Gizmo’s Understanding Codecs

Gizmo’s TechSupportAlert is a great source of information and reviewed software links.

For those dealing with sound or video files, codecs are a way to compress the audio or video to save space.  Codecs are needed for the various types of files, and Gizmo makes it all clear in Gizmo’s Understanding Codecs.

He also gives you links to trusted sites where you can get the codecs you need for whatever you are listening to/viewing.

Vista and older printers

PC Magazine (October 2008) had a possible solution for Vista owners when Vista refuses to install the older kernel-mode printer drivers:

1. Start

2. Run

3. enter gpedit.msc to launch the Group Policy Object Editor

4. Under Computer Configuration, double-click Administrative Templates, select Printers.

5. Find the policy Disallow installation of printers using kernel-mode drivers and double-click it.

6. Set to Disabled.

7. Click OK, close the Group Policy Object Editor, and reboot.

8. Try installing your old driver now.

Use at your own risk — this was intended to discourage crashes caused by badly-written drivers.

Free protection

I choose Avira for my new laptop because of advice like this from Gizmo Richards Tech Support Alert Newsletter of 15 May 2008:

Based on the evidence available as of today, I think the best route for free software users who want maximum protection is to switch to the free Avira AV [3] scanner and optionally, bolster this with the free Spyware Terminator program [4] or, less desirably, Windows Defender [5].

I say this because the free Avira product includes rootkit protection, while the free AVG does not. It is also more stable. Furthermore, Avira has better overall protection than AVG. Check out the AV Comparatives results [6] and you will see what I mean.

On the downside, Avira has limited active email protection, will nag you more than AVG free and the interface is somewhat more crude. But the overall level of protection is excellent.

Another option which offers a tad less protection but greater convenience is to switch to the free Avast! scanner. The latest version of Avast! is a major improvement on what was already an impressive product. And the free version includes anti-spyware, anti-rootkit and email protection, so you don’t need to use it in concert with another product.

On the downside Avast! is resource hungry. Subscriber Basil Irwin pointed out that “not counting pseudo-drivers, Avast! consumes around 70MB of memory compared to 8MB for AntiVir. I didn’t do any formal testing of CPU consumption or timing of various common operations, but there was no doubt in my mind that Avast! noticeably slowed several common operations, like program loading and file copying.”

For average users with modern PCs I suggest the low hassle Avast! Option, while higher risk users may be better off going with Avira.

You could, of course, just stick with AVG 8 Free, and bolster your defenses with other products. However, there have been too many V8 “bug” reports to suggest this is an attractive option at this point in time.

[1] http://www.grisoft.com/ww.90627
[2] http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download-avg-anti-spyware-and-anti-rootkit
[3] http://www.free-av.com/en/products/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html
[4 http://www.spywareterminator.com
[5] http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
[6] http://www.av-comparatives.org/seiten/ergebnisse_2008_02.php

Richards now blogs as part of the Windows Secrets team but maintains an archive of his newsletters and advice here.

Caught something?

This is so important that I’m going to quote most of it here directly from Gizmo Richards Tech Support Alert Newsletter of 15th May 2008:

Every week I get letters from subscribers who are worried that their PC may have become infected after they’ve downloaded and installed a program.
Many of these so called “infected download” problems are due to a security scanner claiming a program is infected when in reality it is not; that is, a “false positive.” While this doesn’t worry experienced PC users, it certainly scares the hell out of the average Joe or Jane.
These false positives have become increasingly common as security vendors employ “behavior-based” checking to augment their signature scanners.
Behavior-based checking works on the principle “if it acts like malware it probably is malware.” All too commonly, it isn’t.
Despite the fact that false positives are common, you still need to follow up on suspected problems, because malware infections are also common. So if you fail to investigate, you will never know if the problem is real or just a figment of your security program’s imagination.
Here’s Gizmo’s simple, zero-cost, three-step procedure to follow next time you feel your PC might have become infected as the result of installing a program you downloaded.

(a) First, upload the installation file of the program you installed to Jotti.org [1] for a free scan. Jotti will then run it through more than a dozen malware scanners and let you know if there is a problem.

If Jotti determines that your file is clean, it doesn’t mean that there is no infection. It simply means that it’s unlikely there is an infection, and that folks, is a very comforting finding.

(b) Download and run the free Panda Rootkit detector [2]. Again, a clean scan is not a 100% guarantee of no infection, but should add greatly to your confidence. Panda doesn’t run on Vista, so Vista users should use the BlackLight [3] anti-rootkit scanner instead.

