Software: Open Freely (Open Almost Anything)

Do you have a file that you can't open because its in a format that you don't have a program for? Check out a free program called Open Freely that allows you to view over 100 different file formats (e.g. Microsoft Office, media [graphics and movies], compressed files, and more). Open Freely's installation includes the free K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains dozens of CODECs for opening media

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Web Sites: Top 10 Under-Hyped Web Apps, 2011 Edition

Excerpt from lifehacker.com: "We all discover new web apps each year but not every one of them gets the recognition it deserves. With 2011 drawing to a close, we wanted to highlight the 10 we felt deserved a bit more hype." (read the rest of the article)

IMHO: Some of these web applications are really cool and worth checking out.

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Software: Windows Defender Offline (beta)

Microsoft has publicly released a beta of its Windows Defender offline tool (32-bit and 64-bit versions are available).  This tool allows for the creation of  bootable CDs, DVDs or USB drives that allows you to run Windows Defender. The application is designed to detect and remove bootkit and rootkit malware that can infect the Windows boot process. (Get more information and download the tool)

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Software: Macrium Reflect FREE Edition

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition is a Windows XP/Vista/7 disk imaging/cloning backup solution that is free for personal use.  Some of the features of the software include:

Access images in Windows Explorer
Schedule backups
Linux Rescue CD
Windows PE 3 Rescue Media (RAID support)
Obviously, the paid version of the software offers more features, see the following chart for a comparison.

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Web Site: Free Online File Conversion

Do you need to convert a file (e.g. picture, video, music, eBook, archive, document etc.) into a different format?  There is a site called Online-Convert that provides a fast easy way to convert several different file formats, without installing extra software.

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Software: Picasa 3.9 now available

Its been awhile since Google has updated Picasa, their free photo-editing application. They added sharing directly to Google+, new photo editing effects, and more.

Below is a list of some of the updated features:

Added ability to upload to Google+: share with circles.
Social Tagging with Google+.
New photo editing effects.
Side by side editing.
Updated RAW support for newer cameras.

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Software: Password Management Applications

Do you have several passwords, and you're having a hard time remembering all of them.  Writing them down on a piece of paper is not secure. You could created encrypted document of some type (e.g. text, Word, Excel, etc.) to store them.  There are also several password management applications available for you to download, some are free and others cost money.

Although before you pay for anything

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Easy Application Installation and Removal

If you just build a new PC, it can be a pain going around the web to re-install all your favorite applications.  If you have an existing PC, and are looking for an easier way to find, download, updated, or uninstall applications.

Below are some tools that can help you with these tasks:


Allmyapps - An application store for Windows.

Download the client to your computer, and find new

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Windows 7: Manage User Stored Credentials (User Names and Passwords)

When your computer tries to connect to other devices on your local network that requires a username and password.  Windows will attempt to use the currently logged on user credentials to authenticate that connection. If that username and password doesn't work, it will attempt to find one in the stored credentials. If these credentials are not available on the local system, you will be prompted

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Optimizing Your Network Connection Speed

The Jason Chronicles reports: "The speed of your network is determined by three key factors, the speed of your equipment, Internet connection, and network configuration. Your network equipment is made up the NIC (e.g. the network port) on the computer, the router/switch, and the cabling you use to hook it together. If you're using wireless, there are different factors for this technology. The

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Windows 7: Program Access and Computer Defaults

In Windows 7 you can set the program defaults (e.g. browser, email, media player, instant messaging, and Java VM) for the computer (which means this applies to all users), in the Program Access and Computer Defaults control panel.

If you choose the Microsoft Windows option, it will make Microsoft applications the default program that is open for specific file types (e.g. a browser shortcut will

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Taking Control of your Data on Google

Are you worried that Google knows too much about you?  With the tools below you can take control of your account and data stored in Google's cloud.  For example, you can download your data using Google Takeout, or you can control certain aspects of the data that the company stores about you.


