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October wallpapers from Smashing Magazine
It's time for some more arty wallpapers from Smashing Magazine. As ever there are plenty of different styles and themes. The only problem is that there probably won't be enough days in the month to appreciate them all. Thankfully most are supplied without calendars.
Firefox memory performance tip
Tabbed browsing can use up a huge amount of memory if you get carried away, as I often do. There's a quick settings change that can help prevent Firefox 3 from holding the computer back when it is minimised.
The change forces Firefox to transfer all of it's information to the hard drive and out of system memory. Windows moves information around like this anyway but maybe not as soon as we'd like.
You will need to change the settings in the about:config page (the one with the 'Here be dragons' warning!). I haven't tried it yet but I wonder if it will make Firefox a little sluggish when you return to it. A good reason not to get distracted by the internet then...
Eee PC just £118
For anyone still looking for a Linux mini-notebook, Expansys has announced that it will be selling off its stock of the original Eee PC at a special price tomorrow (Friday 26th September).
Between 11am and 4pm the white version will be available for just £118 here, and the black version for just £140 here. Stocks are, unsurprisingly, limited.
Password hint for Firefox and Opera
A moments hesitation revealed an incredibly useful aspect of the Password manager in Opera. The page continues to load in the background before you make a decision to save the password or not.
It saves a little time but it is more useful if you are not entirely sure what the password should be. Several sites have had three or more saved passwords on my computer, only one of which is correct because I didn't know to wait.
As the screen shot below shows, by waiting for the password to be accepted or rejected you can opt for 'Not now' and then try again with the correct password.
Firefox does this as well. Sadly it didn't work on Internet Explorer 7. That browser won't send the password until you decide whether or not to save.
New Vista Ultimate Extras
The sixth pack of Windows Vista Ultimate Extras has been released.
There are three Extras in the pack
- Microsoft Tinker: A puzzle game 'set in a warm, calming environment'.
- Ultimate Extra Sounds from Tinker: A sound scheme for Windows based on the above.
- Another content pack for Dreamscene with three nature setting videos.
There are some screen shots of Tinker over on the Digital Existence Network.
I have to admit I'm still not convinced that these are really enough to win people over to the extra premium.
Microsoft colour picker program for Vista sidebar
Microsoft Live Labs has just released a new utility for getting information about onscreen colours. It's pretty much impossible to match up a colour using the ordinary colour selection tools in image software.
This utility works in the Windows Sidebar and give the reference number for colours onscreen. There are all kinds of uses for this, from finding out the colours used in web designs to getting inspiration for designs from photos.
More information on the Colour Picker can be found at the Windows Live Gallery.
And, best of all, they've spelt colour properly! That does make up for the warning about an unverified submission.
Explaining Tabs
We can't imagine not using tabs now in our internet browsers. But they are still new for some people and the help provided for them is crucial.
Interestingly it is only really Internet Explorer that says anything about what the new tab is. Firefox is blank by default and Opera has the Speedial page.*
The IE8Blog has some information about how tabs will work in the next version of Internet Explorer.
The New Tab screen looks quite impressive with some useful hints and tips for using tabs.
I also like the list of closed tabs. I've appreciated this feature in Opera many times in the past and the simple 'Undo closed tab' option in Firefox has always seemed limiting in comparison.
* I like Speeddial, and use it myself, but it doesn't provide much help for the new user.
Microsoft Office for students - the Ultimate Steal is back
Last year Microsoft introduced what it called the "Ultimate Steal", a deal for students to get copies of Office 2007 Ultimate, worth several hundred pounds, for just £39. It's back now, just in time for the new university year - if you're heading off to study later this month (or you have a son or daughter who is) take a look at the Ultimate Steal website for more details and to order.
There are more good deals for students available at Software4students and RM, both of whom offer various versions of Office, Windows and other Microsoft programs, as well as software from other manufacturers. As with the Steal, though, you'll need to be in some kind of education to apply. Full details and terms are on each of the sites.
How much is security software worth?
I don't think there is anything more dangerous to the security of a computer than complacency. It can range from not bothering to have any security software installed to clicking links or installing software without thinking because there it is present.
The risk of being complacent because there is software providing protection on the computer may be higher than was previously thought. According to Newsweek International, Professor George Ledin and his students are regularly breaking through this protection.
The security companies are, unsurprisingly, not pleased with all of this but it's probably fair to say that if a group of students can do it, then so can the bad guys.
