purelocke

AVG 9 ( Free Edition ) now available for download

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:36:00 +0000

For PC users who are looking for an alternative free anti-virus software, and for those who are current users of AVG 8.5, the most current version of the popular free anti-virus is now available for download.

I just wished the "Game mode" feature was also a part of the free version, but I guess AVG still needs to keep features that will give users a reason to upgrade to the "Full" version.

Links

Understanding robots.txt

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, presents and discusses how Google handles the robots.txt file. Watch the video below, follow and share comments on Matt's blog or discuss the video on YouTube.

Resources

Robots exclusion standard ( Wikipedia )
Block or remove pages using a robots.txt ( Google webmaster tools )
Robot Control Code Generation Tool
Search Engine Optimization 101 ( Nettuts )

Google to release a new Chrome-based OS in 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:35:00 +0000

Google announced on July 7, 2009 that they will be releasing a new browser-based ( Google Chrome ) OS sometime in 2010 ( according to them, it will be in netbooks by the second half of the same year ). Google Chrome OS will be open sourced this year, so developers who will be working on it once it is in private beta, could give their hands-on experience on the current state of the OS at that point. According to the announcement, Chrome OS will be a light operating system, with a ( Google developed ) windowing system and the Chrome browser as the user facing application. Many are really excited with the announcement, but there is also a large camp who are really skeptical of how impactful this new OS will be. The hype around the new operating system is pretty strong, but the lack of information about the mysterious product maybe the only cause for this. Google is not alone in pursuing a web-centric OS, with Crunchpad and Intel's Moblin also having the same goals - to make machines that rely more on the network than on traditional desktop apps.

For further reading:

Fontsquirrel: Free and High Quality Fonts

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:48:00 +0000

Fontsquirrel aggregates free, high-quality fonts that have all commercial-use licenses for designers and font addicts.

Fonts are available in OpenType and TrueType, and are further categorized according to "style".

Links:

Conficker Removal Toolbox

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:51:00 +0000

I recently needed to remove Conficker on some Windows XP machines, and downloaded some of the removal tools available from Anti-Virus companies and Microsoft. I also used a Portable copy of ClamWin, which was useful as Conficker would not allow the installed AV to run updates. I've zipped and uploaded the following tools to Mediafire, to serve as an emergency copy and for others to use if they are not able to download from the different AV vendor sites ( a Conficker infected machine will have difficulty downloading from AV sites ).

You can use the Conficker Eye Chart to check if you are infected by Conficker.

If you want to try and download removal tools directly from their sources ( or if you are in a different machine that is not infected ), you can use this list provided by the Conficker Working Group. You can also check their Home page as well as their FAQ to read more about Conficker.

If you want to download the removal tools that I've collected as the Conficker Removal Toolbox, you can follow this link. The list of things that you'll find in the zip file are:

Symantec Downadup Removal Tool
BDTools from BitDefender
Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
ClamWin Portable ( extracted and updated on April 26, 2009 )

Resources:

Convert Documents to PDF with the Document Converter Express

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:41:00 +0000

Neevia Document Converter eXpress is a very handy online tool for converting your documents to other file formats right on the browser. I tested and used it for converting PNGs to PDFs, and the conversion process was fast and completed without any problems. I used the "Wait for conversion in browser" option, but you can also specify an email address and have the link to the download page emailed to you instead. The file size limit for uploads is 1 MB.

The supported Output formats are:

PDF
PDF/A
PostScript
EPS
BMP
JPEG
TIFF
PCX
PNG
GIF

Neevia Document Converter eXpress is a free online tool, but the company also offers paid desktop programs for creating and modifying PDFs.

Link: Neevia Document Converter eXpress

Portable and Free eXpress CheckSum Calculator

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:53:00 +0000

I've been recently downloading Linux distros, through bittorrent and direct iso downloads, and one of the tools that I found very helpful in checking the validity of the files that I download is the eXpress CheckSum Calculator. You can match the values calculated by XCSC against the given and previously generated checksum values for files that you download online. The tool supports CRC32, MD5 and SHA-1. If you need to find the checksum for a group of files, you can also use another program from the same developer, the eXpress CheckSum Verifier (which is also portable and free).