Google Takeout: Allows you to download a copy of your data stored within different services. 
Google

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10 cool technologies to look for in your next PC

TechRepublic reports: "It’s an exciting time for PC enthusiasts. I can’t remember a period when so many existing technologies were being upgraded to the next generation and new technologies were being introduced. Even non-enthusiasts need to know about the changes that are happening to the desktop PC." (Read the rest of the article)

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Firefox ABOUT Pages (Hidden Features)

Notes:

This article covers a semi-advanced topic, and is not recommended for those that don't understand technical information about applications, network and system information. 




Use these features at your own risk, some of them are for debug web page or the browser and can intentionally cause the tab or browser to crash.



Want to enable experimental features in Mozilla's Firefox browser

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Windows 7: Shrinking a Partition

It use to be if you had a formatted hard drive with existing partitions, and you wanted to add or shrink one of them you needed a special utility called a disk partitioning tools such as Partition Magic.  The Windows 7 Disk Management console has disk partitioning functionality built into it.

Warning: Make a good backup of your drive before proceeding with the instructions below.

To open the

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Software: BlueStacks Android OS Emulator for Windows

BlueStacks allows you to run Android OS applications on a Windows PC. Video below offers a visual tour of the software.  To get more information or to download the application, check out the following web site.  This application is currently in Alpha as of this writing, so it might not be ready for prime time.

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Windows 7: Installing IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) is Microsoft's web server software can be installed on a Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate edition.

It is not installed by default, so you will have to follow the steps below to enable it.


Log on to the computer with an account that has Administrators privileges. 
From the Start menu select the Control Panel, click Programs. 
Click the link

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Windows 7: Scheduling Your Computer to Shut Down Automatically

Do you leave your computer on for extended periods of time, and would like it if your computer would automatically shut down at a specific time of day.  Follow the instructions below.


Click the Start button, in the search box, type "scheduled tasks" then click the item in the search results.
In the Task Scheduler console, in the Actions pane on the right, click "Create Basic Task ...".
In the

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Troubleshooting Sound Problems

Are you having problems with the audio or speakers on your computer? Here are some troubleshooting techniques to help you diagnose most problems. (Read the rest of the article)

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Windows 7: Disabling System Protection

Sometimes there's a need to turn off the System Restore feature (e.g. such as recovering free space on a drive).  By disabling the System Restore functionality, note it will be permanently deleting all existing restore points from the drive.

Below are the instructions on how to perform this action:


From the Start menu, select Control Panel
Select System and Security, and open the System

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Mikko Hypponen: Fighting viruses, defending the net

This video is a great introduction to modern day malware (e.g. viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.).



It's been 25 years since the first PC virus (Brain A) hit the net, and what was once an annoyance has become a sophisticated tool for crime and espionage. Computer security expert Mikko Hyppönen tells us how we can stop these new viruses from threatening the internet as we know it.

If you want

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Google Flight Search

Flight search is a feature that helps you explore air travel options for a number of cities, and plan your trip with just a few clicks of the mouse.

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The Rasterbator - Make a Poster from any Image

The Rasterbator allows you to creates large posters (up to 20 meters [or 65 feet] in size) from just about any image. All you have to do is upload a picture (from your computer or from a URL), print the resulting multi-page PDF file and assemble the pages into a poster.The Rasterbate service is available in two versions, online (which requires that you have Adobe Flash Player 7 and PDF viewer)

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HTTPS Everywhere Firefox extension

I am a big believer in all types of encryption, to protect yourself and your data while utilizing the Internet you need to encrypt everything.

Many sites on the web offer encryption over HTTPS, but default to unencrypted HTTP communication when you visit their site. HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that forces encrypted  communications with a number

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Online Monitor Test

Need to test your monitor's image quality, check out the online monitor test at http://tft.vanity.dk.

The monitor tests can be run directly in 3 different modes:


Ordinary HTML window (press F11 to maximize the image)
Full screen HTML (opens in 1280x1024 but can be re-sized to fit any resolution)
Executable full-screen program for any resolution (no installation required)

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Hidden Feature: Chrome ABOUT Pages

Notes:


This article covers a semi-advanced topic, and is not recommended for those that don't understand technical information about applications, network and system information.
Use these features at your own risk, some of them are for debug web page or the browser and can intentionally cause the tab or browser to crash.


