A FREE Utility to Analyze and Benchmark your PC

I have reviewed system information utilities in the past (e.g. SIW – System Information for Windows); however, there is always room in your tech toolbox for another. During a past review of System Information for Windows,   a fellow blogger [ Rarst.net ] commented on and pointed out another system information utility, called PCWizard, that is very hard to match.

PCWizard is a system information, benchmarking and diagnostic tool wrapped up in one. PCWizard can analyze and test many types of hardware such as CPU, Cache, RAM, Hard Disk, CD / DVD-ROM, Removable / FLASH Media, Video, MP3 compression. The program is easy to navigate, well designed and will easily fit on your flash drive (approx. 6.5 MBs). This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) to keep in line with the industries latest hardware and software standards. PCWizard can tell you just about anything and everything about your PC and its’ performance; AND, best of all it  is FREE.

Two options to Install:

ZIP package : PC Wizard 2009 can be run directly from removable support (CD/DVD, USB Key, …) Options are not saved.
Don’t forget to check “Use Folder Names” into your UNZIP application to create PC Wizard folders.

Self-installing EXE package : To install PC Wizard 2009 directly on your hard drive.

FEATURES:

Hardware Information

Mainboard / Bios (Connectors, ID String, MP Support …)

Chipset (FSB Frequency, Norhtbridge, Hub, Direct Media Interface, XMB, NSI, …)

Main Memory (FPM, EDO, SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR-2 SDRAM, DDR-3 SDRAM, RDRAM, FB_DIMM, Timings …)

Memory Profiles : EPP (SLi Ready), Intel XMP.

Cache Memory (L1, L2, L3, Size, Frequency …)

Processors (Type, Speed, Multiplier coeff., Features, Model Number, Vanderpool Technology …)

Coprocessor

APM & ACPI

Busses : ISA, PCI, AGP (2x, 4x,8x), SMBus/ i2c, CardBus, Firewire, Hyper-Transport … )

DMI / SMBIOS

Mainboard Sensors, Processor, Hard Disk & Battery (Voltage, Temperature, Fans)

Video (Monitor, Card, Bios, Capabilities, Memory, Integrated Memory, Frequencies …)

OpenGL & 3Dfx

DirectX (DirectDraw, Direct3D, DirectSound (3D), DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectInput, DirectX Media)

Keyboard, Mouse & Joystick

Drives (Hard Disk, Removable, CD-ROM, CDRW, DVD …)

SCSI (Card, Controller, Adapter, Devices …)

ATA/ATAPI & S-ATA (Devices, Type, Capabilities, S.M.A.R.T. Features, RAID)

Ports (Serial, Parallel, USB, IEEE-1394)

IDE & SCSI Devices

Twain & WIA Devices

PCMCIA (PC Card) Devices

Bluetooth Devices

Sound Card (wave, midi, aux, mix, AC’97 codec, High Definition Audio)

Printers (Local & Network)

Modem (Features, Speed …)

Network (Server, Connexion, Firewall …)

Security (Scan Ports …)

PocketPC & SmartPhone Devices

System Information

MCI Devices (mpeg, avi, seq, vcr, video-disc, wave) & ACM

SAPI

Passwords (Outlook, Internet Explorer, MSN Messenger, Dialup …)

DOS Memory (base, HMA, UMB, XMS, EMS, DPMI, VCPI)

Windows Memory

Windows (Version, Product Key, Environment, Desktop, XP Themes …)

Windows UpTime (Boot, Shutdown, BlueScreen, System Restore Points …)

TrueType & OpenType Fonts

WinSock (Internet), Telephony et Remote Access

OLE (Objects, Servers …)

Microsoft® Applications

Activity (Process, Tasks, Threads)

Modules (DLL, DRV, 32 & 16-bits) & NT Services

Internet Navigator (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox)

.NET Global Assembly Cache (GAC)

ODBC

CMOS/RTC

Resources (IRQ, DMA, E/S, Memory)

System files (.ini, .log, .bat, .nt, .dos …)

System Benchmarks

Processor (Dhrystone (MIPS), Whetstone (MFLOPS), Mandelbrot fractal …)

L1, L2, L3 Cache, RAM (Bandwidth, Latency …)

Main Memory (Bandwidth, Latency …)

Hard Drives

CD/DVD Rom

DirectX 3D

Video

Removable/Flash Support

MP3 Compression

VISTA Experience Index

Tools

Can save, print, e-mail a report

Can save a TXT, RTF, HTML, PDF or CSV report

Can export any graphics as BMP file

Can export text and graphic with the clipboard

Web update Wizard

Communicate with Motherboard Monitor

Dump (Hardware registers, System BIOS, video BIOS …)

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A Techies’ Sneak Peek Preview to Black Friday Ads

Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving and is the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. Merchants offer deep discounts on a wide variety of products in an effort to bait consumers into the stores. This year, Black Friday falls on Friday November 27th 2009.