(c) Finally, download HijackThis from this page [4], and follow the instructions on the same page which tell you how to create a log that you can paste to web forums.

There are several forums where you can post. You can find two here [5], [6] and many more by doing a Google search on “Post HiJackThis log”. Tell the forum helpers you have already done a Jotti scan and a rootkit scan, and let them know what the results of these scans were.

The folks in the forum will then let you know if you have a problem. If you do, they will also be able to tell you how you can get rid of it permanently. And it won’t cost you a cent.

Now in most cases you will find that nothing shows up with Jotti, the rootkit scan or HiJackThis. That’s good news. OK, you have spent some of your time chasing a false lead, but that’s a lot better than having an infected PC and doing nothing about it.

[1] http://virusscan.jotti.org/
[2] http://www.majorgeeks.com/Panda_Anti-Rootkit_d5457.html
[3] http://www.antirootkit.com/software/F-Secure-BlackLight-Beta.htm
[4] http://www.whatthetech.com/hijackthis/
[5] http://www.techsupportforum.com/security-center/hijackthis-log-help/
[6] http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showforum=12

Kaspersky offers free virus removal tools if you actually turn out to have a virus.

Richards is now part of the Windows Secrets team and blogs there, but maintains an archive of his newsletters and advice here.

Screen capture software

ClifNotes recommends Bug Shooting for screen capture. Another is Screenshot Captor.

RSS made simple

What’s the easy way to use this RSS stuff to keep up with your various information sources?

The following will cover two browsers: Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox with the Sage add-on, and what to do if you can’t find the RSS but know it’s there.

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Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 has a toolbar with the stars over on the left, and on the right is a house (for Home), the RSS symbol, the printer, etc.

When you reach a web page that has an RSS link on it, the RSS should turn orange and have a little sparkle on it:

As you see it here between the Home and the Printer icons. Click on the down arrow beside it and see all the possible RSS feeds on this site. Choose any one you want.

Now you see what the feed looks like.

On the left, the second-from-right star has a plus + beside it (it also appears on the instructions at the top of the feed). Click on that to subscribe to the feed.

You get a little popup window with the feed information already filled in.

Just click on Subscribe and it will be added to your feeds. You’ll be told you successfully subscribed.

Now when you click on Favorites or the star at the left of the toolbar, one of the options is Feeds. This shows up the RSS feed you’ve added along with any others.

When you have anything new at that feed that hasn’t been displayed in IE 7 yet, it should show up in bold font. If you’ve already seen everything, it shows up in regular font.

If you can’t find a feed but know one is there, click here.

Firefox with Sage add-on

Firefox comes without a lot of built-in features, so you can customize it as you choose, without loading up a lot of things you don’t use.

For RSS feeds, Firefox has several add-ons. Sage is a free add-on function for RSS feeds.

Firefox 2.x can use the Sage 1.3.10 add-on. Firefox 3 needs the Sage 1.4.2 or later, or Sage Too add-on instead.

Install the proper add-on for your version of Firefox, and restart Firefox.

Click on the green Sage leaf in the toolbar near the top, and then when Sage appears on the left, click on the Options and then Settings.

You can then select the Feed Folder, which may be one of the folders in your bookmark list (especially if you are using the Foxmarks add-on).

Click on the magnifying glass to search for feeds.

Select the feed you want. You can use Atom or RSS (2.0) feeds.

Click on it, and then click on Add Feeds to add it to the bottom of your list of feeds.

Close the Add Feeds window, and you can then arrange the feed into a folder if you like. For example, a folder can be created for all the feeds from the University, all the feeds for your favorite music sources, all the feeds for your hobby, etc. Just use the Options to organize your feeds.

What to Do When Your Browser Can’t Find the RSS But You Know It’s There

Sometimes websites outsmart themselves. They try to lock you into using a particular RSS feed manager, even if you’d rather use your IE or Firefox Sage to handle it. (They think they’re making it easier for you, or — at least — driving you towards somebody who pays them for the chance to show you advertising).

For example:

Example of forcing you to use an RSS manager site

Now, if you search this site for the RSS link, you may not find it with the normal methods.

Here’s the workaround:

Go up to your Toolbar and click on View, then select the choice with “Source” such as “View Source” or “Page Source”.

That gets you the HTML code that creates the page.

Now, use CTRL-F to Find anything with “feed” in it. For example, the page shown had this in the HTML code:

<atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self"
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/gizmosbest" type="application/rss+xml" />
<feedburner:emailServiceId>1157267</feedburner:emailServiceId>
<feedburner:feedburnerHostname>http://www.feedburner.com</feedburner:feedburnerHostname><item>

Aha! The name of the page is “Gizmo’s Best” and there it is in the code: http://feeds.feedburner.com/gizmosbest.

