Four more tools to keep your software updated

This is a sequel to the previously posted “Three tools to keep your software updated.’’

RadarSync

RadarSync claims itself to be the only 100% free update checker available today. While this might be bit of an overstatement, RadarSync does find you updates for almost all of your software and drivers. The program has a clean and easy interface that quickly allows you to scan your system and track out the updates. In addition, RadarSync also offers easy download links for the updates detected. Reports about more freeware, product comparison, usage statistics etc. square up to make this app stand out from others.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector

Secunia PSI is small. Absolutely small. At 570KB, it will still find updates for your software, notify you of exploitable software on your computer, and find available patches and fixes for your Windows copy. Anything else required, guys?

UpdateStar

UpdateStar has been in the news for quite some days, though it got out of beta only recently. This cool looking program recognizes roughly 135,000 different software and has a total database of about 850,000 versions. The beta versions of UpdateStar were notorious for providing sponsored links for software updates, but this has been mostly addressed in the stable releases. The UpdateStar home page mimics popular software site FileHippo to an uncomfortably great extent, and also offers a great bunch of tools for download. If you’re looking for a good looking program that works right out of the box, UpdateStar is for you.

Software Informer

To put it plain, I had tried Software Informer about six months back and I would NOT recommend that Software Informer to you. It was just plain ridiculous, claiming all my software were outdated and offering me to download Internet Explorer 197.something!

But SI has changed – though still under beta, it has improved a lot thanks to the continuous user input flowing in. You can now trust SI for most of your software, though some may not still work.

 

So you’ve got seven solid software updating apps to choose from – pick one and keep your PC running at full pace! :)

My wishlist for Jaunty Jackalope <Ubuntu 9.04>

It’s been two months since Intrepid was released, and soon we’ll be jumping on our toes for the next Ubuntu – Jaunty Jackalope. I’ve been an avid Ubuntu user since Feisty and I’ve always waited excitedly for new releases, until now. Seeing almost the same desktop for almost two years is kind of killing my appetite for Ubuntu. Ok, there HAS been a lot of improvement but none of these has been substantial. That being said, I’ll still keep my fingers crossed for a hopefully fantastic Jaunty. This is my wishlist for Jaunty, do share yours as well!

Enter VLC, Banshee; exit Totem, Rhythmbox

VLC is easily one of the best media players out there, and with the latest 0.9 series it has become quite user friendly. It would be just so much better to have VLC instead of Totem in Jaunty. Same goes for Banshee, which I feel is a better replacement for Rhythmbox. Totem and Rhythmbox are Gnome defaults, but then Ubuntu has done away with Gnome products like Epiphany (to include Firefox), and Cheese.

Can we have a better F-Spot, pleeeeezzz?

Most applications in Ubuntu work very smoothly in proper hardware, except that damned F-Spot. Even on my Pavilion laptop with 3GB memory, an AMD dual core processor, and 256MB ATI GPU, F-Spot surprisingly chokes and yells for help while importing my digicam photos. I’ve a very pleasant experience with Windows Live Photo Gallery, and a really horrid time with F-Spot. I would certainly love it to get smoother and more robust.

A more thorough Help and Support

The built-in Help items in Ubuntu are just too little. A more comprehensive Help tool would be a good addition. It can be even better if the Ubuntu Help can import items from the Internet, like Windows Help does.

Do something about that package updating technique

It’s utterly ridiculous that no Linux distro provides updates to big releases of their included software. For example, if a distro version comes with OpenOffice.org 2.4, and OOo 3.0 is released meanwhile, you won’t be “officially” be upgraded to the new version – rather you’ve got to wait for a new version of the distro to use the new version of the software. For this reason, Ubuntu users will have to wait till April to get officially supported OOo 3, even though it was released more than 2 months ago.

I’m not sure if it’s possible, but it would be great if we get immediate updates for new software versions.

Release a special Ubuntu version with Ubuntu Restricted Extras installed

The Ubuntu Restricted Extras is a great package to install support for most proprietary stuff on your Ubuntu. Thing is it isn’t installed by default, meaning people without an Internet connection basically CANNOT use Ubuntu on their desktops. Canonical should release a special Ubuntu version with these restricted extras package installed.

