Interesting Software and System News

[bob3160]

ZDNet's headlines are overblown: take them with a pinch of salt.

Does that also apply when the subject matter is Microsoft    

[szc]

I would say yes. Regardless of who is it on their plate, they will always find something to complain about, even when there is little or nothing worth to complain about.

[bob3160]

Screencast-O-Matic
This online service enables you to create a screencast straight from your browser, and for anyone with basic needs,
Screencast-O-Matic will prove to be sufficient. Just select the size of the area that you want to record, include some real-time narration,
add notes of interest to specific parts of the recorded screencast in order to assist with navigation, and then either download the screencast
as a QuickTime movie or upload it to the site so that it can be seen and shared by everyone.
JAVA 1.5 or later required.
It's a great little tool to help others. 

Here's a little sample I put together:
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cjh6oDVOy
This shows the functions available when right clicking the avast icon in the system tray.

[bob3160]

Nice review of avast! from Download.com in their DownloadBlog.
Some of the comments received to this post are a little off the wall but, that's only my opinion.... 

[DavidR]

Well it certainly provided some laughs, with one poster espousing the virtues of Norton and he got a good virtual kicking for his troubles

[bob3160]

Defrag your Hard Drive to Speed Up your Anti Virus Program

[drhayden1]

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/wwtelescope/wwtelescope.html
Microsoft WorldWide Telescope
virtual telescope software
real nice

[Lisandro]

Defrag your Hard Drive to Speed Up your Anti Virus Program

I'll take into account when people ask about 'on-demand scannings speed'. Thanks Bob.

[bob3160]

Defrag your Hard Drive to Speed Up your Anti Virus Program

I'll take into account when people ask about 'on-demand scannings speed'. Thanks Bob.

A good habit to get into is to schedule your full virus scans after you've completed a full defrag. 

[DavidR]

I do a regular defrag once a month so it shouldn't get to fragmented I normally only do a Standard scan without archives so it isn't a big task anyway.

[bob3160]

David,
I have well over 500 Gig to scan including many archives so for me,
it's a pretty time consuming task.

MySharedFiles alone is almost 20 gig

[DavidR]

I though you were running Disk-Keeper or some other resident defrag program ?

[bob3160]

No, haven't done that for quite some time. Didn't really notice much of a difference.

[Lisandro]

Utility Removes Old Java Versions and Checks for Updates

Java is similar to Flash in that the installation of new versions doesn't necessarily remove the old versions. This is a security risk because the old versions very often contain security flaws. Subscriber Yvon Houle has written to let me know about a tiny free utility called JavaRa that will check for and remove old Java JRE versions, and also check for the availability of new versions. I tried it and it worked like a charm. This is a simple free utility that should be part of every user's toolkit. It runs directly from the .exe without installation, so it's great for your USB drive as well. Freeware, Windows all, 24KB.
http://prm753.bchea.org/software.html

(quoted from Gizmo Richard's Support Alert Newsletter 15th May)

[CharleyO]

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Nice Java utility, Tech ... thanks!   


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