For techie tips and tricks, tools and sites of (dis)interest

Yet another bootdisk...

| Tuesday, March 10, 2009
... Only this one is actually brilliant:

Hiren's BootCD

What is Hiren's BootCD ? It's a all in one Dos Bootable CD which has all these utilities:
—————————————————————————-
Partition Tools
—————————————————————————-
Partition Magic Pro 8.05
Best software to partition hard drive

Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0.554
Popular disk management functions in a single suite

Paragon Partition Manager 7.0.1274
Universal tool for partitions

Partition Commander 9.01
The safe way to partition your hard drive,with undo feature

Ranish Partition Manager 2.44
a boot manager and hard disk partitioner.

The Partition Resizer 1.3.4
move and resize your partitions in one step and more.

Smart Fdisk 2.05
a simple harddisk partition manager

SPecial Fdisk 2000.03t
SPFDISK a partition tool.

eXtended Fdisk 0.9.3
XFDISK allows easy partition creation and edition

GDisk 1.1.1
Complete replacement for the DOS FDISK utility and more.

Super Fdisk 1.0
Create, delete, format partitions drives without destroying data

Partition Table Editor 8.0
Partition Table and Boot Record Editor
—————————————————————————-
Disk Clone Tools
—————————————————————————-
ImageCenter 5.6 (Drive Image 2002)
Best software to clone hard drive

Norton Ghost 11.5
Similar to Drive Image (with usb/scsi support)

Acronis True Image 8.1.945
Create an exact disk image for complete system backup and disk cloning.

Partition Saving 3.60
A tool to backup/restore partitions. (SavePart.exe)

COPYR.DMA Build013
A Tool for making copies of hard disks with bad sectors
—————————————————————————-
Antivirus Tools
—————————————————————————-
McAfee Antivirus 4.4.50 (3012)
a virus scanner (with ntfs support and easy to use menu)
—————————————————————————-
Recovery Tools
—————————————————————————-
Active Partition Recovery 3.0
To Recover a Deleted partition.

Active Uneraser 3.0
To recover deleted files and folders on FAT and NTFS systems.

Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro 6.10
To Recover data that has been deleted/virus attack

Winternals Disk Commander 1.1
more than just a standard deleted-file recovery utility

TestDisk 6.10
Tool to check and undelete partition.

Lost & Found 1.06
a good old data recovery software.

DiyDataRecovery Diskpatch 2.1.100
An excellent data recovery software.

Prosoft Media Tools 5.0 1.1.2.64
Another excellent data recovery software with many other options.

PhotoRec 6.10
File and pictures recovery Tool.
—————————————————————————-
Testing Tools
—————————————————————————-
System Speed Test 4.78
it tests CPU, harddrive, ect.

PC-Check 6.5
Easy to use hardware tests

Ontrack Data Advisor 5.0
Powerful diagnostic tool for assessing the condition of your computer

The Troubleshooter 7.02
all kind of hardware testing tool

PC Doctor 2004
a benchmarking and information tool

CPU/Video/Disk Performance Test 5.7
a tool to test cpu, video, and disk

Test Hard Disk Drive 1.0
a tool to test Hard Disk Drive
—————————————————————————-
RAM (Memory) Testing Tools
—————————————————————————-
GoldMemory 5.07
RAM Test utility

Memtest86+ 2.11
PC Memory Test
—————————————————————————-
Hard Disk Tools
—————————————————————————-
Hard Disk Diagnostic Utilities
Seagate Seatools Desktop Edition 3.02
Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools
Western Digital Diagnostics (DLGDIAG) 5.04f
Maxtor PowerMax 4.23
Maxtor amset utility 4.0
Maxtor(or any Hdd) Low Level Formatter 1.1
Fujitsu HDD Diagnostic Tool 7.00
Fujitsu IDE Low Level Format 1.0
Samsung HDD Utility(HUTIL) 2.10
Samsung Disk Diagnose (SHDIAG) 1.28
IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test 4.11
IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool 2.11
Gateway GwScan 5.12
ExcelStor's ESTest 4.50
MHDD 4.6
WDClear 1.30
Toshiba Hard Disk Diagnostic 2.00b
SeaTools for Dos 1.10

HDD Regenerator 1.51
to recover a bad hard drive

Ontrack Disk Manager 9.57
Disk Test/Format/Maintenance tool.