Yearly cycles for new versions, half-yearly cycles for service packs

Releasing a new OS every 6 months is simply overkill. Look at Canonical’s state – at any given time it has support anywhere between three to four different Ubuntu versions. Oh, and there are Kubuntu, Gobuntu, Xubuntu and Edubuntu as well! It would be much better if Canonical decides to release new versions once every year. Of course this will be sensible only if that package updating, which I talked about above, is modified. 6 month cycles can rather be used for service pack type releases.

 

So. That’s my wishlist. Linux geeks, what do you think? Pour in your comments! :)

Get the latest McAfee SiteAdvisor plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox

McAfee has released a new version of it’s popular web-surfing plug-in, SiteAdvisor. SiteAdvisor is available as a free download for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and some other Mozilla-based browsers, like Flock.

Among other additions, this new version includes a Secure Search box, which filters out only the trusted sites for your search term. There is also an additional McAfee SECURE trustmark for sites which pass the company’s daily rigorous tests. Some websites with the trustmark are Yahoo! and McAfee (of course!).

Probably the only bad thing with this release has been incurred on this blog; PC Tonic is now marked as a “yellow” (spammy / potentially harmful) site as against it’s previous “green” status. I’m not sure what caused this, but hopefully better luck awaits in the next test.

Anyway, keeping my whining aside I’ll still recommend you to get this update for your Internet Explorer (Windows) or Firefox (Windows, Mac, Linux) to have a better and safer web experience. :)

SiteAdvisor Home

Note : Users of AVG 8 products (free / paid) should not install SiteAdvisor due to possible conflicts with AVG’s similar functionality – LinkScanner.

Four shareware currently available for free

We all love software; and we love the premium ones more so, given we can somehow lay our dirty hands on them. And with more promos, giveaways, and contests popping up than ever before, there is always a damn good software being offered for free somewhere. In this post, lets have a look at some such software currently available for free!

To my knowledge, all these giveaways are perfectly legal. We don't talk about illegal stuff here.


Trend Micro Internet Security 2008 {3 year license}
Trend Micro have already released version 2009 of their popular internet security suite and, probably in goodwill, are offering a 3-year license of the 2008 version for free. Don't get pissed off, the 2008 version is rock solid itself with strong virus, malware, intrusion, phishing, and parental protections. All you've to do is
1.Download the trial version of Trend Micro Internet Security 2008.
2.During installation, you'll be prompted to enter the serial key. Use this key for activation : PFEP-9991-7436-4997-1545
Your copy of Trend Micro will now be activated till Sept. 29, 2011 - roughly for 3 years. :)


PC Pandora 5.2 {1 year license}
PC Pandora is easily one of the most comprehensive surveillance and monitoring software applications for Windows. It allows you to monitor EVERYTHING that is being done on your PC, and also shield your kids from the evils of the Internet. It's usually available for about 70$, but the developers have released 50,000 free licenses for the latest release (version 5.2) on a first-come-first-serve basis. If you don't wanna miss out on this offer, head over to this post at Raymond.cc to fetch more details.


Panda Internet Security 2009 {1 year license}
Yet again, the Raymond.cc blog offers you a way to obtain a 1 year license for Panda Internet Security 2009. Read this post for more details.


Premium Booster 2.95 {Permanent license}
Powerful system optimization and cleaning tool Premium Booster is being offered for free at the Giveaway of the Day website today. The giveaway ends at 7:00AM GMT on 27th Dec., so go grab it now! And keep checking the GAOTD website, as they offer such software for free everyday.
The giveaway period for Premium Booster is over; however, you can always grab the current giveaway (displayed in the button below) from GAOTD. :)




So there goes the list of four nice shareware, available for free. Did I miss out on any other active giveaways? Do share them in the comments. :)

Firefox whacks other browsers in the PC Tonic nano-poll

If you've been to the blog in the last 7 days, you must have marked the nano-poll that was up in the sidebar. I'm calling it nano as it got just 31 votes, but I do expect higher votes in forthcoming polls. Anyway, the nano-poll is over now and here are the results -

Which browser are you on now?