Does it work?  You bet! People will literally inflict injury (and sometimes cause death) to get “stuff”. It is like lemmings jumping off of a cliff; the urge is just too great!

Black Friday is an event to monitor; especially if you are a techie. Deals on computers, monitors, media, software, peripherals, etc. can be had if you know where to look; which, leads me to introducing you to a website called BlackFriday.net .

BlackFriday.net provides early sneak peek previews to the Black Friday sales ads for over 80 different merchants; and is an excellent resource for planning your Black Friday strategy (to get your “stuff”).

As of the date of this blog post, BlackFriday.net already had posted ads for (9)-Nine merchants and we still have approximately 20 days yet to go. One thing to point out, is that even though Black Friday falls on Friday, many of the stores offer their Black Friday products for sale online on Thanksgiving morning. Oh, and don’t forget about Cyber Monday either…

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A Simple Solution to Backing Up Your Browser Settings

The everyday computer user primarily uses the computer to browse the internet. As a result, the web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.) becomes one of the most important pieces of software on the computer. Over a period of time, based on the user’s surfing habits, the browser cumulatively collects bookmarks, cookies, history, toolbar settings, extensions, add ons, etc. that the user ultimately becomes dependent on. The problem occurs is when the computer crashes or the user moves to a new computer AND all of those cumulative browser gatherings by the user are lost. I have actually witnessed users that were more upset that they lost their browser bookmark settings, when their computer crashed, than personal documents they may have had.

To prevent this mishap from occurring there is a backup solution, called FavBackup, that will backup your bookmarks and any other settings that are browser specific (e.g. history, cookies, user preferences, extensions and other elements).

FavBackup is a portable app that requires no installation and has the capability of backing up the browser settings for various versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and Flock.  One point to make is that you will be see two different type of backup and restore options:

(1) – Backup or Restore – allows you to select what you desire to backup or restore

(2) – Full Backup or Full Restore – will perform a backup or restore of all settings in one fell swoop.

FavBackup is very easy to use, fast and efficient; AND is must-have software for any computer user who is tied to their browser. If anything, make FavBackup part of your normal backup routine and use it to at least backup your bookmarks.

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Turn Your Web Browser into an Image Editor

Today I want to show you an online cloud service called Pixlr that offers several tools that you can use to capture and edit your images (and photos) right inside your web browser. You simply visit Pixlr.com and your browser is transformed into an image editor.  No account sign-up is needed or required.

The tools in Pixlr are are driven by Flash and you need to have the Flash plug-in (get flash) to get it to work. Most PC’s today have the Flash plug- in already installed. To find out if you have flash installed, simply visit Pixlr and try to load the editor. The cool factor about Pixlr is that if you are using the current version of Flash, you will not have to upload your images (or photos) to the server. The image you desire to work on will be opened directly into your browser at the local level (on your PC). The plus about this is that your image is not being sent somewhere else, which could be a privacy concern; especially if the image is sensitive in nature. In essence, your internet browser (such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera etc.) becomes an image editor.

Pixlr Editor – If you are already familiar with image editing software (e.g. Photoshop, Gimp, Paint.net, Paint Shop Pro), then you will be right at home with Pixlr Editor. The editor offers the same functionality, navigation and tools, with the ability to handle layers, that you find in your typical image editing software. Your final creation can be saved to your computer as a JPEG, PNG, BMP or PXD (layer Pixlr image).

Available Tools:

Marquee tool
Move tool
Lasso tool
Crop tool
Wand tool
Clone Stamp tool
Pencil tool
Eraser tool
Brush tool
Gradient tool
Paint Bucket tool
Blur tool
Sharpen tool
Smudge tool
Sponge tool
Dodge tool
Burn tool
Red Eye Reduction tool
Drawing tool
Bloat tool
Pinch tool
Color Picker tool
Type tool
Hand tool
Zoom tool

In addition to Pixlr Editor you will also find Pixlr Express and Pixlr Grabber.

Pixlr Express is an online utility that gives you the ability to “quick fix” your photos with basic tools (e.g. crop, resize, rotate, flip, adjust the color and apply photo effects).

Pixlr Grabber is a is a light weight application that enables you to right click any image on your desktop and open them in Pixlr Editor. It is available as a Windows application or as a Firefox extension.