Want to enable experimental features in Google's Chrome browser, get

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Security: Avoid Cybercriminal Tech Support Scam

Microsoft.com reports: "Cybercriminals don't just send fraudulent email messages and set up fake websites. They might also call you on the telephone and claim to be from Microsoft. They might offer to help solve your computer problems or sell you a software license. Once they have access to your computer, they can do the following:


Trick you into installing malicious software that could capture

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Network: Diagnostics and Performance Web Sites

Here are some useful web sites that  may come in handy from time to time to perform some network diagnostics:





Need a second opinion if a web site is really down?

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Do you need an easy way to find out your IP
address on the Internet?  

http://www.whatismyip.com/

Are you having problems watching YouTube videos, you can check the download speed here?

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New Firefox Beta with Enhanced Performance

Below is a excerpt from the Mozilla blog: "The latest Mozilla Firefox Beta is now available for testing on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. This beta includes performance enhancements that improve the browsing experience for users and enable developers to create faster Web apps and websites." (see the article to view the rest of the features or download the application)

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Security Tip: HTTPS Everywhere

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has crated a Firefox extension called HTTPS Everywhere. The extension forces major web sites to use HTTPS to encrypt all your traffic if that option is available.

As most people may know, HTTPS is the standard protocol used by all web browsers and servers for sending encrypted data between the client and server.
Many sites offer an HTTPS option but don't

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Windows Live Family Safety 2011

With Windows Live Family Safety 2011 you can monitor and control your children's computer and Internet activities. Some of the features of this service include: reports showing what your children are doing, or control access to websites, games, and programs they can access or set times when they can use the computer.

Other features of the program are:

SafeSearch allows you to locked down search

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Microsoft Camera Codec Pack

The Microsoft Camera Codec Pack (download) enables the viewing of a variety of device-specific RAW formatted camera files in Window Live Photo Gallery as well as other software that is based on Windows Imaging Codecs (such as the Windows Explorer).

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Win7′s no-reformat, nondestructive reinstall

Windows Secrets reports: "Microsoft won’t tell you this, but you can do a fast, nondestructive, in-place, total reinstall of Windows 7 without damaging your user accounts, data, installed programs, or system drivers.That means you may never have to do a full, from-scratch reinstall again, even when your system is misbehaving so badly that a full reformat-and-reinstall seems the only answer!As I’m

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Windows 7: Location-Aware Printing

Note: this feature is only available for mobile devices, and not on desktop computers.

One of  Windows 7's new feature is it can automatically switch your default printer when you move between networks (for example, when you move your laptop from your home network to your business network).

To configure this feature, follow the instructions below:


Click the Start menu and in the search field

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Free Online OCR Site

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the process of converting scanned images of documents into text. In the past OCR programs had to be installed on your computer.

The site www.onlineocr.net allows you to upload scanned documents (including multi-page PDF files), photographs from digital cameras and scanned images (JPG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, GIF) to be converted into text.  This site supports 32 

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Video: Creating a Strong Password

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, then how many words is a video worth? Creating a strong password is your best defense for protecting your data on the Internet. As we move more and more data into the so called "Cloud", the keys to your digital kingdom may only be as strong as the password you select to protect it. This video provides one of the best visual explanations of how to

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Google Project Emerges as Facebook With More Refined Manners

eWeek.com reports: "After more than a year of denials that any major social network initiative was in the works, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) June 28 unveiled Google , the company's take on social networking. Not to be confused with the existing Google 1 search result and ad-sharing services, Google is intended to alleviate certain pain points that plagued Facebook as its network grew to 700

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Windows 7: Changing Remote Desktop Listening Port

Note: This is an advanced tip and only applicable to certain situations. The Remote Desktop by default uses TCP/IP port 3389, some people think that they can increase the security of the RDP protocol by changing it too different location. This is almost as effective as moving a lock on a door and hoping a thief won't be able to find it. This technique would only be effective against someone

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Windows 7: Start Menu Web Searching

Note: This tip only works on Windows 7 Professional and higher.