> Firefox  - 23
> Internet Explorer - 3
> Safari - 1
> Chrome - 1
> Opera - 0
> Others - 3

It clearly shows a ridiculously whopping majority of PC Tonic visitors use Firefox, a long time power users' favorite. "Proportionally", many people are using other lesser known browsers as well - probably the likes of Flock, Camino, or Epiphany.

I'll be putting up more such polls in future, so please do visit the blog once in a while to shout about your favorite software. :)

Install security updates automatically in Ubuntu

By default, the Update Manager in Ubuntu only notifies you of available security and software updates and you’ve to start the downloads yourself. As these updates are released quite frequently (5-10 times every month), it can get quite irritating for you having to enter the password and then start the downloads every time. Automating updates is obviously a better option, and here’s how you can do it in Ubuntu :

1.Go to System > Administration > Software Sources from your desktop.

2.Enter your user account password to open the the Software Sources window. Now jump to the Updates tab.

3.Under the Automatic updates section, change the option to “Install security updates without confirmation” from the previous “Only notify about available updates”.

Do note that this will install only the important security and system updates, and not the occasionally released “recommended” updates (very much like the automatic update feature in Windows). So make sure that you fire up Update Manager once in a while to get these additional updates as well (System > Administration > Update Manager).

:)

Merry Christmas!

A very Merry Christmas to everyone from me and my family! Hope you have a great time all week, and get some really cool gifts from Santa!!

I’m a Hindu and we don’t “officially” celebrate Christmas, but the atmosphere is always there. I’ll be hanging out with my friends and family and hopefully will have a good time as well!

After that, it’ll be time to start packing for hostel and second session at NIT. Hostel life is amazing and I’m missing it a lot right now, but I probably do miss home more when I’m there. Ok, technically speaking this means posts will be a bit irregular for the coming one or two 1.5 weeks while I’m busy packing, moving, unpacking, depositing fees, registering for courses, blah blah blah...

Now shutdown your PCs, move your bums a bit , and have an awesome Christmas! Enjoy. :)

Revo Uninstaller takes care of leftover files, folders and registry items by uninstalled software

When you’re uninstalling some software via Programs and Features (Add / Remove Programs in XP), chances are high that the built-in uninstaller will leave behind traces of registry entries, shortcuts and other junk files on your computer. And if you’re like me and frequently install / uninstall new tools, these leftover files can eat up a significant amount of space over time and slow down your PC.

Free and small tool Revo Uninstaller comes to the rescue by scanning thoroughly for leftover items by uninstalled software, and removes them for you. It also drives out corrupted software, which would otherwise simply refuse to leave your PC.

Revo Uninstaller has a clean, intuitive interface with big toolbar buttons, that keep switching to give you the list of all available actions. The default Uninstaller sections shows all your installed programs as big icons, of which you can select the one you need to uninstall (if you’ve got a zillion programs, use the search box to filter it out). The uninstall wizard provides 4 modes :

• Built-in : Simply runs the program’s built-in uninstaller; it’s just like using Programs and Features
• Safe: Includes the built-in mode, and carries a quick scan to find leftover items
• Normal (by default and recommended) : Includes the built-in mode, and carries an extended scan to find more leftover items
• Advanced : Includes the built-in mode, and scans the entire drive for leftover items

The normal mode is recommended, since the advanced mode can possibly remove data you wouldn’t like to lose. All these modes create a system restore point before proceeding with the uninstallation. Choose your mode and click Next to let Revo do it’s job. It’ll create the restore point, analyse the software’s data, run the built-in uninstaller, and then scan for those leftover obsolete files (only if you select any of the last three modes). Don’t worry if the built-in uninstaller fails, Revo will still remove the software <read on!>. Click Next to get a list of all obsolete registry entries – click “Select All” and then “Delete” to remove them. Please note that the number of these entries can be VERY high, if the uninstaller failed as said above – this is natural as Revo will find all those registries that should’ve been removed by the uninstaller. The last page lists all remaining files  and folders, again select all and delete to have them moved to the Recycle Bin (which you can empty latter).

 

Revo is a heck of an uninstaller, but it has got some other useful functions as well – 

Auto Start Manager - Stop programs that start automatically on Windows startup; speed up loading of Windows!

Windows Tools Manager - Handy and useful tools bundled with every version of Windows; easily find useful system tools and options!

Junk Files Cleaner - Find and remove unnecessary files from your computer; free up disk space and delete files you do not need!