Norton Disk Doctor 2002
a tool to repair a damaged disk, or to diagnose your hard drive.

Norton Disk Editor 2002
a powerful disk editing, manual data recovery tool.

Hard Disk Sentinel 0.02
Hard Disk health, performance and temperature monitoring tool.

Active Kill Disk 4.1
Securely overwrites and destroys all data on physical drive.

HDAT2 4.53
main function is testing and repair (regenerates) bad sectors for detected devices

SmartUDM 2.00
Hard Disk Drive S.M.A.R.T. Viewer.

Victoria 3.33e and 3.52rus
a freeware program for low-level HDD diagnostics

HDD Erase 4.0
Secure erase using a special feature built into most newer hard drives
—————————————————————————-
System Information Tools
—————————————————————————-
Aida16 2.14
a system information tool, extracts details of all components of the PC

PCI and AGP info Tool (3012)
The PCI System information & Exploration tool.

System Analyser 5.3u
View extensive information about your hardware

Navratil Software System Information 0.60.32
High-end professional system information tool

Astra 5.41
Advanced System info Tool and Reporting Assistant

HWiNFO 5.2.5
a powerful system information utility

PC-Config 9.33
Complete hardware detection of your computer

SysChk 2.46
Find out exactly what is under the hood of your PC

CPU Identification utility 1.15
Detailed information on CPU (CHKCPU.EXE)

CTIA CPU Information 2.7
another CPU information tool
—————————————————————————-
MBR (Master Boot Record) Tools
—————————————————————————-
MBRWork 1.07b
a utility to perform some common and uncommon MBR functions

MBR Tool 2.2.100
backup, verify, restore, edit, refresh, remove, display, re-write…

DiskMan4
all in one tool for cmos, bios, bootrecord and more

BootFix Utility
Run this utility if you get 'Invalid system disk'

MBR SAVE / RESTORE 2.1
BootSave and BootRest tools to save / restore MBR

Boot Partition 2.60
add Partition in the Windows NT/2000/XP Multi-boot loader

Partition Table Doctor 3.5
a tool to repair/modify mbr, bootsector, partition table

Smart Boot Manager 3.7.1
a multi boot manager

Bootmagic 8.0
This tool is for multi boot operating systems

MBRWizard 2.0b
Directly update and modify the MBR (Master Boot Record)
—————————————————————————-
BIOS / CMOS Tools
—————————————————————————-
CMOS 0.93
CMOS Save / Restore Tool

BIOS Cracker 4.8
BIOS password remover (cmospwd)

BIOS Cracker 1.4
BIOS password remover (cmospwc)

BIOS Utility 1.35.0
BIOS Informations, password, beep codes and more.

!BIOS 3.20
a powerfull utility for bios and cmos

DISKMAN4
a powerful all in one utility

UniFlash 1.40
bios flash utility

Kill CMOS
a tiny utility to wipe cmos

Award DMI Configuration Utility 2.43
DMI Configuration utility for modifying/viewing the MIDF contents.
—————————————————————————-
MultiMedia Tools
—————————————————————————-
Picture Viewer 1.94
Picture viewer for dos, supports more then 40 filetypes.

QuickView Pro 2.58
movie viewer for dos, supports many format including divx.

MpxPlay 1.56
a small Music Player for dos
—————————————————————————-
Password Tools
—————————————————————————-
Active Password Changer 3.0.420
To Reset User Password on windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista (FAT/NTFS)

Offline NT/2K/XP Password Changer
utility to reset windows nt/2000/xp administrator/user password.

Registry Viewer 4.2
Registry Viewer/Editor for Win9x/Me/NT/2K/XP

Registry Reanimator 1.02
check and restore structure of the damaged registry files of NT/2K/XP

NTPWD
utility to reset windows nt/2000/xp administrator/user password.

