TechProsaic

I write about great software, Internet technology, cool gadgets, and The Next Big Thing.

November 29th, 2004

Windows XP File Association Web Service

Oh…very nice. Here’s an awesome reg hack. From MattBerther.com.

When you open a filetype that is unregistered on your system, you get presented with a time-wasting dialog about if you would like to use a web service to find the appropriate program, or select the program from a list. This tip involves bypassing that dialog and going straight to the Choose Program dialog.

public MattBerther : ISerializable: Windows XP File Association Web Service
InternetOpenWith

November 24th, 2004

Spyware and virii, oh my!

This is a must read (as seen on /.): Failing Grades For Most Anti-Spyware Tools

In particular, read the part of the review linked to for suggestions of what to use and what not to use. I’ve always scanned PC’s with [AdAware][] and [Spybot][], both of which are on his recommended list. The thing that does not surprise me is how long the “suspicious” list is, and I’m fairly certain I’ve cleaned up some friends’ PC’s with supposed spyware scanners on them.

And somewhat on topic, here are two free anti-virus software packages. I can’t vouch for them yet, been a long time Norton AV user. I’m about to install Avast though and give it a shot.

"http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html">Avast

AVG Free Edition

[AdAware]: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
[Spybot]: http://security.kolla.de/

November 22nd, 2004

Psi Community -> Psi-0.9.3-test1 Is Available For Download

Jabber

We just released Psi 0.9.3-test1 today. We’ll let it percolate for a while and release the “gold” version pretty soon. Go download Psi and help us find bugs!

November 20th, 2004

Cool utilities

Ooh, found some neat stuff on [/.][1] today. I was reading a [book review article][2] today and while the book review itself didn’t appeal to me that much, the commentary was kinda interesting to I kept reading. And I found some gems after digging a while.

#### Ultimate Boot CD

First is the [Ultimate Boot CD][3]. This thing looks like an awesome diagnostic tool for working with PC hardware, and Windows and Linux OS’s.

With this tool, you can:

  • Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives
  • Free yourself from the slow loading speed of the floppy drive
  • Consolidate as many diagnostic tools as possible into one bootable CD

When you boot up from the CD, a text-based menu will be displayed, and you will be able to select the tool you want to run. The selected tool actually boots off a virtual floppy disk created in memory.

And it also includes [INSERT][4], which is a Linux distro based on [Knoppix][5] (well known for booting to ANY hardware without installing the OS to the hard drive). INSERT has stuff like samba, ssh, [Nessus][6], [Snort][7], [Rdesktop][8], [VNC][9] and all kinds of other stuff. I’m getting excited thinking about it. I haven’t booted to the CD yet, just finished the download.

#### Metropipe Virtual Privacy Machine

This is interesting too. Metropipe’s [Virtual Privacy Machine][10] is a small distribution of Linux with some handy Internet applications like [Firefox][11] and [Thunderbird][12]. But the cool part here is that you copy the distribution to a portable USB or Firewire device, like a keydrive or an iPod. Mount the device in any Windows or Linux computer, and then when you run the executable, your little Linux is booted inside a virtual machine that does not interfere with the currently running OS.

So what’s the big deal, why is this useful? I am not sure if its something I would use often, but I can see how it would be nice to have a private set of bookmarks, access to my email, a private web browser history, and basically a custom environment in my pocket. Definitely interesting enough to check out.

#### Last Thoughts

Last but not least, well yes, least is the right word, I do want to mention [Bart’s Preinstalled Environment (BartPE)][13]. Now I commend Bart for the work he’s done, but I went through the arduous process of creating one of these live bootable Windows CDs and the end result was half-broken and slow as molasses. I’m not blaming him, I just think its a lost cause. Microsoft didn’t make it easy, and you are shoehorning the OS where it doesn’t want to be and it just did not work out for me.

[1]: http://slashdot.org
[2]: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/16/1835224
[3]: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
[4]: http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html
[5]: http://www.knoppix.org/
[6]: http://www.nessus.org/
[7]: http://www.snort.org/
[8]: http://www.rdesktop.org/
[9]: http://www.realvnc.com/
[10]: http://www.metropipe.net/ProductsPVPM.shtml
[11]: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
[12]: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
[13]: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

November 10th, 2004

LPOD: Lego Differential

This is kinda cool. I got a bag-o’-gears as a gift from my wife the other week, and in it was a differential. Here’s what it looks like assembled.

legodiff1

legodiff2

November 10th, 2004

Firefox Turns 1

[Dougal][] has a link to a [Torrent][bt] for Firefox 1.0. Don’t forget to grab it using [Azureus][az], my favorite bt client, even if it does use the infernal Java language.

[Dougal]: http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2004/11/09/firefox-turns-1
[bt]: http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/
[az]: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

November 10th, 2004

CSPAM needs more users

If you run Wordpress and are having comment spam problems, head on over to [Weblog Tools][wt] to help Mark alpha test CSPAM. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I’ve gone from a dozen a day to 0. It’s neat stuff.

[wt]: http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2004/11/08/cspam-news-01/

November 8th, 2004

Plastik For Windows

A friend asked me where he can get an XP theme that appeared in a screenshot I had up on the web. Took some digging, but I found it. For some reason the theme’s homepage is hard to google

Plastik For Windows

###Update <2/4/05 @ 10:53am>
That website is down, and it points you to this deviant page, which is fine by me. You should browse around DeviantArt while there, it’s a great site.

Plastik XP theme

November 6th, 2004

A9.com respects the Firefox!

Cool news. [A9][] just released their [search toolbar][a9tb] for Firefox. Now I’ve hardly spent 60 seconds on the site (checked it out ver’ briefly when it launched), but this is enough of a reason for me to try again. Why? Because I dig the [Google Toolbar][gtb] and I use it daily. But its not an official port, but a reverse-engineered [Firefox extension][gtbff]. Google only gets half-credit for having a toolbar good enough to copy.

And last but not least, the A9 toolbar has something that I’ve haven’t seen done well since the [Yahoo Companion][ytb], which I used to love, but love no more–server-side bookmarks. Yahoo, like Google, have ignored Firefox, and unfortunately, the quality of the [Mozilla Companion][ytbff] was such that I looked elsewhere.

Anyway, loading the A9 tb now, we’ll see how it stacks up against Google’s.

### Update Nov 6th @ 11:54am

Hmm, that didn’t work out too well. I liked the toolbar ok, but something was just not great about it. Then I tried to uninstall and it wouldn’t! Also, there were some nagging UI bugs. I reported them using the feedback tool, and there was an update a couple of days later so maybe they are responsive, which is good.

But the darn thing is still stuck in my Firefox profile. I disabled it for now. I know I’ve seen an article somewhere detailing how to manually remove extensions. Fun.

[A9]: http://a9.com
[a9tb]: http://toolbar.a9.com/
[gtb]: http://toolbar.google.com/
[gtbff]: http://googlebar.mozdev.org/
[ytb]: http://toolbar.yahoo.com/
[ytbff]: http://companion.mozdev.org/

November 1st, 2004

Comments disabled for now

I’m getting spammed as we speak. Gonna disable commenting just until I get a chance to install some of that wack stuff I blogged about the other day.

### Edit 2004-11-01 7:11 pm

Comments are now enabled. I’m alpha testing [CSPAM][] - Centralized Spam Protection And Mitigation. We’ll see how it goes.

[CSPAM]: http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2004/10/30/announcing-cspam-centralized-spam-protection-and-mitigation/

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