Browsers History Cleaner - Erase web browser history, visited pages history and temporary internet files of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Opera web browsers; free up a lot of disk space by deleting temporary internet files like temporary saved videos, temporary flash files, temporary pictures etc!

Office History Cleaner - Remove the history of most recently used files in MS Office; remove your tracks by deleting the list of last opened MS Office documents!

Windows History Cleaner - Remove the history of recently opened files, delete temporary files, remove usage tracks and other history items that are saved by Windows; remove your tracks saved by Windows for a lot of operations!

Unrecoverable Delete Tool - Erase files and folders forever; be sure that nobody could recover your files and folders after deleting!

Evidence Remover - Make sure already deleted files, folders and other data are unrecoverable; securely erase your data!

 

And it doesn’t stop here – Revo has a very powerful feature called ‘Hunter Mode’.While this mode is active, a small “target” icon sits on your desktop. Just drag this icon over to any non-responding / irritating application or taskbar item, and Hunter Mode will give you loads of options to terminate or delete the corresponding processes, or even look it up in Google! This can be really useful to temporarily disable rogue software, while you go and fetch RogueRemover to finish them off.  

The Hunter Mode can be transformed into the Drag and Drop Mode – it basically does the same thing but you’ve to drag the ill-behaving stuff to it (instead of dragging it to the stuff).

 

For a single app, Revo does a hell lot of things to keep your computer clean and fast. Do have it in your software arsenal! :)

Revo Uninstaller (available for Windows Vista / Server 2003 / XP / 2000)

Eliminate fake security tools (rogueware) with RogueRemover

2876 serious infections and critical errors were found on your computer!!! Click on the tray icon to purchase AntiVermins Gold NOW and fix your computer. Instant download option available!

These three lines are enough to send any regular PC user into panic. And if you’re still scratching your head on what I wrote above -- this is typically what a rogue software does to frighten, and thereby force, you to give away your credit card details to purchase “security software”, which will eventually wipe your hard drive clean of all important documents.

The number of Windows computers being infected with rogue software has been increasing really fast. This is due to the fact that a majority of the regular antivirus and antispyware tools somehow fail to detect these infections. Once installed, the rogueware (as they’re better known) will turn off the security apps and pop up messages every 10-15 seconds until you’re pissed off and just do whatever it says you to.

Ages ago, I had written about two small tools – RogueFix and SmitfraudFix – that can detect and remove such infections from your PC. They’re still being actively updated, but both run in command prompt, require you to boot Windows in Safe Mode, and are definitely not user-friendly. To address all this, we now have a brand new free tool called RogueRemover by Malwarebytes – it’s small, has got a graphical interface (yay!), runs under normal Windows, and is damn easy to use! RogueRemover comes in two editions – the free version updates manually, scans and removes infections, while the Pro version has an additional monitoring tool that can stop rogueware from infecting your computer in future. As always, we’ll be dealing with the free product, which I feel is more than enough.

RogueRemover Free (RR) is just 675KB and installs in seconds. On running for the first time, it’ll ask you to update it’s database and program signatures. Once done, you can proceed to the main window where you get the option to :

• Scan your computer for rogueware: It’s really fast, taking just about half a second to complete! My laptop got the clean cheat but if there’s something lurking in yours, it’ll come up in the results and RR will have it removed for you (can’t tell you how, but it should be easy!).

• Check the entire list of rogue programs (currently 444) and their risk level under ‘Programs Targeted’. You can also avail this list at Malwarebytes’ threats center.
• A really stupid ‘Exclude List’ that lets you to make RR ignore one / more of the detected rogueware in future – I’m sure all the programs detected by RR are perfectly rogue, so there’s no need for the Exclude List.
• Check for updates.
• ‘Try the PRO version’ – well it had to be there. :)

 

For something this small and free, RogueRemover does a great job of cleansing your PC of all those evil-ware. Grab it to have your PC checked! :)

Bring web applications to your desktop with Google Chrome

With more and more quality cloud based apps coming up, it’s high time for better synchronization between the desktop and  the web. Formerly mentioned tools Adobe AIR and Mozilla Prism do a nice job of seamlessly integrating online services and apps with your desktop. If you weren’t impressed by them, the recently released Google Chrome browser could win you over! Chrome can create desktop shortcuts for your favourite online service, thereby making their access much faster and separating them from your regular surfing stream. In this post, we shall see how to create such applications in Chrome.

