DirectX 10 will end backwards compatibility

Another move from MS to move forward leaving its own previous version behind.

Link:
http://news.softpedia.com/.../DirectX-10-and-so-it-ends-7762.shtml

"For Your Eyes Only": How to lock a file

Locking a file or folder is often overlooked by Windows XP users and can be very handy in households where many people share a single computer.

Link:
http://blogs.msdn.com/tiptalk/archive/2005/10/14/481265.aspx

Firefox 1.5 is now out!

Firefox v1.5:
http://www.mozilla.com/

Amazing what some people spend time on

Do this in Windows:

"Start Menu", "Run", CMD

Then Type:
telnet 193.202.115.241

Its safe and has been tested..

Email from FBI is a virus

Any emails from the FBI is nothing more than a virus.

I am only posting this to help propogate the information as I'm sure nobody that reads this blog would ever be fooled so easily.

The world's most advanced search engine?

Previewseek.com claims to be the world's most advanced search engine. Try and decide for yourself.

Paint.net v2.5 final released

I blogged somtime in September about a free alternative to the paint program that comes with Windows called Paint.NET.

v2.5 is out of beta and has been officially released at Paint.NET

"About
Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

It is meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows."

Pandora's Box of CSS Hacks...

If you are a web developer and using CSS for your presentation layer than this article is a must. You are using CSS aren't you? If not you should be...

Article:
http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_11.html

Another DVD type format to challange Blu-Ray and HD DVD

Read all about a 300GB DVD type media that will go on sale in 2006. This format uses the same principles as Blu-Ray and HD DVD but uses a different technique to cram more information onto the disc.

The structural failures of Windows

"Because I have some knowledge of the history of operating systems, I'll now take on the duty of demonstrating the architectural flaws, and a bit about how they got there. Before starting, I'll also state that there isn't a flawless operating system out there, just some that have poor or weak architecture"

Link:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15305

What does PC Magazine think of Firefox 1.5

Read the review of what PC Magazines thinks of the upcoming release of Firefox 1.5.

Google Video: Matrix Ping Pong

Too funny.

Link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8079411349144989883

New version of MS Antisypware

Still in beta but the new release of MS Antispyware extends the expiration day until July 21st, 2006.

If you aren't using this then what are you waiting for? This is one of those must use tools.

Still my big three for cleaning a computer:

1. SpyBot Search and Destroy
2. Adaware
3. Microsoft Antispyware (beta)

Also, add CCleaner as honorable mention.

A history of Windows

20 years of Windows: Windows has seen many changes in its 20-year career. Here, we look at those versions which have evolved directly from the very first version, see how we got here from there - and what thrilled and chilled along the way

http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,39020463,39237496,00.htm

Add your folders to the Open / Save dialogbox

This is the Windows XP Pro way to customize the Places Bar (folders listed on the left of the dialogbox) in the standard Open / Save dialogbox.

1. Open the Group Policy Editor by opening the start menu -> run -> gpedit.msc
2. Drill down to Windows Explorer User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Common Open File Dialog
3. Double-click the Items displayed in Places Bar setting
4. Make sure the setting is Enabled
5. Customize the Place to display with your folders*.

* - You can use Common Shell Folders by using any of the following folders: CommonDocuments, CommonMusic, CommonPictures, Desktop, MyComputer, MyDocuments, MyFavorites, MyMusic, MyNetworkPlaces, MyPictures, Printers, ProgramFiles, Recent

Now you're saying what if I don't run WinXP Pro? Well you need to either use TweakUI or edit the registry directly.

Registry location:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER -Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\PlacesBar

String value (name will be Place0 to Place4):
"Place0"="c:\\temp"

The above will only work for the Windows dialogbox and not the Microsoft Dialogbox. The following can be followed to modify these dialogboxes too: Office 2000 | Office XP | Office 2003

...some additional hacks can be found in Veign's Registry Hacks...

New version of AVG anti-virus released.