Details :

Developer : Irnis Haliullin Cost : Free Supported OS : Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP/Vista Supported algorithms : CRC32 (Cyclic Redundancy Code), MD5 (Message Digest number 5) and SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm). Download Size : 263Kb ( Self-extracted EXE file )

Resources and Links

Firefox 3 hits 8 million downloads in 24 hrs.

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:22:00 +0000

Congratulations to Mozilla and the Firefox team for the very successful Firefox Download Day and being just a step away (awaiting confirmation) from a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. The total downloads after 24 hours totaled around 8 million, with almost the whole civilized world joining the download spree, and the United States topping the list of countries with completed downloads. As a side note, Opera also released the version 9.5 of their desktop browser last June 12, which also had great reviews and buzz going around, getting downloaded 4.7 million times for the first five days after it was launched. The great numbers of downloads for both browsers in such a short span of time will definitely affect the current Usage Share of web browsers ( Firefox has 17.76% usage share, while Opera has 0.69%, as opposed to the 74.83% of Internet Explorer - As of April 2008 ) cutting more into the considerable piece of the pie commanded by Internet Explorer.

I've been using Firefox 3 ever since downloading and installing it on my main system, and I must say it runs much faster, with I believe the memory leak issues in the past being resolved in the current version. I still see spikes in memory usage, but it is much lower than Firefox 2, which really became a memory hog with like email, some web apps, and a few more tabs open. I've read mixed reactions to the Smart Location Bar ( also known as the "Awesome Bar" - this feature is an autocomplete function that uses your browsing history and bookmarks ), but overall I really like it and it has given reliable results that matches what sites I want to go to. Another feature that I like is the Anti-Virus integration when downloading files - Firefox 3 ( on Windows of course ) integrates with the installed and running AV software and scans the file being downloaded automatically. I personally scan everything I download, and this feature actually does save me time, and for some who are not so security-minded, it may save their PC from malicious software and files. The new "One-Click Bookmarking" also sounds great, but have not played around the Bookmarks Organizer on my Firefox much, as I've migrated my growing list to Google Bookmarks.

Resources and Links:

Firefox 3 Released Today

noreply@blogger.com (Sirius) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:10:00 +0000

The latest version of the Firefox web browser was just released today.

Firefox 3 is a leap into maturity, as the beloved Mozilla product moves forward with great features that make it easier for its users to experience the "new and dynamic" Web. Some of the key features are Improved Memory Management, Instant Web ID ( anti-phishing ), Smart Location Bar and Improved Bookmarking process. If you want to know more about what Firefox 3 brings to the table, Lifehacker has a great rundown of the Top 10 Firefox 3 Features, or you can read in full the Firefox Features page.

Download it here.

Useful Links :

"Don't Give Up On Vista" - Apple Ad

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:01:00 +0000

There's a hilarious web ad from Apple being shown around popular sites. It combines a top banner ad saying "Don't Give Up on Vista" with a tower ad on the side which involves the "Mac" and "PC" characters from the well-known Apple Mac advertisements.

Watch the video capture below ( via MacRumors ):

Update to Safari 3 Beta for Windows - Ver. 3.0.4

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:10:00 +0000

Safari for Windows has just been updated to 3.0.4 , with new features added and of course improvements in "Security and Stability". I've been using Safari for Windows for testing purposes and have found the initial release buggy and slow at times. Hopefully with this upgrade, Safari on Windows would work as "smooth" as Firefox and Opera.

Links:
Safari download page.
"About the Safari 3 Beta Update 3.0.4 for Windows" .