1.Get Chrome if you haven’t it already (available for Windows Vista / XP SP 2+ only). At about 8MB, it’s a fairly small download.

2.Open the website whose desktop application you want to create. I’ll be considering Google Reader (Google’s popular online feed reader) for this post.

3.Now click the dropdown menu just to the right of the “address+search” Omni-bar, and select “Create application shortcuts…”.

4.In the new window, select the places (Start Menu, Desktop and Quick Launch) where you want to place the shortcuts to the application. Click OK and you’re ready to go!

 

These web applications are single files and can be removed by simply deleting the shortcuts. Do note that these applications require you to have Chrome in order to run.

  The Google Reader app – notice the lack of an address bar and other differences from the main browser

 

Here are some noteworthy online services which you may like to run from your desktop :

Google Docs – Student friendly office suite, with a word processor, presentation tool and spreadsheet

Google Reader – Very popular feed reader

Zoho – Yet another office suite, with so many features and services that’ll blow your mind away!

Sumo Paint – Free online image editing tool, with abundant features for most of the folk

Windows Live SkyDrive – A whopping 25GB of free online storage and backup for you!

Meebo – Instant messenger with support for all major protocols (Yahoo!, Google Talk, Windows Live…)

 

How’s this going to HELP me actually?

You could save a hell LOT of hard drive space by removing installed software and using the online replacements instead (which are tiny shortcuts and hardly take up any space)! This requires you to have full time internet access, but then your data will be safe online and accessible from anywhere in the world! If you somehow lose your internet connection, just plug in your PortableApps thumb drive and use your required tool. :)

 

Just a precaution…

If you’re going to create a bunch of such applications right now, make sure that your clean Chrome’s browser cache every 4-5 days, or your shortcuts may get problematic.

 

:)

Vista quick fix : Bring / remove important icons to / from your desktop

In Windows Vista, you just get the Recycle Bin by default on your desktop. What if you want to have the other regular places like Computer, Network, your ‘user files’ etc. too? Or, what if you’ve somehow deleted the Recycle Bin icon and want to have it back?

An easy fix for the first problem is to drag the respective items from the Start menu to the desktop, thereby creating their shortcuts. Another way is to use to the Classic Start menu (as found in Windows 2000 and older versions), which automatically removes those specific icons from the Start menu and puts them on the desktop. However neither of these solutions is very effective – unnecessary shortcuts can affect system performance in the long run, while the Vista Start menu is just too good to be replaced with the ridiculous classic equivalent. Again, there is no apparent solution for the second problem (don’t be petrified!). Therefore in this post we’ll see how to bring or remove the regular Windows icons (direct links, not shortcuts) to / from the desktop.

It’s actually damn easy. Just right click on your desktop and select “Personalize”. On the left pane of the Personalization window, select “Change desktop icons”.

That’s it! Now you can choose what to show and what not to show on your desktop. You can also change the icon looks if you want.

Go get back your Recycle Bin now! :)

All about your Ubuntu clicks

We all keep talking about how Linux is more secure than Windows, how it provides the same desktop experience for no cost, how it can be run on very old machines, how Tux bombards XP's green pasture blah blah blah...but if people are to use Linux, they should also get the same “tiny tweaks” that they enjoy in Windows / Mac. Take the exploited but obscure mouse pointer for example. Some people prefer single-click to open files and folders, while others would rather have a monkey's tail as their mouse pointer! Thankfully, Linux does provide these options and you should be able to tweak them to your liking with a few ...errr... clicks. In this post, we'll be using the Ubuntu OS, which is very popular with first-time Linux users. However, do note that this tutorial can be aptly modified and applied to other Gnome based distros, like Fedora Gnome, Linux Mint Gnome etc.

Click twice once to open

If you'd rather have your files and folders open in a single click, fire up any Nautilus window (like your Home folder under Places). Now, go to Edit > Preferences and hit the Behavior tab. Here, you'll find the option to have your items opened in single clicks.

