Enquiring Mimes» Microsoft Windows

That’s a wrap – Windows 7 is RTM – Released to Manufacturing

Dan Perlman — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:59:41 +0000

Like it or not, Windows 7 is finished and going out to partners and manufacturing. It will be generally available October 22d.

The current Windows 7 Release Candidate program will end in August, though if you have already downloaded the code you’ll continue to be able to get product keys. The current free Windows 7 RC versions will be able to be used until the end of March 2010.

I’ve been using it since May and I find it easily to be the best version of Windows, so far. It is lighter and faster than the ill-fated Vista, released in 2007 and never widely adopted. That being said, I’m writing this on my Macbook.

Google Chrome for Mac is so cool, now finish it!

Dan Perlman — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:55:12 +0000

The Chrome team has released a developers copy of the browser for Mac and Linux, so far Google Chrome has just been available for Windows.

While to call me a developer would be a gross misuse of the term, I’ve been using the browser ever since it was released last week. It is so cool. Well actually so fast!

The team admits it’s far from finished. Among other things, it doesn’t print, it doesn’t display YouTube-like videos and there seems to be not much in the way of bookmark management. So let’s give it a number and say it’s 75% done. What it does well is render a web page really fast and when I’m digging around the web that’s what’s most important to me.

The Chronium Blog warns you not to download this version unless “take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.

How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won’t yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.”

It hasn’t crashed for me in about 20 hours of use. The only gotcha for me was when checking a blog post and panicking when I couldn’t see the YouTube video, but I had been warned.

Anway, if you live life on the bleeding edge and are so Type A that anything faster is better, download the browser and give it a try on Mac or Linux.

As for me? I’ll probably use it for most of my work on my slight aging Macbook because it just makes the experience so darn fast!

I hate startups, programs not businesses

Dan Perlman — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:00:22 +0000

I must be getting old and cranky because when I don’t like something, I really have no use for it. The current object of my disgust are those little programs that it seems every software writer thinks they must install in order to make their little piece of your software pie work better. These timegrabbers tend to run at system startup especially on Windows.

These suckers make your system startup all so slowly and then continue to sit there and use memory and the occasional CPU cycle while you’re trying to work. The longer you’ve had your PC, the more of this digital pocket lint you will have picked up.

Autoruns seems to be the uber-master for finding and allowing you to stop these time thieves from loading. The program finds the autoruns from everywhere they can hide. When you start Autoruns, look at the Logon tabs for autorun programs that have been installed by applications you don’t even use any more. They’ll probably be plenty of them. You’ll likely be amazed by how much your computer needs to do before it gets ready for you. When you see and entry that you want to keep from starting up, uncheck the entry and it won’t be run the next time your system starts up.

A good option to choose within Autoruns is Hide Microsoft and Windows Entries, since what you’re looking for is 3rd-party dreckware. Cleaning up Windows itself is above the pay-grade of mortals.

By judiciously using Autoruns and unchecking entries that I didn’t need, I saved over 3 minutes of startup time for my PC. That would have been 3 minutes of frustrated cursing every time I had to restart my computer.

Download Autoruns, unzip it and run it without needing to install which means it won’t try and install an autorun.

Need a way to keep your passwords secure?

Dan Perlman — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:32:49 +0000

I’ve managed network security startups several times. What the experience taught me was how basically insecure and haphazard most people are about their computers and accounts.

I’m not usually much better, but I think we can agree that the yellow sticky with your account password stuck to your computer monitor is not a good idea.

Still, the question of how much security is the right amount persists. I hate to think how many accounts I have between websites, computers, email accounts, networks and homebanking. Ideally each of these accounts would have its own username and password. How to keep track of all those passwords, how to keep track?

Enter KeePass, an open source, encrypted password password manager for Windows.

You can enter and organize all of your passwords by categories and subcategories and secure the entire database with a master password. A nice feature allows you to copy your usernames and passwords to you clipboard so that they can be pasted into the application requesting them.

As you become a fan of KeePass, you’ll find there are a slew of plugins to extend the function and integrate KeePass

Download KeePass [via portablefreeware.com]