Marvel Comics offers free issues online

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:05:00 +0000

Marvel Comics now offers free back issues of familiar titles like X-Men and Spiderman. The digital editions could be viewed online and there are no options to download. The viewer has a pretty decent interface, and has options for different viewing modes, has a zoom function, and usable next / previous buttons.

Link to complete list of free issues.

Congratulations to the 2007 Weblog Winners

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:58:00 +0000

Congratulations to the winners of the 2007 Weblog Awards - you all deserve the compliments and the recognition. Some of the notable winners:

Best Blog - PostSecret
Best Technology Blog - Engadget
Best Literature Blog - Neil Gaiman's journal
Best Podcast - This Week in Tech

For the complete list - visit the 2007 Weblog Awards site.

Make your vote count - 2007 Weblog Awards

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:12:00 +0000

2007 Weblog Awards : Last few days of voting for your favorite blogs, podcasts, vidcasts and independent content sites - besides voting for those that you've followed over the years or just recently, discover new content from the different categories showcased.

A Blogger Experience Comparison - 2006 vs. 2007

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:01:00 +0000

I'm really not sure when all these changes happened to Blogger, but after not opening this account for a whole year, exploring the control panel has been a surprise and a pleasure. What prompted me really to open Blogger was Prism , which is a Mozilla product that works the opposite of what new and modern browsers are -it is simple and takes away the menu clutter and lets you just play with a specific web application. And so, while I was opening my "Web Apps" in Prism I thought of Blogger and wanted to see how it would feel to blog without the distraction of my web mail open in another tab and an article from Wired on another. Just you and application staring face to face. And so I was really surprised to find that you can now customize your sidebar and easily add content to whatever part of your blog. This was not so when I started using Blogger - I remembered sites that featured clever ways of creating Tags for blog entries, for inserting a header image ( which I wrote about 2 years ago ) and for other things that the platform lacked ( or that other blogging platforms offered ). The templates are basically the same as before ( as I remember ) except for 1 or two additional templates. But right now, choosing a template is much easier. Testing how fast it was to setup a blog - I could very well say that it is easier and much more polished than before - setup could take as fast as 5 - 10 minutes including inserting a widget, adsense and tags to the sidebar. Looking back - to add content to the sidebar meant editing the HTML and knowing what you we're doing, which is in contrast to what is capable through the control panel right now, adding anything is just a few clicks, copy-paste and save away. Letting users add javascript without opening the HTML makes customization fast and easy.

Note: The new blogger template customization tool needs you to upgrade first - which means that customization that you've done with your current template would be lost, but you can always go back or revert to your old template if you wish to do so. For this blog, I used the new template for a couple of days but reverted back, as I'm more used to HTML than XML ( you can download the XML and edit it elsewhere to customize, etc. ,but the point of the tool is to give the user freedom to change parts of the blog without understanding the code )

Overall - improvements may not be "astounding" for most, but they sure made me feel that the product as whole has matured a lot. And after a year of silence, it's nice to be blogging again.

A year after

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 01:30:00 +0000

Yes, we're undergoing a major revamp, both in looks and in content. Right now the template being used is one of the defaults for Blogger, this is a temporary thing, as a new template is currently being designed and should be fully integrated into the site in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we hope to post more stories, reviews, commentaries and other written goodies. Thanks for your visit, and have a wonderful day!

Will Google regret buying YouTube?

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 14:40:00 +0000

Yes, the inevitable has occurred, YouTube has been bought by Google. No one ever really wanted YouTube to die of capital starvation, which at the reported cost of its bandwidth expenses alone amounted to a few months of survival. And with no concrete signs of immediate monetization besides Google Adsense, YouTube was definitely on its way to be listed as one of the first casualties of the "new Web economy". Fortunately, Google saw a future in You Tube that merited a $1.65 billion deal, an amount that is the largest in Google's acquisitions. Now, back to the question, will Google regret buying YouTube? Here are my points:

