I have used Picasa for managing my photos for years. Its one of the best free photo editing and media management applications available (in my opinion).
The application has gotten better with several new enhancement that Google has added in this release. Below is a brief summary of changes in the new version of Picasa 3:
Improved automatic sync between your PC and the Picasa Web Albums site.
Improved photo collage tool
New editing tools include a : retouching, text, and smart cropping tool.
A new movie making tool that allows you to create video slide shows from your photos, videos, and music. The tool also allows direct upload of your videos to Picasa Web Albums or YouTube.
One of my favorite features is the new photo viewer for browsing photo on your hard drive.
For more information about the new features, check out this article.
If malware, spam, phishing, and other threats were not bad enough, the latest Internet security threat is called Clickjacking. Basically its a way of tricking you to click on disguised Web links, so that an action is performed on your local computer without your knowledge.
For example, using this exploit you can be tricked into turning on your web cam, or installing malware. All browsers are vulnerable to this type of threat, so this is not just isolated to I.E., Firefox, etc.
The way the attack works is you go to a site that has been modified by a malicious attacker, then the content (i.e.: web pages, flash animation, etc.) of the site tries to trick you into clicking links and buttons that you might not realize you're clicking. They do this by disguising the content to look like something else.
If you're really worried about this type of attack, then you need to disable scripting technologies like Javascript, and Flash for all sites in your browser. Then you need to enable it for approved sites only. The drawback is that many sites rely on this technology to make them more interactive. Thus disabling this technology can cripple a web site's experience.
To help protect you, here are some resources:
For Firefox there is a free open-source plug-in called NoScript that can block the execution of JavaScript except for sites that you approve.
For Internet Explorer, under Internet Options... in the Security tab you can set the Internet security slider to high. This should block all scripting technologies from running on any web pages you visit. If you want grant permissions to specific web site, you need to add them to your Trusted Site list.
Are you looking for a free alternative to the commercial version of Partition Magic? Then you might want to check out EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition, its a free hard disk partition management application. It allows you to: create, format, re-size, delete, move hard disk partitions, and more.
It runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32-bit) Operating Systems. This version of the software is only free for personal use, if you're a business you will have to buy a licensed version.
Windows Vista already has built-in functionality to create, shrink, extend and delete a partition. So I would suggest trying this built-in functionality first. If you're running Windows XP or below, then you might want to try this software.
Note: I need to note that I have not personally tested this program, so use it at your own risk.
Note: This tip is more technical then the way I generally write. Although, the people who would use this feature should understand what I am talking about.
Sometimes when they upgrade software they change or remove things. Most of the improvements in Windows Vista I really like, but one small feature that was removed that I really used was the "Run as..." context menu command.
This Windows XP feature allowed you run a program under a different set of user credentials then the one you logged in with. You won't often need this functionality, unless you do systems administration. There is also a command line version of this utility that is still available, but its just not as easy to use.
Mark Russinovich and Jon Schwartz created ShellRunas v1.01 to add this functionality back into Windows Vista. To get this program to install, use the Run... command (press WinKey+R) and type "[path]\shellrunas.exe /reg" (you need to include the [path] where the executable is located.
A few days ago Microsoft released a critical patch known as MS08-067 (958644). If you have Automatic Updates turned on, and have it setup to install the patches for you automatically then you should have received this patch already. If you don't, I would suggest that you manually install it (download information).
This patch fixes a new security vulnerability in the Server Service that could allow remote code execution. For those of you who don't know what that mean, it basically means that someone can run a program on your computer without your knowledge.
Want to create a quick and easy to way restart or shutdown Vista from an icon in your desktop, quick launch bar or your Start menu? Follow the instructions below.
Right-click an empty area on your desktop and select New > Shortcut.
In the field labeled 'Type the location of the item,' type: shutdown.exe /s /t 00 (note: those are zeros, and not 'O's). You can also use the command shutdown.exe /r /t 00 to restart your computer instead of shutting it down.
Press the Next button, then give your shortcut a name (i.e.: Shut Down), then Press the Finish button
Optional: if want a different icon image. Right-click the new item you just created, then click the Shortcut tab and press the Change Icon button to select a different image to display.
Microsoft's Sysinternals group has release a new utility called 'Desktops', which is a virtual desktop manager. Basically, it allows you to have several applications open, and assign them to different virtual desktops.
So for example, let say that you have eight different programs open, but they can be grouped into 4 different categories. You can assign related application windows to different virtual desktops. So when you switch to that desktop, those application windows will be visible to you.
The advantage to using a program like this is that it allows you to organize your application windows. You can also assign hot-keys, or you can use the icon in the Notification area to switch between desktops.
I don't post a lot of these videos, but I thought this was a very good comparison of a Samsung Solid State Drive (SSD) vs a standard Hard Disk Drive (HDD). SSD uses the same type of memory as portable flash drives. The SSD wins in weight, reliability, speed, and power consumption.