With the Windows 7 Search box under the Start menu you can search for programs and files, but did you know you can enhance it to also search the web?

Using the Group Policy editor you can enable the Start menu Internet search feature, follow the instructions below:

In the search field under the Start menu, type GPEDIT.MSC.  This

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Firefox 5 Browser Launches, Boasting Tweaks, Security, Privacy

eWeek.com reports: "Mozilla's new Firefox 5.0 for PCs and Firefox for Android aim to offer users a best-of-class combination of security, privacy and speed. Coming a mere three months after the release of Firefox 4, this latest browser supposedly includes more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements. However, features like 'Do Not Track' may do more to draw users increasingly leery

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Microsoft Updates SkyDrive, Faster, Better, With HTML5 Support

ghacks reports: "SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud hosting service, has been around since 2007. The service gives users access to 25 Gigabytes of free online storage, for file hosting, sharing and collaboration. While it has been a great service to store data online from the start, it felt slow at times especially when navigating folders or photo albums in a web browser."Read the rest of the article.

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Command Prompt Tricks

Back before the invention of the mouse and Graphical User Interface, was the command prompt. Every operating system (e.g. UNIX, CP/M, MS-DOS, VMS, etc.) of the day had some type of command line interface.

There are still command prompt power user and purest. If you're one of these people check out ultimate list of command prompt power tricks. These tricks will show you how to fully utilize the

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Windows 7: Using the Dvorak Keyboard Layout

Do you want to use the Dvorak keyboard layout instead of the traditional QWERTY layout? Here is how switch between the two keyboard layouts:
From the Start menu click Control Panel.
In the Control Panel folder click the Clock, Language, and Region link
Click the Region and Language control panel
Click the Keyboards and Languages tab.
Click the Change Keyboard... button
On the General tab, press

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StrongVPN: Extra Security and Other Features

I recently learned about a service called StrongVPN that provides a few features I really like. I am not personally endorsing this company or its products.  Although, I would suggest investigating their service offerings to see if you like their features.

Extra Security: A VPN service can provide you an extra layer of security when surfing the web, or logging into a public hot spot.  All the

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Google: Search by Image

Now you can use an image instead of words to start your Google search. To use this feature, go to http://images.google.com/.

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Windows 7: Verifying the Operating System Edition and Version

Do you need to find out what edition of the Windows Operating system you're running (e.g. Windows Home Basic, Home Premium, Enterprise, etc.), or if you're running the 32-bit or 64-bit version?

There are two easy places to look:

From the Start menu in the search field, type WINVER

or From the Start menu, click Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, and then click System.

To learn more

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F‌inding Unknown File Extensions

Every now and then you will come across a file extension (e.g. .DOCX, .EXE, .TXT, etc.) that you might not know.  If you're looking for the application that can open that type of file, check out a site called FileXT.com.

This site contains a list of several thousand file extensions and programs that are supposed to open them.

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Windows 7: Using VHD Files

Windows 7 allows you to create and mount VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) files. These files were originally created for Microsoft's Virtual Machine (VM) technologies like Hyper-V and Virtual PC.  Using this feature you can directly access and edit the contents of these files.

Creating a VHD:

From the search box in the Start menu, type DISKMGMT.MSC then press Enter.
In the Disk Manager, in the Action

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Windows 7: Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) with SP1

If you work with Windows servers in a small lab or a large data center, then you need Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1. It enables system administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2, 2008, or 2003, from a remote computer that is running Windows 7 including SP1. (download software)

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Software: Remote Potato (Free Access to Your Media Over the Internet)

Remote Potato is a free program that runs on a Windows computer (supports: XP, Vista and Windows 7) that gives you access to your media (e.g. music, pictures, video, etc.) over the Internet.  The program also has remote support for Windows Media Center.