"The new version of AVG Free provides increased scanning speed as well as additional improvements which include a new event-history log and added options for filename extension definitions."

• Automatic update functionality
• The AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run
• The AVG E-mail Scanner, which protects your e-mail
• The AVG On-Demand Scanner, which allows the user to perform scheduled and manual tests
• Free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product
• AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files

Link:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

Detailed information about the $400 laptops

The sub-$400 laptop:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/.../detail.php?id=25&page=2

99 Useful Run Commands

99 Useful Run Commands offers another way to access some common Windows components.

Pandora

"Tell us one of your favorites songs or artists and we'll create a station that explores that part of the music universe."

Link:
http://www.pandora.com/

Between that and Woxy.com (alittle out there at times but some good songs come by) seems that all bases are covered.

New screenshots of Windows Vista

New screenshots of Windows Vista November CTP release - Build 5259:
http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/vista/nov05ctp/

What is:

• System Rating
• Program Defaults
• MigWiz (Migration Wizards I guess)

I know alot of people don't like the interface but I think its very attractive and easy to look at. What are your thoughts on the new look to Windows?

Google's Click to Call

"We're testing a new product that gives you a free and fast way to speak directly to the advertiser you found on a Google search results page – over the phone"
http://www.google.com/help/faq_clicktocall.html

Now that is a great idea...

Reason to read your registered URL in all lower case.

List of some URL's where the webmaster failed to read the URL in lower case. People don't always read something the same way as you intended..

Should we be worried about Google?

Disturbing facts about Google:
http://www.rinf.com/news/nov05/googlefacts.html

"Google are clearly gathering information about us but refuse to tell us why. It's nothing new to us, but while they cannot control normal SERPs, they do however control the information given via the news service. There's something fishy going on over at Google."

Color scheme chooser - HTML color codes

"This HTML color code tool is based on classic color theory pioneered by Johannes Itten in the mid 1900s. Johannes Itten developed a new kind of color wheel that changed the way color was seen. This wheel is still in use today. The Johannes Itten wheel uses yellow, red and blue as its primary colors."

Link:
http://www.siteprocentral.com/html_color_code.html

Ten to Avoid--the Worst Products of 2005

Ten to Avoid--the Worst Products of 2005:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,,1891472,00.asp

WordPress out of Beta and doors are opened wide

WordPress.com is an easy and powerful way to start blogging:
http://wordpress.com/

You think its annoying, I think its cool

Best Xmas Lights Display Ever:
http://www.mypartypost.com/.../Best_Christmas_Lights_Display_Ever

Direct Link to the video:
http://media.mypartypost.com/.../christmaslights.wmv

Very interesting read about Google

"Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig."

...Read More

Windows XP in 3D?

Sphere 3D:
http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/

Not sure this has any use and looks kinda like something you would see in Windows Vista instead. Anyway, download and judge for yourself.

Google makes things faster too

Google's web accelerator works with your browser to help web pages show up in a snap.

One thing I question is in their statement on how it works they state "Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.". What pages are they prefetching? Is this some sort of 'deal' they setup with some companies?

Also, it seems they will store information about you and your browsing habits. This could be used to send target ads to you at sometime in the future. From their FAQ: Google will receive your requests for unencrypted pages (those with "HTTP:", not "HTTPS:", at the beginning of the URL), along with information such as the date and time of the request, your IP address, and computer and connection information.

I was going to install this but not sure at this point. Anyone try it?

Its just a joke, a break from the tech stuff

A woman gets onto a bus with her baby.

The bus driver says, "That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!"

The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, "The driver just insulted me!"

The man says, "You go right up there and tell him off. Go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you."

ActiveSync 4.1 released from Microsoft

Microsoft releases ActiveSync 4.1:
http://www.microsoft.com/.../activesync41.mspx

Ping+

Windows (all):
Ping (more info): Verifies IP-level connectivity to another TCP/IP computer by sending Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Echo Request messages.

Works from a command prompt

Windows XP:
PathPing (more info): Works like Ping above but adds the Tracert functionality.