The problems with SSD, is that its more expensive and the available capacities are limited right now when compared to HDD.
Microsoft recently released a new version of their Pro Photo Tools. Here is excerpt from the site explains the software, "The Pro Photo Tools allow you to add, change, and delete common metadata properties for digital photographs. You can place photos on the Live Earth map and then drag them to the right location. The GPS information will be stored back into the photos. If you have a GPS device, you can load track route files from the most popular formats (NMEA, GPX, and KML) and see them on the map. " For more information, see the following web page.
ZDNet.com reports: "Oh dear. The Chicken Little contingent is out in full force. Break out your Kevlar helmets, everyone, because the sky is falling on Windows! At last week’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, researchers Alexander Sotirov and Mark Dowd presented a paper that outlined some new attack vectors they had discovered targeting some security features introduced in different versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. It’s a fascinating paper, rich in technical detail and hewing to the Black Hat tradition of providing clues that others can follow to discover, exploit, and ultimately fix vulnerabilities in widely used computer code."
This is a technical article, but it's very interesting. If you want to understand what is really going on with state of Windows Vista security then read this.
Keeping up with all the latest malware that is being created is an overwhelming job for any anti-virus company. Some have stated its even a losing battle. This is a very interesting video where Mikko Hyppönen discusses the various motives of Crimeware in a follow up to Re:solution. After watching it, you can begin to see why its getting its such a tough job.
eWeek reports: "Google launches Chrome as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Analysts from IDC and Forrester believe Chrome can be Google's definitive Web operating system, making it quite an achievement for application development. If Google can make Chrome consumers' gateway of choice for Web services such as search and SAAS applications, it will extend Google's search advertising empire."
I am in the process of checking this out for myself before I make any comments. Although I just wanted to post this just in case someone didn't know about it. Read the article for more information.
For those of you that like to run the latest and greatest browser, here is information on IE8 Beta 2. Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online reports: "Microsoft released its Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 test product today, and the company spilled a lot of pixels explaining the beta's new features, with some details for Web developers. The public release of the new beta can be accessed here."
TechRepublic did a great job of documenting the removal of Windows Vista SP1 installation files. Here is an except from the site: "When you install Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the installation process leaves behind about 800 MBs of original Windows Vista files–in case you later want to remove SP1. Relative to current hard drives, 800 MBs isn’t that much space. But, it’s still enough space to store a couple hundred MP3 files or a few video clips. Personally, I just don’t like useless files taking up space on my drives. In this IT Dojo video, I show you how to remove all those old files using the SP1 Files Removal Tool."
If you want more information, check out my article on this subject.
Want to know how well your personal firewall might protect you from personal identity from being stolen. Check out this great comparison from matousec.com.
Here is except from their site describing the project: "This project examines personal firewalls, Internet security suites and other similar products for Windows OS that implement process-based security. We call all such products personal firewalls. In our opinion, personal firewalls should prevent spying and data and identity theft. So, we require personal firewalls to include host protection features too. The list of personal firewalls we are aware of is available on the product list page. We know that our terminology may be in conflict with the common understanding of what the firewalls are. To distinguish between personal firewalls and firewalls in the common sense, we call the later packet filters. A typical example of a packet filter is WIPFW. Most of the personal firewalls include a packet filter component. Simple packet filters are not worse than personal firewalls, they are just different kind of software – for different kind of users. This project does not examine stand-alone packet filters."
Windows Secrets reports: "Although you can find free tools to help keep Windows and your other software up-to-date, you'll have to pay to get the best tool for scanning your system's drivers and downloading the updates you need."
I have never been a big fan of these driver version update tools, because they never really helped me but some people like them. Although, here is a article that talks about some of the issues with this class of tools and recommends some of the better products that you might want to check out.
Are you looking for different templates to spice up your Microsoft Office documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, and more.). Check out Microsoft Office's template web site. Below is a brief list of categories available on the site:
Microsoft has posted a knowledge base article on how to enable the DVD Library feature on a Windows Vista based Media Center. This feature is enabled by default in Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The DVD content is stored on the hard disk, and appears in the My Videos folder.
On Windows Vista-based Media Centers content is displayed in a DVD gallery. However, the DVD Library is not automatically enabled in Windows Media Center on a Windows Vista-based computer. This feature should allow you to play your commercial DVDs from the hard drive.
One of Windows Vista's new features is the built-in calendaring program, called Windows Calendar. It provides functionality similar to Microsoft's Outlook calendaring feature, but unlike Outlook there is a separate application called Windows Mail for managing your email.
Some of the Windows Calendar features include: sharing your calendar with others, creating multiple calendars for different events, and publish the calendars for others to subscribe to. You can also color code calendar items, search for specific appointments and tasks, and set up recurring events or add reminders to appointments.
To access Windows Calendar, open the Start menu, in the Search field type Calendar then press the Enter key.
