New Apps and Utility Updates

Submitted here for your frustration is a jumble of new and updated software applications I’ve collected over the past couple of weeks.

Think of it like the “pot-luck” box where everything is free for the taking after the week-long garage sale has concluded.

Only you might really want something in this mix.

MetroTextual 1.5 - SingularLabs - slick notepad replacement has some new improvements in this edition. Including Transformers (Plugins).

SpeedyFox - CRYSTALIDEA Software - Some time back got bumped to version 2.0.4. I run this regularly to clean up my Firefox/Chrome/Thunderbird databases. It really helps with launch speed. See also SpeedyFox Portable - PortableApps.com

CPU Meter Pro - Microsys - The GUI is very nice though the level of detail might be a bit less than some sysadmins might prefer.

DLL UnInjector - NoVirusThanks - unload DLLs within a selected process. More at this Unload loaded DLLs with DLL UnInjector post.

Download Backup Thunderbird - free tool to back up Thunderbird email clients spotted in this AddictiveTips post Easily Backup & Restore Your Mozilla Thunderbird Accounts & Their Data. I personally have always relied on MozBackup.

NetworkLatencyView - Nirsoft - New tool that calculates the network latency. Some details in this NirBlog post: New utility that calculates the network latency of every TCP connection. Looks pretty cool for you network troubleshooting and monitoring geeks.

TightVNC version 2.7.10. - What's New in TightVNC

LibreOffice 4.1 is here! - LibreOffice.org

LibreOffice - Home

LibreOffice Productivity Suite Download - LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.1.0 Portable - PortableApps.com

Opera Next 16 hints at new features - BetaNews. I don’t really follow Opera web-browser development very closely any longer. Most of my time is focusing on Firefox/Chrome/Chromium/Internet Explorer. Hover there are some detail here that might be worth noting.

Network monitor debuts in latest Firefox beta - Mozilla Links. I really, REALLY like this addition…browser-bloat or not.

SMF v 5.0 – Search my Files - funk.eu - I’ve got more than many Windows file finders, searchers, and file indexing apps that I can summon at will. However funk’s SMF and NirSoft’s SearchMyFiles tools are my go-to file finders without peer. They both have been recently updated with loads new features and rather than see them as competitors, I see them as complimentary utilities depending on the search need at hand.

Intel® Driver Update Utility - Back while I was working on my “What is this “PC-Doctor Module” you speak of?” post, I noted Lavie’s system had the Dell Support Center software installed and how it can help with keeping OEM drivers updated. I checked my own system and the software wasn’t there. Maybe I uninstalled it? Anyway, this Java based application from Intel will do a scan of your system and report if any Intel-based hardware components are present and if a newer driver is available. Sometimes the OEM-branded driver will be preferred, however in most all cases, I have found the Intel driver is much, much fresher and more improved than the OEM version. Yesterday it told me my IntelProNic/WiFi network driver was way old so I updated it to the latest Intel driver version. No issues.

View DELL Service Tag and Express Service Code From Linux and Windows - The Geek Stuff.  Because sometimes it’s a hassle to flip your Dell laptop/desktop around to look for the codes:

1. Get DELL Service Tag on remote Windows system

Login to the Windows remote-host using VNC or remote desktop connection. Use WMIC on Windows to get service tag as shown below.

C:\>wmic bios get serialnumber
SerialNumber
ABCDEF1

Following WMIC command will give make and model number along with service tag.

C:\>wmic csproduct get vendor,name,identifyingnumber
IdentifyingNumber    Name                Vendor
ABCDEF1              PowerEdge 2950      Dell Inc.

If VNC or remote desktop connection to the remote-host is not available,  execute the following from the local-host to get the service tag of the remote-host.

C:\>wmic /user:administrator /node:remote-host bios get serialnumber
SerialNumber
ABCDEF1
[Note: Replace remote-host with the machine name of your remote-host.]

PeStudio 7.26 - winitor - (updated) - “PeStudio is a free tool to perform static analysis and investigation of any Windows executable file. A file being analyzed with PeStudio is never launched. Therefore, you can evaluate unknown executable files and even malware with no risk. PeStudio runs on any Windows platform and is fully portable, no installation is required. PeStudio does not change the system or leave anything behind.”

SoftPerfect Network Scanner - version 5.4.12 - a free network scanner, tweaked and updated. It’s one of my all-time favs.

Get the Start menu back in Windows 8 and 8.1 with Classic Shell - BetaNews - Tip from Mike WIlliams that Classic Shell 3.9 beta has improved their flagship tool for reclaiming the ground lost by users everywhere in the ongoing battle for Win8 Start Menu hill against Microsoft. I really like the way this looks. Pop over to Classic Shell directly to download the beta bits if you are interested. I find that I still (for now) prefer IObit Start Menu 8 Free for my Windows 8 tweaking. One of these days I’ll get caught up and empty out my lethargic Windows 8 post-launch pile-o-links that has more than a few additional alternatives. My little brother recommends Stardock’s $ Start8 application for what it’s worth.

Cheers.

--Claus Valca

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Power Pile of Links

CC attribution: "Chain links" by HowardLake on flickr.

Got to go into the office tomorrow for one of those rare (for me) weekend special project rotations.

So I’m afraid a have just a bit less time that usual to spend on the blogging front.

Today’s offering is a large mix that covers LiveCD’s, some WinPE stuff, virtualization, new utility “how to” videos, third-party plugin updates, browser bits, networking, admin tips, password hint leakage, forsec, and a bit of graphical goodies.

ForSec LiveCD’s 

PALADIN 3.0.1 Forensic Software - Paladin just released version 3.0 of their LiveCD. You must have set up a free user account first and log in to access the PALADIN Download page. Changes in 3.0 & 3.0.1 are:

Version 3.0 New Features -

-- PALADIN Toolbox has been ported to Ubuntu 12.04

-- Network Share Icon has been added to the desktop to access network volumes that have been added via the MOUNT Tab

-- Boot support for current Intel Macs (including the newer MacBook Airs)

Release Notes

3.0.1 - Fixed issue where Unallocated Image function was producing 0 byte files.

Road to DEFT 7.2 and more DEFT Linux - Computer Forensics live cd - Deft 7.2 is scheduled for release in September 2012 and will mark a milestone of sorts. It will be the last x32-bit system release. Starting with 8.0 builds, they are going for x64 system support builds only. Shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, just keep a 7.x version handy as well.

DEFT 7 Cyber Forensic Tool Overview (by Casey Mullis) - LoveMyTool blog. Since we were speaking of DEFT, Casey Mullis gives a nice walkabout of DEFT 7 with nice screenshots if you are interested.

ESSPEE - Penetration Testing & Forensics - SourceForge.net - Updated to “R1 x86”. This is a new distro to me and is based on BackTrack 5 for pentest/for/sec work. Uses the “Unity” desktop interface.

Back|Track 5 R3 - new release. More details BackTrack 5 R3 Released!, BackTrack 5 R3! — PenTestIT, and from this H Security: News and Features post, BackTrack 5 R3 adds tools for Arduino and Teensy attacks. Choose your path carefully! Available in both KDE or Gnome flavors, with x32 or x64 platforms. In case you can’t decide, you may want to first look at this general KDE and Gnome Comparison post by ubuntucat.

WinPE Stuff

The few of you who regularly read this humble blog may have seen some recent activity in the comments sidebar. Turns out we had a recent celebrity visitor "Steve” from RMPrepUSB who posts a crazy-number of posts and tips on WinPE and USB booting in general.