Works from a command prompt

(addition command line tools for WinXP)

PingPlotter:
"PingPlotter is a network troubleshooting and diagnostic tool. It uses a combination of traceroute, ping, and whois to collect data quickly, and then allows you to continue to collect data over time to give you the information you really need to identify problems (both short-term and long-term trends)."

MP3 music source too good to be true?

AllofMp3.com provides a very cheap service to download mp3's. You decide for yourself if this service is too good to be true and if by downloading the MP3's you are violating copyright laws..

How to reset your Windows XP Admin password

I Forgot My Administrator Password!

"If that’s your only problem, then you probably have nothing to worry about. As long as you have your Windows XP CD, you can get back into your system using a simple but effective method made possible by a little known access hole in Windows XP."

Read on:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305

Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet

Machines and objects to overtake humans on the Internet:
http://www.breitbart.com/.../051117122039.bk8qci9l.html

Firefox 1.5 RC3 released - for real!

The possible last release candidate version of the next release of Firefox (v1.5) is now out. It is not on the homepage yet but can be found on the ftp site.

$100 laptop in the future?

$100 laptop expected in late 2006:
http://news.com.com/.../2100-1028_3-5956402.html?tag=nefd.top

Jumped the gun with Firefox

The announcement yesterday that the new version of Firefox (1.5) was ready for release was just not true.

You can see here the entire list of Firefox releases and its still at RC2..

Google Base

Google Base is a place where you can add all types of information that we'll host and make searchable online.

Free alternatives to Macromedia and Adobe software

Free alternatives to Macromedia and Adobe:
http://.../free-alternatives-to-macromedia-and-adobe-software

Manage profiles in Firefox and Netscape

You may already know that in Firefox and Netscape you can have multiple profiles which allows users (profiles) to share the same application but customize the interface, load your own bookmarks, load and install different extensions, blah blah blah. What you might not know how to do is create and manage these profiles as its not that clear - which I found out when trying to create a new profile in Netscape to do some testing for the upcoming release of Link200.

The way I found to do this is start either application with a -profilemanager startup argument. So that means typing in the Run window:

firefox.exe -profilemanager

or

netscape.exe -profilemanager

Will start either of the applications with the profile manager. You can also change the target of the shortcut to either of the above for the same result.

Firefox 1.5 going live today!

Rumor is that Firefox 1.5 will be released sometime today.

"Here's just a few of many things you can expect to see in Firefox 1.5:

• Support for SVG, Canvas, CSS3 Columns, Javascript 1.6
  
• Revised Option Window icluding a new "Clear Private Data" option
  
• Binary patching with an enhanced automatic update system, eliminating the need to reinstall Firefox for an update or subsequent release
  
• Significant decrease in page rendering time
  
• Instant "Back/Foward" browser cache along with tab "Drag and Drop" functionality
  
• Hundreds of program/stability related bugfixes"

Although the features are real I have a feeling that the news story was a hoax as the related link has gone missing (I had to remove from this post)

Another Root Kit tool

I posted a link to the Root Kit Revealer on the Sysinternals website and stumbled across another Root Kit tool. I came across a link to Root Kit Analyzer on DonationCoder.com's forums.

This tool seems to work nicely in conjunction from the tool from Sysinternals. Seems that one doesn't replace the other but work side by side.

Quick Link:
Root Kit Analyzer

Microsoft Windows for free?

Microsoft eyes making desktop apps free:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+eyes+making+desktop+apps+free/...

"Even as Microsoft readies a host of new ad-supported online services to battle rivals, the software maker has been mulling a plan to offer free, ad-supported versions of some of its desktop products, CNET News.com has learned.

Although no specific plans have been made, executives within Microsoft are examining whether it makes sense to release ad-supported versions of products such as Works, Money, or even the Windows operating system itself, according to internal documents seen by CNET News.com."

Google changes its algorithm

"There has been a major update of Google’s ranking algorithm, changing the way the search engine orders search results. Atul Gupta of RedAlkemi discusses the consequences for webmasters."

