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Updated: 10/05/2007 Tech News Build P.C. Guide Shopping on the Internet Why do Symantec definition updates cost so bloody much? I purchases internet security 2006 for 90 euro (online ) which is the same price as the boxed software (which is nuts as should be cheaper).Got a free upgrade to 2007 (which is cool) and this week my definitions ran out. Thinking surely not paying for software it would be like $20 (us) or so. Me arse. Euro conversion and tax (they actually charge you MORE in euro). it came to 60 euro. Outright bloody theft for 12 months of definition updates. No wonder people pirate this software.Now the real kicker. You can buy the full 2007 product on the site for $69.99 which is 51.63 EURO. But buy the full product in EURO and it costs 79.99 EURO (WTF).You can upgrade from 2006 to 2007 for $54.99 and I'm sure get an extra year of updated definitions and thus protection but get the definitions only and it costs you 60 EURO. Popped them an email to get this issue clarified as it does seems like a rip off unless you just buy the new product each year... This is my last year with Symantec. AVG will be getting a bash next year. http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2007/s1801/53s01/53s01.asp Back to an old subject: Sick of how windows can get after using it for a month or so?Have a look at thus sites/links/tools and see if it can make you like and computer usage just that little bit better. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1153285,00.asp
Decided to give a free to try version of Vista (work related, 30 days to buy a key). So upgrade seemed to cleanest on m XPS laptop.Results? I had to remove a few applications for the upgrade to even kick off. Fair enough and then it took an entire night to complete. System finally booted (all very encouraging). First impressions? First impressions were good. Visual Aero desktop work well, like the transparency . (although have no idea how you get the 3D look). The laptop scored a 4.0 in windows experience score (which isn't half bad). The problem then? The hard drive trashed for an eternity. I rebooted and left it over 20 minutes on boot up and the hard disk was still trashing. Which basically meant the performance was crap as a result. Final result. I ghosted back to XP image taken before the test. If I purchase Vista it will be a wasted weekend of clean installing on the system. Feck the windows upgrades.... What are my feelings regarding Vista? Well for the first time in the history of a major windows release, I don't as yet have it deployed and very very briefly tested a beat release on a underpowered machine. A test that left me less than impressed (but this may be due to the lack of spec in the test machine).With windows 95, 98, me, 2000 and XP I always adopted early and upgraded my multiple machines. All now run XP on a home network with twin Xbox 360s. So why haven't I made the move? Well my machines running XP all work. Performance is OK and all the apps are stable. Why bother with driver and application issues (unless I really need to). Perhaps if I were buying a machine new I would include Vista. But I would most definitely spec it higher than most adverts i.e. pc world get a laptop with vista and a gb of ram (when most think the vista "sweet spot" is 4 gb). But like I said I haven't tried it with all the desktop bells and whistles. So for now, like most others I will simply read about it in magazines and wonder "if it is worth it". Unless someone wants to give me a copy to test. My full opinion will have to wait. Thinking of upgrading to Vista: Read this first. Also link to handy tool which tests your system.
Windows Vista:With windows vista multiple versions, upgrade and OEM versions and different prices.... No wonder customers are getting confused: But in case you are asked a question regarding it. compare the versions http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx take a look at what's on offer http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/seeit/default.mspx compare the prices http://www.pcworld.com/product/pricefinder/search?qt=windows+vista RTE news quoted the top prices version as €800 (Tuesday 30th January 2007) one blog: Ok so decided to see how much Vista is gonna cost me over here in Ireland and figured at least Amazon would have a price out, so went there and had a look Amazon.com: Price USD$379.99 For America Amazon.co.uk: price GBP£369.99 For us here in Europe, which is approx USD$725.09 accoring to xe.com Thats a 90% icrease in price for us europeans. WhyTF do we have to pay so muc F'in more here for an OS???? It's just crazy finally compare to XP http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/ Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft
Microsoft has over 150 FREE Windows &
Office Programs available for download -- finding them all is
extremely difficult . . . until now.
