Sorry but I can not see where to post this. It looks like TG - all the colours and etc.
Do not know why they have not copied into here, but it looks like advertising to me. Is it or am I wrong?
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"There's no such thing as a stupid question, but they're the easiest to answer!"
In this
October 2009
edition:
A Word From TechGuy
Tech News
Homegroup
phpAnywhere.net
Microsoft Security Essentials
Community Updates
A Word From TechGuy
Howdy Calvadosman,
In case you somehow missed it, Windows 7 finally went on sell last week! Thinking about upgrading your computer? See some notes below from Moderator valis. Have some questions? Check out the Windows 7 forum. Want to do a clean install using an Upgrade CD? Check out this thread. If you try Windows 7 yourself, be sure to report back to the site and post your results.
If you haven't visited Tech Support Guy in a while, you might be due for a stop in Introductions or Random Discussion.
Also, don't forget to check in on the latest Tech-Related News, including:
* What comes after hard drives?
* Firefox 3.6 Beta coming soon.
* Why you should invest in an uninterruptible power supply.
* Two MIT students photograph Earth from near-space on a $148 budget.
If you use iTunes or listen to podcasts, be sure to catch up tech news and opinions that way! You can find out more at
www.TechGuyNews.com. We're recording our next episode live at 1:00PM Eastern on Sunday, November 15th. Mark your calendar and then head to
www.TechGuyNews.com at that time to join in the live chat room as we record the show!
Have a fun and safe Halloween,
Mike Cermak
"TechGuy"
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Tech News
Homegroup by valis
Ahh…..remember the good old days of computers, when plug and play was something we did with our Atari 2600’s (and in some cases, still do), and adding a peripheral would take at least a weekend? I fondly remember the time that myself and a gent who is now a senior BIOS engineer spent about 14 hours hooking up a printer. DIP switches, jumpers, telling your PC how many clusters were on your hard drive; those were the days.
And thank goodness they are gone, because after that 12 hour ordeal regarding the printer I’d about tossed it and gone back to long-hand.
Regardless, they say in the industry that hooking up a thousand computers is far easier than hooking up two, and as I routinely have to set up domains in remote places, I tend to agree with them. I can’t remember the last time I used a crossover cable; those things gave me such a headache it was just easier to slave the other hard drive in your extra bay and go from there.
Windows RC 7 has eliminated many of the vagaries that us gray-beards reminisce upon, and that is absolutely fine by me. But by far and away my favorite tool of Windows new OS is the homegroup function, which works the way that I firmly believe the original workgroup function was intended to.
Below you will see a picture of my current set up, with regards to homegroup; the pc cannot find any other pc’s on the network, and politely informs of the fact that if I wish to run this function, I’m going to have to pony up another pc or three:
As I type this, all I am going to do is hook up one of my spare rigs to the router; no monitor, keyboard, KVM switch, nada, and show the results.
As you can now see, I’ve got another pc to share data with. But first to join. That’s as easy as setting up the homegroup itself; choose a password, and off you go.
The irony here is that this is a feature I tripped over, as the day I installed RC7, my dvd writer went to that great database in the sky. And as I was looking for my thumbdrive, I noticed that ‘homegroup’ option. And being the engineer I am, I saw a button, so I pushed it. The rest, as they say, is history.
This is going to be a hugely valuable resource for IT professionals. I remember when Microsoft nailed with the ease of sharing calendars in Outlook 2k3, and how rapidly that caught on. With this function it will be very easy indeed for just the average user to set up a quasi-domain in their house amongst several pc’s. The ease of setup, the ease of use, and the very simple fact that Microsoft always keeps that button very clearly available in Explorer is going to make the transition even easier.
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phpAnywhere.net by Linuxphile
It's a novel concept, and maybe an expounding on the idea of editing your documents, spreadsheets and presentations online: editing your code online.
Think about it. Many coders come to enjoy the simplicity of an advanced file editor that simply provides syntax highlighting and general formatting capabilities. Both of these are easy enough to achieve with a little javascript and style sheets.
phpAnywhere.net does this with the coming soon feature of code completion. phpAnywhere.net is a relatively new service that allows for the managing of your PHP based project from any machine in the world, provided that machine has internet connectivity.
Currently you can add an FTP server, delete/create and edit files from the server. The edit capabilities allow for an unlimited undo.
I've used this tool to successfully build a simple music library manager. On a slow internet connection (256Kb/second) the editing of the code was very responsive. phpAnywhere offers forums with apparent access to the developers. Reporting bugs in the forums seems to be quite successful as well as asking questions concerning the project management within the tool.
Today phpAnywhere is still in beta, however the project is very promising. With the added feature of code completion, support for Chrome, and better project management I can definitely see myself using this tool when I am not at my own computer, however, I do not see this tool replacing vi for me.
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Microsoft Security Essentials by linuxphile
While recording the Tech Support Guy podcast Mike mentioned a new anti-virus product from Microsoft: Security Essentials. Mike mentioned this product was to be free to home users and mentioned he was running it on his Windows 7 based laptop.
I had long since become dissatisfied with the bloat of AVG Free since version 8 was released and was quite willing to give a new free alternative a spin. In fact, who better to offer protection for an operating system then the company which writes that operating system.
Microsoft Security Essentials is available for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. The only software requirement there is that the operating system pass the genuine check. So I visited the Microsoft Security Essentials page and grabbed a fresh copy of the installer.
One of the first steps of the installer is to verify that your copy of Windows is indeed genuine. Having passed this test I sped through the next/next/finish process and Security Essentials was installed.
Upon first starting up Security Essentials will check for updated malware definitions. I say malware because Security Essentials protects against Virus and spyware both. In fact I'd say it's a direct replacement of Windows Defender.
Both the quick scan and the full scan options run considerably faster on my hardware than AVG has in a long time. I am also happy to report that Microsoft has learned the anti-trust lesson and has not bundled Security Essentials with their new Windows 7 operating system. I tested the live/active detection by downloading files known to be infected and verified the detection by Security Essentials. This anti-virus suite is less bloated/invasive, performs better, and appears to work just as well as AVG. My home Windows based machines have been updated to use this product rather than AVG Free.
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Recover Your Valuable Data
Since 1985, DriveSavers has recovered data from hard drives and other storage media that has crashed, been physically damaged, infected by viruses and worse. This has earned us our reputation as the most advanced and progressive data recovery service in history, with clients like ABC News, Adobe Systems, American Express, Apple Computer, Boeing, Cisco, FedEx, Google, Kodak, NASA, Yahoo, and many more! Hold on to this email, and next time you or a friend needs data recovery, use discount code DS16823 and receive a 10% discount, and there will be no charge if your data isn't recoved! For more information, visit
www.drivesavers.com or call 1-800-440-1904.
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Community Updates
by Laura Martlock
Major League baseball is quickly coming to a close. Don't miss all the news, results, scores, trivia and gossip--if you miss some games, check out the Major League Baseball 2009 thread!
Need some interesting trivia and conversation starters for the upcoming Holiday parties? Log onto the Did You Know? thread and find hundreds of trivia facts you can use to entertain your friends!
Don't be taken in by the latest Scam! Thanks to Alex Ethridge for bringing attention to this!
With the Stock Market floundering, those who have invested in stocks need all the help and tips they can get. Check out Investments Discussion-Advice-Concerns-Ideas for advice to to give information.
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