case, I’m going to select Vietnamese. Once you have made your selection, restart Internet Explorer.

Simply head back to your website and watch the magic happen. Google/Microsoft should notify you with a toolbar/message stating that you can translate the website into your native language. Very cool!

Once you are done playing around with this, don’t forget to readjust your Internet Explorer settings back to the way it was!

Don’t Miss this Opportunity

You can clearly see how easy and quick it was to offer translation services directly within your blog. It would be sad if you lost even just one visitor on your site due to language barriers, especially if the visitor could have benefitted greatly from the information you have written. I loved how Google Chrome helps with language translation on any site you visit because not everyone will speak English or whatever language the website is written in. Just because people have not conquered your language does not mean that they should miss out on what you have to offer! With that being said though, I’m sure you understand that a robotic translation service is not going to be as efficient as a human translator but hey, something is better than nothing right? While Google Chrome offers users a quick and automatic way to translate web pages all without any user intervention or extension download, you can’t expect all your visitors to be using this browser. Although there are dozens and dozens of browser extensions dealing with language translations in Firefox, you also can’t rely on your readers to have one of those installed. What you can do however is adding a direct method of helping your readers on your blog to overcome the language barrier problem. Trust me, your visitors will appreciate your blog that much more, even if they don’t outright tell you so!

There are two positions you can set for the search bar: either smack dead in the center of your desktop or hidden at the top of your screen. With the latter, its not only hidden until you move your mouse cursor over it but you can also slide the search bar left and right. You may initially think that setting it at the top position is the more likely choice until you realize that doing so will cause you to accidentally hover your mouse cursor over the search bar instead of switching to different browser tabs since it sits at the top of your screen. So now you may think OK fine, I’ll just set it in the center position. I won’t get to see it unless I’m on my desktop. Well, that’s true but now you have to be reminded that the Bing Desktop utility is constantly in use because the darn application taskbar icon won’t hide itself! When you set it to the top position, the taskbar icon disappears but for some odd reason, setting it in the center position will not cause the same behavior. The only way to get rid of it is to completely exit the application.

The Solution

Luckily, there is a very simple way to get our daily Bing wallpaper yet without having to deal with the nasty Bing search bar. Technically, you can stop reading this article right now if you don’t mind manually exiting the Bing Desktop utility each and every time after you have downloaded the wallpaper (Bing sets the wallpaper for you automatically). The good news here is that there is only one new wallpaper a day and so once you’ve downloaded the newest one, you can exit the utility without having to deal with it again until the next day and so on and so on. If this is not to your ideal, then read along!

Simple Batch Job

A batch job is simply a file with command instructions telling the computer what you would like it to do. Each line can be a separate command and the computer will do its best to follow it. For example, activating a batch file can simply have the computer automatically open up a certain program, wait a few seconds and then closing that program. In fact, that is exactly what we will be doing here. Although the instructions seem fairly long, I can assure you that it is in no way complicated at all. If you know how to work with folder directories, you should be good to go.

In order for the below to work, you need to configure the Bing Desktop utility so that it does not automatically open upon Windows start up. You can do this by heading into the utility’s setting menu and un-checking the appropriate option as seen here:

For those interested, I’m noting the folder location where Bing Desktop stores the actual wallpaper of the day. This way, you can manually save the wallpaper for other uses.

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes

First you want to open Notepad and copy in the text I’ve written below:

cd “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\BingDesktop”
START bingdesktop.exe
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 3000 >NUL
taskkill /IM BingDesktop.exe /f

You’ll want to obviously substitute the drive letter and path location if it deviates from your configuration. We are giving four instructions for the computer to perform. The first line specifies the working directory. The second line specifies to start the actual Bing Desktop utility (which is located inside the working directory). The third line instructs the batch job to simply wait 3 seconds. This should be enough time for the utility to download and set the newest wallpaper on your desktop. The last line instructs the batch job to end the Bing Desktop process.

Next, we need to save it as a batch file. Hit File –> Save. In the Save As dialog box, it’s very important that in the “Save as type” drop down box, you select All Files. Give the batch file a meaningful name and more importantly, append the .bat extension after the file name.

At this stage, you can simply test the batch file to see if its working. If the Bing Desktop utility is opened, then exit the application. Next, simply double-click on the batch file. If everything went well, you should have seen a black command window open, the Bing Desktop utility started and then both items disappearing after a few seconds. To see it really work, I suggest you switch to a different wallpaper if your current one is already set to the Bing wallpaper of the day. Also, at this stage, you can simply stop and continue to use this batch file whenever you feel like using the newest wallpaper from Bing. You can place the batch file on your desktop or wherever is convenient for you. If manually double-clicking this file is still too much work, then read along!

To automatically have our computer invoke this awesome batch file for us, there are a ton of different options to choose from. I find it best to use one of Windows most underrated feature, the Task Scheduler, to help us accomplish this feat for us. With Task Scheduler, we can instruct our computer to execute the batch file upon every log on or unlock of the workstation. Start Task Scheduler by searching for it in the Start menu. Once opened, click on the Action file menu and select the “Create Task” option. In the General tab, give your task a meaningful name and a optional description if you wish.

On the Triggers tab, hit the New button. Under the “Begin the task” drop down menu, select “At Log on”. Right below this, make sure Specific User is set to your own user account. Hit OK. You can optionally add another trigger so that the batch file will be executed whenever you unlock your computer (after standby or hibernation as this is not really considered a re-logon).

On the Actions tab, hit the New button. Under Action, make sure it is selected to “Start a program”. In the Program/Script box, click Browse to specify the batch file we have created earlier. In the Start In field, you must absolutely make sure to type in the relative path location of that batch file. I know it says the field is optional but trust me, its not. For example, if my batch file is on my desktop, I would use the relative path of C:\Users\Simon\Desktop. Hit the OK button twice to create the task.

At this point, you’re pretty much finished. From now on, every time you log in to your computer whether after turning your computer on or after you unlock it after a hibernate/standby, the batch file will be automatically executed. Testing the task to see if it properly runs simply involves logging on to your computer or when you unlock it.

Minimizing Command Prompt Window

To minimize the prompt window (or not, if you’re geeky enough), there is a really simply way to do this. First you’ll want to create a shortcut of your original batch file by right-clicking and choosing the appropriate option in the menu. Preferably, you’ll want to place both icons in a folder location that you won’t visit often since you really don’t have to touch them once everything is configured. Next, right-click on the shortcut icon and select Properties. In the Shortcut tab, select the “Minimized” setting under Run.

Inside Task Scheduler, you’ll have to make sure your task points to the newly created shortcut batch file rather than to the original one. From then on, the command window should be minimized when the batch job executes. While it is possible to completely hide the command window itself, it is a more complicated process.

In the End…

I know this seems like an overkill for some users but I just wanted to create a very simple method of automatically opening a program and then immediately closing it. While having the batch file execute upon every log on and unlock of the workstation seems absurd, you can easily just have chosen to manually execute the batch file yourself whenever you feel like it. Of course, this is assuming that you do not like using the Bing search bar on your desktop but would rather just use the utility to get a new wallpaper on a daily basis. Task Scheduler is a very powerful feature of Windows and if you haven’t used it before, this is a good exercise to get your feet wet. You should definitely play around with it to see how else you can configure it to your liking. I’m just disappointed that it doesn’t work as expected sometimes.

Sign-Up

Google Drive was just released publicly at the time of this writing and yet many users, including myself, was a little surprised to see that we still had to wait for an official confirmation from Google themselves before the service was enabled to us. We had to click on a link to be notified by email of when this would occur. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long and neither should you because my Google Drive is all good to go and ready to sync within a day or so of the request. Every user gets free 5GB of online storage space. This is more than Dropbox’s free 2GB and less than Skydrive’s offering of 7GB free (loyal users get a whopping 25GB).

Download

Like with all client installs, Google Drive installs pretty much instantaneous and without much fanfare. All you need to provide is your Gmail email account username and password. By default, your Google Drive folder will located at “C:\Users\username\Google Drive“. When you head there initially, you might be surprised by the lack of folders or any other sort of greeting files welcoming you to the Google Drive service. What you will see is just two dummy files which you can pretty much delete without much thought.

Uploading and Syncing

If you’re already familiar with Dropbox and the new Skydrive service, then Google Drive will be a welcome sight because not much is different. Your Google Drive folder is looks and behaves just like a regular folder which you no doubt have become familiar with in Windows operating systems. Everything that you create and place here will be automatically uploaded to your Google Drive account and will be synced across all devices. It’s simple and works fairly well. The one big change that you might notice right away is the lack of a sync status icon on your individual files. With both Dropbox and Skydrive, a bright green check mark is placed next to each file to indicate that it has been successfully uploaded. With Google Drive, there is no such indication. Your only option is to right click on the Google Drive status icon (in the Notification area) and at the very top of the menu, you’ll get to see your sync status. For example, if you have just placed 10 different photos into the folder, here it will show you how far along the sync process it got but the information given is very minimal (4 of 10, for example). I’m hoping this will be addressed sometime in the near future. Installing Google Drive onto a second computer and logging on will have all files dumped onto that new computer. From then on, every file and folder will be synchronized between all computers as well as on the web.

