Geek Squeaks’ of the Week (#66)

Welcome to Geek Squeaks’; your weekly roundup of tech articles produced by the members of the What’s On My PC blogroll community. I think you will find that there is something here for everyone!

Laptops Review Central
MSI launches GX740 gaming laptop

Paul’s Home Computing Blog
The Ideal Home Computing Environment

Worthy Tips
Top 5 Blogging Platforms Judged by Their Pros and Cons

Netbook Freeware
Duplicati: Best Free Backup System for Your Netbook

I Love Free Software
iPod Rescue: Free Software to Rescue Songs from iPod

404 Tech Support
On Crash Protection and Farmville the Reason Behind Firefox 3.6.6

TTC Shelbyville
DiskMax Cleans Your Hard Drive

Carputer’s News and Computer Tips
Busy is good, reloaded

Snakebytez
Free ISO Creator : create ISO image from your files and folders

My Technology Guide
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6 Stability Update Released, Download Now

Awesome Wallpapers
Windows Se7en Wallpaper Set 26

Technogran’s Tittle Tattle
TG’s Scottish Theme pack for Windows 7

TuneUp Blog about Windows
How To: Install Icons in Windows XP, Vista, and 7

Crazy World of G
Libox

Lifehacker
Remains of the Day: Windows 8 Rumors

Rarst.net
Monitor Asset Manager (MonInfo) – display info tool

Tech-for Everyone
Monday, Monday, Monday

Free PC Security
PC Doc Pro – Reviewed and De-listed

Mister Reiner
How your Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo
email account may have been hacked

RGdot
Greenshot: Open Source And Easy Screen Capture

411-Spyware.com
How to Remove antispybase.net

Plato On-Line
USB SafeGuard

Confessions of a Freeware Junkie
Organize your desktop quickly and easily: Fences v1.01.143

Bill Mullins’ Weblog – Tech Thoughts
Gmail Suspension Notice Phishing Attempts Continue

thePC Security
Block Unwanted Sites, Adult Web Content,
With OpenDNS Family Shield

Internet Security Blog
Review – BullGuard Internet Security 9.0

Canadian Tech Blogger
Google Chrome Now More Popular Than Safari

What’s On My PC
Test Your Internet Connection Speed

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Download and Convert YouTube Videos

Since 2005, YouTube (owned by Google) has become the common household name for online video sharing…  I do not know how many videos are currently available on YouTube, but it has to be in the millions.

Have you ever watched a YouTube video and wished you could save it to play on your computer; or play it on your iPod or Mobile Phone?  It is possible with YouTube Downloader.

1. Simply enter the URL (web address) of the video.
2. Select Download Options (to select the video quality and the default download folder)
3. Click “OK” and the wait for the video to download.
4. If you desire to convert the video you downloaded, then select “Convert Video (previously downloaded) from file” and then select the video format you desire to convert to.

It allows you to convert downloaded videos for Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3.

Now, the really “cool factor” with YouTube Downloader is that it will also work with numerous other video site providers (such as Google, Bing, Break, Daily Motion, ESPN, etc….).You can see the whole list [HERE] . The popularity of YouTube Downloader speaks for itself. It has been downloaded over 37 million times at Cnet.

To get YouTube Downloader, [ CLICK HERE ]

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CodySafe FREE – The Ultimate Portable Apps Menu

If you are someone that carries their computer on a stick (flash drive), then you may want to take a look at CodySafe Free. I know there are many portable app menus and launchers available, but this one may be the most feature driven, nicest looking portable apps menu I have experienced thus far.

With CodySafe Free you can manage your portable apps in an easy and convenient way. The menu structure is completely configurable, plus with CodySafe Free there are popular portable apps available within the installation package that will install directly to your CodySafe drive.

CodySafe software allows you add free portable applications from the website. The installer specially designed for each application will install it directly on your portable drive, add the application to the menu, set the application category, organize it and allow one-click launching or automatic execution of the portable application.

Prominent features integrated into CodySafe Free are two security apps called ViruSense and DriveDoctor. ViruSense will detect and alert you if your Autorun.inf file has been modified, which in most cases is the evidence of virus activity. DriveDoctor will perform instant scanning of your drive for errors and runs periodical drive checks (scheduled tests) to keep your drive healthy.

Features:

• Carry your favourite applications with you
• Run applications on any PC with no need of installation
• Leave no footprint on a host computer
• Add, remove and manage portable apps with ease
• Set custom command line arguments
• Set applications Autorun
• Set applications to run automatically
• Create scripts that run before starting CodySafe
• Set scripts to run upon exiting an application
• Define Hot Keys for CodySafe functions
• Make Hot Keys for launching your favorite applications
• Compose Hot Keys for accessing your favorite websites

Completely FREE

Get It [ HERE ]

TO MY READERS: Get a 20 Percent discount on any CodySafe product by applying this code at checkout: WhatsOnMyPC20

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Get WinUtilities Pro for FREE (while it lasts)

I was combing the web site of YL Software, the developers of the popular utility suite, WinUtilities and came across a page where you can acquire the license and registration code for the professional version of WinUtilites for FREE [ link ] . Typically this software is priced at $49.99 and is currently being offered for FREE through Softpedia. If interested, take advantage of this FREE offer as soon as possible, before it disappears.