All you need for remote access of your content is an Internet connection and a web browser.  There is even a mobile application for viewing your

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Understanding the Facebook “Find out who views your profile” scam

OpenDNS Blog reports: "Every few weeks there’s a new scam that makes the rounds on Facebook. This week it’s the “Find out who visits your profile,” scam, which we’ve all seen before. The reason it piques my interest this time is the sheer volume of people falling victim. That coupled with the fact that the victims include some of my more tech-savvy Facebook friends made me want to understand

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Software: Handbrake (Free Video Transcoder)

HandBrake is an open-source, multi-platform (e.g. MacOS X, Linux and Windows), video transcoder.  If you never heard of a transcoder, it converts digital media from one format (such as .VOB, .TS and M2TS files) into another format (MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, Vorbis, and mroe)



For more information on the program, check out its web site.
For more information on the video formats this program supports,

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Windows 7: Delete Recent Items from the Jump Lists

People are worried about privacy these days, and sometimes features that are designed for convenience store too much information about us.  If you want to get rid of the recent items displayed in the taskbar jump lists, follow the instructions below:
Right-click the Start button.
Select Properties.
Click the Start Menu tab.
Uncheck the item "Store and display recently opened items in the Start

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Microsoft Security Tools

Microsoft has created a page where they post all their security tools, both free and commercial.  The age and usefulness of some of these tools will vary depending on your environment (e.g. a home vs. an enterprise network). Although, what I really find handy about this page is that all the tools are grouped together in one place.

Below is a brief list of some of the tools that are available for

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Web Site: Building a museum of museums on the web

Imagine being able to see artwork in the greatest museums around the world without leaving your chair. Driven by his passion for art, Amit Sood tells the story of how he developed Art Project to let people do just that.

Links

Google's Art Project

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Microsoft Safety Scanner (Free)

Sometimes you need a second opinion when it comes to the subject of malware (e.g.: virus, worms, spyware, etc.). Although, first and foremost you should be running a real-time malware scanner with up-to-date signatures to protect your home or small business computers.

On those occasions where you think something maybe wrong, then you should use an alternate tool to make sure that your current

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Windows 7: The Power of FSUTIL Command

FSUTIL is a powerful command-line utility that can provide very technical information about your computer's drives, or if utilized incorrectly can cause damage to the file system.
Note: To use this utility, it requires administrative permission on the local system.Below are a few examples of different operations that the command can perform.

Queries volume information
E.g.: fsutil fsinfo

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Windows 7: Advanced Format Disks Update

This topic is a more advanced then I generally discuss in this blog, but I am hoping it might be able to help some people whom might be using this technology.

Microsoft has release an update to improve Advanced Format Disks compatibility in the latest versions of Windows 7 (SP1) and Server 2008 R2 (SP1). The Advanced Format Disk is utilized when the physical media has been formatted with 4,096

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NSA's Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Secure

As you might have heard cyber-criminals are getting more sophisticated all the time.  To help protect people from becoming victims of these criminals, the NSA has published a PDF called "Best Practices for Keeping Your Home Network Secure".  The document offers some tips on how to secure your computer (Windows and Mac OS X) and your home network.

If you want a book that offers more in-depth 

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Find the precise location of just about any Wi-Fi router

Here is a slightly disturbing fact about wireless networks. Did you know Google uses its Android mobile operating system to collect Wi-Fi routers GPS location and store them in a public database? You can put in a router's MAC address (e.g. 08:00:69:02:01:FC) and see its precise location on Google Maps using this site (http://samy.pl/androidmap/).
Note: MAC address definition (from Wikipedia):

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Inexpensive Computer Accessories, Printer Ink and Toner Cartridges

Are you looking for the most inexpensive computer accessories, printer supplies, and more, check out two of my favorite sites.

Monoprice.com
Meritline.com

They have several types of products available, but the quality can vary on the items. Although its hard to beat the prices. Most of the stuff I buy from these sites I am pretty happy with.

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Keeping Your Drivers Up-To-Date

WindowsUpdate keeps your Microsoft OS and applications up-to-date, but what about all your hardware drivers. A free program called SlimDrivers alerts you to the latest version of a driver.