Steve left a tip regarding use of the imagex.exe argument “/norpfix” switch when capturing images…specifically as it applies to junctions when the image is applied to a differently-named volume.

What is /norpfix switch, and what does it do? - Blogs from Zhou, Minxiao

In case you are interested, RMPrepUSB is a super cool tool to format and create bootable USB media. Lots of bells and whistles here and extreme tippage and tutorials for you WinPE fans.

• Create Bootable Windows or Linux USB with RMPrepUSB - ghacks.net
• RMPrepUSB (and USB booting) - RMPrepUSB blog

If I’m not careful I can loose hours at a time gong though Steve’s extensive tutorials. Here are justa few you might find interesting:

• 16 - How to boot to different WinPE versions using a single boot.wim that contains multiple images
• 83 - Download ImageX, BCDBoot and other WAIK tools - RMPrepUSB
• 53 - Windows 8 To Go (boot Windows 8 from a USB drive!) - RMPrepUSB

Windows 8 and WinFE - Windows Forensic Environment blog. Brett Shavers tips us to a cmd script from Troy Larson (The WinFE dude) that allows creation of a WinFE build from Windows 8 RTM. New to WinFE building? Well then, see also:

• Build questions - Windows Forensic Environment blog.
• WinBuilder - Windows Forensic Environment blog.
• Colin’s Final Version of his write protect application - Windows Forensic Environment blog.
• Winbuilder Tutorial - Windows Forensic Environment blog.
• Windows Forensic Environment - Colin Ramsden’s site for WinFE Lite building.

How to sync time in Windows PE - WindowsNetworking.com

VirtualBox and VMware Player updates

Pretty good synchronization getting these updates out guys!

First up, VirtualBox 4.1.20 is out.

• Oracle releases VirtualBox 4.1.20 - BetaNews review by Nick Peers.
• Download VirtualBox 4.1.20.80170 - FileHippo.com - (sometimes faster)
• Oracle VM VirtualBox - Download from Oracle
• Changelog – Oracle VM VirtualBox

Next, VMwarePlayer is rolled up to v5.0 with some significant changes.

• Download VMware Player 5.0 - Get it from VMware direct, or..
• Download VMware Player 5.0.0 - FileHippo.com
• VMware Player 5 Release Notes
• VMware releases Workstation 9, Fusion 5 and Player 5 - BetaNews
• VMware Player angetestet 5 - Borns IT & Windows Blog (Google Translated)

For VirtualBox, be sure you download and upgrade your Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack at the same time. Likewise VMware users should also be sure to install the latest VMware Tools in your VMware hosted virtualized client OS for peak performance.

Defrag Tools Video

Defrag Tools - Microsoft Channel 9 - neat source for fresh reviews of MS tools and techniques now has two more quality videos up.

• Defrag Tools: #3 - Process Monitor
• Defrag Tools: #4 - Process Monitor - Examples

Update those Browser Plugins!

I’m thinking I’ve put in close to three hours this past week updating our home systems as well as Dad’s system to ensure they have the latest Flash/Java/etc. updates.

Adobe closes numerous critical holes in Reader and Acrobat - Update - The H Security: News and Features

There are lots of places and ways to download and get the updates; inside app updaters, direct from the software builder’s site, or from third-party locations like filehippo or majorgeeks.

I generally tend to just rock over to filehippo and pull them down. I suppose there is a risk they could have been corrupted or “seeded” with unwanted bits, but so far I’ve not had any problems and their Plugins Downloads page makes nice “one-stop” shopping.

At work it is hard keeping up with what “build” version we need to upgrade these to as for Flash there are both 11.3.x and 11.4.x versions which may cause problems for certain in-house software applications if compatibility is not verified first. However, most home-users should probably be on the 11.4.x run right now.

Likewise there are both Java 1.6.x builds and 1.7.x build branches. Again, most home-users should probably be on the 1.7.x builds.

• Download Shockwave Player 11.6.6.636 - FileHippo.com
• Shockwave Player - Adobe.com
• Download Flash Player 11.3.300.271 (IE) - FileHippo.com
• Download Flash Player 11.3.300.271 (Non-IE) - FileHippo.com
• Download and install the latest Flash Player version - Adobe.com
• Web Player Download for All Operating Systems - Adobe.com
• Download Java Runtime Environment 1.7.0.6 - FileHippo.com
• Java Downloads for All Operating Systems Version 6 Update 34 - Java.com
• Java Downloads for All Operating Systems Version 7 Update 6 - Java.com

Regardless, once you are done with your patching, hop your Windows IE, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome browser(s) over to Qualys BrowserCheck and run a quick free check to make sure they are sufficiently patched.

Additional Browser Notes

In my recent post Greased Monkey Business I celebrated the joy of finally finding a custom Grease Monkey script I could use that would justify adding it to my Firefox browser; Removing UTM data from URLs automatically for cleaner bookmarks. It has been a lifesaver to my blogging work.

So this past week I gave a second banana to the Monkey; Scrub Google Redirect Links for Greasemonkey from “ping”.

Check out this MakeUseOf post that goes into the details: How To Copy Crap-Free URLs From Google’s Search Results

Comodo IceDragon 14.0 released -- get it NOW! - BetaNews notice of the Comodo tweaked Firefox 14 browser release. (actually it is version 14.0.3). Direct download is available from this Comodo forums link: Comodo IceDragon ver. 14.0.3 is now available for download!!

BrowsingHistoryView - Nirsoft - Version 1.0 new utility release to view browsing history of all your web browsers. Nir Sofer has been offering browser-specific utilities to view browsing history, but this gem covers the four major ones at once; Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. New Web browser history viewer - NirBlog

Network Fun

NetworkMiner 1.4 Released - NETRESEC Blog - New release improves handling of fragmented IPv4 packets. Hurray! Also no longer checks for pcap extension; works as long as it is a valid libpcap file, DHCP options are extracted, new parser for a particular protocol. There are also some nice GUI improvements.

Trace File Case Files - Sharkfest 2012 (by Jasper Bongertz) - video presentation of using Wireshark to trace out real-world problems and solve them.

Wireshark Security Update - ISC Diary. Wireshark builds got updated to squash bugs and patch vulnerabilities. Go get busy…Wireshark · Download

Notes for the Sysadmins

Simple but Extremely Useful Windows Tricks - Open Security Research - Nice list of handy Windows tips.

Why The Size of My Partition is Maxed Out at 2 Terabyte and How to Get Over it - Windows7hacker. Just guided Dad though adding a second internal HDD to his Vista system. He’s getting into digital photography and while he has lots of room left on his OEM primary HDD, adding a 2nd drive gives him an exclusive place to drop the files. I guess we could have gone with a external USB drive, but the internal was faster in the long run for large file transfers. Talked him into a 7200 RMP 1TB SATA drive. With some guidance got him to get it successfully installed. Then via a quick remote-control session, got it formatted, labeled, and added to the OS fine. Considered going for a 2+TB drive for a few more bucks, but this was easy enough. Next time I will have to follow the link tippage and set up a GPT disk if the conditions warrant.

Microsoft updated SkyDrive.com - Borns IT & WIndows Blog (Google Translated) - Nice review of the new SkyDrive updates.