XP running like a pig? Have a look here and here for a breakdown of services you may be able to set to manual to free resources and speed it up. XP always runs like a dream on a fresh install until the registry gets bloated, start-up programs flood it (use msconfig to remove these) and services are installed as automatic; some of which you don't need and a few are security risks. Warner Brothers combines Blu-ray and HD DVD A research team from Warner Brothers has come up with a possible solution to the high definition DVD wars that are threatening to scuttle the whole transition to a new format: support both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, along with the standard DVD format, on a single disk. More here. Bit of a headache for Dell at the moment: Under a deal negotiated with the U.S. Government's Consumer Product Safety Commission, Dell disclosed plans late Monday to recall nearly 4.1 million batteries. The recall would be the largest ever electronics recall negotiated by the agency, involving laptop batteries shipped between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006. The batteries, made by Sony, have been the subject of increased scrutiny after media reports caught footage of at least two catching fire due to the batteries overheating. The most notable of these was a laptop in Japan that exploded on video during a conference, prompting the company to launch an investigation into the matter. http://www.geekologie.com/2006/06/dell_computer_explodes_during.php So you thought you knew everything about Google?
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2160531 http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3487041 http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/servers/0,39020445,39175560,00.htm E3 video game trade show underway in Los Angeles: (intereresting to find this will be no longer open to the public from 2007 onwards, due to cost reduction) Microsoft announces an expansion of its Xbox Live service. Called Live Anywhere, the system will enable communication between Windows computers, Xbox 360s and mobile phones. The system will allow users to exchange information and communicate using the same style of interface. More on this and all things video games here and here. Microsoft officially announces The Origami Project Microsoft has officially launched the Origami Project this morning at
CeBIT in Hannover, Germany. Virus alert: Feb 3rd 2006
you have computer files you’d rather not lose, now is a good time to
make sure your anti-virus software is up to date.
A worm set to activate Friday will corrupt documents using the most common file types, including “.doc,” “.pdf,” and “.zip.” Hundreds of thousands of machines are believed to be infected, mostly in India, Peru, Turkey and Italy, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for Finnish security company F-Secure Corp. The worm, known as “CME-24,” “BlackWorm,” “Mywife.E” or a number of other names, even tries to disable anti-virus software that is out of date, he said. Thus, users should make sure their software is turned on and has the latest definitions, generally available free from the software vendor’s Web site. F-Secure also has created a free removal tool. Microsoft Corp. issued an advisory Tuesday warning customers about the worm, which affects most versions of its Windows operating system. Users should be safe if they have the latest anti-virus software or if their computers are set with limited privileges, a common setting in larger organizations. They are vulnerable if they, like many small business and home users, leave their computers set with full administrative rights. Users should check the date on the computer. The worm hits the third of every month, so if the computer’s local calendar settings are off, Hypponen said, files may be destroyed sooner or later, even if the computer is never turned on Friday. Tweaking: If you like nothing more than trying to squeeze more out of your PC, I stumbled across an excellent selection of sites. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html and Here. Fot those with Note books: http://www.notebookforums.com/index.php http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm IE7 Beta leaves em cold: IE7 beta is out. See why people still prefer Firefox, here: Virus alert (yet again) - August 2005: Trend Micro said that the worm exploits security holes in Microsoft's Windows 95, 98, ME, NE, 2000 and XP platforms and can give computer attackers remote access to affected systems. ....... Full story here:
Sophos warns of
new Internet worms and Trojans
Two new security issues have emerged for
Internet users - Backsm-A and Blaxe-A.
Backsm-A is a backdoor Trojan that is already making its presence felt out in the wild. It leaves your PC vulnerable to remote, unauthorised control. Backsm-A will modify the Windows Registry, to ensure it is run at startup, and will then attempt to connect to a remote IRC server. This is in order to provide unauthorised access to the infected computer. Another first-generation virus to be aware of is Blaxe-A. This is an Internet worm that spreads via file sharing on P2P networks. It copies itself to the Windows folder as BearShare.exe and WinBat.exe, and also modifies the Registry so that it executes each time Windows is started. Preying on file-swappers, it will also copy itself to the KaZaA, KaZaA Lite, BearShare, Grokster and Morpheus shared folders, and replace executable files in these folders with copies of itself. Sophos virus identity files can be downloaded for both Backsm and Blaxe from the Sophos website.