Some of the changes so far:
1. Value of incoming links
2. Value of anchor text in incoming links
3. Content on page of incoming links
4. Keyword repetitions in anchor text
5. Age of the incoming links
6. Nature of sites linking to you
7. Directory links
8. Speed and volume of incoming links created
9. Value of reciprocal links
10. Impact of outbound links / links page on your website
11. Sandbox effect / age of your site, domain registration date
12. Size of your site’s content
13. Addition and frequency of fresh content update
14. Canonical / sub domains, sub-sub domains
15. Multiple domains on same IP numbers
16. Duplicate content on same site or on multiple domains
17. Over-optimization, excessive text markup
18. Irrational use of CSS

Jagger Algo Update:
http://www.pandia.com/...jagger-algo-update-part-1.html

Sony: No More Rootkit - For Now

Sony: No More Rootkit - For Now:
http://www.sysinternals.com/.../sony-no-more-rootkit-for-now.html

Isn't this what the Mac OS does already?

Deskloops:
"Imagine yourself at the center of a virtual loop where all the windows you use are spread out around you. Whichever window you need to view can be centered in front of you with a click of a button."

I have no idea it it does or it doesn't but I believe this is the way the Mac OS works with its taskbar.

I tend to stay very far away from customizations like this or Window Blinds.

Microsoft will wipe Sony's 'rootkit'

"The Redmond, Wash., software maker has determined that the "rootkit" piece of the XCP software on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs can pose a security risk to Windows PCs, according to a posting Saturday to a Microsoft corporate Web log."

Link:
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+will+wipe+Sonys+rootkit/...

Get Google page rank in the Firefox statusbar

If you are like me, then you want to be aware of the page rank of the site you are viewing. Also, if you are like me then you are browsing the web using Firefox. The Google Page Rank extension gives you the page rank in Firefox in a very convienent place, the statusbar (bottom of the browser window).

I also came across ListZilla which catalogs and lists all the extensions you have installed.

Usage Monitor v1.6 released

A new version of Usage Monitor has been released.


Changes in this release:

• Processes failing to display after pressing refresh on some Win2K systems
• Properly sorts columns based on either numerical data or memory size
  

Usage Monitor lets you set watch various process properties and be alerted when a user set limit has been reached. Watch limits can be placed on Memory Usage, GDI Objects, and USER Objects.

Even more Black Friday ads

Check out a more complete list of Black Friday ads. This is far beyond the Wal-Mart list I posted.

For those who don't know, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (US) when hords of people crowd the stores looking for deals.

Festivus for the rest of us

Happy Holidays!

Bypass phone menus to get to a human (phone support)

"Companies are increasingly hiding their employees behind IVR systems to make their customers instead deal with computers. Here are the secret numbers and tips to bypass IVR phone menus to get to a human."

Link:
http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/

Are you brave enough for Firefox 1.5 RC2

If so then download Release Candidate 2 of the next major version for Firefox, v1.5.

I wasn't brave enough to put it on my main system but my girlfriends computer is now running Firefox 1.5 release candidate's - she'll never know.

Sony BMG Pulls CD Software

Sony BMG Pulls CD Software:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1885769,00.asp

"Music publisher Sony BMG said on Friday it would stop making CDs that use a controversial technology to protect its music against illegal copying."

One more web tool to add to the list

I posted a list of some of the web tools I use and forgot one great resource. DNS Stuff offers just about every DNS tool you could imagine.

Oops, can't catch everything.

Paint.NET v2.5 Beta 5 released today

I blogged somtime in September about a free alternative to the paint program that comes with Windows called Paint.NET. Well a new version of Paint.NET was released today - get it while its hot!

"About
Paint.NET is image and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Server 2003. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

It is meant to be a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows."

Will Microsoft step in with Sony DRM issue?

Microsoft 'Concerned' by Sony DRM:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1884677,00.asp

"Microsoft Corp. is concerned about rootkit features in CDs from Sony BMG artists and is evaluating the situation to see if any action needs to be taken, a spokesperson said."