RegKeyFixer - reboot.pro - sweet little tool by Joakim similar to Sysinternal’s RegDelNull. Related: Reghide

ForSec Links

Password hints easily extracted from Windows 7, 8 - Ars Technica

All Your Password Hints Are Belong to Us - SpiderLabs Anterior

A Fistful of Dongles: AFoD Interview with Eric Zimmerman - A Fistful of Dongles - Eric Huber interviews F.B.I Special Agent Eric Zimmerman. Great article (and Eric wears a mean flat-top to boot!). Many years ago I had applied to the F.B.I. hoping for a career there following in the steps of my grandfather who was a former Special Agent under Hoover. Alas…it was a path not to be.

ShellBag Analysis - Windows Incident Response Blog

SetRegTime - Windows Incident Response Blog

Linkz for Tools - Journey Into Incident Response Blog - Corey Harrell has some info on this post, particularly those tipping us time-challenged guys to the Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator and Time Zone Map. Also valuable is the final section “Process, Process, Process” which strikes home the critical value of knowing in advance HOW you are going to do exactly WHAT it is you want to accomplish; supporting examples include links to the Forensic Process Lifecycle (PDF) from Lance Mueller at ForensicKB, the previously GSD blogged SANS DFIR Poster 2012 (PDF) download, and Corey’s own Journey into IR Methodology scratchpad.

Man versus AntiVirus Scanner - Journey Into Incident Response Blog - Corey shows of the value of having skillz and technique and a rock-solid process in a John Henry’esqe dance against an anti-malware scanner. Really a great tutorial and exercise.

Registry Decoder 1.4 Released and Updated Registry Decoder Live - New versions are available. I noticed that in the past separate downloads were available for x32 and x64 however I don’t see that in this release. I’ve not followed up yet to see if the newer version handles both automatically or not.

Generating computer forensic supertimelines under Linux: A comprehensive guide for Windows-based disk images - Forensic Focus. ForenicsRichard has also released the Shell (Bash) and C Source code as well.

Finding Smoking Gun and going beyond that – Helpful Forensic Artifacts - Hexacorn blog - another strong article supporting previously mentioned themes of having a process to use in looking for clues which here are referred to has HFA’s (Helpful Forensic Artifacts) to guide the overall investigative and analysis journey and discovery.

HexDive 0.4 - New update at Hexacorn to a tool which extracts strings from a file/sample for additional review. Corey recommends using BinText or Strings to further review the output.

The “Hikit” Rootkit: Advanced and Persistent Attack Techniques (Part 1) - Mandiant M-unition blog

The “Hikit” Rootkit: Advanced and Persistent Attack Techniques (Part 2) - Mandiant M-unition blog

Grab Bag

Change the Windows Logon Screen Background - CybernetNews tips us to Luke Payne Software » Logon Screen Rotator. While I do rotate my Win 7 desktop login picture periodically, (right now it it Tardis based), generally I keep it stable. This is a cool tool however for those who like a bit more variety.

Organize & Manage Huge Photo & Video Databases Using Snaps - AddictiveTips reviews the Snaps - Photo management application.

Microsoft Reimagines Paint - Next at Microsoft - New “version” of the perennial “Paint” app. (Win 8 only).

Tip o' the Week #133 - The Art of Cut n' Paste - The Electric Wand

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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The GSD Curmudgeon says “Get off my Yard you Dang Kids!”

Sigh. I’m getting old.

I recently read a post at ReadWriteWeb by Scott Fulton, III Mozilla's Plan for Keeping Firefox Relevant in a Post-Browser Web.

That day I became dangerously close to becoming the old technologist guy equivalent of the “You kids get off my lawn!” guy we all probably know.

What is Mozilla doing to my beloved Firefox of the near and dear “future”?

• HTML5 runtime functionally support (for driving in-browser, non system proprietary, web-apps).
• Extending cloud-based services.
• An on-line identity management system called “BrowserID”. (How it works)
• and more stuff imagined and planned.

That left me grumbly then John Paul Titlow at ReadWriteWeb posted this Mozilla: We're About to Grab More Data About You, But Here's How We'll Keep It Safe.

Mozilla has some big plans up its sleeve in 2012. The non-profit open source foundation is planning some features for its Firefox Web browser and beyond that will require greater access to user data. In a blog post, the organization explains exactly how it intends to use and handle that data. In short, very carefully.

The blog post John Paul references is up at Mozilla Privacy Blog: Mozilla to Offer New User-Centric Services in 2012.

While I recognize and appreciate the very challenging work that browser developers have (not just at Mozilla), I think I’m grumbly for two primary reasons here with Mozilla.

First, I was a very early adopter of Firefox. It was quicker than IE. It was slimmer (memory and feature bloat) than IE. It was more secure than IE. And I could plug all kinds of things into it (Add-Ons/Extensions) to customize it with only those features and capabilities that helped make my experience on the Web better. If I didn’t need it, I didn’t' install it and thus kept the Firefox browser lean and mean.

I really do “get it” with the coming exciting wave of “web-based apps” and running them in your browser and the security it will now bring (think JavaScript/Flash). It’s the next “big” evolutionary shift for the Internet. Really. Who of us really still think of the Internet as being just a super-large reference library and world-wide town-square/market anymore? It’s now a world-wide commercial mall and entertainment center. Really. Oh sure, you can still go down that wing none of the hip kids hang out at and find the pubs where the old-timers hang out, a few plain coffee-bars where the wanna-be journalist “bloggers” hang out and trade stories of yore, and maybe go into that virtual bookstore of arcane knowledge and technical minutia that some of us still love. But really. None of the cool companies and consumers come down this way. They demand different things. Better things. A new paradigm of interaction and operation.

Sigh.

So the browser needs to change to keep up. Bigger, more embedded features. Probably faster. Probably louder too with base-boost and kickers. Hopefully the security alarm on it will be better too.

Secondly, my bones ache every time a new ID management system comes out that gets closer to being a cloud-based requirement. I know, it’s for my own good their doing it. Really. I’m so much safer having more and more of my user data off-loaded to the Webs and Clouds. Clearly the higher and higher it goes away from me the safer and safer and harder and harder it must be for the underground dwellers to grab it. Right? What? Oh, I have to just “trust” everyone “out-there” with my user data and All-In-One credentials and stuff. I’m sure everyone will be honorable and diligent in keeping my account and passwords and user data safe and secure. Nobody ever gets their customer’s account/password information lost to hackers, or on a laptop, or on a USB stick anymore, or via a network traffic hack. Right? That was just in the “old-days”. These new solutions are really, really safer.

I get it. I do. And I appreciate everyone working so hard to keep Firefox and my web experience so much more safe, more secure, and more powerful than ever before. I appreciate modern AC over running a fan past a block of ice to cool my house. Really. And who doesn’t like the convenience of a cellular smart-phone over a plain-old copper analog line service wired into your house?

My browser is growing up, and the world it is living is changing as fast as it is.

Sigh.

I still use (and probably will) Firefox as my personal “production” web-browser of choice. It works for me and my way of being productive.  That said, when I’m surfing the web, give me Chrome. I guess I have to still drive the daily commuter into work and back, but yeah, on the weekends I like to pull out the latest sports car for tooling around the highways and byways and back roads.

You know, I was a very early adopter of Chrome. It was quicker than Firefox. It was slimmer (memory and feature bloat) than Firefox. It was more secure than Firefox. And I could plug all kinds of things into it (Add-Ons/Extensions) to customize it with only those features and capabilities that helped make my experience on the Web better. If I didn’t need it, I didn’t' install it and thus kept the Chrome browser lean and mean. In fact, I hear from the Google Chrome Blog that Chrome is about to get more Speed and Security with pre-rendering of pages and enhanced URL and file-download checking. What’s not to like about that!

