Ever since I built my new primary Vista desktop I have wondered why the hard drive light seems to dance along with the music as I listen to iTunes. Not giving it much thought, I just assumed that the SATA disk (first one of those for me) either read differently or maybe the disk activity LED on this … [Read more...]
Review: AnchorFree Hotspot Shield 1.14
Free wireless access points (WAPs) are a very welcome convenience for our mobile lives. Whether at the airport, hotel, library, coffee shop, or even finding a neighbor that has not secured his home wireless network, you do not have to travel very far to quickly hop on to the information … [Read more...]
Personal Productivity – Start Pages with My Yahoo
If you are like me, staying organized is a cyclical thing. I enjoy doing it but it is such an encompassing task that it sometimes gets put off for too long. Lately I have found myself having too many browsers with too many tabs open at the same time and I've had enough. I'm not exactly sure why it … [Read more...]
Free Apps You Want!
Building a new PC? Taking time to backup and reinstall a clean OS on your old PC? Just need a change? Over the years, I have found that having a set of standardized applications 1) makes a system build go much faster, and 2) saves time later hunting down something when you need it, like say, a PDF … [Read more...]
April Fools Day Preparation – You MUST Act Today!
UPDATE - This website offers a test of your system to verify whether or not you are susceptible to Conficker. It's simple - if you see all six pictures, you are golden. If not, well, you may have some cleanup to do. Alas, tomorrow is the big joke day. It is also a big day of concern for IT folks … [Read more...]
AVG Antivirus Free 8.5 Released
A new version of the popular AVG Free antivirus was recently released. Version 8.5 build 283 hit the market this month and is now available for download. I think the major improvements to AVG 8.5 are personal identity protection elements that are not part of the free version. So for us cheapskates, … [Read more...]
Trojan Horse Generic 10.OOY – Identified by AVG Free
I was importing a Gmail email account into my local MS Live Mail client and AVG promptly identified a threat known as, "Trojan Horse Generic 10.OOY". I didn't have much luck with a Google search of the threat name, so I went about my own merry way of getting to the bottom of it. I was able to track … [Read more...]
Heur.Pck.MEW (UPDATE)- Comodo Internet Security Updated Today
Comodo released an update today. Per their release notes, the areas addressed are as follows: Comodo Internet Security - Release Notes Version 3.8.65951.477 : 26th Feb, 2009 FIXED! Applications do not run when CIS is installed in Vista 64 FIXED! BSOD in Windows XP 64 when NWLink protocol is … [Read more...]
Testing Your Firewall For Outbound Connections, and Why You Should Do It
As part of my ongoing paranoia that my PC's are compromised, I found a free simple little utility to help test the mettle of my current software firewall of choice (Comodo Internet Security). Steve Gibson (GRC.COM) is a well known and respected source of data and security information and he has … [Read more...]
REVIEW: AusLogics Disk Defrag
(click the picture above to download) Its not that I don't believe when Vista tells me the it is routinely defragmenting my hard disk drive, but I am a visual person and have grown up watching the defrag process occur before my eyes. I found a free utility, AusLogics Disk Defrag that gives you a … [Read more...]