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Geek Squeaks’ of the Week (#35)

Each week What’s On My PC features links to articles (posted within the past 7 days) from the tech blogs that are on the What’s On My PC blogroll (at the sidebar of the blog).  If you are new or old to information technology and computers, these blogs are awesome resources for keeping in tune.

Canadian Tech News Blog
Top 5 Free Software

Snakebytez
Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now available for Download

Carputer’s News and Computer Tips
Free Software for Business Use

Tux in the Midwest
Another website launched with Drupal

Worthy Tips
How to preset safe mode boot
before rebooting in Windows OS?

Technize
Download Free Windows 7 Product Guide From Microsoft

I Love Free Software
ADrive: Free 50GB Online Storage and Backup Space

TTC Shelbyville
Control the Ping Command With Performance Pinging

The Abbey Rose
Favicon’s

Techolar
How to disinfect your computer keyboard

Mrintech
WordPress XML and XHTML Sitemap

Freeware Elite
So, do you know what is a Browser?

Technogran’s Tittle Tattle
Facebook, my pet peeves.

Tuneup Blog
Tuneup Blog Diary: Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life (Part Two)

Computer Too Slow
Setting up Dual Monitors

Crazy World of G
Open Sesame

Lifehacker
Google Chrome Beta Adds Bookmark Sync, Speed Boost [Updates]

Rarst.net
HP ProBook 4510s – nice small business notebook

Sugarloaf Tech
How to display your birthday, not your age, in Facebook

Tech-for Everyone
Windows 7 64-bit Adventures

AskBillFirst
What Did He Mean By That? SMS and E-mail Etiquette

Free PC Security
WOT Community Trust Certificate

AKS-Feel The Change
Free Windows File Manager Alternative

Carol’s Vault
Beautiful and free vector graphics

411-Spyware.com
How to Remove BlockWatcher

Teck~Line
See What a Mac User Has To Say About Windows 7

Plato On-Line
Facebook Spamming Practices Revealed

Is You GEEKed Up
Windows 7: What’s Wrong with It?

Evilfantasy’s Blog
Fix MSE Utility – Repair Microsoft Security Essentials

Confessions of a Freeware Junkie
Sending large files to a friend without a web service?
Create a torrent!

Bill Mullins’ Weblog – Tech Thoughts
A Seriously Advanced Photo Tool – Free Image Analyzer 1.31

Right On Technology
Little Buddy GPS

Scoroncocolo Tech Pages
Backing Up and Synchronizing Files with SyncToy

What’s On My PC
Using your numeric keypad as a launcher…

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Creating a personalized font from your own handwriting…

FontCapture is a web based (cloud app) that walks you through a (4)-four step process of creating a font style in your very own handwriting. You will need a fine point marker, printer, scanner, an internet connection and a little computer know-how to make this work.

The FontCapture web site indicates it is a (4)-four step process; however, I found it is actually to be a (6)-six step process from the point of completing the template to actually getting the font style on your PC.

Personally, if you follow all of the steps and take your time completing the template, the end result is very good.  Below is a sample of the results I managed to get.

Step 1: Download and print the the template

Step 2: Complete the template in your own handwriting

Step 3: Scan the template ( >200 dpi) – Save as a PNG file

Step 4: Upload the saved PNG file to FontCapture

Step 5: Preview and Download the converted font file

Step 6: Locate and Copy the downloaded font to your Windows font directory.

Note: If you experience any problems copying the font file to your Windows font directory, I encourage you to follow these “easy” step-by-step instructions on:

“How To Add A Custom Font To Your PC” [ at Tech-for Everyone ]

Update (7 – 1 – 2010): Also see the article “Make Your Own Handwriting Font” using the service Pilot Handwriting.

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Facebook Users – Beware of Email Malware

Don’t let your guard down… Many of my acquaintances are subscribers to the popular social magnet site of Facebook.  Also, many of my acquaintances are honest people who want to believe that the internet is a safe place and often forget the “rules of the road”.

If you are a Facebook user and you receive an email that the password  on your Facebook account has been reset and your new password is attached, do not fall for the old trick of opening the attachment. This email is a form of spam email with a zip file attachment that contains an executable; that, when launched (clicked on), will infect your PC with malware (trojan) . [Source: Avira Techblog]

Remember the “rules of the road”:

Do not open email, let alone attachments, that you even have the slightest doubt. Trust me, if the doubt is there, it is most likely fake and contains malware.

Avoid unsolicited email messages; especially those with attachments or those with unsolicited links.

Always have up-to-date anti-virus, malware, and spyware software installed on your PC.

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