There are two versions of the software. SlimDrivers is the free version only allows you update one driver at a time before you reboot. The premium version called DriverUpdate allows for multiple driver

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CrashPlan - Internet Backup Solutions

Backing up data on your computer has always been critical. A long time ago floppies were used to backup your data, later it was CDs and then DVDs. Today there is no affordable external removable media capable of keeping up with modern multi-terabyte drives.
Note: For those that can afford it, tape backup is still an option but it's expensive and slow when compared to an external hard drive.Even

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Google Talk Guru

The Google Talk Guru is an experimental service intended for IM users, including users using chat clients on low-end phones, allowing them to answer simple web queries from the context of their chat application.

To use the service, in your Google Talk client invite guru@googlelabs.com to chat, and then send queries via your chat client. Categories supported include weather, translation, unit and

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Extension: Chrome Toolbox (by Google)

In the Google Chrome extension gallery, you can find the Chrome Toolbox by Google which gives you quick access to tools that allows you to put your favorite browser commands in one drop down menu, save unsubmitted form data, magnify images, view videos in standalone windows, and define shortcuts to open all links in any bookmark folder. (For more information)

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Windows Live Mesh

Back in 2008 Microsoft debut Live Mesh (which has recently been discontinued). It has since merged that product into the Windows Live tools, its now called Windows Live Mesh.

Windows Live Mesh is now available, for download.  Below is a list of features it supports:
Syncing files between your computers, works on both Windows and Macs. Also supports offline viewing of your sync files even if your

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Installing CD/DVD Applications on a Netbook or Windows based Tablet

Note: This procedure is general enough so it can be used for installing any version of software that doesn't incorporate some type of anti-piracy mechanism that comes on an optical disk (e.g. CD or DVD) to a netbook computer or Windows based tablet.

Recently I had to install a legally licensed copy of Microsoft Office that was on a DVD to a netbook computer.  My netbook had no optical drive, so

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3TB Hard Drives (and Larger)

The Jason Chronicles reports: "If you try to mount that 3TB (or Larger) hard drives (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) on a computer, you will soon notice that Windows can only address 2.19TB of storage. This is a limitation of the current standard method of storing data on a drive partition that utilizes 32-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing)."(Read the rest of the article)

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Types of Internet Access

There are several different types of Internet access available. Each of them have various different advantages and disadvantages. Not all of them are available in all areas, so their availability will vary between locations.This article was created to be a reference for the different types of Internet access. It provides a brief summary of each technology, along with its PROs and CONs.(Read the

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The Commodore 64 Is Making a Comeback

The long-dead Commodore 64 is back—with a vengeance. With a Dual Core 525 Atom processor, the latest Nvidia Ion2 graphics chipset, and the original 1982 clunky beige look, the computer is the company's latest hope as capitalizing on our appetite for new tech and our obsession with retro style. The system is set to take on the beefiest new PC titles and, of course, the classic games that made it

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Windows 7: 3TB Hard Drives (and Larger)

If you try to mount that 3TB (or Larger) hard drives (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) on a computer, you will soon notice that Windows can only address 2.19TB of storage. This is a limitation of the current standard method of storing data on a drive partition that utilizes 32-bit LBA (Logical Block Addressing).
For those who like technical information. LBAs are stored linearly, starting at LBA

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Amazon Cloud Drive/Player (from 5GB -> 20GB of storage)

If you purchase an MP3 album from the Amazon MP3 Store by December 31, 2011, you can upgrade your Amazon Cloud Drive storage from 5GB (included in the free plan) to 20 GB for 1 year from the date of the album purchase.

To learn more about the:

Amazon Cloud Player
Amazon Cloud Drive

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Photography: Easy to use and Free Panoramic Image Stitcher

Are you looking for an easy to use and free panoramic image stitching application? Check out Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor), its one of the easiest to use and free panoramic image stitching programs I have found for Windows.