ATAPWD 1.2
Hard Disk Password Utility
—————————————————————————-
NTFS Ext2FS, Ext3FS (FileSystems) Tools
—————————————————————————-
NTFS Dos Pro 5.0
To access ntfs partitions from Dos

NTFS 4 Dos 1.9
To access ntfs partitions from Dos

Paragon Mount Everything 3.0
To access NTFS, Ext2FS, Ext3FS partitions from dos

NTFS Dos 3.02
To access ntfs partitions from Dos

EditBINI 1.01
to Edit boot.ini on NTFS Partition
—————————————————————————-
Dos File Managers
—————————————————————————-
Volkov Commander 4.99
Dos File Manager with LongFileName/ntfs support
(Similar to Norton Commander)

Dos Command Center 5.1
Classic dos-based file manager.

File Wizard 1.35
a file manager - colored files, drag and drop copy, move, delete etc.

File Maven 3.5
an advanced Dos file manager with high speed PC-to-PC file
transfers via serial or parallel cable

FastLynx 2.0
Dos file manager with Pc to Pc file transfer capability

LapLink 5.0
the smart way to transfer files and directories between PCs.

Dos Navigator 6.4.0
Dos File Manager, Norton Commander clone but has much more features

Mini Windows 98
Can run from Ram Drive, with ntfs support,
Added 7-Zip which supports .7z .zip .cab .rar .arj .gzip,
.bzip2 .z .tar .cpio .rpm and .deb
Disk Defragmenter, Notepad / RichText Editor,
Image Viewer, .avi .mpg .divx .xvid Movie Player, etc…
—————————————————————————-
Other Tools
—————————————————————————-
Ghost Walker 11.5
utility that changes the security ID (SID) for Windows NT, 2000 and XP

DosCDroast beta 2
Dos CD Burning Tools

Universal TCP/IP Network 6.2
MSDOS Network Client to connect via TCP/IP to a Microsoft based
network. The network can either be a peer-to-peer or a server based
network, it contains 91 different network card drivers
—————————————————————————-
Dos Tools
—————————————————————————-
USB CD-Rom Driver 1
Standard usb_cd.sys driver for cd drive

Universal USB Driver 2
Panasonic v2.20 ASPI Manager for USB mass storage

SCSI Support
SCSI Drivers for Dos

SATA Support
SATA Driver (gcdrom.sys) and JMicron JMB361 (xcdrom.sys) for Dos

1394 Firewire Support
1394 Firewire Drivers for Dos

Interlnk support at COM1
To access another computer from COM port

Interlnk support at LPT1
To access another computer from LPT port
—————————————————————————-
and too many great dos tools
very good collection of dos utilities
—————————————————————————-
extract.exe pkzip.exe pkunzip.exe unrar.exe rar.exe
ace.exe lha.exe gzip.exe uharcd.exe mouse.com
attrib.com deltree.exe xcopy.exe diskcopy.com imgExtrc.exe
undelete.com edit.com fdisk.exe fdisk2.exe fdisk3.exe
lf.exe delpart.exe wipe.com zap.com format.com
move.exe more.com find.exe hex.exe debug.exe
split.exe mem.exe mi.com sys.com smartdrv.exe
xmsdsk.exe killer.exe share.exe scandisk.exe scanreg.exe
guest.exe doskey.exe duse.exe biosdtct.exe setver.exe
intersvr.exe interlnk.exe loadlin.exe lfndos.exe doslfn.com
—————————————————————————-
Windows Tools
—————————————————————————-
SpaceMonger 1.4
keeping track of the free space on your computer

WinDirStat 1.1.2.80
a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows.

Drive Temperature 1.0
Hard Disk Drive temperature meter

Disk Speed 1.0
Hard Disk Drive Speed Testing Tool

MemTest 1.0
a Memory Testing Tool

S&M Stress Test 1.9.1
cpu/hdd/memory benchmarking and information tool, including temperatures/fan speeds/voltages

PageDfrg 2.32
System file Defragmenter For NT/2k/XP

WhitSoft File Splitter 4.5a
a Small File Split-Join Tool

7-Zip 4.62
File Manager/Archiver Supports 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS formats<

Off By One Browser 3.5d
an independent web browser that runs completely self- contained

Ghost Image Explorer 11.5
to add/remove/extract files from Ghost image file

DriveImage Explorer 5.0
to add/remove/extract files from Drive image file

Drive SnapShot 1.39
creates an exact Disk Image of your system into a file while windows is running.