As with Skydrive, the Google Drive client is sorely lacking in any integration with your desktop itself. Besides providing you with just a local folder for syncing, there’s not much more you can do within your Google Drive folder. Right clicking a file presents you with no option to share the files, for example. In this area of integration, Dropbox trumps both new services. With both Skydrive and Google Drive, everything needs to be managed via the browser. Once again, I really hope this gets changed in the near future.

The one feature that Google Drive has that Skydrive is missing, oddly, is a trash bin! Google Drive allows you to recover deleted files in the web interface and in some situations, this can be really helpful. In Skydrive, deleted files are gone for good.

Google Docs Integration

Both advantages Skydrive and Google Drive have over Dropbox is due to their productivity web app integration. Google Docs allow you to create and work with word documents and spreadsheets all within your browser. You can then share those files out appropriately so that other members can contribute to that file as well. Collaboration features is a big thing now and both Microsoft and Google are doing their best to tie all this in within their respective online services. With Google Docs, you can create word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, online forms, and basic drawing files. Whether or not Google Docs is more powerful than Microsoft’s online offering I have no idea and I assume it’s a matter of preference. I’m also assuming that if the majority of your team members are using one service over another, then that should also alter your final decision. But point is, integration is a big thing and I’m glad it is taking center stage here.

In your local Google Drive folder, double-clicking on a Google Docs file will open that file up in your default browser. From here, you can make the changes you want and of course, everything will be nicely synced up for you. In fact, you don’t even have to remember to save your documents because Google Docs automatically does it for you! The other very awesome feature of Google Docs is their revisioning capability. Skydrive also has this feature but Google Docs pretty much takes it to a whole new level. Google Docs actually marks the actual changes in each revision so that you don’t have to hunt for them manually. This alone can save you a whole lot of time, especially when you collaborate a lot on documents with your other co-workers.

Also, please be aware that when you upload Microsoft documents (.docx, for example) to your Google Drive account, they are view only. If you want to edit them, then you must convert them to Google Doc format. When you upload files using the web interface, you can actually tell Google Drive to automatically convert certain file formats into the compatible Google Docs format. It can even use OCR technology to help make your PDF editable in Google Doc if you so wish. If not, then the PDF is view only. After using Google Drive for a bit, there are many things that I like about it over Microsoft’s Office webapps. The ability to add comments and the powerful revision history feature makes it a much more preferred service if collaboration is important to you. Although editing them online requires it to be Google Doc format compatible, it does allow you to export those files back into the official Microsoft Office format.

Sharing in Google Drive

Sharing features with Google Drive is very simple once you’ve taken a few moments to learn it. You can choose to make your files private and only available to users who sign-in, mark them as public so that anyone can search and view them, or you can simply create a link and manually give them to your collaborators. This works very similarly to Skydrive. In a way, it works quite well even though its quite simplistic in nature. I’m pretty sure permissions levels will get more granular as the service matures and as user requests start pouring in from the public. There are currently three different ways you can share a file/folder:

First you can make the files entirely public. Anyone who wishes to view your files will all get view permissions by default. No sign in is required to view files. If you allow public users to edit the file, then sign in is required although since its public, just about anyone with a Gmail account can edit the file.

Secondly you can create a custom link and distribute the link any way you see fit. All users with the link can view the files without having to sign in. If you allow edit permissions, then sign in is required. However, any user with the link can modify the file even though you haven’t personally sent them a link (they could have gotten it from another person who did have it).

Lastly, you can mark your files as private and manually assign individual access. You are allowed to assign different access permission per individual. For example, one person may be allowed to edit the file while another can only view the document and nothing else. This is the most secure of the share levels. Although I haven’t tested this, I assume that even if another individual shares the link to someone outside of the circle, because you (the owner) haven’t specifically specified any permission for him/her, they will be denied all access including being able to view the document.

The share links created by Google Drive is pretty long but no where as crazy as the URL length of Skydrive:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B4GMxM3A-3QcTkFrZmZpU2wyUzg

Mobile Support

Currently, Google Drive is supported on Android devices and the iPhone/iPad version will be available very soon.

In the End…

Google’s initial public offering of a file syncing service, although quite simplistic, works very well. The biggest benefit in my eyes will be heavy Google Doc users and collaborators. If you’re not one of those people, then there isn’t that big of an incentive to switch over if you’re already a Skydrive or Dropbox user. As a normal user who just needs to be able to sync files across multiple devices, any one of the three major services can do that for you. If you’re already heavily invested in the Google’sphere, then obviously it makes more sense to tie in one more service under your account with them. If not, then Skydrive should offer the most bang for the buck. At just $10 a year, you get 20GB of storage compared to Google’s 25GB for what equals out to be about $30 a year. Dropbox is the worst out of the three in terms of purchasing extra storage space. Of course, there are drawbacks to each service and ultimately only you can judge for yourself which one suits you best.

Microsoft SkyDrive

Prior to Skydrive, Microsoft has offered a couple of file synching services, albeit not as popular. They included Live Sync and Live Mesh. I’m sure the former have been discontinued but I’m not so sure about the latter. Anyways, after trying out Live Sync, I came away that it was still inferior to Dropbox. Well, that’s all in the past. The future is with Skydrive.

Sign-Up

Every new user who signs up with Skydrive will get a very generous offer of 7GB of online storage. “Loyal” users of Skydrive can upgrade their storage space to 25GB without incurring any extra charge. I’m not technically sure what constitutes as a loyal user but my guess is that as long as you use a Hotmail/Live email account prior to this whole new Skydrive thing, you’re considered loyal. I signed up for Skydrive with one of my Hotmail account that I’ve just created a few weeks back and guess what? I’m considered a loyal user! Anyways, 7GB is a heck of a lot of storage. Remember, when you sync files to your Skydrive, Dropbox, Google Drive or just about any other syncing service, you are “uploading” your files to their servers. In many cases, your Internet Service Provider will offer way faster speeds for downloading then uploading. So, uploading that 2GB movie file you’ve just shot in high definition 1080p to share with your family members around the world will take a heck of a long time. Of course, I live in Hawaii so hey, what do I know of Internet speeds eh?!

Download

Finally, there is a desktop client to manage and upload your files to Skydrive. This is way more user friendly and convenient than requiring a user to use a web browser. In my opinion, this was one of the main advantages of Dropbox. Well, not anymore. The desktop client installs in a breeze and all you need to provide is of course, your Hotmail/Live username and password. You’ll then be told of the location of your Skydrive folder, which by default will be C:\Users\username\Skydrive. By default, you’ll have three folders set up: Documents, Photos and Public. At the end of the install, you’ll also be presented with an option to make all the files on your current computer available to other devices. They don’t make this clear right there and then about what enabling this feature does but basically it allows you to fetch any files on the current PC even if those files aren’t stored in your Skydrive folder. I’ll go back to this later on and it’s definitely something you’ll want to keep in mind of.

Uploading and Syncing

Because your local Skydrive folder on the computer is attached to your Skydrive storage at Microsoft, you can simply use this folder just as you would any other folder. Once again, this is exactly how Dropbox works. You can drag and drop documents and photos here and Skydrive will automatically upload the files online. You don’t have to do a thing. Just keep in mind that the bigger the file size, the longer it will take for the upload to complete. This also of course depends on your Internet speed. From my limited testing, files that have been successfully uploaded on your desktop immediately appear in your web browser and vice-versa. The very unfortunate news with the Skydrive desktop client is that it doesn’t do anything to tie in the services available to you on the desktop and instead forces you to use the web interface instead. For example, you can’t right click on your files to immediately get a link to share with your friends. You have to first log in to your Skydrive account via your web browser and then configure the proper permissions. I’m really hoping that as the service matures, Microsoft will improve in this area.

When you similarly download and install the Skydrive client onto a different computer and sign in with your account, Skydrive will automatically download all the files. Once that finishes, both computers will then be completely synchronized with each other and files you add/delete on one computer will be reflected upon the other. This is syncing at its most basic level and it works quite well. Once again, the desktop client makes using Skydrive so much more easier now. One thing I took big notice on is how much faster the actual download of files is on my second computer were. With Dropbox, it took really long to get a new computer synchronized because their download speed is just horrible.

Microsoft Office WebApps

Every company could offer a simple and basic syncing service. To stand apart from the crowd though, they have to offer something that others aren’t. With Skydrive, Microsoft allows any user to be able to view and edit Microsoft Office documents online right inside their browser. For example, you can actually create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files from scratch right within your Skydrive account and share it with your friends and co-workers to collaborate on. Of course, Microsoft isn’t generous enough to give you every single feature as in the paid version of Word, Excel, etc. However, for most users who don’t really need to use all those fancy features, this is a very economic way of getting things done without having to spend hundreds of dollars on productivity software. These webapps compete directly with Google Docs.