That’s what the actual link is. The rest of the stuff is sort of generic and not needed.

In Sage in Firefox, use the Options and Manage Feed List… to get a list of choices. Select New bookmark and then enter the feed in the proper space on the popup form.

In IE 7, use the star plus + icon and select Import and Export.

Select Import and then right-click on an existing feed (you might need to copy one first, to have it to spare.

Change the name, and then enter the feed information in the Address box.

Once you save that, you’ve got a brand-new feed.

Faster shutdown in Vista

From the Windows Vista Help blog, here’s a try-at-your-own-risk trick (and backup your Registry first!):

Open Regedit (WINDOWS KEY + R on your keyboard, or by clicking Start and typing on the search bar “regedit” without quotes. Hit Enter

Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l] On the right panel look for the “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” string and change it value to 1000 by right clicking the string and selecting Modify…

Default Value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=20000

Modified value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=5000
Modified value WaitToKillServiceTimeout=1000 (extreme, use it at your own risk)

A value of 3000 was reported to work nicely “but try the 5000 first. 3000 does sometimes leave some programs lagging which then need a further key click.”

External hard drive for Vista

Most external hard drives you buy that were primarily intended for Windows are formatted as FAT32, which works with Vista and older Windows versions.

However, Vista won’t actually boot from anything but a drive formatted in NTFS, so if you want to have that as an option (in case your computer’s own hard drive goes belly up), you may prefer to reformat an external hard drive in NTFS format or use these instructions instead.

A number of users report that this actually speeds up their performance, plus they can move larger files.

REMEMBER: you will lose some space on the drive (depending on the original amount). For example, a drive rated at 500GB (officially, meaning on the carton) in FAT32 could reformat to about 465GB in NTFS.

Going for a new look in Windows?

So, you wish you had a cool/different/just plain new look for your Windows desktop….

SideSlide allows you to set up a customized desktop look for Windows.

“Dock and hide SideSlide to any screen edge; browse through your favorite RSS news feeds, keep shortcuts to files, folders and URLs you frequently visit; execute various commands quicker than ever; add multiple notes; multiple, sizable, pictures; schedule reminders; save web snippets and more. Customize it to emphasize the things you use the most and make more information accessible without occupying precious screen space. By using containers you can shrink and fold, linking containers to actual folders on disk, detaching containers from the workspace to claim additional space, launch groups that allow you to start multiple programs at once, shortcut tags, zooming in and out of shortcuts, news feed reader, keyboard navigation, different skins, different size pictures, picture containers and colored notes; SideSlide is designed to make a great deal of content instantly accessible. SideSlide is portable and you can use it from your USB drive.

WinCustomize has themes, including those based on the latest movies, and more, based on DesktopX, which changes the look and feel of your computer’s desktop. Since many of these are made up by different people, the results may vary according to your system and setup. There’s some pretty impressive stuff here.

Liven Up is “a tool to organize and manage all your logon screens, boot screens and wallpapers to give your PC a more pleasant look. You will never have to tweak your registry or have to do anything manual (like browsing for your images, decompress them, install them). Everything is managed from inside the user-friendly interface of LivenUp.”

[updated 2008/6/8]

Social Wallpapering is recommended by Lifehacker as a great source of wallpaper and themes.

Firefox add-ons continually updated

The add-ons (also called extensions) to the Firefox browser greatly increase it’s usability and let you customize it to suit your needs.

This list will continue to be updated:

• Are you on several IM lists? Using MEEBO to talk with them? Then an add-on to run Meebo in Firefox would help! From Distant Librarian.
• ComputerWorld suggests 20 must-have Firefox extensions.
• For a change of pace, ComputerWorld suggests 10 Firefox extensions to avoid. One of these is Greasemonkey, which enables a number of other extensions, so you may want to consider pros and cons on that one.
• Lifehacker has their Gmail 2 add-on updated for the latest Gmail version.
• Saving Advice has 20 Firefox extensions that will save you money.
• Another money-saver is the Pronto service extension for easy price comparisons.

