“In this article, we’ll examine all of the major BitTorrent clients, looking at their advantages, disadvantages and some of the coolest features.”
Symantec Caught in Norton 'Rootkit' Flap
“Symantec Corp. has fessed up to using a rootkit-type feature in Norton SystemWorks that could provide the perfect hiding place for attackers to place malicious files on computers. […]
The anti-virus vendor acknowledged that it was deliberately hiding a directory from Windows APIs as a feature to stop customers from accidentally deleting files but, prompted by warnings from security experts, the company shipped a SystemWorks update to eliminate the risk.”
Quick tip: GIMP as Irfanview's external editor
If you’re using GIMP and Irfanview (in Windows), set up GIMP as your external editor in Irfanview’s Options, under ‘Misc 2’ tab by filling the “Set external viewer/editor” field with “C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin\gimp-win-remote.exe gimp-2.2.exe” (not including the quotation marks, i.e. only fill in what is inside them). Change the version numbers if you’re using something other than GIMP 2.0 and Gimp-Win-Remote 2.2.
Now you can go directly from viewing an image in Irfanview to editing it in GIMP by selecting ‘Open with external editor’ from the File menu.
Steve Jobs Ruined My Thanksgiving
“I recently got an iPod Nano, mainly because I’m annoyed at the limitations of my iPod Shuffle on long trips (like flying half way around the world). Two nights ago, I fired up iTunes and finally accepted its offer to upgrade from version 4.9 to version 6.0. That was a big fucking mistake–a mistake that I’ve spent the last two days attempting to recover from.”
I’ll fully subscribe to Adam’s view on this:
“Sure, Apple’s got a neato click wheel. That’s admittedly nice. But other than that, I really don’t see the allure of the whole iPod brand other than as something that’s “trendy.” And, as we see here, rather buggy to boot.”
Steel dolphin Creative's Color Scheme Tool
“Feel free to use the program below for your web site design, digital painting or othergraphic design and art projects. Its what I use and I find it very good for my work. You just insert the hex or rgb codes from or into Adobe Photoshop or any other image editing software and voila you are on your way to a great color scheme!”
Windows: Find out which application reserved file
Filemon: Monitor Windows processes in real-time
“FileMon monitors and displays file system activity on a system in real-time. Its advanced capabilities make it a powerful tool for exploring the way Windows works, seeing how applications use the files and DLLs, or tracking down problems in system or application file configurations. Filemon’s timestamping feature will show you precisely when every open, read, write or delete, happens, and its status column tells you the outcome.”
What I used this for was finding out which application had my file open when I was unable to delete, rename or remove it, which is a major pain in the ass sometimes. This wasn’t the best possible tool for that use, however. Unlocker is.
Testing freeware reminders for Windows XP
I went looking for a nice little freeware reminder app which would help me catch all those wonderful shows with my new toy. Found a few, though many of them, such as Multi-Reminders by Solway, were meant for remembering dates (such as birthdays) and not exact times.
But Week Scheduler (use of frames seems to have destroyed the usability of the anchor, but it’s down there) by Johannes Wallroth does take times, up to sixteen of them for each day. It’s pretty plain in looks, nothing fancy, which is the way I like my apps. The blinking alert pop-up is noticeable enough, though — even without the sound, which I find annoying (though not the most annoying alert ever heard). You can disable it for all alerts or none.
Though sixteen reminders per day are probably enough for me, it’s probably not the case with everyone else, so that’s a minor con — along with the fact that there’s no installer. I’ll give it four out of five stars.
Free Notes by Power Soft is a lot more colorful in its approach, beginning with the eye-hurting green dashboard 
it opens up above your tray on startup. Luckily, you can set it to minimized on startup using the options window, and I applaud the ability to also tweak the looks of the yellow post-it note like reminder popups to my liking.
In fact, had I not been given the choice of font to replace the default Comic Sans used in the notes, I wouldn’t have stood for it. So four out of five for Free Notes too.
So which is it? For now, I’m sticking to Free Notes, but like I said, I like my apps plain, so if Free Notes’ fancier looks get in the way of usability in any way, I’m kicking it out for Week Scheduler.
Tekijänoikeusvirus-FAQ
“Virus on tehty osoittamaan yksi erityinen ongelma uudesta tekijänoikeuslaista. Tämänkaltaisen viruksen ollessa laillinen kopiosuojaus, tulee esiin kysymys siitä, mihin vedetään raja sen suhteen mitä kaikkea kopiosuojaus saa tehdä. Kopiosuojaus voisi hyvin tehdä kaikkea mitä nykyiset troijalaiset pystyvät tekemään.
Lisäksi viruksen poistamisesta olisi helppo tehdä paljon vaikeampaa, eikä tekijällä ilmeisesti olisi mitään velvoitetta tarjota poistotyökalua. Tällöin kuluttajan järjestelmä olisi aikojen loppuun asti teoksen tekijän käskytettävissä, kun kerran sillä on suojatun teoksen katsonut.”
Get DivX Create Bundle for Windows free
“In the meantime, you can save yourself $19.99 and get the DivX Create Bundle for Windows absolutely free! Feel free to tell your family, spam your friends, update your blog and mention it in your podcast… just don’t wait too long! This special anniversary offer is only good for today.”
DivX.com via Juha
It seems the offer’s gone already… just barely made it myself. And I’m still waiting for my serial number:
“Still waiting for your free serial number? Our giveaway was so popular that there is a large backlog in our mail servers. If you entered a valid e-mail address we will be continuing to send out serial numbers over the next two days.”