At the time of this writing, for some odd reason, Microsoft does not allow you to delete OneNote files from your desktop! It states that you can only do this within your Skydrive account in a browser. This issue is obviously not as disturbing as the “multiple photo upload” one inside the Skydrive iPhone app but it still baffles me nonetheless. What’s so special about OneNote files?!

Sharing and Collaborating in Skydrive

To be able to do more with your files than the usual copy/move/delete operations, you’ll need to actually log on to your Skydrive account within your browser. One of the main things you’ll be doing is sharing your files so that either other users can view them or so other folks can collaborate on documents. I’m glad to say that Microsoft have made things a whole lot more easier now to share files and folders between different users than what was possible in the original Skydrive service (I think you got the point by now that the original Skydrive service was not very good).

When it comes to sharing, you have three different options:

First you can simply email a link to to your folder or file to your intended recipients. You can choose whether the recipients can also edit the files themselves and whether they are required to sign in to their Hotmail account prior to granting access. This last option can used for ultimate security as you can assure that only recipients who you intend to share the files with get access because it requires them to sign in to their own email account prior to being authorized to view and edit the files.

Secondly, you can share your files through popular social services such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. You can also add more social services as well.

Lastly, you can share your files and folders in a more broad manner by creating a share link and then distributing that link to your recipients. There are three separate options that control the permissions of the share. With view only, recipients with access to the link can all view but not edit the files. However, those recipients can in turn re-share the link to other users and those users in turn can also view your files. This can obviously lead to users whom you don’t want to see your files actually see them. With the view and edit link option, users will be allowed to modify your files. This option obviously needs to be used with caution. The last one is marking your folder/file as Public. Recipients can only view the files but the difference between this and the “view only” option is that with Public, anyone in the world can actually search for your files online and view them. You obviously don’t want to put your grandma’s secret chocolate chip cookie recipe in a Public marked folder.

Once you share the link with your buddies, they can all view and download the files without having to create their own Hotmail account. If they want to be able to modify them (if you’ve given them permission), then they will need to sign in first. I noticed that the share links are absolutely enormous in size. Not sure why Microsoft didn’t use some sort of URL shortening service. For example, do really want to communicate this URL link to a person? Most likely not but then again, that’s why we have email and URL shortening services such as Bit.ly.

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=a02f75db8b281304&resid=A02F75DB8B281304!173&parid=A02F75DB8B281304!108&authkey=!APr3h-Nw1bfSsh8

With collaboration, Microsoft also gives you file versioning capabilities. This allows you to see all the changes made to a document by your co-workers. This feature also saves your behind when you’ve accidentally overwritten an important research paper. Simply revert or re-download a version of the document prior to the last change and you’re back in business. I absolutely love this feature in Dropbox and I’m quite happy to see it in SkyDrive.

Retrieving Files

One very cool feature that Skydrive brings to the table is allowing you retrieve any of your files on an authorized computer even if those files are not stored in your Skydrive folder! Basically, you are allowed to grab any single file on your PC from any other Internet connected computer in the world! This essentially turns your computer into an FTP server without having you to mess with messy port forwarding or other software installation and configuration. If you are to utilize this feature, then you must also be aware that your computer actually needs to be powered on before you can retrieve those files! If you left your home desktop powered on prior leaving to work and forgot an important document, you can easily log in to your Skydrive account at a work computer, connect to your home computer and retrieve the file that way. Of course, many users like myself find it unfeasible to leave a computer powered on all day and night. For this, you’ll definitely want to look into the Wake-on-Lan (WoL) feature, which is a topic for another day. But as you all know, I’m a nice guy so here is something to get you started.

As a security feature, Skydrive will require you to enter in a six digit number (which is emailed to you to a different email account) before allowing you access to the remote computer. Once correctly entered in, the passcode is good for that single Skydrive session. Once you log out of Skydrive and log back in, you will be required to repeat the process. If you later decide to disable/enable this feature on a particular PC, you can easily do so by heading into the General tab within the Settings menu of the Skydrive menu icon, which is located in the Notification taskbar (lower right corner of computer).

As you can see below, I can fully access my entire C:\ drive on my remote laptop from my desktop once I have entered in the correct security code:

iPhone Support

Currently, no app exist for the Skydrive service on Android devices. iPhone users are in more luck. With the app, you can browse all of your uploaded files right on your iPhone. You can upload both video and photos directly within the app, share your files, view your files with third party apps and a whole bunch more. Note that for Microsoft Office files, it is view only. You can obviously use a third party app for editing. It’s also interesting to note (at least for me) that you actually have to have opened the file prior to be able to access it offline. For example, if you uploaded a Word file on your home computer and synced it with your iPhone but haven’t actually opened that file on your iPhone, then you won’t be able to access that same file when offline (airplane mode, for example). One you have viewed that file, even if its just once, it gets cached and from then on you should have access to those files even when you have no network connectivity of any kind.

One very odd thing I notice is that in order to upload multiple photos at once, the app actually requires you to turn on Location Services! I find this highly disturbing and not sure if this is a bug or not. I rarely leave location services enabled unless I need to use my GPS for navigation.

In the End..

After playing around with Skydrive, I find myself really liking the service. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, Microsoft made huge improvements to the service since it first debuted which really provided nothing more for its users than an online storage locker. At that time Dropbox, while nowhere getting even close to what Microsoft was offering in terms of sheer free storage space, provided a much more desirable service overall. With many users today having to work from many different devices, stationary or mobile wise, it’s not hard to see why big companies are offering a solution to help keep user files synchronized across all devices. I’m super excited to see how Skydrive will be integrated with Windows 8 when it releases. They are off to a good start in my opinion with Skydrive but improvements will definitely need to be made if they want to be at the top. One very simple thing they can do right now is giving users the ability to work with their Skydrive files and documents directly on their desktop instead of forcing them to do them in a web browser. If Dropbox can accomplish this, I’m sure Microsoft can do a whole heck of a lot better considering they also make the Windows OS itself!

Weight and Feel

One of the most shocking thing I noticed when I first picked up the Kindle is how surprisingly light weight it is! It’s only 5.98 ounces compared to the 7.8 ounces of the Kindle Keyboard. Trust me when I say this that those 2 ounces or so make a world of a difference. While I didn’t necessarily suffer from hand fatigue with my old Kindle Keyboard during long reading sessions, I still felt a little annoyed with holding it in my hands (not for long though). With the new Kindle, the weight of the device feels perfect. Although I’m sure some users will want it even lighter, I personally still want that feeling that I’m actually holding on to an electronic device. This is similar to why many users are still against using an electronic e-reading device because they genuinely feel that nothing beats that “feeling” they get when holding a good ol’ physical book in their hands. This lighter device is possible in my opinion due to the removal of a physical keyboard. This reduces the overall size of the Kindle yet you’ll still be getting the familiar 6″ E-Ink reading display as in the previous model.

The unboxing of the Kindle reveals that Amazon decided to omit the wall charger most likely due to bringing down the costs. They do include a basic USB charging cable which you can use to charge the device via the computer. If you find yourself needed an wall adapter, Amazon does offer it for sale.

Physical Navigation

Due to the removal of the physical keyboard, typing in notes and URLs in the experimental web browser on the Kindle can take a while. I found this out immediately when I had to enter in my very secure randomly generated wireless password! If you tend to take a lot of notes, you’ll definitely want to spend the extra $20 and get the Kindle Touch (with special offers) instead. Personally, I’m fine with the removal of the keyboard because I hardly have a use for it. In fact, I barely touched the keyboard on my last Kindle.

As for general navigation within the 4th generation Kindle itself, you’ll have a few physical buttons to mess with. Going from left to right, you first have the Back button, which is self-explanatory. Next you have the keyboard button, which brings up the keyboard on screen. This is not a QWERTY keyboard. Next you have the five-way navigational system (up, down, left, right and Enter). These buttons allow you to highlight text among other things and will be used the most. Next to this is the menu button where it displays the on screen menu in the top right corner of the display. From here, you can turn on/off your wireless access, configure device settings, display options and a host of other things. Finally, the last button is the Home Screen button where it will return you to your library home screen. Underneath the Kindle is your standard USB port and power button. With this Kindle version, there is no audio support and so therefore there is no 3.5mm headphone jack nor any external speakers. If you’re familiar with navigating around the Kindle previously, not much has changed here. Even if you are new to the Kindle device, I’m positively sure you’ll familiarize yourself with it in no time.

