Disk Defragmenters and Great New Hubble Photos

Editor’s Note: This will be my last blog for approximately a month as I head out tomorrow for more photographic adventures in the Arizona/Utah wilderness, eventually winding up in CA to do a close friend’s wedding.  If I can find a free Wi-Fi connection someplace, I will do a blog, if possible.  You can follow my further adventures on Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook (all jcorkrum); or on a special page on my Website. I can send updates with my Blackberry (and even some photos) when I have signal. This should be a fun trip as I am seeing mostly new territory. Take care. - JRC

Bing 2.0 could be around the corner

Microsoft is getting ready to launch the next iteration of Bing, according to some wayward tweets.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Malware

There are probably several new malware variants out per hour somewhere around the world, but only a small fraction have impact.What distinguishes the truly effective malware from the great unwashed malware masses?

Butterfly Nebula image - Photos: Hubble's newest visions of space

The Hubble Space Telescope got back to business this summer after an intensive repair and upgrade mission in May by a crew aboard the space shuttle. NASA released a series of photos that offer fresh and spectacular glimpses of the interstellar realm.

Five Best Disk Defragmenters

Your computer's a busy beaver, rapidly accessing and utilizing files all in the name of bringing you what you want, when you want it. Sometimes it needs a little help tidying up, and that's where these five disk defragmenters come in.

MaxMem 1.01 (Windows), Free Download

AnalogX MaxMem is a realtime physical memory management program that automatically ensures that you always have as much physical memory available as possible.

Find and Remove Those Duplicate Files

Google Voice and Gmail are sort of merging

Two new little Google Voice features just made their way into Gmail. A new option lets text messages sent to Google Voice show up as e-mail messages in Gmail.

Seven Easy Ways to Integrate Your Google Apps

The information you keep in Google apps like Gmail, GCal, Reader, and Voice doesn't just live in one place. Check out a few easy but non-obvious ways to plug different Google apps together and share their data and features.

Prevent keyloggers from grabbing your passwords

Strong passwords are important, but even the best password won't keep you safe from keyloggers — hardware and software that's designed to secretly record your keystrokes.

09/09/09 - The Day the Record Industry Died - Anil Dash

Today brings two announcements of great import to music fans, but they're most notable for who's not involved: The major record labels.

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder 1.5.2.55 (Free)

Most people are unaware of how many duplicate files there are cluttering their hard disks. All those songs that have been downloaded twice, holiday photos uploaded multiple times, documents copied and pasted, so that you have them in two folders at once. All that wasted disk space can be reclaimed by simply deleting duplicate files. Version 1.5.2.55 has improved Duplicate File Finder support of removable and CD disk drives.

Apple’s Big Day

Steve Jobs at the Apple Event Today.

Here is a 2.5 minute video of Steve's "surprise" appearance at the big Apple event. As you know he had a liver transplant just five months ago and this is his first public appearance since then.

Apple announces new iPod touch, nano, shuffle, classic; iTunes 9

Here is a quick rundown of all the new Apple products announced at today's big Apple Event.

Make XP and Vista boot as fast as Windows 7

Have to have at least one Windows story to offset all the Apple stuff.  After all the complaints about Vista's slow startup times, Microsoft paid attention and addressed the issue in Windows 7, which in the experience of beta testers and RTM reviewers can be faster than XP. But if you aren't ready to trade up to the new OS when it comes out next month, there are things you can do to tweak your current operating systems and make it boot faster.

First Take: iTunes 9

iTunes 9 has been cleaned up for easier navigation, redesigned with a new layout and a new black tabbed-menu system across the top of the iTunes Store interface. These new tabs replace the old left-side navigation to choose between categories like music, apps, movies, and podcasts. The layout for new content in the iTunes Store has been improved as well, with more browsable content in every category.

Apple - iTunes - Download iTunes Now

Here is where to go to download the new iTunes V.9. It is a good upgrade. I managed to get on today finally and get my copy. I think it is a definite improvement over V.8 iTunes gets a lot of flack from some folks, but frankly I have not found anything better and use it on a daily basis.

Its Patch Tuesday!

Microsoft patches gaping Windows worm holes

Microsoft today released a peck of patches to cover at least seven documented worm holes in the Windows operating system. The most serious of the vulnerabilities addresses could lead to remote code execution complete system takeover attacks.

Microsoft granted stay of Word injunction

Microsoft has been granted a stay of a landmark injunction in a patent-infringement case that would have required the software giant to stop selling Word in its current form by next month. No surprise here.

Intel's new Core i7, Core i5 desktop chips bring faster CPUs to the mainstream

Monday's announcement of Intel's new, more affordable Core i7 800 series chips, as well as an even cheaper Core i5 CPU, will likely lead to Intel's most advanced chip penetrating the mainstream retail market. Fast, overclockable, and power efficient, the new Core i7 CPU meets Intel's goal of enabling system builders to sell fast PCs at lower prices.

Yahoo intros new iPhone and BlackBerry apps | Signal Strength - CNET News

Yahoo announced three new mobile applications Tuesday as the company continues to focus more on developing specific applications for the iPhone and other select smartphones like the BlackBerry. They are not dead yet.

Wallpaper Randomizer - Free

Wallpaper Randomizer is a small system tray wallpaper changer. It lets you: see a different wallpaper whenever you start Windows; change wallpaper on regular intervals; change wallpaper using a hotkey.