Get yourself a glossy pointer

On your desktop, go to System > Preferences > Appearance. In the “Theme” tab under the Appearance Preferences window, click Customize… and then open the Pointer tab. Here, you can select from a list of 7 pointers (may vary depending on your version), and adjust their size as well.

Are you a leftie? Have the mouse configured for you.

Navigate to System > Preferences > Mouse from your desktop, and change the Mouse Orientation to Left-handed. Now the conventional right mouse button will act as the left and vice versa. The General tab under Mouse also holds a lot more options to change your pointer's speed, sensitivity, double-click timeouts etc. Oh, and you can make that bulb glow with a double click!

Use a prolonged single click as a double click

Under the same Mouse Preferences window, move to the Accessibility tab and tick the option under it. Adjust the slider for the single-to-double time gap.

Mouse gestures!

Mouse gestures have become very popular with browsers, especially the innovative and sleek Opera (use extensions like FireGestures or All-in-One Gestures to get the feature in Firefox). If you love gestures, why not bring it to your desktop as well! Under the same Accessibility tab, jump to the “Dwell Click” section and tick the “Initiate click when stopping pointer movement” option. Now, select “Choose type of click with mouse gestures”. I did feel like the dwell click options of Ubuntu aren’t very well polished yet, but that may be because I’m not very comfortable with mouse gestures. 

 

So there you go, click your heart out in Linux. :)

The Fastest File Sharing Application on Earth has stopped working <Funny Software>

Encountered while trying to disable the bundled Ask toolbar during the installation of Frostwire The Fastest File Sharing Application on Earth

RocketDock spruces up your desktop, boosts your productivity, and takes little of your resources!

If you're looking for an attractive yet lightweight application launcher, RocketDock is an excellent option to consider. This small, free application will add a very professional, Mac OS X-style dock to your Windows desktop, from where you can launch your most commonly used programs and folders right away with a single click! RocketDock definitely stands upto it's claims, hardly consuming any memory on my laptop (peaking at just 12MB).

RocketDock on my cold-blue desktop

RocketDock is dead easy to use and configure. Just drag any icon / folder to the dock to pin it there and drag out any icon to remove it. Once arranged, you can lock the icons to prevent accidental deletions.

Choose from the several skins provided, set the icons' transparency levels, choose and add icons for various apps, use separators to group similar apps and folders, set the position of the dock, modify / disable the eye-candy effects .... I could just go on and on!

And if the inbuilt stuff isn't enough, there is a mammoth repository of free addons available at the RocketDock website. RocketDock is even compatible with the other similar tool like ObjectDock, Y'z Dock, RK Launcher, and MobyDock!

One great feature of RocketDock is the support for docklets - tiny apps that do nifty tasks from within the dock. RocketDock comes with one built-in docklet - an analog clock. However you can download and use from hundreds of other docklets available in the repos.

RocketDock can also be used to store your minimized applications, instead of cluttering the task bar. Very much like the higher versions of Windows Vista (aka Ultimate, Business and Home Premium), RocketDock shows a small preview of all the minimized applications so that you can actually see which window you want to restore again! Oh, this feature is available only for Vista (and useful for Home Basic users).

For a 6MB tool, RocketDock certainly does a lot and more to beautify your desktop and boost your productivity. Try it out!

:)

Technorati Tags: RocketDock,Application Launcher,Program Launcher,Mac OS X Dock

Snow can heat up your processor! [Still way too cool!]

It's Christmas time once again, and many bloggers have set out to decorate their blogs and give it that cheerful, festive look. One of such popular additions to many blogs this year has been the cool snow effect - it's enthralling to see flakes of snow falling as your browse through the blog posts! This effect has been added to quite a few Blogger and Wordpress blogs, two of which are :

 

 

 

Blogger Buster (Blogger)

JavaScript Snow : DHTML Snowstorm (Wordpress)

The Snowstorm plug-in for Wordpress

Add snow effect to your Blogger blog

Now a bit of a mood spoiler : the snow may look great to your eyes, but your processor won't be likely too happy with it. I've noticed that even opening such a single page can shoot up the browser's CPU usage to 50-60% ! You can see it for yourself :

You can clearly mark that even opening a single such tab in Firefox (or any other browser) can shoot up the CPU usage.

In contrast, Firefox with 5 "no-snow-effect" web pages hardly has any CPU usage.

