Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

If you have a Windows PC, the best way (as you may already know know), to keep your operating system updated is by using Automatic Updates. They’ve come a long way since they were first introduced, and while they’re great and serve a purpose, they only keep your operating system updated.  There are so many other elements involved in keeping your PC updated, and to do that there are multiple software solutions.

—Filehippo.com Update Checker—

File Hippo has always been one of my favorite resources for software downloads. Recently they added an Update Checker which will scan your computer, and check to see if there are any newer releases for the software that you have installed from their site.

The image to the right shows what you’d see in your browser after running the client, and the process of checking your installed software only takes a few seconds.

As you can see, they’ll display a list of everything that needs updated so that you can download the latest. It’s free, and works with Windows 98, 2000, 2003, XP, or Vista.

Thanks for the tip “Jack of all Trades”!

—Google Pack—

When you download Google Pack, a program called Google Updater is included and will download and install of the software that comes with it like Google Earth, Picasa, Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar, Adobe Reader, etc.

Along with downloading and installing all of the software, it will monitor for the latest versions of software.  When there’s a new version available, an icon appears in your system tray so that you’ll know.

The updater can also be configured so that it will only update software developed by Google —versus checking all software included with the Google Pack. 

—Secunia Software Inspector—

Another option for you to try which we’ve mentioned before is called Secunia Software Inspector. Secunia checks for insecure versions of applications that you have installed on your computer that need updates.

It’s Java based so it uses your web browser on your Windows PC.  On their website is a “start now” button which activates the Java Application, and the process gets started. When it’s all done, you’ll get a report that will let you know if there’s anything that’s insecure that needs updated.  The entire process takes only a few seconds as well.

—General Maintenance—

Besides keeping your software and operating system updated, you need to keep the computer itself updated. Likehack.org put together a good list of general things you need to do when you initially set it up, and then things you need to do on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis.

For example, do you delete your Internet files, run a defragmentation program, and clear your browser history weekly? Do you delete or un-install unneeded programs monthly?

Another aspect to the general maintenance of your computer is keeping a clean hard drive and registry.One of the best solutions for that purpose is CCleaner which we’ve also mentioned before.

If you know of any other software update checkers that we can add to the list, let us know. File Hippo’s service in particular is a really great way to keep updated on some of the latest software. Keeping track of all the latest software for your PC can be a daunting task, and File Hippo’s service, makes it that much easier.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on January 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

IE7Pro just released version 2.0 to the public, and it has a few notable new features. For starters it has been modularized which will help increase its stability, and there is also a 64-bit version available on the download page. The biggest news, however, can be summed up by looking at the screenshot above. Yep, that’s a built-in download manager! It automatically integrates into Internet Explorer 7, and as you can see from the screenshot it supports the pausing/resuming of your downloads.

They took an interesting route with the way they implemented it, but I think they did it the right way. The download manager has a System Tray icon, and by default it is always running. Even if you close the browser the download manager will still remain open. One of the benefits for this is that your downloads will continue chugging along even when the browser has been closed, but there is an option in the settings to have the download manager close after all of the downloads have been completed.

One thing I’m sure many of you are wondering is whether you can completely shutdown the download manager and resume your downloads at another time. As it turns out you can! With this you can essentially restart your computer, and still pickup where your downloads left off. Now try doing that with Internet Explorer 7 out-of-the-box.

Personally I would never use Internet Explorer 7 without the IE7Pro add-on. It actually makes IE7 bearable.

Download IE7Pro 2.0

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on November 16, 2006 by CyberNet.

Tutorial Thursday

Back in July (my how the time flies) we demonstrated a way that would keep your Spam folder clear in Gmail. Every time Google labeled an email as “Spam” it would be sent straight to your trash. That is a good solution for some people but sometimes it is nice to go flip through the messages before you dump them to make sure you haven’t missed the $1,000,000 you’ve inherited from your second cousin’s aunt’s nephew-in-law who lives in Norway. Yes, you know those emails.

Firefox users can optionally hide the Spam count by installing the CustomizeGoogle extension but there isn’t anything else that I really use in that extension so it isn’t worth me installing it. This fix can easily be applied to both Opera and Firefox though without installing a single thing.