Instructions

When you visit the download site, I suggest you scroll down the page to where you see “Step 2”.  At this point, write down the license and registration information. After you have accomplished that task, scroll back up to “Step 1” and click on the “Softpedia” download button to be redirected to the Softpedia download location. After you install Winutilities you will reach a point where you will enter the license & registration information to make the software fully functional.

What is WinUtilities?

WinUtilities Pro is an award winning collection of tools to optimize and speedup your system performance. this suite contains utilities to clean registry, temporary files on your disks, erase your application and internet browser history, cache and cookies. it also supports to defragment your disk drives and improve computer performance and stability. built-in StartUp Cleaner allows you to control startup programs that load automatically with windows, find duplicate files, fix broken shortcuts and uninstall unneeded software. other features include secure file deletion, recycle bin shredding, system maintenance tasks scheduling and undelete deleted files.

The “cool factor” to this software is that there is a “1 Click Maintenance” function built in that enables you to perform typical maintenance on your PC.  There are also rescue (restore) options  built into the various modules in the event something inadvertently goes bump in the night.

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Porn To Get Their Own Top Level ‘.xxx’ Domain

Are we endorsing the legitimacy of pornography by providing the industry their own “red light district” (top level domain) on the internet? Will this make pornography more prevalent online? Will this lead to online regulation of pornography?

A “What’s On My PC” Web Clip!

Porn sites get their own domain: ‘.xxx’

By Stephanie Goldberg, Special to CNN

June 25, 2010 2:42 p.m. EDT

On Friday, ICANN, the not-for-profit corporation that coordinates the internet’s naming system, voted to allow the application of the controversial “.xxx” top-level domain name for sites that display adult content.

The domain, which would need further approval before going live on the internet, would be applied to adult entertainment sites just as “.com” is now.   (more…)

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Are you spending 60 hours a month online?

Did you know that Americans spend an average of 60 hours per month online? If you took 60 hours x 12 months that is equivalent to 720 hours. Divide that 720 hours by 24 hours and we have 30 days that we Americans are online, per year…  That is one month a year, on average, we are sitting behind that computer screen.

This and other stats are from an interesting post, at Visual Economics, about “How The World Spends Its Time Online” … These surprising usage statistics are statistics from Nielsen and Pew Research Center. Visual Economics has taken the stats and posted them in a very snazzy poster type interface [ HERE ] .

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A Free-For-All Comprehensive Home Page

When I am on other PC’s, other than my own, I like making observations of such things like how the person keeps their Windows desktop organized or what their home page is in their web browser. As a techie type person these simple observations act as a gauge and tell me a lot about the person or person(s) behind that computer.

I have found that a great majority of people when they get a new computer will very seldom change or mix-up their selection for their web browser homepage. They usually will have the home page set to their internet service provider’s web site thinking it is a requirement of the provider. Folks, far, far, far from the truth… You can set that homepage to whatever web site you desire. As a matter of fact, in any of the popular browsers, you can have an array of sites (more than one page) load when you start your browser. Folks, it is time to get out of that browser home page rut and start mixing it up…

How would you like to have a home page where you can add your own favorite sites and at the same time have access to categorized links (already configured for you) to the most popular sites on the internet?  It is possible by using AllMyFaves.  As a matter of fact, once you signup at AllMyFaves, add your own favorites, you can then share your page with your friends at your very own web link.

The last time I did a review on AllMyFaves, the option to add your own favorite sites, was not available. As a matter of fact, I was very excited to see this option. This tells me that the developers are listening to the users and bringing AllMyFaves to the cloud computing level (which is the future).

AllMyFaves is a free-for-all, comprehensive home page that offers an original approach to exploring the Internet. Instead of, say, typing a key search word into the text box of a search engine, AllMyFaves has already organized all the topics and information that are available on the web in a form of a list of categories and logos. This way, AllMyFaves is actually a simple and efficient visual directory of the Internet.

In addition to the option of adding your own favorite sites, you will see links to Weekly Faves and Weekly Games. The Weekly Faves are updated every Monday and the Weekly Games are updated every Wednesday.

AllMyFaves – What more could you ask for in a home page? To learn more about and sign up for this FREE service, I encourage you visit, AllMyFaves [ HERE ] . If you need a visual on how to add your own sites to your AllMyFaves home page, click [ HERE ] to watch the video.

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