 

While this isn't going to blow your PC into pieces (antivirus scans frequently use over 70-80% of your CPU!), a continually high CPU usage can result in unresponsiveness and crashes in other running programs. I'm not sure what's causing this abnormal hike, but I do hope their developers will look into it and have it fixed for next Christmas (or is it built like that?).

Please note that this in NO way implies that you should stop visiting all those wonderful blogs which have implemented the snow effect, as the content these blogs provide more than makes up for a few minutes of a slightly busier CPU. Moreover, it'll be gone in just a couple more weeks. :)

Make Internet Explorer (7+) more usable with IE7Pro

Internet Explorer 7 may have all the basics you would expect from a modern browser (tabs,  phishing protection, options to easily organize feeds and favourites, etc. etc.), but it still horribly lacks all those nifty, dead useful options demanded by power users. For one thing, IE doesn't have a basic download manager as yet (not even in the upcoming 8 version, it seems!). Keyboard shortcuts aren't well defined, crashed sessions can't be recovered and there is simply no way to block those annoying flash advertisements that pop up at every other web page you visit.

Addressing all these shortcomings and more (than you can possibly imagine) is a tiny 2.5MB plug-in for IE 7 - IE7Pro. IE7Pro is dead easy to install, and once done it sits comfortably on your browser's status bar as a small, blue icon.

 

Double click it and you instantly get a multitude of very cool and useful features to pimp up your IE!

 

Here are but some of the features that IE7Pro can add to your browser :

1.Add a whole lot of basic functions, like crash recovery, enhanced tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and more!

2.IE7Pro overwhelms IE's non-existent downloading features with an adequately featured download manager (MiniDM), that can accelerate your downloads and also save them locally for future-resuming. Caution : If you're already using some download manager like FDM or DAP, you should better disable MiniDM to avoid conflicts.

3.It adds a cool spell checker to your browser, something which has been present in Firefox and Safari since long (and coming in other browsers as well).

4.IE7Pro can block annoying Flash and AdSense advertisements that appear on many web pages (and also consume a lot of bandwidth) using it's Ad Blocker feature. This is similar to what AdBlock Plus extension does for Firefox.   

5.Pretty much like Greasemonkey for Firefox, IE7Pro enables use of user scripts and plug-ins in IE. There is a useful list of user scripts pre-built into IE7Pro - download videos from YouTube, apply CSS skins to Gmail, notify about MySpace updates etc. Should you require more, you can always download them at http://iescripts.org . 

6.IE7Pro adds the prefetching option to IE, meaning it can render web pages faster.

7.The Auto Form Filler mimics the Wand option in Opera by automatically filling up user names, passwords and entire forms for you! And if you were just about to complete your 1500-word email when IE crashed, Text Saver will restore it for you. :)

 

I'm sure you must now be cursing yourself loud for not having tried this fantabulous piece of software before. IE7Pro doesn't hinder the performance of IE in any way (enhances it to some extent rather), it's aboslutely free, and it's less than 3MB in size - there is simply NO damn reason you shouldn't have it! And there is good news for all the beta testers of IE 8 (currently in beta 2) - IE7Pro works perfectly well with those versions as well. :)

WebKit powered Epiphany topples all stable browsers in Acid3 test

We all keep talking about how the big browsers out there are constantly developing their Acid3* test scores with every upgrade, but little notice is taken of the lesser known browsers. Putting all that aside, Linux-only Epiphany is out to make an impression - the WebKit powered variant of the 2.24.1 version scored a near perfect 98 / 100 in the Acid3 test on my crappy old desktop! Firefox 3.0.4 managed a comparatively pathetic 70 on the same machine.

* For all those still in the dark, Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows certain web standards, especially relating to the Document Object Model and JavaScript.

 

Epiphany's score also means it's far ahead of the other stable browsers like Opera 9.62 (85) and Safari 3.2.1(75) as well. Good news is that latest unstable builds of Opera and Safari scored perfect 100 s in the Acid3 test, while Firefox 3.1b2 has frog-leaped to 92. The development builds of Google Chrome are also making steady improvements in the test. Still, these results do suggest that there are these small projects which are continuously working towards providing us some really good, if not the best products for use. :)