Posts Filed Under ‘Windows’
Microsoft finally gave up on the paid subscription approach and is now offering a totally free virus and spyware blocker called Microsoft Security Essentials. MSE is a decent utility: it's a light download which offers real-time (as you save files) protection, and can do a quick, advanced, or custom scan. The interface is simple and it schedules regular scans by default.
I admit: since my desktop is behind my router's firewall and I'm super-careful about what I do on it, I haven't run AV or spyware blocking utilities on my PC in years--without a single problem. Happily MSE gave it a clean bill of health. It didn't try to upsell me for a paid subscription, and it didn't report that it quarantined harmless browser cookies (a common red herring that malware cleaners use to make you think they're saving you). While security experts who make their living selling you this kind of software will tell you not to depend entirely on it, I'll replace AVG Free on Grandpa's computer with this this weekend. Kudos to Microsoft for finally offering malware protection at the right price.
Microsoft Security Essentials [Microsoft]
“It’s Not As Bad As You Might Think” · Like Bing, this might be the most passionate thing we can say about Windows 7. (For the record, I'm looking forward to upgrading to Win7. However, just putting Vista's sins behind us is indeed a low bar.) · August 5th, 2009, 3 comments
Last week I downloaded and installed the Windows 7 release candidate (free for anyone to use till June of next year) and the whole process was much easier because I've got my PC's hard drive well-partitioned.
I've got to be conversant with many operating systems, so right now I'm triple-booting XP, Vista, and Windows 7 on my PC (not to mention using OS X on my MacBook Pro). This is definitely overkill for non-tech writers, but I do think it's a good idea for power users to separate their data onto a standalone partition.
This morning at Lifehacker I ran down exactly how to do that, and what the benefits and drawbacks are. Here's the full article: How to separate your data from Windows on a standalone partition.
If you need your Unix command line on a Windows PC, chances are you use a terminal emulator like Cygwin--and if you do, you want to check out MinTTY. The MinTTY terminal window for Cygwin puts a native Windows interface on Cygwin which offers more keyboard shortcuts and colors and styles. Check out the difference between Cygwin and MinTTY side-by-side in the thumbnail on the right. Using MinTTY you can turn on window transparency, set your font, and colors, copy and paste output by just selecting it with your mouse, and scroll up using the Shift+arrow key combination. (Once it's installed, right-click on the MinTTY window and choose Options to customize its look and keyboard shortcuts.) Here's what the full MinTTY window with transparency turned on looks like.
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Apple's done a nice job of raising the browser visuals bar with yesterday's release of the Safari 4 public beta web browser. This thing is very unstable, but very pretty--kind of like your ex. Here's my full screenshot tour, published over at Lifehacker this morning: A Hands On Look at Safari 4's (Crashy) Eye Candy.
Every couple of years or so, I format my PC's hard drive, reinstall Windows, and start again with a clean slate.
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