I gotta admit, high-school senior (these kids again!) Danny Stieben’s timely post at MakeUseOf blog probably sums it up right: Why It Eventually Won’t Matter What Browser You Use [Opinion].

It won’t. Honestly. It just won’t. Time to face the music and admit I’ve got to adopt the new (browser/web) core “technology” design model and landscape or I’ll become irrelevant and end up spending the rest of my days in that dilapidated and decaying wing of the New Web Mall hanging out with the other curmudgeons and making fun of those really dorky guys and gals still using AOL web-mails, web portal home-pages with their IE 5/6 and Firefox 3 web-browsers. Seriously? Who uses those anymore?!! Get a clue.

Here. Spin a wheel and take a pick. Take one. Use one. Just don’t become friends or companions. Someone’s bound to change and the relationship will sour, and there will be a new favorite.

• Internet Explorer - Web Browser for Microsoft Windows
• Internet Explorer 10 - Test Drive
• Google Chrome - Get a fast new browser. For PC, Mac, and Linux
• Get More From Your Firefox — Mobile, Add-ons & Other Stuff
• Apple - Safari - Browse the web in smarter, more powerful ways.
• Opera browser - Faster & safer internet
• Category:Windows web browsers - Wikipedia
• List of Web browsers for Windows - Web Developer Notes

The GSD Curmudgeon ends with these moving and inspiring words of wisdom and perspective on the whole thing.

Great Motivational Speech - It Just Doesn't Matter - YouTube

Ok…soap box away. We will now return to regular GSD programming.

--Claus V.

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Browser Quick List: [Ref Only]

It’s been a while since I posted a single-source reference for web-browsers I use and deploy.

Dumping these links here for reference only.

Use them as you will.

• Firefox Browser - Firefox stable (public) version
• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition - Portable version of above.
• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition Test Versions - Portable versions of beta versions.
• Add-ons for Firefox - what it says
• Claus Valca’s Extension List (Home) :: Add-ons for Firefox - Outdated list of what I run on Firefox
• FireCAT v1.6.2 updated with Framework Detector - Pen/Sec/For Extensions for Firefox
• Firefox 4.0b2 – “Official” x64 Bit Edition Available - GSD post with link to x64 nightly builds
• Resolving a “Nightly” Firefox Issue… - more links to Firefox alternative builds
• "Private Label" Firefox Builds - same but different as above
• Opera Desktop Team - Desktop Team - Source for Opera alpha/beta snapshot blog. Download testing MSI files from here.
• Internet Explorer 8 - That fat old cat has been kept outside in the wild a bit now and is getting leaner.
• Internet Explorer 9: Platform Demos - Not yet ready for public consumption.  Don’t let it back into the house right now.  It’ll bring dead mice to your doorstep.
• Apple - Safari 5 - Main Page
• Google Chrome - Main Page public release version
• Chromium - The Chromium Projects - Nightly like project builds
• SRWare Iron - The Browser of the Future - “Privatized/Optimized” Chrome build
• Google Chrome Portable - Portable version of the public release version
• Portable Google Chrome 4.1.249.1059 - Stadt-bremerhaven’s foundational portable Chrome package (with nifty updater) that I use.
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery - Prettys
• Google Chrome Extensions - Helpfuls
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery - gotta get a theme.  I prefer the more toned down Google Themes rather than the “Artist” line.
• AdBlock - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• Atomic Bookmarks - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• Browser Button for AdBlock - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• ChromeAccess - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• FlashBlock - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• Create Link- Google Chrome extension gallery. Tip: I add an extra %text% line for plain-text only copy formatting.
• Print - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• Sexy Undo Close Tab - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• Trash Can - Google Chrome extension gallery.
• youtube-html5-chrome - Project Hosting on Google Code.

That should do it for now.  May be updated later.

Since you scrolled down this far:

• Mozilla bolting Tab Candy on to Firefox 4 today - The magic words for now? Ctrl + Alt + Space - Downloadsquad
• Firefox Friday - 4.0 free-for-all edition! - download squad
• Google Chrome to get advanced plug-in blocking (think FlashBlock)  -Downloadsquad
• Create Smarter Google Translate Keyword Bookmarks - Lifehacker tip to make bookmarklet to translate page at once via GoogleTranslate
• Sexy Undo Close Tab Brings Back Your Closed Chrome Content - Lifehacker - Recall those TPS reports you clicked away from.
• Google Chrome’s Remoting feature shows up in Chromium with enterprise implications - Curious - But why still no basic sidebar? - Downloadsquad.

Claus V.

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Father’s Day Linkfest: Slowly Smoked Goodness…

Here is quite the collection of Windows-related links.  Although it has been quite a while since the last one, I promise I’ve been diligently collecting the most promising links I could find, and slowly roasting them over the past weeks.

The fat has dripped out and burned on the bottom of the smoker pit leaving only these tender, flavor-laden morsels behind.

Savory.

Plate up!

Windows System Utilities

• Sysinternals Updates: Coreinfo v2.1, Process Monitor v2.91, Disk Usage v1.34 – Start updating your tool-chest!

• Sysinternals Updates: Process Explorer v12.04, Sigcheck v1.7, ProcDump v1.8 and a new Case of the Unexplained – Yes! Even more Sysinterals utility updating goodness!  Plus check out that last one from Mark Russinovich’s examination of a IE crash and trace out to a rouge toolbar DLL file.  Process Explorer can now generate full/mini-dump process crash dump files. Nice.

• Sysinternals Update: Autoruns v10.01 – Whew! version 10.00 brought in a major update to this must-have utility; the ability to scan offline Windows systems.  I’m not sure about the default setting now to auto-hide Windows (MS) entries…I prefer to see the buggers out of the box.

• Network Monitor : Network Monitor 3.4 Beta Released on Connect! and BETA: Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 - Windows Live – Network Monitor 3.4 brings with it some major GUI interface improvements and column customization. However, even more exciting are claims that parsing performance has been dramatically improved.  Couple that with a new high-performance filter to avoid dropping frames, as well as more granular time-stamps.  Yes, Wireshark and a few other network capture utilities seem to be king, but this is definitely packet-capture tool on the move.  Because it is free there aren’t many valid excuses for Windows sysadmins to not co-load this tool along side the others.

• Sysinternals New Tool: RAMMap v1.0. and Where has your Windows memory gone? Check the map (Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise) – Amazing new tool (let Ed take you on the walking tour) from Sysinternals that will clearly display just how Windows is allocating the physical memory of a system.  Really, really cool.  For Vista/Windows 7, and Server 2008 OS only.  As Ed notes, XP memory management doesn’t support the features this tool interfaces with.

• Windows 7 SP1 public beta download to be available in July – Download Squad – Probably not as exciting a new OS SP release as was Vista SP1 & 2.  Word is that this SP really just rolls up the updates that have been flowing to Windows 7.  Windows 7 seems pretty great out of the gate so there hasn’t been nearly as much buzz ‘bout this one.

• Newsletter #89:  Changing Win 7 Default Profile and Sysprep Tricks – Mark Minasi’s Windows Networking Tech Page – Mark has a really good must-read article regarding Windows 7’s Default User Profile as well as some accompanying Sysprep tricks.  We are no where near to an enterprise deployment of Windows 7 at work so I’m probably going to be Syprepping XP Pro for a few more years to come.