For those that don't know what a panoramic image stitching application does, it takes a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location

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New 7″ Tablet PC Up For Pre-Order; Dedicated Mouse Buttons and Touchpad

Tablets Planet reports: "A new Windows 7 tablet PC option is on its way and today you can pre-order a model. The new option comes from a new face to tablets Netbook Navigator, there first entrant in the 7-inch tablet market is the Nav7 Slate PC.The Nav7, as the title for this post and the numerical figure attached to its name vocalize, is a 7-inch tablet. The screen on the Nav7 features a native

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Microsoft releases Windows Home Server 2011

CNET News reports: "The official version of Windows Home Server 2011, codenamed Vail, comes almost a year after the beta was released and close to two months since the release candidate made its debut.Using the same core operating system as Windows Server 2008 R2, the new version is designed for people who need to juggle multiple PCs, home networks, and an ever growing amount of photos, music,

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Remove Comcast's Bandwidth Cap (Legally)

Did you know that your Comcast's bandwidth is capped at 250GB per month?  In the old days, most Internet packages were "all you can eat" (unlimited) bandwidth.

Now because of technologies like Netflix streaming and Bittorrent, ISP's (Internet Service Providers) feel that they have to cap the bandwidth to prevent a small segment of their user population (generally around 2%) from using excessive

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Unofficial Windows App Store

Ever since Apple popularized the concept of the App Store on the iPhone, it seems like every platform wants one. Windows doesn't have its own official app store, but there's a site called "All My Apps" that tries to fill this void.

Download free and paid applications, all 100% legal
Share applications with friends and family.
Keep your applications up-to-date using this service.

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Windows 7: Alternate IP Address Configuration

Laptop computers often have to connect to multiple network (e.g. home, office, retail, etc.). In the past If one of the networks required a static IP address, while the other networks assigned addresses via DHCP you had to manually change the TCP/IP properties every time you switched networks. Since Windows Vista, you now have the ability to setup an alternate IP address configuration.

In the

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Testing IPv6 Connectivity

You may have heard our old friend IPv4, the protocol that handles most of the data moving across the Internet and its 4.3 billion addresses are now depleted (for more information see, Wikipedia "IPv4 address exhaustion").

Is this the end of the Internet? The answer is no, but it will force us to move to the next generation of the Internet protocol known as IPv6 sooner then later.

Recently I

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Internet Explorer 9 is Now Available

On March 14, 2011 Microsoft officially released Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) to the general public.  Some of the new features of IE9 include support for HTML5 video and audio, CSS 3, embedded ICC color profiles improved JavaScript performance, and the Web Open Font Format.  Other features include, hardware-accelerated graphics, video, and text rendering.

Some of the new user interface enhancements

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Windows 7: Service Pack 1 (SP1) is Now Available

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 contains previously released security, performance, and stability updates for Windows, and a few small bug fixes and minor enhancements for the OS.  For example, there's a bug fix for HDMI audio devices, a fix for printing mixed-orientation XPS documents, and a fix for "Restore previous folders at logon" functionality.

SP1 is available via Windows Update,

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Google's 2-Step Verification

"Google's offering a new way to protect your data stored on its servers (e.g. the Google Cloud). The new service is called '2-step Verification'. It’s not radically new, but it does make it harder for a criminal to steal your account. Google has been offering this service for several months to its business customers and now it’s rolling it out to its regular users."

Read the rest of the

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Microsoft IE9 Release Candidate: Why You Need to Try It

eWeek reports: "Microsoft shipped its Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate Feb. 10 as a near-final version of the browser that features significant performance enhancements, user experience improvements and standards compatibility advancements. The release candidate, known as IE9 RC, is available at www.BeautyOfTheWeb.com in 40 languages, Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for Internet

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Software: Snackr: A Cross-Platform RSS Ticker

Snackr is an RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop. This is the first program that I have installed that uses Adobe AIR, which is a cross platform runtime environment. This mean that Snackr can run on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. All you have to do click the 'Install Now' button. If you don't have Adobe AIR installed, it will be downloaded and

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Web Site: Creating Craigslist Alerts

Craigslist has single-handedly destroyed newspaper classified ads.  To be honest I don't miss them.  Although, with the popularity of this site there are great deal of scams so you have to be careful.

If you're trying to find a great deal, its hard to beat Craigslist. Although, I find it annoying that you can't setup e-mail alerts on the site for my favorite searches.