Google had a chance (or not?) to capture the same market with their Google Videos, but the traction probably was slow enough that they decided to just buy the brand of "YouTube". The community behind YouTube was the X factor, that part of the equation that other video sites could not or are trying to equal. And so they were actually buying the brand and the loyal community behind it.
$1.65 billion dollars. Wow. That's a big investment for a company that is all potential and has no track record for earning. Long term investment? Probably not a good one if the progression of the Web is to be followed....if YouTube does succeed in monetizing, it has to innovate and reinvent itself to be able to get back even a small amount of the current buyout price.
Will Google turn YouTube into a paid video download site, where you can still view sneak peeks of movies and purchase those that you like. Those videos that users upload will for surely remain as a staple feature for the community, and remember, YouTube technically owns anything that you upload. A small price for free hosting.
The monthly expenses for YouTube's bandwidth is not a small thing, remember Yahoo's acquisition of Flickr? Well, they are definitely not monetizing through it, and need to shell out the money for keeping Flickr afloat.

Well, Google may have a plan up its sleeves, I just hope that their magic rubs off on their new acquisition, YouTube.

"Registry editing has been disabled by administrator"

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:56:00 +0000

Situation : You are logged in as an admin, but this message still appears when you try to access the Windows Registry Editor. This could happen for a number of reasons ( the last time I encountered it was after a WGA update).

What you can do:

Open a command window (Start > Run > cmd)
Type in the following and press Enter :
reg delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersionPolicies\System /v DisableRegistryTools
Type "Y" and press Enter when it asks you to confirm the action.
Close the command window, and try opening the registry editor again.

USBCELL : USB-rechargeable AA batteries

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:38:00 +0000

Not much "new" developments on battery technology have been made in the last few years, besides using new materials to achieve better or longer performance for our multitude of gadgets.Thus, when I saw the announcement for a USB-rechargeable battery, I thought : "why didn't this come sooner". It was an idea that was just ripe and ready, and with USBCELL's AA batteries , the timing couldn't have been much sweeter.

The USBCELL AA battery acts and looks like a normal rechargeable battery, but instead of using a separate charger, you just need to plug it into a USB port and charging occurs effortlessly. With most us having direct access to PCs that have USB ports, the hassle of bringing a charger is avoided. The capacity of USBCELL is 1300mAH and full charge is achieved after 5 hours of being connected to a powered USB port.

Links:
USBCELL website
USBCELL FAQ

Microsoft Security Updates for September 2006

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:58:00 +0000

Yes, it's the time of the month for the Microsoft updates to be automatically downloaded, or applied in some other administrative way. Well, this month's updates are composed of : 1 Critical update for MS Publisher 1 Important update for Reliable Multicast Program 1 Moderate update for Windows Indexing Service See more from the MS Technet.

The New Apple iPod shuffle: world's smallest music player

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:22:00 +0000

The new Apple iPod shuffle packs 1 GB of flash memory for only $79, and offers the portability of a matchcase. The new shuffle has a clip at the backside that makes it easy to carry, just slip on the clip to a shirt pocket and you're all set to go.

Links:
The iPod Shuffle page
Tech Specs page

Removing Startup Items

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 05:11:00 +0000

Many of the bothersome issues that we have are caused by unwanted programs running at startup. Many applications would automatically configure itself to run whenever you turn on your system, and they are not just annoying, but they also take up memory that should be allocated somewhere else. Also, malware or spyware could also insert their own startup entry so that they could run together with your other startup items. Here are the ways to remove startup items in Windows.

1. Removing Programs in the Windows Startup Folder

Click on Start > All Programs > Startup Folder

Simply delete the items or programs that you want to prevent from starting up. You can also manually find the folder, just to be sure nothing is hidden. To open the folder, got to C: (or where your OS is installed) > Documents and Settings > All Users > Start Menu > Programs > Startup .

Look at the contents and delete what you know is unnecessary.

2. MSCONFIG

The Systems Configuration Utility is another place you need to visit make sure that the only programs running at startup are the ones you know acknowledge.