Page turning, which is something that Amazon or any other producer of E-Ink devices go for that matter, needs to get right. Once again, Amazon accommodates both right and left handed people by providing page turn buttons on either bezel of the Kindle. The one big difference you’ll notice immediately if you’re a previous Kindle owner is that the page turning buttons are now more “embedded” on the side of the device. Many users were complaining of accidental pages turns while holding the previous Kindle model and so Amazon now decided to make the button have less of a footprint while you are holding the device. This is hardly an issue to bring out the torches and pitch forks but some users obviously might reject to this design decision. I personally got use to it almost immediately. However, please bear in mind that if you have large hands, holding the new Kindle might be awkward at first depending on how you’ll be holding the Kindle personally. The side bezel holding area, where your thumb will rest, has been reduced so there less of a “resting” area. If you’re right handed, you could pinch the Kindle on the bottom corner of the device with your thumb (the device is light enough for this task) and then use your left hand/thumb to turn the page on the left bezel. Vice-versa if you are naturally left handed. If this continuously becomes a problem for you though, then you’ll want to look into the Kindle Keyboard.

Screen Display

With a newer version of the Kindle, it’s almost obvious that Amazon will have improve their E-Ink display technology. Texts are suppose to be crisp and sharp and most importantly, eliminate eye fatigue. I’ve read that some users find the screen display of the newest Kindle to be a little somewhat inferior (main complaint is less sharpness and dimmer screen) to that of the previous model. Although I don’t have my old Kindle anymore, I can’t do a side by side comparison. However, upon looking at some video reviews, it seems that the screen on the new Kindle does seem a bit dimmer thanbefore. As with all things, once you get used to reading on the new Kindle, you’ll hardly notice it and it will be a non issue. You could still email the Amazon stafff about this issue so that they at least address the issue in future models.

What is cool with the new Kindle is that previously, every page turn forces the screen to refresh which causes a very brief black flash. No matter how fast or brief this flash was, users complained that it was irritating and causes distraction even though that is how E-Ink displays actually work in general. I didn’t have one problem to this but apparently I’m the minority. Amazon now worked their magic on the new Kindle by only presenting that “page flash” once every 8-10 pages. For a lack of a more accurate term, it seems as if the Kindle can now “cache” the next couple of pages in memory so that the screen doesn’t have to refresh after every page turn. Again, I don’t really care about this because I don’t have an issue with it in the first place but I’m so glad Amazon is dong something to address it. This will surely give readers a more pleasant reading experience.

Menu Navigation

There’s not much to go over in this area as it has largely remained unchanged from the last model. For basic readers such as myself, the only thing you’ll ever need to change from time to time is the font size and type to match your reading preference at that time. Sometimes I like to read with a small font and at other times a much larger one. Whatever the case may be, every setting that can be configured is found with push of the menu button. Everything is pretty self-explanatory and I doubt you’ll ever have any issues. A new feature is the ability to actually password protect your Kindle while not in use. This helps prevent a thief from purchasing digital books (yes I know, that sounds funny) on Amazon under your account.

Advertisements

For readers who want the most basic of a electronic reader, Amazon offers the special offers version. By displaying advertisements for companies which they have partnered up with, Amazon allows you to purchase the device at a fraction cheaper than a similar model but without the display of advertisements. Some people will immediately put this “advertisement” thing as unwanted and believe that it will just be to annoying to deal with when reading books. Surprisingly, these advertisement do not in any way obstruct the thing you will do with the Kindle most and that is your reading.

You see, there are only two places where you will see advertisements. The first is when you turn your Kindle into standby/off mode. Instead of the usual screensavers, you’ll be presented with a static ” advertisement screen saver” instead. The second place you’ll see them is when you are at your home screen (where you view and select the book you want to read). Here, the advertisement is a small banner located at the bottom of the screen. When you are actually interested in an offer, you can select it and you’ll be able to tell it to send an email to you for more information on that advertisement offer. The most awesome news is that you will not in any way view any advertisement banners when you are actually reading a book! Amazon clearly could have also placed an advertisement banner, similar to that shown in your home screen, while you are inside a book but they decided against this which of course many readers will applaud them for.

Misc. Notes

• This basic Kindle model does not have any audio capabilities! Therefore, you will not be able to listen to your MP3 while enjoying your latest book. With no audio, you therefore also don’t have text-to-speech capability as well. This latter is not a big deal to me and I’m sure to a lot of other people as well but I really do miss not being to use the Kindle to listen to my Mp3s. This of course is required if Amazon is to cut down on costs and to minize the weight as much as possible. With more parts, the device will surely become more heavy. This is evident with the Kindle Touch, which weighs almost the same as the previous Kindle Keyboard model at around 7.5 ounces.
• Most of the other features remain largely unchanged. For example, you can still email documents to your personal Kindle email address and/or have Amazon convert documents for you. The latter is especially useful for converting PDF documents.
• Amazon can now even sync your personal documents across devices. For example if you upload an unprotected eBook (.mobi format) purchased elsewhere to your Kindle account, you can actually still sync your notes and bookmarks across devices even though the eBook was not purchased through Amazon themselves.
• PDF reading again remains unchanged for the most part. You’ll be better off in most cases by switching to landscape mode but once you have multi-column reports to read, forget about it. You can use zoom features and whatnot but they are a huge inconvenience and makes reading long documents very tiring and cumbersome. This is one of the main reason why I got a Kindle Fire.

In the End…

I keep repeating myself that I am a strong advocate when it comes to getting people to read. I am so glad for the popularity of devices such as the Kindle and the Nook because it really does help everyone be able to get into the habit of reading more often and pretty much wherever they may be. Accessing and purchasing books is ridiculously simple. With the low price of the basic Kindle with special offers version, it’s cheap enough for the whole family to get in on the reading.

Below is a very detailed video review of the 4th generation Kindle (the one reviewed here):

Windows 8 Metro UI

If you’ve ever looked at a Windows Phone 7 before, you’ll see quite a big similarity between that interface and the Metro UI interface in Windows 8. You see, Microsoft wants to streamline the experience between all three of the most popular devices in use right now. Those consists of your smart phone, computer, and tablet. By streamlining the interface/experience, there should technically be less confusion for users using these various devices. If I do something on one device, I should also be able to perform that similar feat on another device that uses the same OS. It all sounds great on paper but like what so many others are saying right now, it just doesn’t work all that well. When you look at the Metro UI interface, even a novice user would be able to tell after a few minutes that it would work great on a tablet device with a touch screen. But how would it work on a traditional PC/laptop with a keyboard and mouse? Well, this is one of the biggest problems with Metro UI and one that is driving users like me nuts.

Personally, I agree with so many others in that I can really see the Windows 8 OS shine on a tablet device. The Metro UI just screams for you to use your fingers to manipulate it. Also, rather than just being able to look at a bunch of boring icons, the Metro UI has something more interesting. Those big tiles/blocks that represent an app or program can actually display real time information! This makes things much more interactive and less “boring”. The realm of possibility really opens up. Some might not see this as a real game changer but I beg to differ because its much more than what we currently have, especially when it comes to the iPhone. Again, I’m not talking about the device itself but just the app icon’s interface and interactivity. Some might then argue that if its so great, why then haven’t Windows Phone 7 devices taken off? Well, that’s something I think Windows 8 will help in that regards. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Apple iPhones are much, much more popular than other smart phones. When it comes to smart phones, no one really thinks of Microsoft. They are still thought of as a software company. When someone mentions Microsoft, they usually think of computers, laptops and big servers loaded with a Windows operating system. By pushing the Metro UI into Windows 8, they have the potential to reach a far bigger audience. Because many of today’s computers still run some sort of Microsoft operating system, think of Windows 8 on the PC as being advertisement for Windows Phone 7 and tablet devices.

Metro UI for PC

Full Screen Apps. Windows 8 will launch its Windows Store where you can obviously shop and download new content across your devices. Every major company that deals with electronic devices nowadays seems to have an app store of some kind and so once again, Microsoft is late to the party. Having a digital store is great. However, Microsoft is committing a big sin here with these so called “Metro style” apps and that is forcing these apps to take up your entire monitor screen estate! Yes, these apps will be full screen. Apps like Internet Explorer, email and calendar will now take up your entire screen, no matter how big your screen is. Do you see the problem? Yups, you guessed it. Multitasking. On a 7″-10″ tablet device, apps taking the entire screen is not so much a problem. However, users with huge screen monitors operating on big resolutions will immediately find full screen apps a complete waste of screen estate. You’re now forced to constantly switch between different apps. Technically, this is also true for how we interact with Windows programs and applications in the past. We work with one program and constantly switch back and forth with another. However, things just don’t feel right when working with Metro apps. Trust me. This full screen thing is one of my biggest complaints with using Metro apps so far. Do you really need to view your tweets in full screen 1920×1080 resolution?

Example: I’m currently taking screenshots of the Metro UI to post on this article. When I open a picture, the default app of Windows Photo Viewer opens. However, Windows Photo Viewer is a Metro style app and therefore, it completely transfers me away from my desktop and I’m left staring at the picture I opened in a full screen window. Do you already see the problem to this? To get back to my desktop, I now have to either press Alt+Tab or drag my mouse cursor to the top left corner of my monitor. Also, how am I suppose to compare photos side by side if it only allows me to open one picture at a time?!