• Complete Guide to Virtual Hard Disks (VHD) in Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 - The Windows Club – Nice summary and link to the official Microsoft VHD Guide document.  Probably a good reference paper to keep nearby for any VHD jockeys.

• DOWNLOAD: Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Component Architecture poster - Windows Live.  Who doesn’t love a super-geeky IT poster particularly when it talks about Hyper-V, virtual networking and virtual machine snapshots.  Links on that page to other related posters as well.

Freaking and Tweaking Windows

• Customize & change explorer backgrounds with Windows 7 Folder Background Changer -- The Windows Club -- and Windows 7 Folder Background Changer personalizes Explorer views – Download Squad.  Simple utility to add images/textures to the background of Windows 7 Explorer page views.  Not for everyone, but find the right texture…say at 40 Fresh Free Texture Packs – Noupe…and it might be neat.

• WinBubbles via UnlockForUs Say what you will about the web-page, but this has to be among one of the most complete Windows tweaking tools there is.  It’s been a while since I did a post on Windows tweaking tools, but this will be among them when it comes.  If you can wade through all the links to finally find where to download the utility (sigh) your search will be rewarded.  It comes in both a localized install version as well as a portable one.  FREE: WinBubble – Tweak Windows 7 – 4sysops gives a good review as well.

• FREE: Network Password Recovery – Windows password recovery - 4sysops.  Michael Pietroforte tips us to a great network utility just for sysadmins, Nir Sofer’s Network Password Recovery v1.24.  I’ve actually used this to help me pin down why network drive mapping wasn’t working on a particular system at the local church-house.  It save me hours of work…but that’s another post!

Remote Desktop Management: Reloaded

• Microsoft Download: Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) – This is a really neat tool (though not the only out there) that allows you to manage all the different Remote Desktop connection accounts you have.  It presents them in a tree/list format on the left and then shows them in thumbnail format (or active in a single pane) on the right. (4sysops blog has great screenshots of it in action in his post Free RDP client.)  I’m using it right now to manage multiple remote packet capture systems across our network and it makes hopping between them a breeze.  Natively supported on Windows 7; Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 R2; Windows Vista, folks with Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 will need to obtain version 6 or newer of the Remote Desktop Connection client software. See Description of the Remote Desktop Connection 7.0 client update for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) for Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows Vista SP2 for more information and the download links at the bottom of the page.

•  mRemote -- (free version) – Was a similar multi-remote connection management tool I found mentioned in a few comments about the above application.  I had never heard of it before but it seems to support a very wide range of remote protocols, and allows uniform management of them all, including RDP, VNC, SSH, Telnet, HTTP/S, Rlogin and a few others.  What was nice was that once you download and install, it will then assist you in locating/sourcing any additional downloads to support other protocols it can handle that it doesn’t find pre-loaded on your system.  Seems to have a strong fanbase. Overview

• chriscontrol - Project Hosting on Google Code -- (freeware) – ChrisControl was another interesting remote control tool I rediscovered in it’s new home on GoogleCode pages.  The Beta 2 version was released in January 2010 so the author is still hard at work refining it.  ChrisControl is curious in that as long as you have the target system’s IP address/hostname and a valid account id/pw, then you have a good chance of connecting to it.  First it see if RDP or VNC is installed/running.  if RDP is available, it uses that to connect.  If VNC is present it will use that.  If neither, then it prompts the user to remote install VNC server on the target system!  You have options to uninstall the VNC server when done. 

• I’d recently posted this link to the Remotely Enable Remote Desktop :: IntelliAdmin - (free tool) – but it seems appropriate to re-include it again.  This utility automates a trick to get RDP started when not enabled on the box.. Get the micro-file from this link: Enable Remote Desktop – Remotely (exe download-link from IntelliAdmin).  I tend to avoid direct links but the download link from their blog-post page actually points to their full-featured application, and not the standalone tool.  I’ve had the opportunity over the past few weeks to use this tool a few times and every time it save my bacon.

• TeamViewer 5 is now out (free for personal (non-commercial) usage) and has some new enhancements.  Check out the TeamViewer Download page.  There is also a TeamViewer Portable version.  I found really cool that if you download the setup installer and run it, it gives you two options; “Install” to fully install on the system or “Run” to execute TeamViewer on the system “portably/temporarily” (and without the need for the user profile to have “admin” privileges on the system.  That’s a cool feature that calls to mind the way ShowMyPC offers the exe download of it’s own product which when executed, unpacks and runs…rather than installs.  ShowMyPC, btw, was updated recently to v3050.  Speaking of TeamViewer, I had been able to use TeamViewer on WinPE builds with great success.  However, the newest versions didn’t seem to execute well. I did manage to create an ugly work-around that again lets me keep use of TeamViewer as an option to remote-connect to a WinPE 3.0 booted system.  Yes, another blog post awaits on this one…

• 2X Client Portable 8.1.870 Released -- PortableApps.com. This multi-connection management tool has also been recently updated.  It also is similar to the Microsoft RDC-Manager and does support RDP connections.  I’ve dipped my feet into using it a bit as well and was pleasantly surprised with the performance.  I really like the “tabbed” remote system display arrangement.  While the “client” tool is free, you can also use it to connect to systems running the 2x Application Server.  Check out the 2X ApplicationServer download page for more information on that side of operations.

Free Microsoft Money!

No. Seriously!  I mean it!  Get Microsoft Money free.  This “Sunset” version doesn’t require any on-line activation.  It is really slick and for a former Quicken user, is very mature and polished.  Lavie and I love it.  What don’t you get with this wonderful and sophisticated yet approachable financial management tool?  Well, as well as I can tell, almost nothing is missing except integration with Microsoft’s own on-line “Live” capabilities, which for the poor folk like Lavie and I, isn’t much we would be using currently anyway.  It is simply an amazing opportunity.

Even if you don’t really think you would use it, if you don’t already have a personal finance management (banking/credit/loans/etc.) software, download this and play around.  Heck, at least download the installer and keep it handy.  Read the download details page linked below carefully for full details.

• DOWNLOAD: Money Plus Deluxe Sunset… FREE – Kurt Shintaku’s Windows Live blog.
• Download details: Money Plus Sunset Deluxe – Microsoft Download Center

“From the MS download page Overview

All versions of Money Plus sold at retail and online, required users to perform an “Online Activation” step in order to keep using the product, even if online services had already expired. Online Activation was also required for every machine onto which Money Plus was installed. Now that Money Plus is no longer available for purchase, the online activation step will eventually become unnecessary and unsupported. This Money Plus Sunset package is targeted at removing the activation dependency. There are two versions of Money Plus Sunset. The Money Plus Sunset Deluxe version is meant to replace Premium, Deluxe, and Essentials versions of Money Plus. The Money Plus Sunset Home and Business version is meant to replace Money Plus Home and Business. Please note that Money Plus Sunset versions come preconfigured with: · No online services (no online quotes, no bill payment, no statement downloads initiated by Money, no data sync with MSN Money online services, etc…) · No support services (support services are limited to online self-help only, see Money Plus Sunset EULA and Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle pages for more details) · No need to activate the product.

Don’t let all that scare you off.  You can still manually import transactions from banks (if they support MS Money or compatible formats) down into this version of MS Money to save time from hand-entering them.

Seriously…Microsoft is giving away Money for free.  Who would have ever thunk?