Again click on Start > Run. Type MSCONFIG at the Run box and press ENTER. The System Configuration Utility should open up. Select the STARTUP tab, and go throughout the list of Startup items. Uncheck those that you don't want to run at startup.

The entries in MSCONFIG may differ from the real names of applications. You might want to open windowsstartup.com and use their knowledgebase to search for the different startup items that you have.

Simply uncheck those unwanted entries and click on Apply and OK out of MSCONFIG. A restart would be asked for, if you're not doing anything else, just say Yes.

3. REGEDIT

The last resort would be to manually find the programs' entries on the registry. To access the Registry, just open another RUN box and type REGEDIT. On the Registry Editor, click on the plus (+) sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > MICROSOFT > WINDOWS > CURRENTVERSION > RUN. On the right panel, select the entry for the program and just delete it. Also look at the following location : HKEY_CURRENT_USER > SOFTWARE > MICROSOFT > WINDOWS > CURRENTVERSION > RUN.

Reminder: Be careful in editing or modifying the registy as it may cause you OS to be inoperable or other weird things to happen.

Happy Hunting!

Trying out Microsoft Office 2007 beta 2

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:19:00 +0000

You can now beta test the next Office suite from Microsoft by downloading or ordering a beta copy of Microsoft Office 2007 which you can use up to Feb. 1, 2007 (Expiration date for the trial when afterwards functionality would be reduced) If you are planning to download and test the beta, make sure to check the system requirements, as your system may not be able to support the applications included. Download requires registration.

Links:
Download Microsoft Office 2007 beta 2
System requirements for Microsoft Office 2007

Adding your most used folders to the Send To menu

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 21:50:00 +0000

Folders are the standards by which we categorize or group our files (I mean offline), and in my case, I have so many folders hidden inside main folders, hidden inside different partitions. Both for work or for personal use, using the Send To menu (of course accessible through the right-click of the mouse) is very useful because you can directly point files towards commonly used folders instead of going through the Windows Explorer and using the copy/cut-paste method to organize files. Here's a quick walkthrough to get your Send To menu as first option to transfer files:

Look for the folder you want to include in the Send To menu. Right click on the folder and click on Send To and then Desktop(create shortcut). Now you have a shortcut on the desktop.
Open My Computer and access the drive where you have your Windows installed. (most probably C:)
Open the Documents and Settings folder and open the folder corresponding to your username.
Open the Send To folder, where you can find the items that you see when you try to use the Send To menu. If you can't find this folder, then you need to go into Tools > Folder Options > View > Hidden Files and Folders > select Show hidden files and folders.
Now, cut the shortcut that you've made on the desktop, and paste it inside the Send To folder.
Do the same with whatever folder you want to include to the Send To menu.

createTextRange vulnerability in IE: Disable Active scripting or use another browser

noreply@blogger.com (purelocke) — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 03:55:00 +0000

The flaw is caused by how Internet Explorer handles createTextRange tags, and could let malicious software run and install itself. Microsoft has not yet offered a patch, though it should be on the April 11 updates. Numerous websites have been identified that exploit the vulnerability. In a recent article from CNet it is reported that e-mail spams containing excerpts of BBC stories are being sent out, and readers are redirected to forged BBC webpages. Once the infected site is visited, a keylogger is pushed into the system, and user information like usernames and passwords are captured and collected.

Until the patch is released, users of Internet Explorer could do the following:

Disable active scripting:

On the IE browser, click on Tools and select Internet Options
Click on the Security tab, click on Internet and then select Custom Level
On the Security settings look for Scripting. Set Active Scripting to either Disable or Prompt. Click OK.
Now back to the Internet Options, Click Local intranet, and then Custom Level. Repeat step no. 3.

Download and Use another browser :

Use Firefox or Opera as your browser.

Update:

Microsoft has released a cumulative patch for IE, which is found in the Microsoft Security Bulletin. Together with the April 11 IE updates are patches for MDAC, Outlook Express and Frontpage.