Horizontal Scrolling. Most veteran Window users would agree that when working on a PC, things just feel right when you’re scrolling menu items and whatnot from top to bottom. Well, with Metro style apps, Microsoft now deems it more beneficial to have its users scroll from side to side instead! This obviously isn’t the end of the world but once again, it begs the question of why? Now I understand that a LCD widescreen monitor technically can be considered in the landscape orientation and in a sense would seem right to go from left to right instead of the reverse. However, I can already see many users shaking their heads on this one. Once again, sideways scrolling seems more right on a tablet device instead.

Removal of Start Button. This will be another major change that will be noticed immediately to new users of Windows 8. Technically, the Start button is still there but rather than getting what we have been so use to seeing for the past decade or so, the “Start” button will now take you to the Metro UI, which is clearly the replacement. Again, this is not the end of the world as we know it but as you can probably guess already, many users will be asking why o why? It’s a fact that there will be many PC users who will not like the new Metro interface and many who will. Microsoft is obviously siding with the latter group and therefore forced the new interface down everyone’s throats. There is no magic button in Windows 8 that will magically bring back the old Start menu interface that many so dearly love. Fear not though as you can easily download and install third-party hacks to get back this functionality. Is it really that hard for Microsoft to give users the option to keep the traditional Start menu while providing another method to access the Metro interface when needed? This probably might confuse some users but you have to understand that the Metro UI is a huge change in terms of what many Window veterans are used to. Initially forcing all Windows 8 users to use the Metro UI can come back to haunt them.

Navigation. One of the biggest question that needs to be answered whenever a new graphical interface is presented is just how will users be able to navigate within and around that interface? Windows 8 will include the traditional desktop interface. In fact, the desktop is actually considered an “app” in the Metro UI. You’ll be doing a lot of switching between your desktop and the Metro UI because that’s the replacement for the Start menu. The good news is that if you really are disgusted with the whole Metro UI thing, you can place your most used application and program shortcuts directly on your desktop and open them that way without having to visit the Metro UI first.

For users who will be using Metro UI, there are a couple of basic things you can do to maneuver your way through the new interface. From the traditional desktop, simply move your mouse to the lower left corner and you’ll see the “Start” button. Clicking this will immediately bring you to the Metro UI home interface. Here, you’ll be able to browse your Metro style apps (which can be downloaded through the new Windows App Store) along with your traditional programs and applications such as Firefox, Teamviewer, Winrar, Irfanview, etc. Clicking on the latter of these will open the application directly back on your desktop. When you open a Metro style app however, the app will take over your entire screen. While inside a Metro style app, you can quickly switch to your other apps in one of two ways. First you can use the traditional and handy Alt+Tab keyboard combination. Second, you can use the new application sidebar. Simply move your mouse cursor to the far top left corner of your screen and your last used application will appear in a tiny thumbnail view. Clicking here will switch you to that app. If however that is not that app you want to switch to, simply move your mouse arrow down to view the full list of opened applications. You can also access this sidebar menu by pressing on the Windows+Tab keyboard combination. Personally, I don’t really like this menu but it is nonetheless one extra way to switch between your opened applications.

When inside an opened Metro style app, at first you might notice that there is no visible way to manually exit the app! This is by design. As with many smart phones, notice how you also don’t manually exit an application. Once you are done with it, you simply head back to your home screen and open another app. Technically, a Metro style app not in focus should be in suspend mode, meaning its not taking up precious CPU resources. It’s just sitting there idling. However, while this might work on smart phones, I’m sure many users will not be happy with this change. Even though its not using CPU resources, it is still occupying your RAM. Also, leaving many apps opened but not in use will cause a pretty long Alt+Tab or Window+Tab list. While the app is in suspend mode, it is still possible to switch back to it. Therefore, even though you have no further need of the app, it will still appear in the “opened” application switcher window. To solve this problem, you can manually exit out of an app either by heading to Task Manager and killing the Metro style application or while in the application, simply move your mouse cursor to the top of the screen, clicking and holding the left mouse button and dragging the application to the bottom of your screen. Tthis works wonders with finger gestures but not so much with an actual mouse. It’s just a big hassle. Another way to exit a Metro app is to press the Alt+F4 keyboard combination.

Navigating through your apps in the Metro UI is simple enough. You can easily reorganize your apps to fit your computing habit and style. The problem is that for some applications that you install, every single application icon that relates to that program gets pinned to your Metro UI start menu. Some of them you will never access besides just the main executable and so you’ll have to manually remove them. The reverse is also true. If there is a Windows application that doesn’t pin an executable shortcut to your start menu, you’ll have to personally do so yourself by navigating directly to applications install directory directly. Again not really hard to do but many users, especially amateur computer users, will have a hard time grasping this idea from the beginning as they are so use to being able to access everything from the traditional Start menu. One last point is that non-Metro style application icons look really out of place when sitting next to applications meant for the Metro UI. Hopefully once Windows 8 picks up steam, application developers will create better looking icons.

Last but not least, while in the Metro home screen, you can simply right-click on an empty area and click on the “All apps” button to view a list of all the miscellaneous applications and programs Windows has to offer. Initially, when you access this view, you would think this is your one stop shop to access all your apps. But then you’ll quickly notice that not only do you read from top to bottom but also left to right as well to find your app. With the traditional Start menu, your applications were categorized alphabetically in a vertical list. Here with Windows 8, because scrolling goes sideways, you also have to move your eyes left to right as well as up and down.

Windows Charms. You can access the Windows Charm menu by hovering your mouse cursor to the top right corner of your monitor screen. Charms allow you to access some settings and sharing options no matter which app you are in. Right now, the only use I have for Charms is to configure some settings related to Windows 8 itself. Also, I can’t wait to see how users will react when they initially can’t find a means to shut down their own computer! To do so, here is what you need to do:

1. Access the Charms menu.
2. Click on the Settings button.
3. Click on the Power button.
4. Click on Shut down.

This seems easy enough but I assure you that many users will actually need to do a Google search just to be able to shutdown their computer! Hint: You can press the Alt+F4 keyboard combination while in your desktop to access the Shut Down Windows window where you’ll also be able to perform other power related features.

Search. Windows 8 will rely a lot on searching. I’m not a big fan of when it comes to this feature on my personal PC because I’m just so use to organizing my files exactly the way I want. By doing so, I rarely forget where I’ve stored my important documents. To initiate a search for files and apps on your Windows 8 machine, head into the Metro UI and begin typing your search terms. That’s it. Windows 8 will look for related application, settings, and files that match your search terms. The other neat thing is that you can also select an application to launch and Windows 8 will use your search terms within that app. For example, if I’m searching for emails that I’ve sent out that includes the word “confidential”, I can enter in that search term within the Metro UI and click on the Mail app. The Mail app will launch and automatically perform that search within the application.

Overall Colors and Theme. Immediately upon seeing the Metro UI interface when logging on for the first time, the new GUI will strike at you. I’m not going to mince words here. I have a good feeling that many users will bark at the design and color scheme of the Metro UI. The Metro theme seems to remind me of  the building block toys that kids play with due to its squarish/boxy design. This is even more apparent when you begin to re-arrange your apps to better suit your needs! Whether you like the overall Metro UI theme/colors or not, that’s all for you to decide. As with all things, as long as you stick with it for a while and give it a shot, you have the right to hate on it later if you still find it ugly.

Overall Impressions

As stated in the beginning, I do not want Microsoft to fail. I’ve spent too much time in my life using, studying and teaching their products to various user groups only to see the empire crumble down. At the end of the day, Windows 8 is a new operating system and obviously with it comes better technology to help us users get our job done more quickly and efficiently. However, the Metro UI seems to hinder that experience. I find that I need to click and move my mouse way more than with Windows 7. I’m not really a keyboard shortcut person and so I rely on the mouse for navigation. Windows 8 will no doubt ship with many new features such as faster boot times and data transfer speeds, the ability to natively mount ISO image files, being able to easily restore a PC and along with a host of others. However, you can’t deny that the biggest change of them all is with the Metro UI. That’s why I’ve chosen to dedicate an entire article on it. While deep down I want Microsoft to succeed, I just can’t shake the feeling that Windows 8 will be met with a lot of criticism and the Metro UI will be the main culprit. Well, at least on the PC/laptop market anyway. I really think Windows 8 will fit best in the tablet world. I’m sure a lot of other users also feel the same way. This concern is mainly due to how the Metro UI feels a bit awkward to use at times on a traditional PC. These machines are not going to go away anytime soon and so I think it would be extremely silly if Microsoft chooses to upset a huge percentage of their user base by not adjusting the interface to better interact with a traditional keyboard and mouse.