CCleaner is one of the best cleaners I have come across

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history.

Ran the Internet cleaning part last night and it cleaned somewhere around 80,000 files. This is after I used the Options from within IE to remove all files, cookies, and history. That's alot of crap left over.

I cleaned things in a very systematic way and examained everything before removing. This tool does a great job at identifying problems. This tool is so good we may even see it on The Great Software List someday (Zaine?).

OverLib is worth checking out

overLIB is a JavaScript library created to enhance websites with small popup information boxes (like tooltips) to help visitors around your website.

And the Sony story rolls on

Sony: You don’t reeeeaaaally want to uninstall, do you?
http://www.sysinternals.com/...want-to_09.html

I think its time for a developer or developer group to step up and create a Sony DRM Cleaner. Basically bypass the hoops that Sony makes you jump through to clean your system of the crap they install.

Any takers?

Latest critical security patch for Windows is a must

Check out the article over at eWeek about the latest security patch from Microsoft for Windows.

Just in case you want to skip eWeek (and all the ads) check out the direct link below to the security bulletin.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-053
Vulnerabilities in Graphics Rendering Engine Could Allow Code Execution (896424)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS05-053.mspx

Everyone on the planet should read and follow this

Please, please, read and pass this along to everyone you know that breaks any of these 5 email tics you need to stop.

And for the love of god stop stop sending email with those stupid smiley faces embedded at the end of your emails. Don't you realize by now that the software you installed to do that is either pushing ads to your computer or monitoring your internet usage?

Find out who's connected to your computer

Who's connected is a great and useful tool to see who and what is utlizing your network connection. Very handy to see what applications are currently sending out requests.

The big list of Whois servers

A decent list of Whois servers around the world:
http://www.math.utah.edu/whois.html

What are you looking at

"New EyeTracking Study verifies the importance of page position and rank in both Organic and PPC search results for visibility and click through in Google"




This shows you what users look at when viewing the results of a Google search. I wish there was a way to perform a study on some of the websites I have designed.

Layout web forms in a pure CSS solution

This is probably one of the easiest solutions for laying out a web form with CSS only (No tables).

Quickly add a separator line in Word

You can quickly add separator lines (lines across the entire width of the document) in Word by repeating certain key sequences.