Google Sites

So a while back I was working on another side project and found some tips on using Google Sites to host files and other materials for downloading by your blog’s fans.  Sounded like a clever idea although I do have a handy and free Box.net account already with a few publically made shared folders like that one that contains reg.keys for enabling/disabling InPrivate Mode for IE 8.

Eventually I came back to Google Sites and figure it had enough features and such to be worthwhile to set up a basic GSD site page. Nothing there worth seeing for now, but in time I might be able to use it to make a more technically organized website of tips and such.

There are lots of pre-built templates to get started with.  I chose a “project tracking” format for some reason.   We’ll see what happens.

• Uploading a Document for Viewers to Download - Google Sites Help.

• Google Sites Help.

A Tiny, TinyApps Diversion

The succinct TinyApps bloggist has been hard at work finding “outside the box” solutions for external storage media and usages.

Get your crazy on with these amazing tips and hardware finds!

• TinyApps.Org Blog : Boot any and all ISO images from USB drive. 

• The iodd 2501 External HDD. Product page.  Seed with your ISO’s and you can select any of them to boot from.  Oh yeah, it also comes with a write-protect switch.  Sounds like the perfect tool for sysadmins and forensic experts with more boot images in ISO format than they know what to do with!  Discard the disks!  Resellers that were noted (not meant as endorsements of any kind) :  LinITX.com - iodd 2501 Portable Virtual ROM – Silver , Amazon.com: iodd 2501 Portable Virtual Rom: Electronics, and Welcome to I-Odd USA.

• TinyApps.Org Blog : Hard drive enclosure with write protect switch which would be the ACP-2127 at around $20 or so depending on source.  Seems like a can’t miss trick with spare 2.5” SATA drives littering up the shelves.

Of course, all the USB HDD talk has got me crazy thinking about other related items.

• Into The Boxes: Issue 0×0 had a great tip from Don C. Weber on page 14 regarding re-purposing the controller/connecter from external HDD enclosures .  Sure, toss (destroy/hammer) the bad 2.5” HDD, but keep the USB mini-port to SATA  hardware adapter in your kit.  It’s a dead-simple way to access SATA drives and is a “green-recycling” solution to boot.

• USB Boot Without BIOS Support – Kent Hall’s “What the….?” blog – Although most all “modern” BIOS systems support booting from external USB devices (properly configured of course), some hardware you encounter might not.  Chris’s trick involves using PLoP Boot Manager and RawWrite (if making a floppy) to create a bootable floppy/CD pre-booter if you will, that then leverages up the USB device to do the actual post-pre-booting from.  Not an everyday need but so simple it wouldn’t hurt to have such a boot-CD pre-crafted, just in case.  PLoP Boot Manager supports a number of features and is worth looking at even if this scenario doesn’t fit your need.

Free Firewalls for Windows

Currently, the Windows 7 firewalls and my own home router are providing me sufficient firewall protection for my comfort zone.  Maybe in a while I will revisit my Windows Firewall post roundup and see which ones still remain and if any new-comers of late are present.

In the meantime, snack on these….

• The Three Best Free Firewalls for Windows – according to the MakeUseOf blog.

• TinyApps.Org Blog : Excellent freeware firewall for Vista and Windows 7.  Yep.  While those three are medium/large sized, leave it to TinyApps to come in with an amazing l33t and lightweight free find; Windows 7 Firewall Control 3.5.  And in both 32 and 64-bit flavors, AND a portable version as well.  Zowsers!  There is also a “Plus” version that is not free, but much more fully featured.

Graphically Seen and Heard

• Tintii: free, standalone selective coloring/color popping filter for your images – (freeware) – Review and linkage via freewaregenius.com.

• RasterVect Softwarescan. – (freeware) – Great tool to convert raster images into vector formats.  See also Vector Magic which can “vectorize” bitmap images online for free or the $ desktop version.  I really love and depend on Vector Magic.

• Bing’s Best-3, Windows 7 Themepack Released – The Windows Club.  I love to download these themepacks and extract the wallpapers from them.  I’ve got a massive wallpaper folder I run now with these best-of images.  Beautiful stuff.

• 40 Fresh Free Texture Packs - Noupe.  Previously mentioned in this post.  Great and free texture packages. 

• Identify audio & video codecs required, with VideoInspector – The Windows Club  see also GSpot Codec Information Appliance and the Shark007.net - Windows 7 Codecs - WMP12 Codecs and ffdshow tryouts.  Course you can always cross-match what codecs you need against which ones you got using InstalledCodec from Nir Sofer.

• Sculptris – (freeware) – Check out Download Squad’s take on this …insanely cool, free 3D modeling software.

Utility Gumbo.

It’s all in the pot today!

• FREE: NTPWEdit – Reset Windows password - 4sysops.  Yep.  Used it quite successfully on a few WinPE booted systems where someone “cleverly” changed the admin password. Bugger. 

• How to recover lost ADSL password or other ISP password – Tips and techniques by Nir Sofer with his own tool roundup..

• Network Password Recovery v1.24 – (freeware) – NirSoft tool to review your saved passwords for Windows Network shares or .NET Passport account.

• Universal Extractor at LegRoom.net – Version 1.6.1 fresh out of the oven!  See this FileHippo.com page for all the changes baked in to this release.
• RouterPassView  – (freeware) – NirSoft tool to recover your router password and wireless keys from supported router models. 

• BulkFileChanger  – (freeware) – NirSoft tool to do some major and fun things for files/file-lists such as change their time-stamps or file attributes.   CybernetNews likes the RegexRenamer: Bulk File and Folder Renaming Using Regex.  
• DiskDigger – Newly updated file-recover program that (unfortunately) isn’t free any longer (see tool blog page The move to shareware for the breakdown).  It still will work, but just not as conveniently.  The Portable Freeware Collection - Disk Digger page does contain a link to the last really “free” version 0.8.3, so while you don’t get the added features and spanking GUI from the new v1.0, you still can get much of the same functionality.
• WhatInStartup v1.21  -- Updated NirSoft auto-run/startup manager tool.

• Back4Sure -- (freeware) – Yet another good (file/folder) backup program, updated as of 5-16-10. Hop over to UK’s Homepage and check the side-bar for the feature and download links.

• How To Force Uninstall Unwanted Windows Programs Using IObit Uninstaller – MakeUseOf blog tip.

• ISOBuddy converts and burns disc images -- including DMG, MDF, PDI, and more – DownloadSquad tip.

• TMonitor – CUPID – (freeware) – neat utility that will display the active CPU clock speed for each system core.  Seen via this  Download Squad Post

• USB Drive Letter Manager 4.5.0: unbelegte Laufwerke ausblenden – German blog page from Stadt-Bremerhaven which really points out the USB drive letter manager - USBDLM utility.

• Speccy and Recuva both were recently updated by Piriform software.  Get the newest releases!

And the Browser Wars continue…. 

• There is the Opera 10.60 alpha preview – Try the latest version and the Opera 10.60 Alpha 1 and the very latest edition can be found in this Weekend fixes post for you Opera die-hard fans.

• SRWare Iron - The Browser of the Future is based on Chrome/ium.

• Internet Explorer 9: Platform Demos are still popping up newer versions regularly.  This latest one included IE Diagnostics features as explained by the IEBlog crew. 

• Apple - Safari 5 is also recently set loose among the Web. Dwight Silverman at the TechBlog has his take in the Safari 5 for Mac and Windows is out post and Ars Technica dives deeper in their Safari 5: faster, less clutter, secure browser extensions review.

