Tech In Hiding
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Essential Starter Pack for Windows

In all versions of Windows, users will be able to notice a significant decrease in the responsiveness and speed of the OS. Despite consistent defrags and maintenance of the PC, the best way to get that PC as fast as possible is to perform a clean install of the OS. After clean install, Windows is ready to go. But to be a true power user, there are lots of programs that need to be installed before Windows is truly ready. All of these are free, with links to where you can find them yourself. If you tend to reinstall your software alot, think about putting these files on a CD or network shared drive. Almost all programs will need a update, but most should update themselves after install. For reference, the main PC I use is a Windows Vista, AMD 4800+ Dual-Core with 2GB of RAM, and these programs show little impact on the system.

Security

Security should be the first set of programs installed. All the computers on my network use Norton Internet Security. While Norton products in the past have been ridiculed for their system resource use, the 2008 version of NIS doesn't seem to have a very big effect on the system. However, Norton is very expensive if you don't get it with a rebate. Paid-for security services, especially all in ones like Norton Internet Security and ZoneAlarm Internet Security (which is fantastic, probably better than Norton, but it's rarely offered with a rebate), are typically easier to use and provide adequate protection. If you're going the freeware route, which is just as adequate, you'll need two (at the least), Anti-virus and a firewall. Anti-spyware is also good, however most free AV programs have anti-spyware included.

Anti-Virus

Avast! Anti-Virus (Home Edition)- It's the best software that you don't have to pay for. It automatically updates on a schedule, and it has pretty good realtime protection. There's a drawback, however: you'll need to register the software to get a key that will allow you to use the program for a year. Also notable is that Avast! is a bit heavy on system resources, so if you're on a slow machine and you use a lot of resources playing games or designing, you'll probably hit a few snags. As with all programs, be sure you READ the file you are sending to the virus vault, as many times it turns out to be a system file you'll need to replace.

Also: AVG Free 8, PC Tools Antivirus

Firewall

ZoneAlarm (Vista) (XP/2000)- ZoneAlarm is the tried and true firewall. Other users prefer Comodo, but the interface of ZoneAlarm is easy to use, and it gives you an easy to understand prompt when a new program requests Internet access. While the prompts are naggy at first, they go away if you click 'Remember this Program' in the box that appears.

Also: Comodo (Advanced), PC Tools Firewall Plus

Internet

Internet Explorer 7 is good. Compared to IE6, which is a decent browser but a horribly unprotected one, IE7 is amazing. However, tabs are a new concept to the IE team, and it shows when tabs are loaded in the browser. They are a bit slow and awkwardly inserted. A good tab manager is essential in a modern day browser.

IE7Pro- Since IE7 does come on every computer, you'll definitely use it with some protocols. Some programs launch IE7 to fill out information and such. IE7Pro makes IE7 much easier to use. The add-on makes the browser behave more like Firefox.

Mozilla Firefox- Firefox is easily the best browser around, with addons and extensions to make the browser more suitable to your liking.

Foxmarks Bookmarks Synchronizer- Foxmarks syncs your bookmarks across multiple desktops. You do need to register, but it's simple, and makes syncing with their server painless.

Also: Opera 9.5, Flock

Music, Photos, Videos

If you spend any time at all on the computer, you'll end up needing a music player, video player, and photo viewer. Windows includes Windows Media Player for music and videos as well as Windows Photo Gallery for photos, but both of those are adequate but not perfect. Here are some better programs.

Music

MediaMonkey- MediaMonkey does an excellent job at managing your music. It's an excellent player, but excels at device synchronization. Also hidden among its many features is its ability to download and automatically sync podcasts. (Try the HotSpot and Buzz Out Loud for audio, and On The Spot and TekZilla for video podcasts.)

Also: Songbird and Zune

Photos

Windows Live Photo Gallery- It's a modest improvement over the default viewer, but it allows easy upload to Windows Live Spaces and Flickr (simple login required) as well as MSN Soapbox for videos.

Photo Editors: IrfanView (Simple), GIMP (Advanced)

Video

VideoLAN Player- VLC will play pretty much anything with no problem. Of course, you'll need a codec pack for all the videos such as the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. VLC is small and plays videos beautifully.

Also: GOM Player

Odds and Ends

PDF Viewer

Foxit Reader- You'll always need a PDF reader for brochures and user manuals. But Adobe Reader is slow, resource hogging, and very intrusive. Foxit is a very small but powerful reader.