Firefox users:

1. Locate and open the userContent.css in your Firefox profile directory. The file is in the  Chrome folder inside your profile. If the file does not exist you will have to make it (see here for more details). Another alternative would be to download and use the Stylish Firefox extension which makes it easy to add custom CSS for websites.
2. Copy the following text and paste it into the userContent.css file:
   @-moz-document url-prefix(http://mail.google.com),url-prefix(https://mail.google.com)
{#ds_spam b {visibility: hidden;}
#ds_spam b::before {content: "Spam"font-weight: normal;visibility: visible;}}
3. Save that file and pull up Gmail in Firefox…the Spam counter is all gone!

Opera users:

1. Right-click and save this file to your computer.
2. Press F12 and choose “Edit site preferences” from the context menu.
3. Select the Display tab and in the “My style sheet” section choose the file that you just saved.
4. Press OK to save your changes and reload Gmail to see that your Spam counter is all gone!

That is one thing I have always loved about Opera and that is how you can easily add custom stylesheets for websites without having to install anything. There is so much that you can do with creating your own stylesheets to make your web browsing experience a lot better. Hopefully this will just tip the iceberg for you and maybe you’ll start to think up some of your own stylesheets that you can create or maybe you’ll find some nifty ones at userstyles.org.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on February 03, 2009 by CyberNet.

Windows only
It’s normally safe to say that diehard geeks like to know what’s going on inside their machine. If you fall into that category then you’ve probably already tried tools that manage and monitor your PC, but there is also another free task manager that does a great job of adding functionality onto the semi-decent tool that’s included with Windows.

Extended Task manager is completely free, and once you get it running you’ll quickly notice that it looks a lot like the standard Windows Task Manager. The only difference is that this one is way more powerful. You can do things like monitor ports/IP’s that are going in and out of your computer, find out which app has a lock on a particular file, and more.

• Displays disk input/output activity with information about related applications
• Displays network port activity with IP addresses of external computers
• Displays information about applications that utilized most of the CPU or memory at any time presented on the charts
• Displays all files locked by a select process.
• Finds all processes locking a specified file.
• Includes “Summary” tab for quickly assessing the overall state of the Windows system
• Allows freezing individual Windows processes
• Offer various visual and functional improvements over the standard Windows Task Manager

Get Extended Task Manager for Windows [via Lifehacker]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on January 24, 2007 by CyberNet.

As Microsoft continues their battle with Piracy, they have disclosed that one in five, or 22% of Windows installations are not genuine. Surprised? WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) started back in July of 2005 and has given Microsoft a good idea of how many people are using counterfeit copies.  They have validated 512 million PCs since WGA was started, and along with those 114 million copies that were counterfeit, an additional 56,000 users have gone to Microsoft to report that they were using a copy that wasn’t legitimate. Microsoft’s policy in that situation is to give the user a free replacement copy of Windows. WGA as many of you know, requires users to validate their operating system before they are able to get updates.

With Vista and Office release dates just around the corner, Microsoft is stepping up their effort to put a stop to piracy that costs them a lot in lost revenue!  Their new campaign is called Genuine Fact Files, and they’re turning to comic strips to help them out.  These black and white comics show the evils of software piracy, and have already been displayed in Italy, France, Indonesia, Australia, The United Arab Emirates, Brazil, and the UK. They’ll be appearing in the US shortly. I haven’t been able to come up with a version in English yet, but just for the sake of seeing what it look like, one version is pictured below.

Microsoft is also hoping that their online “Test Drive” for Windows Vista, and the preview for Office 2007 will be enough to satisfy those who want to try out the operating system before buying. Sometimes that excuse is the reason for using a pirated copy of software.

Piracy is by no means a new thing in the software industry.  In fact, here’s a video that the Software Publisher Association put out back in 1992 with their anti-software piracy campaign called “Don’t Copy that Floppy.” There’s no need for me to explain, just watch…

Returning to Vista, in case you’re thinking about purchasing the OEM version of Vista, the picture below shows what you’ll get.  It’s the same ole’ Vista minus the fancy packaging.  Remember, typically when you purchase the OEM version, you must purchase hardware along side of it.  This is because OEM is licensed for new computer purchases only.

Thanks to one of our readers, Jim Lester for snapping pictures after opening! He has more pictures here if you’re curios what to expect when buying Vista licensed for OEM distribution.

News Source: BetaNews

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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