Active Undelete 5.5
a tool to recover deleted files

Restoration 3.2.13
a tool to recover deleted files

GetDataBack for FAT 2.31
Data recovery software for FAT file systems

GetDataBack for NTFS 2.31
Data recovery software for NTFS file systems

Recuva 1.22.384
Restore deleted files from Hard Drive, Digital Camera Memory Card, usb mp3 player…

Partition Find and Mount 2.3.1
Partition Find and Mount software is designed to find lost or deleted partitions

Unstoppable Copier 3.56
Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors,
scratches or that just give errors when reading data.

HDD Scan 3.1
This is a Low-level HDD diagnostic tool, it scans surface find bad sectors etc.

HDTune 2.55
Hard disk benchmarking and information tool.

Express Burn 4.16
CD/DVD Burner Program to create and record CDs/DVDs, also create/burn .iso and .nrg images

Data Shredder 1.0
A tool to Erase disk and files (also wipe free space) securely

Startup Control Panel 2.8
a tool to edit startup programs

NT Registry Optimizer 1.1j
Registry Optimization for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista

Registry Editor PE 0.9c
Easy editing of remote registry hives and user profiles

DefragNT 1.9
This tool presents the user with many options for disk defragmenting

JkDefrag 3.36
Free disk defragment and optimize utility for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista

Startup Monitor 1.02
it notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup

IB Process Manager 1.04
a little process manager for 9x/2k, shows dll info etc.

Process Explorer 11.31
shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded

Pocket KillBox 2.0.0.978
can be used to get rid of files that stubbornly refuse to allow you to delete them

Unlocker 1.8.7
This tool can delete file/folder when you get this message - Cannot delete file:
Access is denied, The file is in use by another program etc.

HijackThis 2.0.2
a general homepage hijackers detector and remover and more

RootkitRevealer 1.7.1
Rootkit Revealer is an advanced patent-pending root kit detection utility.

Silent Runners Revision 59
A free script that helps detect spyware, malware and adware in the startup process

Autoruns 9.37
Displays All the entries from startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys,
Explorer shell extensions,toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications,
auto-start services, Scheduled Tasks, Winsock, LSA Providers, Remove Drivers
and much more which helps to remove nasty spyware/adware and viruses.

Dial a Fix 0.60.0.24
Fix errors and problems with COM/ActiveX object errors and missing registry entries,
Automatic Updates, SSL, HTTPS, and Cryptography service (signing/verification)
issues, Reinstall internet explorer etc. comes with the policy scanner

CurrPorts 1.55
displays the list of all currently opened TCP and UDP ports on your computer

Unknown Devices 1.2 (3012)
helps you find what those unknown devices in Device Manager really are

PCI 32 Sniffer 1.1 (3012)
device information tool (similar to unknown devices)

NewSID 4.10
utility that changes the security ID (SID) for Windows NT, 2000 and XP

Smart Driver Backup 2.12
Easy backup of your Windows device drivers (also works from PE)

Double Driver 1.0
Driver Backup and Restore tool

DriverBackup! 1.0.3
Another handy tool to backup drivers

CPU-Z 1.49
It gathers information on some of the main devices of your system

CWShredder 2.19
Popular CoolWebSearch Trojan Remover tool

SmitFraudFix 2.387
This removes Some of the popular Desktop Hijack malware

Winsock 2 Fix for 9x
to fix corrupted Winsock2 information by poorly written Internet programs

XP TCP/IP Repair 1.0
Repair your Windows XP Winsock and TCP/IP registry errors

CCleaner 2.15.815
Crap Cleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool

EzPcFix 1.0.0.16
Helpful tool when trying to remove viruses, spyware, and malware

Content Advisor Password Remover 1.0
It Removes Content Advisor Password from Internet Explorer

Password Renew 1.1
Utility to (re)set windows passwords

WindowsGate 1.1
Enables/Disables Windows logon password validation

WinKeyFinder 1.73
Allows you to View and Change Windows XP/2003 Product Keys, backup and restore
activation related files, backup Microsoft Office 97, 2000 SP2, XP/2003 keys etc.