TV viewing sites

[last updated 2008/10/6]

Here’s a list of some of the sites and software that provide legal viewing of television programs (this post may be updated over time):

anytvplayer.com Watch local TV, world TV, Live TV, satellite TV from countries of all world in different languages on your PC with anyTV not just at home, but at the OFFICE , work or wireless. Watch 2630+ Online TV, 6910+ Video clips. Listen to 4750+ Online Radio. Using anyTV means you can watch numerous of international TVs without a television, TV Tuner Card or a satellite receiver. Watch anywhere you have your internet Online. No additional equipments required. anyTV is a completely FREE Software. It contains absolutely NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE, NO REGISTRATION, NO POPUPS, NO MALWARE or other unwanted software. The channels are constantly updated to bring you up-to-date channel list. You can filter channels by genre, country, bitrate or content. Set up a favorites list for quick access to your favorite Radio/TV/Video channels online. Watch in regular or full-screen mode. anyTV supports both Windows Media & RealVideo. Channels from more than 100 countries.”

hulu.com “Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection from more than 50 content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more to deliver premium programming across all genres and formats, television shows, feature films, and clips. Watch full-length episodes of current primetime TV shows such as The Simpsons and The Office the morning after they air, classics like Miami Vice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and clips from Saturday Night Live, Nip/Tuck, and others. Hulu also offers full-length feature films like The Usual Suspects, Ice Age, Three Amigos!, and The Big Lebowski as well as clips from films such as Napoleon Dynamite, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Devil Wears Prada and many more. Hulu is free and ad-supported — available anytime in the U.S.”

OVGuide offers “Free online movies: Free DivX movies with very good quality & full length” and a number of TV shows. This seems to be a portal for a number of other sites with the actual content.

SurftheChannel just has links to sites.  Since they don’t actually host any videos on their own site, this transfers the responsibility for copyright to the site in the link.

Cheat Sheet: RGB Hexadecimal Colors

“I Love Jack Daniels” has a number of handy cheat sheets for programmers. There is no apparent requirement to share the same taste in drinks just to use the cheat sheet, however.

RGB Hex Colour Chart

Posted in Cheat Sheets, September 22, 2003

“A free, printer-friendly RGB Hex colour chart for web designers.”

Cheat Sheet: JavaScript (and Jack Daniels?)

“I Love Jack Daniels” has a number of handy cheat sheets for programmers. There is no apparent requirement to share the same taste in drinks just to use the cheat sheet, however.

JavaScript Cheat Sheet

Posted in Cheat Sheets, August 1, 2005

“A quick reference guide for JavaScript, listing methods and functions, and including a guide to regular expressions and the XMLHttpRequest object.”

Adobe Acrobat alternatives for creating & using PDFs

[this post last updated 2008/1/28]

Adobe Acrobat has allowed other software to create and modify the PDF format.

PrimoPDF PDF creation software is freeware.

PDFTextOnline allows you to get text and other content out of your PDF documents.

PDF-XChange Viewer In addition to all the standard features here are some of the features available in the PDF-XChange FREE Viewer

• Add Comments and Annotations to any PDF file (subject to security settings) – unlike the Adobe Viewer which requires the PDF creation tool to be ‘certified’ by Adobe !
• Mark-up pages with text and objects
• Type directly on any PDF page, not just Adobe enabled forms documents – in Typewriter mode.
• Export PDF pages or entire files to any one of the supported Image formats including BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG and many more …
• Extract text from a PDF page/File
• Make your navigation of large or complex PDF files both simple and enjoyable with the extended functionality of our ‘Loupe’ and the ‘Pan’ Window tools
• Fill and Save Adobe Forms to disk, email or ‘post’ !
• Full Javascript Engine included
• Updated JPEG2000 Compression support – improving speed.
• Plug-Ins for both MS IE or Firefox Browser’s included
• Integrate seamlessly with your favourite translation software to translate text on the ‘fly’ – including : ABBYY Lingvo 12, Translate It!, Lingoes.
• Includes comprehensive Help file and PDF Manual – no extra downloads required to add features etc.
• Portable version also available – can be run from any suitable device such as a Memory stick/CD/DVD etc – simply unzip and use – no installation required – just 4MB download !

And many more features such as Rotate and ‘Save’, Email files etc ….. Recommended by ClifNotes Newsletter.

Irfanview — odd name, but useful for viewing

Irfanview is a freeware graphics viewer that can also convert graphics from one format to another.

Six Techniques to Get More from the Web

CIO.com has an article called Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You which has advice from expert librarian researchers.

Lots of these are useful methods and resources, including links to a number of places that will help you search for all sorts of information.

Of course, once you get there, how do you know a web resource is worthwhile?

Says a section from the article (to show how useful this article really is!):

What’s Trustworthy Online?