It’s Freebie Friday

Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing

Paint.NET is an Open-Source freeware image and photo manipulation editor with all the essentials, including tools to crop, rotate, resize images, adjust colors, and create collages. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

Process Hacker: A Simple, Powerful Task Manager Replacement

Task Manager, the built-in Windows app to manage running services and applications, is good and always there when you need it, but it's missing information that could help you determine exactly what application is behind an app or service, how long the service has been running, and whether or not the app behind it has crashed.

eLibrary 2.0.1 (Windows)

eLibrary is a free electronic books library organizer. Catalog, tag and search your books database with ease.

Mahjongg Solitaire

Mahjongg Solitaire is an online fast-loading web version of the classical Chinese board game, nothing to install - just click and play. The objective is to remove all 144 tiles from the board, for each pair of tiles removed you will get two points. The rules are simple: Starting from the sides, or from the central tile at the top of the pile, remove tiles by clicking on two equal symbols. If the tiles are identical, they will disappear, and your score will rise. Removeable tiles always must be free on their left or right side. If a tile sits between two tiles on the same level, it cannot be selected. Have fun!

Find the User Manual for Almost Any Gadget at Manuals Online

With Manuals Online, you can search for the product, find a downloadable PDF of the manual you need, and store it digitally so you never have to look for it again. If you still can't find the answer, you can engage the community at Manuals Online for help with your device as well.

3D TV’s Coming to Your Home Soon?

Sony plans to put 3D televisions in homes by the end of next year

Sony's decision to throw its weight behind the technology will be an important boost for the 3D industry, which has so far focused mainly on cinemas.

Is lower power consumption Windows 7's killer feature?

It’s no secret that I’ve been left struggling to come up with a Windows 7 killer feature. I think I might have found it, and it comes in the form of lower power consumption.

Are passengers safe from terrorists?

The TSA wastes a lot of time and money on an inefficient fight against the wrong enemy

Add Sports Team Schedules, Birthday Reminders, And More To Google Calendars

Want to keep track of Yankees games, Bristol Rugby matches, or the schedule of the Taiwan Beer team (for all of you fans of the Taiwanese Super Basketball League out there)? Now you can subscribe to the schedules of your favorite professional sports teams on Google Calendar. Just click on “Add other calendars” in the left-hand column and browse “interesting calendars.”

Fun and games with Opera 10 widgets

If you've just started using Opera for the first time with the release of Opera 10 (see yesterday's blog), you're probably looking to add some widgets to your browser. But finding exactly what you need might take some time. That's why it's best to start with Opera's "Fun and Games" widgets.

IE Users Continue to Switch to Other Browsers

Internet Explorer posts largest loss since '08; Firefox, Chrome, Safari gain

Internet Explorer dropped 1.1 percentage points last month, to 66.6 percent. The slide was the browser’s steepest since last November, when it dropped by 2 percentage points, according to Net Applications.

Gmail outage caused by overloaded servers

A worldwide outage of Google's Gmail online e-mail system on Tuesday was caused by a traffic jam on its servers, according to Google's official Gmail blog. The problem was that some recent changes designed to improve traffic flow on request routers, servers designed to direct Web queries to the appropriate Gmail server, overloaded the system after workers took some Gmail servers offline to perform routine upgrades.

Sold! eBay jettisons Skype in $2 billion deal

With the sale, eBay acknowledged that things hadn't worked out as planned with Skype, which it acquired for $2.6 billion in 2005 with the plans to offer customers the ability to discuss their transactions in real time. Over the course of the four years since then, eBay found that its acquisition failed to provide what it sought.

NFL bans tweeting before, during, after games

The NFL said that it will let players, coaches, and other team personnel engage in social networking during the season. However, they will be prohibited from using Twitter and from updating profiles on Facebook and other social-networking sites during games. In addition, they will not be allowed to tweet or update social-networking profiles 90 minutes before a game and until post-game interviews are completed.

Opera 10 browser is here

If you've been keeping up with the beta updates, the final build of the cross-platform browser shouldn't surprise you. Opera Turbo, the browser's much-publicized compression engine for slow-poke connections, remains a feature highlight. Opera claims that Opera Turbo runs the browser up to eight times faster on suffering connections than do competing browsers.

Google Reader – A Second Look

A couple of weeks ago here, I did a comparison of My Yahoo vs iGoogle.  In it , I mentioned Google Reader as a place to collect various blogs and news stories that might be of interest to you.  At that time, I said why have both Google Reader and iGoogle when My Yahoo could do them both?

Well, based upon an idea I got from Leo LaPorte, I might not have given Google Reader a fair look.  So I decided to go back and look at it again…and in doing so, am now a fan and use it on a daily basis.  Let me explain.

First, I use My Yahoo to collect info on everything I am interested in…from news to the NFL, computers, TV, astronomy, tech, and much much more. It is wonderful and I still use it on a daily basis. Lots of interesting stuff to read.

But, Leo uses Google Reader to collect technology news from all over the Net and read it to prepare for his shows…all collected in one place.  Since I write a tech blog, I decided that might be smart for me to do also.

So, following Google instructions, I set up a Google Reader account and started setting up RSS feeds for sites I use.  Before long, I had a nice list of different sources to look at.  And even better, instead of just headlines like I see in My Yahoo, I got a synopsis of each story.  That makes looking for blog topics much easier.  And I am not limited to six stories at a time…no, I see all the latest stories and it keeps track of the ones I have already read.

But wait, it gets better.  Google recently added Google Bundles to Google Reader.  With Bundles, I can now look at what other people’s subscriptions and add them to my own.  So now, I have Leo LaPorte’s list as part of mine.

And it works for just about any subject or persons you are interested in.  You can search for reader lists by subject and by people.  It is quite an excellent, well rounded program…free, of course.

Summing up, I used My Yahoo for a broad look at lots of different subjects…and Google Reader for specialized RSS feeds.  Give it a try.