ProduKey 1.35
Recovers lost the product key of your Windows/Office

Wireless Key View 1.20
Recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by WZC

Monitor Tester 1.0
Allows you to test CRT/LCD/TFT screens for dead pixels and diffective screens

Shell Extensions Manager (ShellExView) 1.35
An excellent tool to View and Manage all installed Context-menu/Shell extensions

Ultimate Windows Tweaker 1.0
A TweakUI Utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows Vista

TweakUI 2.10
This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows Xp

Xp-AntiSpy 3.97
it tweaks some Windows XP functions, and disables some unneeded Windows services quickly

PC Wizard 2008.1.871
Powerful system information/benchmark utility designed especially for detection of hardware.

SIW 2008-12-16
Gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings.

Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.6 (3012)
Application to scan for spyware, adware, hijackers and other malicious software.

SpywareBlaster 4.1 (3012)
Prevent the installation of spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Ad-Aware SE Personal 1.06 (3012)
find and remove spyware, adware, dialers etc. (a must have tool)

—————————————-
Changes from Hiren's BootCD 9.6 > 9.7
—————————————-
+Mini Windows Xp
+Password Renew 1.1
+WindowsGate 1.1
+Registry Editor PE 0.9c
+Smart Driver Backup 2.12
+Ultimate Windows Tweaker 1.0
+Off By One Browser 3.5
-DocMem
Ghost 11.5.0.2141
Ghost Walker 11.5.0.2141
Ghost Image Explorer 11.5.0.2141
IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test 4.11
Memtest86+ 2.11
ExcelStor's ESTest 4.50
Astra 5.41
HWiNFO 5.2.5
CPU Identification utility 1.15
7-Zip 4.62
Recuva 1.22.384
Partition Find and Mount 2.31
Express Burn 4.16
Process Explorer 11.31
RootkitRevealer 1.71
Silent Runners Revision 59
Autoruns 9.37
CurrPorts 1.55
CPU-Z 1.49
SmitFraudFix 2.387
CCleaner 2.15.815
ProduKey 1.35
Wireless Key View 1.20
ShellExView 1.35
Xp-AntiSpy 3.97
PC Wizard 2008.1.871
SIW 2008-12-16
Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.6 (3012)
SpywareBlaster 4.1(3012)
PCI 32 Sniffer 1.4 (3012)
McAfee Antivirus 4.4.50 (3012)
Ad-Aware SE Personal 1.06 (3012)
PCI and AGP info Tool (3012)
Unknown Devices 1.2 (3012)


Visit the producer's site to see the latest tools / changes.

Build your very own Cloud OS

| Wednesday, March 04, 2009
We put all our mail, calendaring & scheduling, documents and many other web services in the hands of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay and don't bat an eyelid. It's alright for us, we're just consumers and individual users, but it's always been a worry for small businesses to put the same trust in these "free" services (or even the pay services) offered by the big corporations.
A couple of years back, a free alternative would have been unthinkable, but eyeOS are offering all this with no charge. You don't even need a server farm to run it.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine Is Us/ing Us

| Sunday, February 15, 2009


Web 2.0 ... The Machine Is Us/ing Us - video powered by Metacafe

Web Designers Make Buttons

| Thursday, February 12, 2009
The money has gone out of the web design business these days. Save yourselves the trouble ;-)
http://www.buttonator.com/
http://www.cleancss.com/
http://www.fonttester.com/

Or, if you have the time:
http://www.crestock.com/blog/design/top-50-blog-posts-on-usability-web-design-development-resources-cheat-sheets-of-2008-164.aspx

Discover Your Network with NScan

| Wednesday, February 11, 2009
There are plenty of portscanners out there, but not so many great ones designed exclusively for Windows. Of course, you can (and probably do) use the likes of Winpcap, Wireshark and Aircrack to sniff and read packets and crack wired and wireless networks, but I think even taking those great tools into account, NScan still has something to offer. I especially like the way you can put it on the network and let it crawl, discovering hosts and ports and presenting what it finds in a simple way. It even includes subtly improved tools - traceroute, whois and DIG (which was a new one on me).