Some I found:
--- Creates a single line (3 dashes / minus signs)
=== Creates a double-line (3 equals signs)
~~~ Creates a squiggly line (3 tildes)
*** Creates a bold dotted line (3 asterisks)
### Creates a triple-line (3 pound signs)
___ Creates a bold solid line (3 underscores)

Let me know if I have missed any as I just tried any combination of three characters that I could think that might produce a line.

Some common PHP programming mistakes

Top 21 PHP progamming mistakes - Part I: Seven Textbook Mistakes:
http://www.zend.com/zend/art/mistake.php

"One of PHP's greatest strengths happens to be one of its greatest weaknesses as well: PHP is easy to learn. A lot of people are attracted to the language because of this, not realizing that it's a lot tougher to learn how to do it right.

There just hasn't been enough emphasis on good programming practice. Inexperienced coders are being asked to create and distribute complex web applications. Mistakes that an experienced programmer would avoid are all over the place, such as the improper use of the printf()functions or the misapplication of PHP's semantics.

In this three part article series, I'll present a list of 21 mistakes that I believe are frequently made and ranging in severity from non-critical down to those that can break the farm. I will then offer solutions, suggestions and/or comments on how to solve and prevent these errors, in addition to other tricks of the trade that I have gained over the years.

The series is comprised of the following three articles:

• Part 1: Covers the first 7 "textbook" mistakes (#21-15, in reverse order of severity) on our rating list. Committing one of these mistakes, while not critical, will lead to slower and less maintainable code.
• Part 2: Covers the next 7 "serious" mistakes, representing # 14-8 on our rating list. Committing one of these mistakes will lead to drastically slower run times and less secure scripts, in addition to less maintainable code.
• Part 3: Covers the last 7 "deadly" mistakes. These mistakes are conceptual in nature and can represent the root cause for committing any one of the mistakes listed in Series Parts I and II. They include blunders such as not allotting enough time for a project and not having a thorough code review."

Visual Studio Express free from Microsoft

Microsoft is offering a free copy of Visual Studio Express for a limited time (1 year from offer).

Follow up: Even more on Sony's rootkit problems

Sony’s Rootkit: First 4 Internet Responds:
"First 4 Internet, the company that implements Sony’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) software that includes a rootkit, has responded to my last post"

Personalized homepage on Google

Check out the new personalized Google homepage. Some are reporting that it is only available in China but simply changing the language id in the URL to 'EN' did the trick.

Give your blog a boost

HOW TO: Boost your blog traffic:

"Many first time bloggers automatically assume that once their blog is setup and they put a few posts on it, they will get some hits and regular readers. This is quite untrue. You won’t get any traffic if no one knows about your website. In this article I hope to tackle these problems and discuss some of the common ways bloggers and webmasters drive more traffic to their site by understanding the user. I have received many emails from aspiring bloggers asking me what they can do to get more traffic, so hopefully this will help out at least those people."

...read more

Transformers on the big screen

What is transformers? - just move along.

Transformers the movie is set to show itself on the big screen somewhere around July 2007.

Is this movie just a tad too late?

Google offers referral fees for Adsense

Google is offering a referral fee program for its Adsense program.

What is the new referral program?
"Referrals is a feature of AdSense that allows website publishers to increase their revenue while increasing their users' awareness of useful products and services. By adding a referral button to a site, publishers can direct users to products like AdSense and Firefox with Google Toolbar."

What is Google Adsense?
"Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website's content pages and earn money."

Go ahead and try it out and help support this blog. Click the Referral button on the right side of this page in the support section.

What's next for Firefox

Get a small, and I mean small, preview of what is coming in some future releases of Firefox (v2.0 and v3.0).

v2.0

• remove Extensions and Themes from Software Update wizard
• allow Software Update Wizard to be disabled
• allow drag and drop reordering of extensions in the manager
• install extensions without restart
• resumable downloading

v3.0

• search engine management
• "url sanitizer"
• save open tabs/windows
• save session data (session histories, post data, form values, etc)
• settings for: fonts/colors, stylesheet, saved form information, saved passwords, cookies, popups, xpinstall, image loading, java, javascript, download location/policy, force links into tabs

The saga with Sony and rootkits continues

More on Sony: Dangerous Decloaking Patch, EULAs and Phoning Home

Windows Spy thats goes above and beyond

Warning: Non-developers will probably find this in the category of "too much information"

Winspector is a Windows application that allows you to look at the messages being sent in the system. When developing your own applications you can see the messages and you can inspect them, but you can't do the same with other running applications. With Winspector you can.

A9 and the future of online maps

Maps have come along way with the front runner of Google Maps, the newly released beta of Yahoo Maps, and now (well maybe a little longer) the maps of A9.