What I recently

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Firefox's Problem with Windows

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Microsoft WebMatrix Shortens Path to Running Open-Source Web Apps on Windows

eWeek reports: "Microsoft's WebMatrix is a freely available development tool that lowers the barriers to creating Websites atop the company's Windows operating system and IIS Web server tandem, both in terms of locating and installing needed components, and coding data-driven Websites. While running Websites on the Windows stack is the central purpose of the product, one of the most impressive

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LibreOffice 3.3 Suite Advances While Staying True to OpenOffice Roots

eWeek reports: "In September 2010, a third of OpenOffice.org developers (about 20) objected to the open-source office suite falling under the custodianship of Oracle after the company completed its buyout of Sun Microsystems. They feared that Oracle wouldn't provide whole-hearted support to an open-source application project that didn't significantly contribute to its bottom line. They created

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PC Makers Dealing with Intel Chipset Fallout

eWeek reports: "Intel executives announced Jan. 31 that a design flaw in a supporting chipset tied to the company’s “Sandy Bridge” Core-i processors is forcing a recall of the chipset. The recall could cost Intel $1 billion in lost revenue and related expenses and delay the release of a fixed chipset until late February, with full production coming in April at the latest."The problem is a design

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Software: Ultimate Windows Tweaker

A web site called The Windows Club has created a tool they called Ultimate Windows Tweaker which in summary is a "TweakUI for Windows 7 & Vista". It basically is a GUI tool for modifying the operating system and internet explorer user interface settings

Originally TweakUI was an unsupported utility created byMicrosoft which was part a set of tools called PowerToys that allow you to modify to

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Software: Microsoft Mathematics (Free)

Tackle math and science problems quickly and easily, using Microsoft Mathematics from Microsoft Education Product Center. Here is an excerpt from their site about the product: "From basic math to precalculus, Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 can help you visualize and see mathematical concepts as you’ve never seen them before. This free downloadable tool includes step-by-step instructions and explains

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Software: Attack Surface Analyzer BETA

Microsoft releases new security tool for IT security professional: "Attack Surface Analyzer is developed by the Security Engineering group, building on the work of our Security Science team. It is the same tool used by Microsoft's internal product groups to catalogue changes made to operating system attack surface by the installation of new software.Attack Surface Analyzer takes a snapshot of

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GFI Malware Minute

Malware Minutes are short videos (1-2 minutes) that provide a weekly roundup of top stories from the GFI-Labs Blog, the GFI- Rogue Blog and anything else they think might be of interest.

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NASA - The Frontier Is Everywhere

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Amazing and unusual places in Google Earth

To download links to all the places in the video, you need the following .KML file. To download it, right-click, select Save Link As..., save it to your desktop, then double-click the file to open it with Google Earth.

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Teach Parents Tech

Google is offering a new service called "Teach Parents Tech" that allows you to send training videos to your less-tech-savvy family members. All you do is fill-out the form and select the training video you want to send them. There are several different videos available. When you choose send, the recipient will receive a link in an email to the content you selected for them.

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Networking: Enabling/Disabling Network Protocols

To view the available network protocols installed and active on the various network adapters installed on your computer, follow the instructions below:
Click the Start button, right-click Network, and then select Properties.
In the left pane click Change adapter settings link. This will display a list of all the network devices installed on the local computer.
Right-click any of the devices

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Web Site: Groupon

Groupon is a deal-of-the-day website that is localized for major geographic markets around the world. The deals generally range from 50 to 90 percent off on dining, events, attractions, and more.

The way the site works is it offers one "Groupon" per day in each of the markets it serves. If a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then the deal becomes available to all.

For more

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Troubleshooting: Account Lock Out Issues

If an account keeps getting locked out whether its on a local computer or a domain controller (depending on the type of network the machine is on).  There are some basic steps you can follow to try to troubleshoot the lockout issue. 

One of the first places to start is to search the event logs on the local computer or a domain controller for account lockout problems. 

Below is a list of common

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Command Line: Display File Attribute with WMIC

If you do any command line scripting occasionally you need to get some extended file attributes, such as version information from an .EXE file. The WMIC command line utility allows you to extract this information and whole lot more.  Over the next few weeks I hope to highlight some of it's power.

I have included some examples of how to use this command below.

Displays All Attributes of the

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