Windows 8 is Microsoft’s chance to show the world why they are called the “software giant” in the tech industry. Sure, they messed up with Windows Vista but they redeemed themselves with Windows 7. I’m not even surprised when I hear of people say that Windows 8 is not even needed on a PC because if you strip away the Metro UI and the Metro style apps, what you get is your traditional desktop. If a user has no need to run Metro style apps, then what purpose does Windows 8 serve? Even though Windows 8 haven’t been released yet, I’m still seeing the usual group of users who already proclaim that they will be sticking with Windows 7 on their PC and laptop until the next version of Windows. In some ways, I actually agree with them. I just don’t see a big need for Windows 8 on the PC for many users that I personally know of. I’m not even going to touch on the subject of Windows 8 and the Metro UI on business computers in an organization.

What I will say in my final words is that this will not be the last words you’ll hear from me concerning Windows 8 and the Metro UI. Its definitely a big topic and it concerns a lot of users. Personally, I’m always on the hunt to read what others are saying about this subject matter, whether positive or negative.

It took me a while but I’ve decided to do something I haven’t really done before: I’ve decided to forgo the “famous” author route and dive into the independent and amateurs writer pool instead.  It’s fun reading grand and well thought out stories written by professionals who’ve had a lot of life experience along with a hard earned degree in literature (or whatever it takes to publish a successful book) but I wanted to see how amateur writers fare in comparison. A good idea for a story isn’t just limited to professionals but to anyone with a creative mind and who aren’t afraid to compose a story out of it. One of my New Year’s resolution of 2012 is to not be afraid of trying new things. While I would hardly label reading short stories composed by mere individuals such as myself “daring” or “adventurous”, it is something of a new experience for me nonetheless.

Wattpad

After a quick browse in the Books section within the App store, I came across a free app called Wattpad. OK, so I admit that the app’s icon is what attracted me first but it turned out to be one heck of a decision! Wattpad is very simple in nature. It allows you to download and read stories composed and uploaded by individuals such as you and I. As you can see, it doesn’t get more amateurish than this! But that’s the beauty of this app because through my quick browsing of the books available, it feels like I’ve discovered a hidden gem. There are so many books available, it will make your head spin. Luckily, unlike iBooks, you can easily browse books by categories! Horray! Put simply, think of Wattpad as the Youtube for user-generated eBooks instead of videos.

Using Wattpad is extremely simple. Just select a book category, browse for an interesting book, download it and begin reading! You can sort the search list with a different filter such as by hotness, newness or most comments. Many stories uploaded to Wattpad by users are not very long. However, that doesn’t meant you’ll likely finish a book in one sitting. In today’s society, many services are socially connected. Wattpad is no exception. You can log-in via your Facebook or personal Wattpad account. This allows you to interact with the many different readers and authors by writing comments and whatnot. This is very important because although these books are provided to you at no charge, many of the writers and authors want your honest feedback of their book. I’m sure many of them are trying to become professional authors one day and so your feedback is most appreciated.

The books are broken up via “parts”, which you can just refer to them as chapters. Each part consists of 1-6 pages. However, don’t be deceived by that number. I’m not sure what constitutes as a full page but a page inside a eBook in Wattpad is definitely longer than a single page of a physical book. You have three ways of reading your eBook. First, you can manually scroll downwards for each “part” of the book. The scrolling continues all the way until the end of the part where it will then stop. To proceed to the next part/chapter of the book, you need to single tap the right edge of your screen. Secondly, you can choose to read your eBook via the traditional method of turning page by page. This is accomplished by single tapping the right edge of your screen to advance to the next page. To head back to the previous page, you tap the left side of the screen. The third and most fun way to read your book is to let Wattpad automatically scroll through the page for you! When you activate this feature, your screen will continuously scroll downwards. You can of course choose the scroll rate.

Luckily, there are some important configurations you can tweak to help improve your reading experience. For example, you can set the font, font size,  text color and background and most important of all, toggling between normal and night mode.

In the End…

While it’s silly to compare stories written by amateurs and unknown individuals to well established authors who make a six figure income, sometimes everyone needs a breath of fresh air. Even popular authors begin to show their decline in writing after a while. This can be especially true for those who’ve earned their first big paycheck after publishing a well received book. In fact, this can be said for many other things as well, such as sports. There’s a reason why some choose to watch college basketball and football instead of the professional leagues. Many believe the amateurs, who have a lot more to prove, will play a lot harder than those who have already made it to the big boys league.

Right now, my very first book downloaded on Wattpad is called “A Touch of Poison” and it’s turning out to be pretty good! While browsing, I’ve come across many eBooks that were very long in length (lots of chapters) while some that were much shorter. Also, please do keep in mind that because eBooks uploaded to Wattpad were created by mere mortals who didn’t have the money nor the need to send their eBook to be reviewed by an editor, don’t be shocked to find spelling and grammar errors. In their defense however, many readers commonly find these same type of errors even in well published books!

I’ll repeat myself here in that Wattpad is a serious breath of fresh air. Just like with so many other things that you can get addicted to, reading is one of them. After spending so much money on books recently, I’ve decided to slow things down a bit. While some might wonder why not just browse for public domain or free Kindle books via Amazon, which there are no shortage of, its rather fun to see how creative other people can be when no money or promotion is at stake.

How it Works

Steve Gibson talked about Sandboxie exclusively in episode 172 of the Security Now podcast which you can listen below:

A very efficient and quite brilliant way to protect yourself in these situations is to isolate your browser from your hard drive/operating system. In other words, think of putting your browser application in its own “sandbox” area. You can use the browser like how you normally could but behind the scenes, the browser is isolated to its own internal area. This area is separated from all of your other applications. When bad things tries to install themselves, while it might succeed, a simple reset of the sandbox is all that’s needed and the changes will be wiped away. Your operating system will then never be the wiser. Another way to think of this is picturing how your environment works right now. When you install an application (doesn’t matter what it is), it immediately makes changes such as updating the registry with new entries and installing the actual program codes onto your hard drive. These changes and updates are live, meaning it happens immediately. Once those changes have been applied, they are then made permanent, unless of course you uninstall them. By sandboxing an application, the applications will install and make changes as normal. However, because the “area” they get to work in is isolated from the rest of the system, those changes and updates happen only in their own sandbox area and will not affect the environment outside of it. To remove the application, simply empty out the sandbox area. From your other application and operating system’s perspective, it’s as if that application didn’t exist in the first place.

Sandboxie

If you haven’t heard about Sandboxie until now, trust me, you’ll want to take the time to learn about it. It’s a beautiful application and it can help save you from a lot of headache when used properly. By viewing the animated picture below, you can easily get an idea of how Sandboxie works:

As you can see, Sandboxie doesn’t just help protect your computer from malware being installed via the browser. You can choose to put any application in its own sandbox. However, in many cases, if the application already got installed on your computer, then putting them in a sandbox might not do you a whole lot of good unless of course, it acts as some kind of gateway between the Internet and your computer like a browser. Therefore, Sandboxie is most useful when used to test new and/or untrusted applications. By running the new application in a sandbox, you can be assured that the application won’t do you any real harm should something go bad. Don’t like the application and its behavior? Simply empty the sandbox. If you conclude the application is useful, then simply empty the sandbox and then proceed to reinstall the application without using Sandboxie.

If you think about it for a second, Sandboxie is very similar to virtualization. In a past article, I detailed why you would want to use a virtual machine to test out new software. A virtual machine is awesome because software installed within the machine was isolated from your host operating system. In a way, this is similar to how Sandboxie works. With a virtual machine you could simply revert to a previous snapshot to undo the changes. With Sandboxie, you empty the sandbox. The advantage to using Sandboxie is that a user do not need to install a full blown operating system on top of their existing one. It can get confusing and without discipline, a user will simply just forget about using the virtual machine altogether because it can be a hassle to start it up each and every time. With Sandboxie, all it takes is just a couple of clicks.

Using Sandboxie

You should have a pretty good understanding of how Sandboxie works by now. Even if you do, I would still advise you to go over the FAQ pages and topics of Sandboxie. Sandboxie installs itself like any other application. Once installed, you have a icon labeled “Sandboxed Web Browser”. If you open this app, your default web browser will launch in sandbox mode. The beauty with Sandboxie is that for the most part, it is platform independent. It doesn’t matter which default browser is set. How can you tell when an application is sandboxed? For one, the applications name in the title bar will be surrounded by the [#] symbol (also reflected within Task Manager). Second, if you try moving the application window around, you’ll see the entire window surrounded by a bright yellow border.