IFPI Gets Its Own Way With Eircom

| Saturday, January 31, 2009
So it finally came to pass last week - Eircom, Ireland's largest ISP (and provider to all of Ireland's broadband resellers) has capitulated to the IFPI, IRMA (the Irish Recorded Music Association) and the big labels including EMI and Sony. They hardly stood much of a chance, and at least they tried. In fact, they didn't give in to every demand, namely the requirement to hand over details of customers found guilty of downloading copyrighted material to the record company legal eagles (boo). Instead, they will deal with the matter themselves, and apply a three-strikes rule: email warnings will be sent to those observed to be downloading such material and after a third and final warning their service will be terminated.

This sets something of a precedent* in Ireland, and it probably won't be long before the other ISPs follow (mostly because they all resell Eircom based services anyway). There are a few that may well slip under the radar, such as Digiweb, but the main targets will probably be UPC and Smart, especially since many heavy downloaders will now be scared away from Eircom and its ilk to one of these two ISPs. Especially since they offer higher speeds for lower costs (and greater caps, or in Smart's case, unlimited downloads).

Questions lie as to how copyrighted material will be traced through torrent sites - since by its very nature, distributed BitTorrent traffic is notoriously difficult to trace. It's decentralized, deregulated and buried deep underground. Demonoid were famously squeezed for a while, but they bounced back once they managed to find themselves a new home. The P2P file sharers are much easier to trace - and up to now most prosecutions have been made in this area. The talk of being able to trace the "fingerprint" of a file is interesting. If an mp3 comes from a CD rip - as most do - then how can it have a traceable "fingerprint" (in practical terms)? If I rip a track from a CD, I may use any one of three or four programs for this purpose that I have to hand, and I may use any bit rate I feel like. I might even use a less standard frequency. The point is that filenames can be changed. Filesizes will vary in any case, and hence so will MD5 hashes - the standard means of taking the "fingerprints" of any file. The only way I can see the likes of Sony tracing this traffic is to seed the files themselves - which is essentially entrapment - and hope that the flies like the sound of their flypaper.

Perhaps someone out there can suggest some other means by which this "fingerprinting" may be achieved. One that's practical and workable. No science fiction please :)

*The reason I suggested that it's something of a precedent is because UTV Clicksilver broadband operated a "fair usage" policy right from the start, and they've been offering broadband in Ireland for years now. This policy stated that torrent, file sharing and P2P traffic would be monitored and that heavy users would have their bandwidth squeezed, so that other light to moderate users did not suffer. Repeat offenders would be warned, and once a third and final warning was ignored, their accounts would be suspended. There were reports of users having their accounts suspended for the rest of the month, just as if they had exceeded their download cap, and those that were reckless enough to offend again once their accounts were resumed were banned. There was no blacklisting as far as I am aware, I would think that it would have been in breach of the privacy laws to go that far.
The point is that this has been tried before in this country by an ISP - they weren't under pressure from the music industry, but were just trying to be fair to all their users and try to manage contention. Nice in theory. I was with them for nearly 3 years, and never once received a warning - obviously because I never leeched or seeded torrents on a regular basis ;-)

References:
http://torrentfreak.com/isp-capitulates-to-ifpi-agrees-to-disconnect-pirates-090128/

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16833.cfm
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2009/01/28/eircom-and-irish-record-labels-settle-action/
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/15522.cfm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7854494.stm

See the latest on the Browser Wars

| Thursday, January 15, 2009
Google Chrome is not doing so well, but it's steadily growing and has overtaken Opera. Interesting to see that some people still use Netscape too. One mystifying thing is the absence of Seamonkey and Flock - unless they are counting them under the umbrella of Mozilla. It's also interesting to see that Safari still has 7%, which, by today's standards makes it a major player (?).

Are there signs that Google is slipping off its perch?

|
It would have been unthinkable just a year ago. With search, webmail and online docs completely sewn up, and with its fine blogging engine and good calendaring and scheduling Google seemed to be unassailable. As 2008 rolled in, all people could talk about was what Google was going to do next (and they meant do brilliantly).

As 2009 starts to get old (face it, we're bored already ;-), things don't look so hot. Last year was somewhat tinged with failure for Google. There were the first signs of bloat, overloaded services and loss of focus. We even saw some bad acquisitions (are they trying to copy IBM?).

It's still a great, great company - no doubt about that - but there are signs that they might have peaked, or at least that they are heading for a slump. Hopefully, this will only be temporary. Let's face it - if Google never did another thing they'd still be guaranteed their place in the IT Hall of Fame, but I sincerely hope we haven't seen the best of them yet.