• For Chrome/ium goodness, I’m relying on the amazing Portable Google Chrome 4.1.249.1059 as packaged by Stadt-Bremhaven.  The thing that has won me over with this particular portable-ization is the inclusion of the additional Neue Version des Portable Chrome Updaters which is an exe that when run offers to download/unpack/update your portable Chrome; in your favorite flavor as long at it is “Dev Channel”, “Beta Channel” “Release Channel” or my personal taste pick “Chromium”. Quench that thirst! 

• Meanwhile…Firefox trundles on, slowly inching the way to the next major release..be it Firefox 3.6.4 or Firefox 4.0. Firefox Release Recap: June 2010 Week 3 « The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog and also see this informative Firefox 3.7/Gecko 1.9.3 Alpha 5 Released post from the Guru as well.
• How to Improve Extension Startup Performance – Mozilla Add-ons Blog is an interesting read on maybe the roadmap to come and the love/hate relationship with Firefox extensions; something great for customization and making a really practical browser, but potentially performance impacting with weigh-down.

• Internet Explorer 9 and Safari 5 – The Windows Blog team.  Of course IE guys would have a bone or two to pick with Safari 5 in a side-by-side comparison, wouldn’t they? I’m sure it is 100% objective.

• How to enable extensions for Safari 5 on OS X and Windows – Download Squad tip.  Safari 5 (will) support extensions as well.  Only it isn’t fully armed on the current release. However you can do so following that guide, then head over to this Tumblr page where you can find a number of early releases if you really want to.  I wonder if Safari will take a performance hit like Firefox has a tendency to once they start getting added-on…

Whew!

Happy Father’s Day!

--Claus V.

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Browser Wars

I’ve got to admit I’ve been keeping my head down lately regarding the latest round of Windows web-browser releases.

While the EU has been hard at work making sure its proud members and residents have 12 Lucky Browsers to select from on their fresh Windows installs, I go the simple route and install Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Chromium to allow me some flexibility with things. Yesh, IE is still on my system as well.

So here is a roundup of browser-related bits I’ve collected for the interested recently.

Opera

• Opera browser – now sitting at version 10.10

• Opera Browser End-Users Request: Opera Installer Without Unite Feature – Donna’s SecurityFlash. I’m not convinced the security related issues of Unite are fully addressed, particularly when folks are able to download and install it themselves in a workplace environment without the blessing of the sysadmins.  Donna’s post contains this link to disable Unite via a rather clever though ugly manner.  Good information.

• From all of us to all of you– Opera Desktop Team – Link to download the 10.5 pre-alpha build along with their new JavaScript engine built from the ground up, faster startup/shutdown times, and some new tricks with “private mode tabs” and/or “private mode windows”.  Fair warning, the team reports memory usage is high, unexpected quits occur, and (gasp) Opera Unite is disabled.

• Opera Mini 5 beta 2 – I love Opera Mini on my Blackberry device.  Try out the new beta release.  I’ve been feelin the lovin!

Firefox

• Firefox 3.6b5 – Download the latest baked beta version for all you “cutting edge” browser fans.

• Firefox 3.6 beta 5 is out: Time to give it a try – TechBlog.  Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 Released – Firefox Extension Guru’s blog. Latest Firefox 3.6 beta fixes 133 bugs, promises faster page load times – Betanews.

• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition 3.6 Beta 5 --PortableApps.com. Try this version out if you want to run it on your system but don’t want to install over your current-release version of Firefox.

• Firefox 3.5.6 – Or download the current “stable” release version. Firefox 3.5.6 Released – FF Extension Guru’s blog and Releases/Firefox 3.5.6 – MozillaWiki have some info about this build.

• CheckPlaces :: Add-ons for Firefox – I really like this Add-on and use it weekly.  It checks for duplicated or invalid bookmarks in the new Favorites structure of the Firefox 3.x family of browsers.  It is fast, has more than a few options, and ensures that your bookmarks are current (and can get the favicons as well).  Very useful when you are manually syncing bookmark files between systems.  See this post How to Find duplicate and dead bookmarks in Firefox over at TechnoSpot for great how-to-use and screenshots.  In the past I used and recommended AM-DeadLink but though it rocked, it hasn’t been updated in quite a while and isn’t compatible with the newer SQL-based Firefox bookmark databases.  AM-DeadLink 4.0 Beta-1 is available in the site’s Beta section, but still no FF 3.x support. Read the post to see why.

• Voyage - “A Firefox Addon to Rediscover Your Web Browsing History” is a clever add-on to visualize your browsing activity and history.  I’m curious what benefit this could do for visualizing Firefox-based history usage in a forensics type response.  Maybe it could make presenting the user’s activity more “understandable” to the suits when presented in this format rather than a dry Excel timeline.  This visual timeline presentation might be worth exploring more…

• How to fix Firefox 3 freezing or heavy disk use – Confluence – I’m not sure if this is a real “fix” or not. Some say it helps wonderfully others…not so much.  I think the thought is that the way Firefox interacts with the malicious site database it keeps and checks URL’s against can cause “lockups” when FF reads it.  Of course, if you are a more savvy web-citizen, you might try disabling the malicious website checking features entirely in Firefox. See this Firefox 3 makes my hard drive thrash • mozillaZine Forums post for more on tips related to that.

• Memory Fox Helps Tame Memory Usage in Firefox – MakeUseOf blog.  I’ve got enough system RAM to not be so concerned about how much memory Firefox uses (still a lot).  I’m more aware of the maxed-out CPU rates I get.  Seems worse when NewsFox is checking RSS feeds.  This trick might help with RAM, but not so much with CPU control.

Chromium

• Chromium Blog: Extensions beta launched, with over 300 extensions! – Yep. The tidal wave cometh.  Extensions have arrived for Chromium.  Right now I am running just three: AdBlock, FlashBlock, and YouTube HTML5-ifier.

• Sadly missing (for now) is a true Bookmarks Manager/sidebar extension for Chromium.  If that one feature came to Chromium, I’m sure it would become my daily pleasure-surfing browser, while Firefox would be the one I use for hard-core blogging and work/web analysis work.  Sigh.  We all remain waiting….

• 18 Extensions Worth Downloading from Google Chrome’s Gallery – Lifehacker and Interesting Chrome Extensions – Google Blogoscoped help sort out the wheat from the chaff in the extension pile.

• Chrome extensions – Sorry, I forgot to link to the Chromium extensions page itself.

• hackademix.net » Why Chrome has No NoScript - “Eight months later, Chrome extensions are here but NoScript is not among them yet, and people are asking why. The reason is very simple: Chrome is still lacking the required infrastructure for selective script disablement and object blocking.”

Browser-Related

• YouTube "Feather" Beta – New “opt-in” beta to possibly improve YouTube video playback.  I’m pretty sure it is cookie based.  “The "Feather" project is intended to serve YouTube video watch pages with the lowest latency possible. It achieves this by severely limiting the features available to the viewer and making use of advanced web techniques for reducing the total amount of bytes downloaded by the browser. It is a work in progress and may not work for all videos.” Your mileage may vary…  Me?  YouTube works great on my laptops but for some reason I’m still not finding the sweet-spot with my AGP video card settings and Win7 RC build on the desktop.  Most of the videos are still showing up pixilated-pink.  However if I save the FLV file and do playback once downloaded, they are just fine.