How do you know what information you can trust online? Here are five tips from a research librarian:

1. The URL domain: If a URL ends in .edu, .gov or .org, you can bet the information you’ll find there is primary. Primary sources are more authoritative than secondary sources.

2. Website audience size and reach. This is especially true for blogs. The more people who link to it or subscribe to it, the more you can trust it.

3. Membership ranks. For trade associations, check out what companies are listed as members. Big names that you recognize will tell you the association is reputable.

4. Source materials. Think about Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is not trustworthy because it is written by anyone, not necessarily an expert, and includes articles by contributors with an agenda. Scroll to the bottom of the entry and go to the links that are cited under References. The more references (ideally to news articles or books), the more trustworthy the wiki entry.

5. Quality of links and listed resources. Generally, the more primary the information, the better. But you’re busy. So look for a good aggregator of firsthand information. For example, a blog might cite a book that cites a white paper. You can’t necessarily trust the blog, or even the book. And the white paper is the result of months of research.

If you can access that raw research itself, that’s the most perfect source of information, but “the white paper is where a CIO should go, not to the research,” says technology librarian Jessamyn West. “Half the trick of being CIO is finding good, secondary cultivators of primary sources.”

Help forums

The Internet has allowed a lot of knowledgeable (and some not so) people to assist you in all sorts of activities, including dealing with hardware and software problems.

Forums are where you submit your problem, with a LOT of detailed description about your exact situation (but not personal data) and see if some of those helpful folks can come up with some things to try.

Use at your own risk, and remember that not everyone who seems friendly and helpful is really just that. Keep your personal information personal, and describe only your computer system, in just the details required to diagnose the problem. You can, however, get some fast answers to things that might leave you waiting in a long line on hold at a regular company help desk.

• Internet Fixes covers a lot more than just Internet problems. Anything dealing with operating systems (Windows and others) and all kinds of other problems. Recommended by ClifNotesNewsletter.
• Tech Support Guy free help for Windows. Use with caution; you are posting your question to a list for anyone to answer, or searching for the answer others may have received for the same problem.
• Qunu bills itself as “a search engine for people. We use instant messaging to connect — in real time — people who have (for now) software or tech-related questions with experts who are passionate and willing to help.”
• CyberTechHelp and D-A-L Computer Help are forums where you can ask for help on computer problems. Recommended by Tech Support Alert.

U3 Flash drives are a new standard

A new standard, called U3, is for drives which allow you to run software from the USB drive just as if it were a hard drive on your PC. This also allows you to use your own programs and setups on other PCs.

• Verbatim drive users software for the new U3 standard drives.
• U3.com has U3 software.
• Don’t have a U3 drive? Then you can still run U3 applications by using Pegtop’s PStart for non-U3 drives.

USB Flash drives links

Windows Secrets has an item on how to use a Flash drive instead of a laptop to keep your favorite software and data available wherever you go. There are also links for the fastest drives and speed tests for drives, a discussion of U3-or-not-U3 drives, and other information. Another article from them is here and covers various menu and suite choices as well.

• NedWolf.com has lots of links to software.
• No-Install.com “portal for portability” with software, forums, stories
• Portable USB Apps a group of small versions of useful applications that can be copied to and used from a Flash drive.
• PortableApps.com has software.
• EverythingUSB.com has software.
• Portable Freeware has software including applications.
• Lifehacker top 10 usb thumb drive tricks link to a number of uses and software.
• Snapfiles has a page on portable software.
• Allway Sync can be used to sync folders and files anywhere, including to and from USB drives. Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter.
• IZarc2Go is archiving software to compress/uncompress files, which ALSO has excellent encryption to keep files secure. You can encrypt your existing files with a simple procedure. Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter
• Ultrashredder will destroy your files (such as the original files left after you encrypt them with IZarc2Go, above, so only the encrypted files survive). Recommended by Gizmo’s Support Alert Newsletter.
• WinInizio Pen Suite is “a collection of free and open source software that can be copied onto a USB pen drive or used from a hard disk.” Recommended by ClifNotesNewsletter.

Remember ‘test patterns’?

In the early days of television, you might see a ‘test pattern’ sent, sometimes with a big Native American head in full feathered dress, along with special graphics to use in adjusting signals and TV sets.

DisplayMate includes six sample full-screen test patterns and associated help screens for setting up your display. It runs at any resolution, color depth, and screen shape or aspect ratio. Note: This demo only provides a glimpse of the full product, which includes 100-plus test patterns that are substantially more powerful.  However, if the demo is enough to do the job…

Recommended by PC Annoyances (the book).