Compression

7-Zip- When transferring big files (especially over BitTorrent), people have the urge to compress the files for faster downloading. It's a good idea, but you'll have to uncompress the files using the same method they compressed the file in. 7-Zip does most file types and, unlike WinRAR, is very small and light on the system.

When you go to make your download CD, be sure to include the latest drivers for your printer, video card, and sound card. While the printer's drivers will likely not be updated, be sure to pick up the latest video and sound card drivers off the manufacturer's site once you're set.

Popular driver sites:

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Sunday, June 15, 2008
Google and Microsoft must unite to fight the ISPs
Today, I was perusing the web and wound up, as usual, on Digg. One of the top dugg stories was about American ISPs throttling internet access. You can read the full article here. In it, Brian Stelter of the New York Times lists several examples of services that would be most hurt. Smaller web-based services that consume a lot of bandwidth would shut down shortly after such a service would be introduced. Among these would be popular internet video sites such as Revision3, Viddler, and DailyMotion, which as of this writing are not owned by multibillion dollar companies such as the ever popular YouTube and Revision3 competitor CNET TV (soon to be owned by CBS).But this plan will eventually bring down the behemoths of the web, most notably Google and Microsoft.
Google
Google, with its vast financial savings would be fine at the start, with the ability to suffer losses longer than the smaller companies. But these smaller companies depend on Google's AdSense programs to generate revenue. Google also makes money with AdSense, and it seems feasible that its primary revenue source will quickly dry up. Google's search engine likely won't take a hit, since it is low bandwidth, but as with every company, lost revenue equals cutbacks in both staff and services. High maintenance Google offerings would quickly be shuttered, probably beginning with services such as Google Maps, Google Docs, and Google Reader, as those likely do not create any revenue due to the lack of ads on the services. It is also possible, however, that Google could evolve and put ads on those services, but without their ad revenue, they would not be the same Google that the web community has come to know and love.
Microsoft
Microsoft, however, needs to be concerned the most. They are now in three major playing fields- portable media with the Zune, games with the XBOX consoles, and operating systems with Windows. The Zune is finally catching on, and Microsoft has finally begun a full-scale assault with ads promoting both the Zune and Zune Marketplace. While Marketplace isn't the scale of Apple's competing iTunes (Apple, you best be concerned too), those video and music files are enormous. Using a Mininova torrent for reference, the average Daily Show (about twenty one minutes) is 215 MB. I frequently download the free "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" show, which is twice the length of a Daily Show episode. In addition to Countdown, I also have NBC Nightly News in the podcast section. Downloading only these two shows for an average of 23 days a month comes out to about 17 GB a month. This is only for two shows. The Marketplace is also very prominent on the XBOX 360. The 360 Marketplace is very similar to its Zune counterpart, but the files are much bigger. It has, along with TV shows, feature-length films. Feature length films on Mininova are about 700MB each. The recently posted Battlefield: Bad Company demo alone was 1.2 GB. With bandwidth caps, consumers will not download movies, instead opting to go rent the DVD at Blockbuster, which is really a reversal of technological progress.
Going past the Marketplace, the big purpose for the 360 is online gaming. The Wii's online is sparse, and the PS3s has yet to come to shape, but it is widely considered that the 360 is the best multiplayer console. Of course, to have multiplayer, the 360 depends on the Internet to connect to servers. The amount of bandwidth used varies (hosting or not, game playing, game mode, opponents, etc.), but it can range from 10MB per hour to 260MB per hour. PER HOUR! Using a conservative figure of two hours per day for twenty four days a month, that's another 13 GB. Now, only downloading two podcasts and playing my XBOX, I am near the first level of the proposed cap: 30GB.
Current operating systems are still installed from CDs and are stored exclusively on the users hard drive. It's inevitable that Microsoft's OS will become dependent on the web for nearly everything. But just looking at today, Windows Update ( as well as the update tools on Linux and OSX) uses quite a bit of bandwidth. SP1 to Vista, for example, is 420MB. This does not count the other updates to the OS that are already released. Overall, these are small, but when users are being crunched for bandwidth, they may end up using Linux, which will allow them to purchase more bandwidth. It is critical for Microsoft to fight against bandwidth caps.

Google and Microsoft are two companies that are bitterly fighting against each other. But they both rely on the internet to fund their core businesses. Divided, they hardly stand a chance against AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon. But together, they can stand up to them. They must. Although the web survived the stifling of AOL in the 90s, it will not survive another.

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