Auto selection of channel on Thomson Speedtouch 585 v7 causes connectivity issues

| Wednesday, January 14, 2009
This morning I switched on the laptop and couldn't connect to the internet. After rebooting the laptop, rebooting the router and checking if my PC could connect (it couldn't) I tried to bring up my router's web interface on http://{ip_of_default_gateway}, but I couldn't get to that either. My wireless connection icon in the system tray was showing a speed of just 1Mbps.

I grabbed a network cable and headed downstairs to see what was wrong, hooking up the laptop to it directly. After having a quick poke around the configuration menus, it was pretty apparent what had happened.

The Speedtouch 585 v7 is administration menu is a fairly simple affair. There's not much you can do here really, most of the really interesting stuff has to be done through telnet commands. Without many options to choose from, you really can't go too far wrong.

First, I went to Home Network > Interfaces > WLAN: Thomson. The quick way there is shown in the screenshot below.

Next, I entered the configuration menu by clicking the 'Configure' hyperlink in the top right of the screen:
In the configuration menu I could see that the router was set to automatically select the wireless channel, and that it was currently using channel 6:

Finally, I expanded the combo-box for 'Channel Selection' and selected 'Automatic', this unlocked the 'Channel', and I selected channel 11, which is a more commonly used wireless channel and one I didn't expect to give me problems:

Once I clicked 'Apply' that was it - the router required a restart to apply the new settings and once it came back up I was in e-business. It's been connected at 54 Mbps ever since.

Poirates Ahoy!

| Friday, November 28, 2008
Learn about hacking, cracking, javascript, cryptology,PHP and password security at HackQuest

AV Performance put to the test

| Monday, November 24, 2008
AV-Comparatives.org have been busy testing the performance hit your system takes by running a resident AV.
Some people will use this report as an excuse not to run a real-time scanner, and just get by with one full scan a week, but these people are stupid. Stupid I tell you!

One interesting thing is Symantec's position in this test. If these results are to be believed, then not only is it catching almost all threats, but it is also extremely light on resources too, even on higher security settings.

Meanwhile, in other news, the number of empty brown envelopes found out the back of the AV-Comparatives office went up by 2342% last month.


Read the last few reports on av-comparatives.org

Read the full performance report

A BSOD with a difference :)

| Wednesday, November 19, 2008
If your PC dies with a BSOD specifying the error:

*** Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
*** The system has halted ***

NMI: Channel Check / IOCHK

Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315223 and download Windows Memory Diagnostic tool from here:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

When I got this error the first time, I simply restarted  the PC and it was fine for a week. This morning it came back with a vengeance - rebooting wasn't an option as I was getting a string of BIOS beeps (indicating a memory problem).
I had to reseat each and every memory module, one-by-one until the BIOS beeps stopped and the PC could be started. Next step will be to burn this memory diagnostic tool onto a disk and do a check. Another day's work :)

Cringeley's "Triumph of the Nerds" Part 3 of 3

| Tuesday, November 18, 2008


Note: This is part 3 of 3

Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3

Cringeley's "Triumph of the Nerds" Part 2 of 3

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Note: This is part 2 of 3

Part 1 of 3
Part 3 of 3

Cringeley's "Triumph of the Nerds"

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12 years is a loooong time in the world of computing, but this is still one of the finest programmes on computing ever to grace the television screen:



Note: This is part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3

Plastic Logic answer the call

| Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Finally, an A4-sized, flexible eReader that doesn't look like a big lump of nasty plastic, despite what the company who makes it calls itself.
Perhaps this could provide a convenient alternative to carrying around a load of paper. I'll only know when I get one in my own hands and try it out - but it looks promising.