• How to Fix Annoying YouTube Jumpiness in Firefox - Lifehacker.  Now this trick DID work for my laptops in Firefox where the YouTube freeze was painfully annoying.

  Many users, myself included, visit YouTube on an almost daily basis. Ever since Firefox version 2.0 implemented the session restore function, when you are watching a video on YouTube (perhaps on other video sites as well, I haven't really tested that), you may notice a tiny freeze-up of the video every 10 seconds or so. This happens because the session restore is by default set to save all open tabs every 10 seconds. This is especially noticeable if you happen to have a lot of tabs open at once.

  The quick fix for this problem, at least for my own sake, is to increase the time between each of the saves performed by session restore. By opening about:config in your Firefox address bar, then typing browser.sessionstore.interval in the filter box, you'll see a value of 10000, which is in milliseconds. (Meaning your session is saved every 10 seconds.) I changed this to 300000, or every 5 minutes, as I don't have the urgent need for tab restoration. If you feel like being more on the safe side, try increasing it to something a bit lower, say 120000, or every 2 minutes.

• Workaround to Manually Uninstall, Remove or Delete Firefox Addon With Add-Ons Uninstall Button Disabled - My Digital Life.  Because we all have it happen to us sometime or another by some “rogue” software installer “feature” add-in.  Me? I go the hard-case route and take workaround method #4 on the page.

• hp smart web printing in firefox - Google Search. So our HP Photosmart C6280 printer is really cool and everything, but like most HP products, to really use all the features, you can’t just use the default Windows driver for it (though Win7 has a nice one).  No, you have to install the full HP Photosmart C6280 All-in-One Printer driver/software package which adds in some “Smart Web Printing” features to Firefox and other browsers.  Trying to remove it manually is possible, though painful.  Instead just do a custom install of the HP software and while watching closely, find and de-select inclusion of this software in your install.  I always do a custom install of HP printer software and only pick the features I really need.

• Using Flash 10.1 beta? You may want to turn off crash logging - Within Windows.  If you recently downloaded and installed the latest 10.1 beta (or new Flash Player 10.1 beta 2 released 12-17-09) then you might notice some hard-drive thrashing.  Rafael Rivera worked out a way to disable crash logging pretty simply.  I’ve done the trick and while I didn’t really notice a problem to begin with, I’m a bit more comfortable now with it in place. It’s a painless and easily reversed trick.

• New in Labs: Default text styling – New Gmail feature.

• Pencil Project – Not for the general public but this project kinda brings a MS Visio-like diagramming experience to the Firefox browser as an add-on.  It is really sharp and cool.  For folks who can’t afford the full Visio experience, and don’t need the Dia Open Source alternative, this might be worth investigating for quick and at-hand diagramming.

• Google Analytics has been hard at work tweaking and improving their page-monitoring code.  Newest tricks added to the stable are.
  • Asynchronous Tracking - Google Analytics - Google Code.  “Asynchronous Tracking is an alternative way to track website visitors with Google Analytics. Unlike a traditional installation, asynchronous tracking optimizes how browsers load ga.js so its impact on user experience is minimized. It also allows you to put your Analytics snippet higher in the page without delaying subsequent content from rendering. The Asynchronous Tracking requires a different Analytics snippet and a different syntax for making tracking API calls.”
  • Tracking Sites - Google Analytics - Google Code – More tracking code tricks.
  • Google Analytics Blog: Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible And Intelligent – More power-user features added.

Cheers.

--Claus V.

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Browser Linkfest Blowout

Like there hasn’t been enough web-browser news lately….

• Google Chrome Blog: A New Beta: Why slow down when you can speed up? – Google Chrome Blog – Nice roundup with lots-o-pics of all the newest features to be found in Google Chrome.
• Google Chrome Themes Gallery – I’m liking the “Earthy” theme myself.  How do you install them? It’s a bit confusing (and not clearly documented) but you click the “Apply Theme” button for the one you want and let the “csx” file download to your system.  Then Chrome will find and apply the theme and delete the file.  Worked OK on XP/Vista, though it took just a bit longer to “automagically” apply on the Win7 systems. 
• Google Chrome 3 continues to accelerate even as it adopts themes - Betanews. Accelerate as in rendering speed.
• Rethinking Chrome – TechBlog – Dwight likes it! He really, really likes it!
• Chromium Memory Usage – Chromium Blog – Some technical-level details on how memory is being used and how to better monitor it.

Claus’s thoughts on Chrome/Chromium.  I’ve got Chromium loaded on all my systems and use Dirhael’s (portable) Chromium Nightly Updater to keep my builds of Carsten Knobloch’s portable Chrome packages updated.

I really do like Chrome/Chromium.  It is fast, clean and each tab runs in its own process.  However it doesn’t have the extensibility/Add-ons that I just demand and rely upon daily at work and home with Firefox.  So it continues to be my go-to browser when doing presentations or viewing most on-line media for relaxation due to the simple (non-distracting) interface.  For production work, Firefox still wins hands-down; speed or no-speed.

• Newsfox the Firefox RSS reader I use has received a minor version update to V1.0.5.2.  mozdev.org - newsfox: installation
• Firefox 3.6a1 Released - The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog – I’ve not yet had time to build a “portable/standalone” package of this alpha build.  Maybe I’ll have the chance soon.  The only issues I generally find are breaking of my fav add-ons.  Speed and responsiveness,including startup seem to be the primary focus of this build.
• Sure it’s Fast, But How Does it Handle? – Alex Faaborg’s blog.  Is speed everything in a browser..maybe but possibly not much longer. See also his What’s Next for the Perception of Performance? post.
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition 3 Beta 3 Released - PortableApps.com.  Lavie and I are still using the public version of Thunderbird 2.x to manage our home/Gmail accounts. 

I’ve not yet bitten the bullet but will likely be migrating our primary email store from the desktop system to my laptop as I rarely go in there to turn it on and pull down all the email locally. (The Valca girls have taken over the study where it is installed and it is becoming the laundry/storage room now…anyway they like my company in the family-room space when I am typing away at the blog.)  I’m considering bumping over to the version 3 build for kicks and grins.  Any GSD readers using it and have any insights or gotcha’s I should consider?

• Opera Desktop Team - Time to try Unite again! – Opera Desktop Team – Tweaks announced to Opera’s Unite product.  I’m still not sure how convinced I am on this “feature” that turns a computer running Opera into both a client and a server to provide content to other systems across the web.  Seems handy for some but a security administration challenge for system admins….  The Valca jury-foreman will be out in deliberations on this one for a while.
• Unite - Opera Unite – The Opera Unite team blog.
• Another day, another snapshot  – Opera Desktop Team – Another Opera 10 beta snapshot. Now adds stability to Unite as well as a Unite-based service called, wait-for-it, “Messenger” so you can chat on Opera with your pals. Other visual features also getting adjusted.

Now I’m not attacking Opera here.  It is a very nice alternative web-browser, behind Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Safari for Windows.  Really.  Very polished and fast in performance.  It’s got it’s own unique interface and lots of positives.  I do install it on most of my systems at home.  That said, I just see it continuing the “more-is-more” value march rather than going back to simplicity.  I wish “Unite” could be unbundled from the main Opera browser (can it?) for those of us who don’t want it. And I wish add-ons were truly integrated like Firefox extensions rather than this “widget” framework that is used.  I' guess I just don’t fully “get” Opera and the browsing experience they are designing for.  Once past those personal feelings, the interface and speed are very, very nice.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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