Another Patch is released
for a security problem in windows.
A security issue has been identified that could allow
an attacker to remotely compromise a computer running Microsoft® Windows®
and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by
installing this update from Microsoft.
Product effected:
Not effected gain: Windows 98, me and 95.
This has been highlighted as critical. A possible blaster
problem again. So get the Patch
here.
My personal guide to building your own p.c. and saving
yourself some cash. Not to mention it gives you the ability to make the
Machine YOU want, rather than buying and "out of the packet" machine.
Here
FDISK and FORMAT instructions for any hard drive
here.
Boot disks for various versions of windows
here.
Graphic Cards Drivers: If you use a Geforce variant of 3-D card , you should keep up to date with the latest drivers. You can download these from Nvidia. The current release: 45.23. Direct X: If you use you p.c. for gaming or any other multimedia application, you need to keep you Direct X drivers up to date. At present the version is up to version 9.0b. Get it here. Benchmarking: If you are into fast p.c.s and 3-D graphic cards. Then you must use a 3D benchmarking application to judge the speed of your system. The best application at present are Mad onions or Futuremark as they are now known. 3Dmark2001 and 3dmark2003. The graphics in both are very impressive and worth running just to view them (the 2001 version is still good). I have just built a new piece of kit and managed to get my benchmarking score for 3Dmark 2001 published as the second highest in Europe. Check out the p.c. and score here. Get the 3dmark apps here. Seti@home: SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. The program can be set to run as your screen saver. This basically means your computer will be analzing data as part of a global community when you are not using it. If you have ever seen the Jodie Foster Movie "Contact", you will understand the purpose of this a little better. Who knows, maybe one day we will find something... Download the small program from Seti@home. You can check you own statistics on the site. I joined a global group Tribar after recieving an invitation from a guy in Poland. See the groups statistics here. You ca join it if you wish. What is interesting is the amount of computer time combined by such groups. Example below is Tribar.
Taking a look at the overall Seti@home stats (as of 3/11/2003), it is very impressive.
Check all information on the main Seti page. Anti Virus Apps: I personally use Norton Anti Virus on all my p.c's. As yet I have not been effected by any viruses (a few have been quarantined). I have tried other apps like McAfree etc. But on average the performance hit on the p.c.'s are not worth the installation. Norton appears very stable. It is updated often and easy to do so. You can run your live update anytime you want to patch the virus definitions. Or if you prefer you can download the definitions in an executable from Norton here. I would recommend checking out the Symantec site on a regular basis, as they have virus updates and warnings. They even provided a free , self standing app for killing the blaster virus of late. There are also downloadable tools here for most of the more popular viruses. Go to their site here. Spy Ware: The best spy ware removal app I have come across is AD-Aware. This is free and up to version 6. It will search you files and registry for embedded spy software and delete. This applications steal you bandwidth , slow down your p.c. and are an invasion of privacy. Get the newest version here. Note: Kazaa users. Kazaa is full of spyware. Ad-Aware will break Kazaa if you remove the spy elements. Get Kazaa Lite to avoid all the Kazaa spy apps. Napster successors: If you use you p.c. to download music or other files , you may miss apps such as Napster. These problems provided the ability to download files from other peoples p.c.'s and for them to do the same. This practice can be used to download about everything of interest. From movies to mp3's of your favourite songs. The supported app at the moment is Kazaa. As mentioned above, this is full of spyware, so avoid the full program. Get the lite version here. Note: Downloading files of songs, movies, applications, pictures etc that you don't own the rights to - is illegal. This site does not support such activity. Cacheman: The free Cacheman utility is designed to improve the performance of your computer by optimizing the disk cache, memory and a number of other settings. I use it on all my p.c.'s , since version 5 is is very stable. Version 5.50 is now out. Get it here.
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