To open any application in a sandbox using Sandboxie, simply right-click on the application icon and choose “Run Sandboxed”. That’s all there is to it. With that being done, the application will then be running in its own sandbox and should any harm come your way via that application, simply empty the sandbox area, which I’ll talk about a little later. With a sandboxed web browser, you’re probably now wondering just how the heck is it going to work when I want to download things? By default, Sandboxie includes several locations on your hard drive that should you download things to it, it will automatically allow you to “recover” those items to your actual computer. For example, if you tried to download a picture and the default location for saved files within your browser is to the Downloads folder, then Sandboxie will prompt you if you want to recover those files (the picture) to the same location on the hard drive. If you do so, you’ll then see the downloaded picture inside the Downloads folder. If you don’t choose to recover the file, then the picture will be placed within the Sandboxed content area and you’ll have to manually recover it later on.

While using Sandboxie with a web browser or any other application, you have to keep in mind that any changes you make to the browser itself (such as installing a add-on or modifying a configuration setting) will not be reflected when you run the application in normal mode afterwards. Remember, the application is sandboxed and any changes will not be saved outside of it. The reverse is also true. For example, lets say you open Firefox in Sandboxie. You play around a bit and close it. Next you open up Firefox again but this time, you don’t run it in a sandbox. Next, you proceed to install a add-on and everything works wonderfully. You close Firefox and reopen it again in a sandbox. You then find the add-on missing from the browser. This is not a mistake and its how Sandboxie works. To use the add-on in sandboxed mode, you’ll have to first empty the sandbox area. Only then when you reopen the browser with Sandboxie will the add-on appear.

Sandboxie Control Area

Sandboxie is a freeware. However, there is a paid version that allows you to use more than one sandbox. As it is in the free version, you are allowed to only create multiple sandboxes with different configurations. However, you won’t be able to use more than one at a time so it’s pretty much pointless creating them if you’re not going for the paid route. You can open the control area by double-clicking on the Sandboxie system tray icon (looks like a yellow pizza with pepperoni). Here is where you can explore your sandbox as well as emptying it. As I’m using the free version, I’ll only have the Default Sandbox to play with it.

Here, you can see that I have Firefox in sandboxed mode. I won’t go over every single detail here but only the one’s I feel are the most important and that is exploring your content and deleting your sandbox for a fresh start. Also, I want to mention that I’ve installed a simple application called Notepad++ under a sandbox as I want to show an example of how Sandboxie works. When you take a look at my installed applications in Control Panel, you can see no such item listed for Notepad++.

First, let’s explore our sandboxed contents within our default sandbox. Head over to the Sandbox menu, highlight the default sandbox, and select the Explore Contents menu option. As soon as you do, you’ll see a message box pop up with a warning. Basically, it’s telling us that the Explorer window that is about to open showing the sandbox contents will not be protected within a sandbox. However, Sandboxie is kind enough to help us here by opening whatever file you open in a protected sandbox.

Once you OK the dialog box, an Explorer window will then appear. Here, you can freely explore the contents of your default sandbox. As you traverse the folder structure, you can tell that it looks very similar to the folder structure within your actual Windows. For example, you have the AppData folder and such. As I mentioned earlier, Sandboxie is similar to virtualization. In fact, I’m sure virtualization itself plays a big part in Sandboxie. What it does is creates a similar environment for the programs to operate in. By virtualizing these folder locations, the application will not be any wiser that it’s actually installing inside a sandbox area. Microsoft also employs virtualization techniques when it comes to the User Account Control feature within Windows. In the second picture, you can see my Firefox profile folder within the sandbox. It looks pretty the same as if I browsed for the profile on my hard drive natively. By exploring your contents this way, you can freely recover any files that you deem necessary. Remember, if a program natively tries to save a file to a pre-determined area in Sandboxie, it will instantly allow you to recover it from the popup dialog box and you won’t have to actually explore the contents as I’m doing here.

Going back to my Notepad++ example, in the first of two pictures below, I browsed to the virtualized location Sandboxie installed the application. Remember, the Notepad++ application for all intents and purposes is not actually installed onto my Windows 7 machine. That is why you didn’t see it when I went into the control panel’s Program and Features applet. In the second picture, you can see Notepad++ running in a sandbox. If Notepad++ was a malicious application (trust me, its not!), then no harm will be done on my computer because it is running in the default sandbox.

To delete the contents of a sandbox, simply head over to the Sandbox menu, highlight Default Sandbox and select the Delete Contents menu option. Once you do this, your sandbox will be emptied and you will no longer be able to recover files.

In the same menu, if you select Sandbox Settings, you’ll be able to configure the behavior of your default sandbox. There are a lot of things you can control here. For example, you can configure the default recovery folders, restrict Internet access per program and a slew of other configuration settings. For the most part, you never really have to configure anything unless you really know what you are doing or you must configure Sandboxie a certain way in order to make certain applications work under sandboxed mode.

Misc. Information

Here are some important information before concluding this article on Sandboxie:

• You must have a somewhat good understanding of how Sandboxie works. This is so that you are not lured into a false sense of security. In essence you should be aware of what Sandboxie can do to protect you along with what it cannot do.
• Sandboxie cannot rewind time even if you delete its contents! In other words, if you open up Firefox under Sandboxie and sent an email you somehow wished you hadn’t, deleting the sandbox contents will not help! This might be obvious to some but you never know. For example, I wrote this entire article in a sandboxed Firefox browser. Once I publish this article, its as good as done and there is nothing Sandboxie can do to prevent that.
• You may have a hard time getting certain applications to work correctly under Sandboxie. For example, your desktop email application is one of them. If this is the case, then my usual recommendation of searching online for an answer still applies. If your application is popular enough, there is a higher chance that someone out there also tried to get it to work under Sandboxie and came up with a solution.
• Sandboxie does not replace education. If you download a dangerous piece of malware within a sandboxed browser and actually recover it and install it without running that application in a sandbox, you’re screwed.

In the end, I find Sandboxie a highly valuable addition to any personal computer system. If you have users in your household who just can’t seem to stay safe while browsing the Internet, teaching them to use Sandboxie can be a great help. If my sister can learn how to use Sandboxie and she’s a complete computer illiterate, then I’m sure so can other people as well! I’ve also recently introduced the awesome StumbleUpon feature to many users who didn’t exactly know how to explore the vast content floating out there on the Internet. Because they will be visiting all sorts of random sites with StumbleUpon, it’s imperative they have some sort of protection besides just their regular anti-virus software. With Sandboxie, you bring the complete security package to any browser as its not platform dependent. The other big advantage is that you can only choose to use Sandboxie when you want to. Its also a great solution to test out unknown software if you’re not willing to install a full blown virtual machine or have a spare computer to play with.

Sandboxie has been around for some time already and so I’m obviously late to the party in writing about it. Hopefully you’ve learned something here and to help spread the word about it as well!

Hiren’s BootCD

Going over every single utility included within HBCD is insane and of course, I won’t be doing that here! Many of the utilities will no doubt be familiar to users who have some experience with PC troubleshooting. If some tools seem unfamiliar, I would suggest you to spend a little time researching about them so that if the time for the use of that tool arises, you’ll be prepared. Having over 100+ tools at your disposal is useless if you don’t know which one to actually use to fix the problem at hand! At the very least, familiarize yourself with one or two tools from each major troubleshooting category.

One of the cool things about using HBCD is that it doesn’t depend on the operating system currently installed on the computer. HBCD includes a neat feature called Mini Windows XP where it loads a XP-like environment completely within memory (RAM) and from there, run any of the included utilities. In the past, I’ve recommended utilities such as Puppy Linux to help you recover files from an un-bootable Windows system. However, that’s all that it was really good for unless you were well versed with using Linux itself. By using HBCD, you could do that and a whole lot more simply because of all the bundled utilities. HBCD was meant to be the Swiss-army knife of PC troubleshooting. It doesn’t matter if you are a professional computer technician or just a casual computer user. Having a copy of HBCD on hand can go a long way in helping to save the day.

Here are just some screenshots of HBCD in action:

How HBCD Can Help You

I’ve always stressed the importance for users to gain some knowledge on how computers work. Especially in this day and age where electronics rule our every day lives, gaining some insight into how they work can help in many ways. My opinion is that tablet computers is a long shot away from replacing our traditional PCs and laptops especially when it comes to doing real work. Learning how to do some basic PC troubleshooting can potentially save you a lot of money considering how much nowadays a PC technician can charge. Funny thing is they’re probably using the same tools available within HBCD to do their work! In some cases, when all else fails, a computer reformat is necessary. Do you really want to spend $200+ just to have someone help you recover data when you could use HBCD to do it for free yourself and then perform a system recovery? In all likelihood, that’s what the PC technician will do anyways so why not just perform the procedure yourself? Because HBCD includes many bundled utilities, you don’t have to go software hunting. Who knows? It could be that you actually fix the problem itself with a little tinkering around.

Right now, I’m in the process of also creating a dedicated USB thumb drive to booting HBCD. I want to be prepared for whatever situation I find myself in and there were times when a malfunctioning computer would refuse to boot from the CD/DVD drive no matter what I did. From a customer’s standpoint, a technician will seem much more professional and dedicated to their job if they come to the job site prepared. Do you really want to see the technician only then to begin downloading the utilities onto your computer when they first arrive? It’s not only a waste of time but it also gives the technician a bad reputation.