The solution? It seems ever harder to give one but the usual advice of having a comprehensive selection of security software (anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall) is still good so long as it is kept up to date. I've also started using behavioural based software like Threatfire. It checks for suspicious actions from software and warns or blocks. Linkscanner Lite is also a good way to avoiding hacked websites.
But don't rely on the software without thinking carefully about what you are doing.
While I was writing this post, there was a post on the Computeractive forum about a root kit for Linux that had been released. Not everybody is sure that publishing was a good move, but I think it is. Now that we know about it someone can do something about it.
If it's online, anyone can read it
And I mean anyone, and it's something that often seems to be forgotten, especially with the micro blogging service Twitter. This is best expressed by a funny cartoon on ReadWriteWeb.
The Museum of Broken Technology
The Putplace blog has collated a selection of technology disasters using public Flickr photos. It mainly involves chips being burnt in strange ways, screens being dropped, and some disasters that are entirely more strange.
Luckily, we've never seen anything quite that bad in the office. What's the worst that's happened to you?
Photo from john_a_ross's Flickr photostream.
Patch Tuesday
It's that time again already with the latest patches for Windows. Hopefully your computer is set to download updates automatically, otherwise head over to Windows update (Start Internet Explorer. Click on Tools and then Windows Update).
Bluetrack - the next big thing in mice?
Microsoft today released its latest hardware products: a selection of keyboards, mice, desktop sets and a couple of webcams. Look out for a full review of some of them shortly.
Two of the mice, the Explorer and Explorer Mini, include a new technology called Bluetrack, which is a combination of the two mouse technologies in wide use at the moment. Standard optical mice have a powerful beam, but an inaccurate one, while laser mice are much more accurate but much less powerful.
Bluetrack combines the two with a blue laser LED to give what Microsoft's representative described as the ability to use the mouse on 'almost any surface'. To prove his point, he proceeded to do so on a piece of carpet, a kitchen-style granite worktop and even a piece of tree bark. The tree bark didn't go quite as well, but his point was made.
We're not convinced that this is the next big thing - the spokesman put it in the context of MS being both the inventor of the scroll wheel and the first company to come out with an optical mouse. After all, how many people really find that their optical mice don't perform well enough?
The Sidewinder X6 gaming keyboard is another interesting release, coming as it does with the ability to map up to 90 macro functions to the custom keys for each game you play. It also has a 'cruise control' mode in which you can program a key sequence and have the keyboard repeat it (for example, for gathering resources in strategy games).
But the keyboard we're most interested in here in the office is the IBM Model M, a design classic from the 1980s, and one with its own fan website. This fully microswitched device gives, in theory, a better typing experience than most modern keyboards. Being cheap, we've decided to bid on one on eBay rather than buying direct from the above site. More here when it turns up.
Very few things are impossible
It's irritating when software places limitations on what we want to do. I had one of these experiences while reviewing the Ion iED05 Digital Drum kit (with video review here). I quite liked it from a hardware point of view but the inability to record in third party software was very frustrating. It may have something to do with the next model up that can do this, and while the extra money was worth it for the proper drum machine, it didn't help me in any way.
Put simply, the drum appears to Windows as a Game Controller rather than a musical instrument. There were one or two programs I found for making music with a joystick but none that would respond to all of the drum pads.
Well it seems I must have been looking in the wrong place. My thanks go out to Mark who pointed me in the direction of a post on wibwobweb.com.
It's not a simple solution; there are several stages to complete but it's better than forking out for a whole new kit.
Office Genuine Advantage comes to Firefox
There are some situations when Firefox struggles to replace Internet Explorer. Windows Update is one, as was validating Windows for Microsoft updates.
At least until recently in order to validate Windows or Office for a download you had to download a small program which would then give out a special code identifying whether or not the download was allowed.
Internet Explorer had an ActiveX plug in, making the process even simpler as there was no intervention required. It either gave you the download or not.
Now that's true for Firefox as well as there is now a Genuine Advantage plug-in for Firefox as the grab below shows.
It does suggest a certain acceptance for Firefox, not least because Silverlight is also available for it now.
Darwin: 200 years old and finally getting online
Next year will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the Darwin 200 project is celebrating. The project is a collaboration between the Natural History Museum and various other museums, institutions and organisations with an interest.
There's a list of events on the website - it goes on until the centenary next June - but there are also a couple of interesting online projects in the pipeline as part of the celebrations.
Sonarboria is an evolutionary project involving trees - pick a seed, see how it grows, and see what kind of music it generates (the concept is a little odd, but there's a good Flash demonstration on the site).