Smart broadband... first day verdict

| Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My brand new Thompson Speedtouch 585 v7 ADSL2+ Wireless router arrived yesterday - had it hooked up and set up on the UTV Clicksilver connection in about a minute... maybe two.
That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's actually pre-configured for Irish ADSL networks (preset to PPPoE, VPI.VCI 8.35), so it's really just a case of putting in your broadband account username and password and you're ready to go. The basic menus are there, but for advanced stuff you have to use the Command Line Interface, which is just Thompson's way of protecting overconfident fools from themselves (while annoying the rest of us ;-). There's very little missing, although I much prefer the comprehensive feature set and take-no-prisoners interface of my BT Voyager 2110 - if only I could get into the web interface after that bad flash...
That said, the Thompson is solid, very pretty to look at and pretty stable. I got faster speeds out of it on my UTV connection than I could from the BT (by 5-10%). I clocked a DL speed of 4521kbps yesterday (407kbps UL) on the local Westnet server.

When I got home this evening I realised (after a period of wondering what the feck was wrong with my connection) that I'd been "seamlessly" been switched over to Smart.
After entering my Smart username and password where the old UTV one had been in the router's Internet services menu I did a quick speed test (Westnet server):
DL: 5871kbps
UL:403kbps
A few more tests seem to clock me around the 6Mbps mark - which, based on the line attenuation is probably as good as I can expect, given how far I am from the exchange...
One of the things that has really improved is the ping - from ~150ms to ~100ms. I'll take that as a consolation, even though I seem to have lower upload speeds :(

Time will tell if this is as solid a service as UTV gave me over the last two and a half years (it was terrible for about a two week period over the last 6 months, before that it was perfect). I'll let you know if the speeds vary a lot.

In the meantime, have a look in the advanced menus of your router for the line attenuation (on download) and check it out using kitz's speed calc. This will give you an idea of what service you should go for - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 or whatever. You'll get an estimate of how far you are from your local exchange, but remember that Smart's servers might well be elsewhere, so they might not prove to be a great option. Wiser people than me have tried the basic 4Mbps service first and then upgraded once they saw how they were going. If I'd done this I'd probably be choosing a 6Mbps connection now, saving myself €5 per month.

Ah well... sod it - I've got it now. I'm hoping I won't be regretting it.

World Clock

| Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Microsoft Surface - has touchscreen technology finally grown wings?

| Sunday, October 05, 2008
Microsoft Surface Demo @ CES 2008



I'd love to know what the unit cost is of these things. Are they punitively expensive? Could MS turn a profit on them?

Tried Google Chrome yet?

| Friday, September 05, 2008
Google has revolutionized search, and made the email client seem rather unwieldy and unnecessary, but there they have been wide of the mark on a few things.

Google Desktop wasn't very good in the early days. It started out seeming a bit slow and a bit intrusive, both in terms of system resource usage and privacy.

However, I downloaded the latest enterprise version at my workplace, with a private encrypted index and support for Lotus Notes search and I was very impressed. Admittedly, the index got corrupted once and had to be rebuilt, but it has made things easy to find. This is very important when you have one hand on the phone and only one on the keyboard ;-)

Google Chrome

So, I approached Google Chrome with some interest. I say some, because I'm not really in the market for a new browser. I love both Firefox and Opera and I can't see how much improvement can be made in this area. However, Google claimed that their browser would have a small memory footprint and wouldn't leak memory either. This sounded tempting because Firefox 3 has only improved on Firefox's tendency to hemorrhage tens of megabytes of lovely memory by a small amount. Opera leaks too, but less so. In addition to this, Google claimed that their new browser was going to be optimized for web applications, especially for gmail. This sounded good, so I decided to give it a whirl.

I was whelmed.

It's not all that special from what I've seen so far. It doesn't suck, but it doesn't blow me away, either. I've used gmail in it - it's OK I suppose, but it hardly seems all that "optimized". What's the difference between it's layout in web application mode than just hitting F11 in FF, Opera or IE? It loads quickly, sure, but then so does FF3 with no plugins. So does IE7 for that matter, but that's a steaming puddle of horse pish. The history search is nice, as you'd expect from Google, but searching your bookmarks and history in FF works well enough for me.

Remember Seamonkey? I still use it quite a bit, mainly because it reminds me of classic Mozilla - my second browser love, after Netscape. Flock has a Photobucket edition, but that's no big deal. Most people have never used Flock or Seamonkey, and never will. Chrome will have to really stand out to have any chance of making a dent in the established browser user base* - the trouble is, I'm still just not sure what makes Chrome so special.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Read this superb review at InfoQ

* I saw a BBC News report this week that stated that IE still holds 80% of the browser market