windows

Update your Virus Scanner & Patch your system

If you’re running Windows, then you should get your system patched ASAP and check that your virus scanner definitions are up to date. Not that you shouldn’t be doing this all the time, but there is a worm called Conficker C that has already infected millions of computers and will allow the author to control those computers on April 1.

Luckily, the world has been mostly spared from really serious attacks. Most viruses, worms and trojans have been written to make the authors lots of money, not necessarily inflict damage on the target computers. But that could change easily. Be afraid and take steps to prevent that from happening to you.

Microsoft Windows XP copies still available

As you know, Windows XP isn’t going to be around forever, and let’s face it, technology is constantly changing, so you may not want to run it forever. However, we can’t blame you if you don’t care for Vista, and who knows if Windows 7 will really be a ‘cure’? So while you’re waiting for W7, don’t wait to snag a last-minute copy of Windows XP. Home and Professional editions are still available right now.

Actual Window Manager for Windows

Here’s a nice productivity tool that can help you manage your chaos of open windows especially if you’re one of those folks who has tons of windows and browser tabs open (like me!).

It’s a Window Manager that has way more features than you can shake a stick at. Just for starters, you can minimize unused windows in various ways – rolling up, make semi-transparent, closing or to the tray. You can place and size windows exactly where and how you want them.

CES 2009: CMS Products shows off latest backup software: BounceBack Ultimate

CMS Products introduced the latest version of their BounceBack product, called BounceBack Ultimate which has some very interesting new features. As a couple of sys admins, we were impressed by what BounceBack is able to do, mainly backup an entire Windows 2000/XP/Vista system to an external hard drive and then boot off of that drive without any need for the internal drive.

BounceBack can be set to run continuously and it can back up everything – files, OS files, even the BIOS. CMS has figured out how to backup even OS-level files while running. The backed-up system is bootable from that external hard drive regardless of hardware and/or BIOS.

Movienizer helps you organize your movies

This is primarily for the movie lover who has tons of movies and needs a way to catalog and organize them, something akin what iTunes/MediaMonkey/Music Jukebox does for your music collection. Movienizer can pull down up to date movie information from the Net including cover/poster art, actor, director and assorted production info.

One nice feature that I’d like to see in the music jukebox apps as well is the ability to mark a movie as being loaned out and to whom.

Even Intel says no to Vista

As an IT guy myself, I do find it rather telling when a prominent business partner of Microsoft’s, Intel, has decided that they’re not going to ‘upgrade’ to Windows Vista. I can’t say that I blame them. The change isn’t compelling and according to most reports, more of a pain than a benefit.

For those home users buying a new computer, Vista isn’t an absolutely terrible thing to stomach, but for those power users who are now fully acclimatized to XP, Vista doesn’t offer them true advantages.

Windows XP SP3 Set to be Released

Microsoft says the third and final service pack for the aging Windows XP will be available for download on April 29th while manufacturers and larger customers currently have SP3 in house. SP3 will include all updates released since 2004 when SP2 was released. Here are some added features in SP3:

A feature called Network Access Protection
that’s borrowed from the newer Windows Vista operating system. NAP
automatically validates a computer’s health, ensuring that it’s free of
bugs and viruses before allowing it access to a network.

Windows XP SP3 also includes improved “black hole” router
detection — a feature that automatically detects routers that are
silently discarding packets. In XP SP3, the feature is turned on by
default, according to Microsoft.

Windows XP SP3 also steals a page from Vista’s product
activation model, meaning that product keys for each copy of the
operating system don’t need to be entered during setup. The feature
should prove popular with corporate IT managers, who often need to
oversee hundreds, or even thousands, of operating system installations.

When a Microsoft spokesperson was asked for the number of fixes in XP SP3, they responded “one billion fixes” while resting the pinky finger aside the mouth.

Source: Information Week

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