Technologizer

5Words for May 7th, 2009

Thursday, May 7, 2009

I’m moving to southeast England! Really fast Internet in England. Your own personal Wi-Fi hotspot. Yet another OS for netbooks. Anonymous? You can’t watch Hulu. Indian hacker’s Facebook-compromising tool. Windows 7 requires no RAM. WiGig: Short-range gigabit wireless.

WinPatrol: A Must-Have Free Tool

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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WinPatrol is a free tool you just must have on your Windows PC: It gives you a way to stop unwanted programs from loading (and tells you which apps are safe), watches out for spyware and keyloggers, keeps your System tray uncluttered, and when you boot, can get you to the desktop quickly. At its core, [...]

5Words for May 6th, 2009

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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Here’s what I’m reading today: Dell adds Wimax to notebooks. Free iPhone apps make money. Will Pre multitasking work well? An AT&T app for iPhone. South Carolina goes after Craigslist. The prehistory of today’s Internet. Windows 7’s XP compatibility: incompatible! Rock Band’s Lennon, Harrison guitars. Swedish NASA hacker is indicted.

Hide File Extensions, Invite Hackers?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

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Mikko, at F-Secure’s Weblog: …in Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, Explorer used to Hide extensions for known file types. And virus writers used this “feature” to make people mistake executables for stuff such as document files. The trick was to rename VIRUS.EXE to VIRUS.TXT.EXE or VIRUS.JPG.EXE, and Windows would hide the .EXE part of the filename. Additionally, [...]

5Words for May 1st, 2009

Friday, May 1, 2009

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A happy May to you! Swine flu tracking for iPhone. The 240GB iPod upgrade option. Twittering from the White House. Apple’s next iPhone: Flip replacement? Twitter administrator account gets hacked. The military’s ultrasecure Windows XP. Dell offers 120 laptop designs. Android gets sued over trademark. Are Kindle owners…kinda old? Rumor (yes, again): cheap Macs.

5Words for April 30th, 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

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Google data barges? Love it! Apple’s becoming a chip company. Palm’s first post-Pre phone, Peewee’s convertible laptop for kids. Google data centers…on boats? Real’s Glaser testifies on RealDVD. XP for netbooks isn’t disappearing. Amazon hikes Kindle document charges.

Five Web Services You’ve Got to Try

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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Junk and clutter: It’s the blaring banner ads and annoying boxes that slide across the screen that are ruining the Web. I avoid it all with a smart ad blocker–Ad Muncher, a miraculous tool. But there’s still a problem. Web pages aren’t designed for reading, and that’s one of my pleasures: Reading product and movie reviews, for [...]

Windows 7 Eliminates AutoRun/AutoPlay Security Hole

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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It seems unlikely that Microsoft has any major news involving Windows 7 features up its sleeve, but interesting tidbits are still coming out. The latest is today’s news that it’s eliminating the venerable AutoRun feature for USB drives. A blog post at the company’s Engineering Windows 7 blog explains that the Conficker worm used AutoRun [...]

5Words for April 28th, 2009

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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I want 100-mbps Internet! Cablevision: 100-mbps for $100. Microsoft tests Twitter for emergencies. Survey: iPhones are primarily personal. Google News comes to you? Apple’s doing something with chips. Dell’s touch desktop available stateside. New Firefox 3.5 beta available. New HP laptops for business. How Microsoft should virtualize XP. GE’s 100-DVD disc technology.

Windows 7: Now With Windows XP!

Friday, April 24, 2009

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How can you ensure that Windows 7 will run Windows XP applications? Make it run Windows XP. That’s the idea behind Windows XP Mode, a free download that Microsoft will make available to buyers of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. (Here’s Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurott’s report on it.) It’s a copy of the [...]

Microsoft Sets Release Date for Windows 7 RC1. Two of Them, Actually!

Friday, April 24, 2009

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Enough with the rumors, educated guesses, and BitTorrent leaks: Microsoft is saying when it’ll release Windows 7 Release Candidate 1, the version that’s likely to be the last major one before the OS is finalized. As Ina Fried reports over at Cnet, developers who are members of Microsoft’s MSDN program can download it on April [...]

5Words for April 24th, 2009

Friday, April 24, 2009

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How’s your Friday so far? MySpace has a new boss. New Windows 7 hits BitTorrent. The ObamaBerry is almost ready. Hollywood vs. ReadDVD: trial underway. Google Toolbar knows your location. “Movie Cowboy?” Love that name! Facebook users approve new policies. T-Mobile sells one million G1s. The economy hits the Apple Store. Hands on with new Ubuntu.

Enough Already: Stop Malware, Spyware, and Trojans

Thursday, April 23, 2009

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They’re out to get you: Sleaze balls writing devious, sneaky programs that load you system with junk. I’ll show you a few quick ways to protect yourself from Windows Trojans that want your credit card number, malware that slows your system, and spyware that tracks your keystrokes. Over the years I’ve played with at least 3 [...]

Windows 7 Starter Edition: It’s Trialware!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

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Yesterday, I wrote about Ed Bott’s hands-on experience with Windows 7 Starter Edition, which limits you to three open applications at a time, with some exceptions. Ed thinks Starter might be okay if you’re working mostly in your browser on a netbook, but would likely be a headache for more traditional applications on a more [...]

Windows 8 is in the Works. But What Will It Be?

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

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ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley notes that Microsoft is hiring developers to work on the successor to Windows 7, which she guesses might ship in 2010. As Mary-Jo says, some folks have talked about the possibility of Windows 7 being the last Windows that’s a piece of software rather than a service. I have no doubt that [...]

Resolved: Netbooks are Notebooks. Period.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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Netbooks aren’t just changing the world’s perceptions of how powerful a computer must be to be useful–they’re also having a major impact on Microsoft’s business model. They’re one reason why Windows XP refuses to die–even though the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft makes less than $15 per copy of XP installed on a netbook, [...]