And the Evolution Megalab is calling for volunteers to help it track snails across the country. The idea is that the shell of the domestic banded snail can be used to track evolutionary traits. To get involved, register at the site and start filling in reports whenever you see the right snails.
A pair of "connected radios"
Internet radio is nothing new. There are plenty of streaming stations about, not all of them of particularly good quality, but most of them certainly diverting. Over the last couple of years we've seen plenty of software to listen on the PC such as Radiotracker, as well as stand-alone radios from Terratec, Roberts and Intempo, among others.
Those products are fine, as far as they go, but they lack a certain something. Now along come two new products that both promise to shake up what's become a moribund market.
Pure Digital's DAB radios have a long pedigree and are generally excellent quality (in fact, the company's parent Imagination Technologies makes the chips that go into most other makers' radios), but the Evoke Flow is the company's first foray into non-DAB sets. It's an impressive-sounding product, with DAB and FM as well as access to hundreds of internet stations around the world.
Then there's the Radiopaq RP5 from, yes, Radiopaq. This works in conjunction with the Radiopaq website to deliver what the company says is high-quality programming as well as such extras as traffic news.
In fact, what the two have in common is that both work in conjunction with web services - Radiopaq's main site and Pure's Lounge. On both you can set up listening profiles with your favourite stations, and each site does the job of filtering out poor-quality stations from the listener.
In both cases, it's transparent to users of the radio most of the time - you don't have to delve into the site to make the radio work, but the site makes the radio work better. That's the plan, at least. Both companies are pushing their products on their ease-of-use: trying to make internet radio as painless as standard radio. We'll be putting both through their paces over the next few weeks - look out for full reviews soon.
RealDVD - making piracy easier?
Obviously, that's not the tagline the company will be using. But today Realnetworks is making available its RealDVD software that promises to make it easy to copy an entire commercial DVD - menus, extras and all.
There are programs out there that do this already, of course, but all the ones from major names skirt around the issue of copyright. In most cases, they're knobbled to prevent users from copying protected discs (which is most of them) or you need to get online and download a DLL to circumvent the protection.
RealDVD is the first to upfront state that it's going to copy full protected discs, though. It includes its own copy-protection: ripped files can be played only on the PC on which they're ripped (unless you pay for an upgrade in which case they can be played on up to five computers). That should take some of the sting out of the lawyers' suits.
There's as yet no information on RealDVD on Real's British site, and that may be for a good reason - American law enshrines a right to 'fair use' that's absent from British law, so it may be a while before we see the technology over here. Meanwhile here's the write-up from the New York Times.
Phishing phrases to avoid
The McAfee Avert Labs has released the top ten phishing phrases they found in August.
1. Update Your Billing Information.
2. Your Account with Google AdWords.
3. Please re-submit your payment information.
4. Your AdWords Google Account is stoped.
5. You have one or more alerts.
6. Update your payment information.
7. Exclusive Back to School savings from PayPal
8. Submit your payment information.
9. Please submit your payment information.
10. Please Re-activate your account.
I'm not suggesting that all emails with these phrases should be deleted but be extra careful and certainly don't click on any links. Log in the normal way if you need to check account details.
When less is more
As happy as I am to use a notebook, the Realtek HD audio chipset is quite a headache. I was getting error messages in programs that have been well behaved on other computers.
One such was Magix MP3 Maker. I like this software for the decent list of web radio stations and the Mufin functionality. (Nothing to do with children's television, this is a clever playlist generator that works with the audio data rather than tags that may or may not be correctly filled in.)
Sadly every time I tried to start MP3 Maker I got a DirectSound error and no audio, disappointing for an audio player.
Now the Realtek chipset in my notebook has two outputs. An ordinary line out and an optical digital output. I don't have any digital devices so I disabled that output last night. It's very simple. Right-click on the loudspeaker icon in the Notification Area and then left-click on Playback Devices. Right-click on the Digital output and left-click on Disable.
I started MP3 Maker again, and all worked perfectly. I sometimes wonder if there are other devices that can be safely disabled to fix problems or improve performance. I tend to disable wireless when I'm connected. This is mostly to reduce the time to recharge the battery, though I'm sure it won't hurt not to have the radio transmitting all the time.
Of course, disabling devices is one thing but there are times when you want to re-enable them again. Wireless on a notebook is simple because there is normally a keyboard shortcut or switch. The sound device dialogue is also quite straightforward. Right-click on an empty part of the Playback devices window and then left-click on Show disabled devices. The device can then be re-enabled by right-clicking on the faded icon and selecting Enable.