What's new with Yahoo Maps? Who cares, I use Google Maps. Actually it may be worth checking out for some of you but I don't really care what Yahoo does...

What about A9. That is a different story. A9 not only gives you the friendly, clean looking maps like Google and now Yahoo, but it also gives you photographs of what the street actually looks at. This is just so cool and I can't wait to see how fast they move into other areas - only support around 20 cites so far...

Sony's response to the rootkit exposure

Sony has created a webpage to request the removal of the anitpiracy tool installed on systems when some of their audio cd's are played through your computer. Earlier this week Sony's antipiracy tool was exposed by SysInternals.

Google Desktop 2 no longer in beta

Just in case anyone is interested or uses Google Desktop 2, today it came out of beta.

Direct link to the download:
http://desktop.google.com/

Free fonts and the tool to view them with

A huge list of free fonts is available at Simply The Best Fonts. Then hop on over to www.CfontPro.com and grab one of the best font managers around.

Fonts are probably one of the easiest things that can be changed to alter a design. Fonts can have such a significant effect on a design that I use Cfont Pro to view a word or phrase (like in a website that needs a logo) with all my installed fonts. This lets me quickly view the word or phrase with all my fonts in a matter of less than a minute.

Followup: Hard to hide from the minds of SysInternals

Seems Sony is responding to the blog post from SysInternals.

Seeker is a great alternative

Seeker is a great alternative to the standard Windows file search tool. Besides implementing all the standard features found in the Windows search tool Seeker adds new functionality;

• Search and Replace text inside of file
• No restrictions on the file extentions searched
• Search and Replace based on regular expressions
• 4 different reporting modes
• Preview with highlighter to easily see what Seeker has found
• Command line support

Microsoft updates Power Toys

Power Toys is one of those things you should just download and install. There are some very useful tools like: TweakUI, Image Resizer, Alt-Tab Replacement, and Virtual Desktop Manager.

Yahoo is updating it's index tonight

Yahoo is updating it's index tonight. Don't think it will affect my Google searches so I'm not worried.

$400 laptop for the Xmas season

Wal-Mart will offer a $400 laptop. Gotta love a good laptop, just don't think this will be one of them. Not too sure of the specs of this laptop but will probably be good for internet, email, and computer newbies.

After researching a bit more I found a more complete list of deals that Wal-Mart will offer on black Friday.

So, all you crazy holiday shoppers get up bright and early on black Friday and knock yourself out. I, for one, will be home with a cup of coffee in one hand and my mouse in the other.

Followup: Internet Developer Toolbar beta 1 refresh

After having some time to play around with the Internet Explorer Web Developer Toolbar I must say that I am pretty impressed with some of the features.

Looking forward to future releases and will be watching the development of this tool.

Free to be

Free .BE domains:
Now you could own a .be Belgium domain.

Why would you?

Since the TLD can be part of a phrase like FreeTo.Be or LetIt.Be these domains could gain alot of worth.

Windows Live!

What is Windows Live?

"Your online world gets better when everything works simply and effortlessly together. That's the basic idea behind Windows Live. So the things you care about - your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, powerful search, your PC files, everything – comes together in one place. This is a brand new Internet experience designed to put you in control. And this is just the beginning – you'll see many more new services in the coming months."

Very interesting and probably a move in response to what Microsoft thinks Google will be doing in the coming years.

Windows Live Office?

Internet Developer Toolbar beta 1 refresh

Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar:
The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides several features for exploring and understanding Web pages.

This version of the Developer Toolbar is an updated version of Beta 1; it was updated on October 31, 2005. Several issues are resolved and some feedback has been incorporated.

-- Element bounding box calculations are more accurate.
-- Outlining of elements is now significantly faster.
-- The image report no longer crashes.
-- Installation no longer requires a reboot. (Beta 1 users will still be prompted to reboot because the current installer invokes the original uninstaller).
-- The minimize and maximize buttons now refresh after the "Resize" command.
-- The "Select element by click" bounding box is now more visible on pages with blue backgrounds.
-- The attributes editor (middle pane) now has variable width fields (for example, you can type beyond the width of the box).
-- Fixes for some pages that do not trigger OnDocumentComplete events.
-- Fixed the continuity of using "element" rather than "tag" in the menus.
-- The ruler is easier to use and to scroll.
-- Enabling/disabling images no longer restarts Internet Explorer.
-- The Resize menu now contains more resolutions.
-- Editing a property is now much less likely to let keystrokes "leak" back to IE and navigate without the user expecting it.
-- Trying to use the ruler while IE is in "folder mode" should no longer crash the browser.

I am sticking with Firefox and the Web Developer toolbar provided as an extension.

Create Windows applications using PHP

Winbinder:
"WinBinder is a new open source extension for PHP, the script programming language. It allows PHP programmers to easily build native Windows applications."