From a technician’s standpoint, a copy of HBCD should follow you wherever you go. You just never know when you’ll be stuck in a situation where it could come in handy and that’s why having a copy of HBCD on a spare thumb drive is a great idea. A 1GB USB drive could be bought for less than $10. That amount of money is nothing compared to the praise and recognition you’ll receive when you find yourself using HBCD to help your boss recover his malfunctioning computer!

Romaco Timeout

Romaco Timeout’s the name and keeping your children safe is the game. OK, that was pretty lame but you won’t be saying that of the utility once you try it out! When I first tried Romaco Timeout (RT), I remembered it being able to just specify a usage quota on a user account. With the new version, you are able to do much more such as specifying websites and programs to be blocked from access and monitoring web usage.

Installing RT is your standards ordeal. Just keep hitting Next until the program gets installed.

When you first start up RT for the first time, you will asked to create a password. This is a very important step because this password is used to unlock and control the settings of the utility. You need to create a strong password and one that your kids will not be easily able to guess. For example, please do not use your favorite food as the password because your kids will most likely already know that! RT does not have a password lockout so your kids will be able to use an infinite amount of guesses to try and crack your password!

Once the password has been created, you’ll then be greeted with RT’s main interface. It might look a little daunting at first but it’s really easy to use. Also, you can skip the features you don’t want to use. For example, you can easily just use RT to create a list of websites to block while not configuring a usage quota at all! That would be a waste of the utility but you get the point.

Daily Quota Timer

OK, so the main feature of RT is allowing you the parent, to configure a use quota timer on your kids account. For example, if you only want your kids to be able to use the computer any time of the day but restrict their total daily time usage to a maximum of 4-hours, you would set a 4 hour quota limit. If your child first uses the computer for an hour then logs off, then they would only have 3 hours left for the day. If they log back in the computer 2 hours later and uses the computer for another hour, then their limit would then be down to 2 hours. Once they reach their quota limit for the day, you can configure the computer to log off and your child will not be able to log in again (sort of, continue reading below to see what I mean) until the quota limit resets, which usually happens at midnight.

Once you have the time configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Daily Quota Timer box is check marked.

The RT icon will then be displayed in the system tray (lower left hand corner). A child can simply mouse over this icon to get a quick glance at how much time they have remaining until their quota expires for the day. The icon will also turn yellow and red in color when the progress reaches 75% and 95%, respectively. After the quota expires, the user will still be able to log in but because RT is configured by default to start automatically when a user is logged in, it immediately knows that the quota has expired and will display a window asking the user to enter in the RT master password. If after 30 seconds no password has been entered, the default Action item you specified will be invoked (log off, shutdown, hibernate, ask user, etc). Restarting or shutting down the computer has no effect on the quota. Once the child logs back in, RT will continue with the quota countdown right where it left off last time.

Session Time Limit

The Session Time Limit feature of RT allows you to configure a time limit usage per log in session. The countdown begins whenever the user logs in. Once the timer has expired, the Action you specify will be invoked. However, unlike with a quota limit, the session limit is reset whenever the user logs back in to the computer (assuming the default action was to log off) or whenever the computer is restarted. By itself, I really don’t see a point for using this feature because it’s not restrictive at all. You can simply configure the session limit for your child to be 1 hour but after that amount of time has expired, your child can simply re-login to the system and the session timer resets.

Once you have the session time limit configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Session Time Limit box is check marked.

Access Window

The Access Window feature is very similar to the built-in logon/logoff scheduler inside Windows. However, whereas using Windows you could configure a different schedule for each day of the week, RT only allows you to configure a static time window. The access window is the time period you set that allows your child to log onto the computer. For example, if you want to only allow your child access to the computer between 6PM and 10PM everyday, you could set that limit here. If your child tries to log on outside of this window, they will be denied. If this feature suits your child, I would suggest using the built-in Windows feature rather than RT because it is much more granular.

Once you have the Access Window configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Access Window box is check marked.

Site Blocker

The site blocker feature simply allows you to create a list of websites you do not want your child to visit. More specifically, you are allowed to block certain domains from being accessed. Facebook is a good example or just about any other web domain you don’t want your kid to visit.

Do NOT enter in a web path such as ‘facebook.com/user/’, or include ‘http://’. Incorrect entries can cause problems with your computer’s networking, so be careful.

As soon as you add an entry here, your anti-virus software should raise an alert. This is normal because for every entry you add here, RT will add an entry into your system’s HOST file. This HOST file is consulted whenever you visit a website to see if you have any manual entries within it and if there is one matching the domain you are visiting, it will honor the setting. Here, RT will simply add the domain you want blacklisted into the HOST file and make it so that it points to the IP address of 127.0.0.1, which is simply pointing it back to your local system. Please make an exception in your antivirus software to allow RT to do its job.

Once you have Site Blocker configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Site Blocker box is check marked.

Program Blocker

The program blocker feature allows you to select which applications you do not want your child accessing. Of course, the application you want to block would have to be already pre-installed on the computer for you to select it in RT. You also have to make sure that you select the right program executable. Therefore, always test things afterward by trying to open the application after you have configured the rule in RT. The application should actually open but after a second or two, it would automatically close itself.

Once you have Program Blocker configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Program Blocker box is check marked.

Web Usage Monitor

The web usage monitor feature is one that will be very much appreciated from parents. It allows you to set a time limit on how long your child can browse the Internet per day. It does so by tracking the time spent when a browser is opened. All major browsers are supported such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer. Once the time limit has been reached, you can configure RT to disable the browsers. However, I found that this does not work exactly as advertised for some of the browsers. When the web usage limit has expired and the user has more than one tab open in the browser, the browser itself will not automatically close. Instead, in most cases, it will display a dialog box asking the user if they would like to close all the tabs or just the current tab. The user can simply exit out of this dialog box and continue using the browser. However, the dialog box will reappear very shortly and the user has no choice but to keep exiting out of the box if they want to continue. While the user is still able to use the browser, they will constantly have to close the dialog box which makes browsing very inefficient. Browsers that immediately exit even with multiple tabs open will not have this issue.

Once you have Web Usage Monitor configured, simply head back to the General tab and make sure under ‘Enabled Modules’, the Web Usage Monitor box is check marked.

Options and Misc.

The Options tab allow you to configure a couple of settings relating to RT. You could change your master password, when the warning message will appear, whether RT should automatically be started whenever the user is logged on (recommended), and to changing the wallpaper background on the Pause screen. Other buttons on the bottom of the screen allows you to reset the timer and limit.

Warnings and Notices

It’s easy to rely on a peice of software to help you limit what your child can and cannot do on a computer. However, do realize that nothing is perfect and if your child or whoever it is you are using RT to place limitations upon is tech saavy enough, they might be able to bypass these restrictions. Here are some that I can think of:

- If your child’s user account is an administrator, then he/she can simply create a new Windows user account and continue to use the computer unrestricted. After they are done with it, they can easily just delete the user account and you’ll never be the wiser. Because RT is configured on a per-user basis, the new user account they create will be free from any restrictions you place upon their original user account using RT. Therefore, it is important that your child not be given administrator privileges on the computer!

- A blocked site is one of the easiet restrictions to bypass. Your child can easily just visit a web proxy website and access the restricted site that way. Because there are literally thousands of web proxies out there, it is not possible for you to block every single one of them. An alternative is to use something like OpenDNS to block websites based on categories but again, your child only has to find one proxy server and they will have free reign. Also, don’t forget that blocking websites on the computer is completely useless if your child has a smart phone that can also access the web!

- The program blocker feature can be totally useless because if the program is not already install on the computer, it cannot be blocked. Even if you’ve configured a specific program to be blocked in RT, your child can simply bypass that limitation if they are allowed to install a different version of the program onto the computer.

- As far as web usage monitoring goes, all your child needs to do is find some third-party browser that RT has no knowledge about and they will have bypassed the restrictions. Once again, don’t forget to account for your child’s smart phone if they have one!

- Last but not least, don’t forget that a child can simply bypass RT altogether by simply booting the computer from a Linux rescue disc! This allows them to use the web anyway they see fit and any timer restrictions you put in place will be rendered completely useless.

With all that being said, you still have to give credit to the developer of Romanco Timout. This is one of the only freeware I know of that allows a user/parent to put a time restriction quota on their child’s user account within Windows. For many parents, this is a much needed feature as being able to just configure a schedule of when they can and cannot log in is not enough. The other features it incorporates is an added bonus but I feel that the timeout feature is the star here, hence the name of the utility itself. However, I’ll end this article by saying that you as a parent can never substitute good parenting by simply relying on a piece of software to do the job for you. Who knows what will hapen in the future but for now, you still have to communicate openly with your child and guide them along the way.