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June/July 2006
Introduction: Well summer has arrived and I hope you all have had a great Canada Day weekend. Who said summer days are lazy? Whether it's a wedding, a new addition to the family, or a fun-filled vacation, summer is often packed with activity. And if you're like many people, you'll be capturing memories on a digital camera.
In this issue I will offer some tips to help you have fun with those summer memories! Also included are some interesting stories from the technology world, interesting downloads and security tips.
Have a safe computing summer....
News:
Microsoft Plans Patches for Windows, Office - Seven software patches expected next week from Microsoft. More
New Mac OS Feature Raises Privacy Concerns - The latest update to the Mac OS sparks a privacy debate, as a feature meant to authenticate desktop widgets is believed by some to be phoning home to Apple. Get the details.
Office 2007 Slips; Will Vista Be Next? - In March, Microsoft officials said to expect Office 2007 to be available to volume licensees in October 2006. Now the company is hedging with a before year-end delivery target. Is Vista likely to slip, too? Microsoft says no—so far.
Mac OS X 10 Update Tames Tiger - The latest Mac update improves networking and data syncing, includes previous security updates and adds plenty of user interaction tweaks. Check it out.
No Patch for Critical Win98 Flaw - Microsoft says it's "not feasible" to create patches for a critical Windows Explorer flaw affecting the 8-year-old operating system. Read about the vulnerability.
Security tips and advice:
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7 ways to protect your laptop on the road Take your work with you but be sure you take steps to safeguard it before you go. |
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6 tips for securing your room-to-room network Enjoy the power of wireless with Windows XP Media Center Edition without giving strangers access to your data and devices.
Worm Attacks Yahoo E-Mail |
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4 fast fixes for your digital photos
We all take some bad digital photos. But rather than delete our photo mistakes, we can fix them. From taking the perfect picture to enhancing your images, here are four quick tips that will turn your bad shots into digital masterpieces.
6 tips for super vacation snapshots - Shooting great vacation photos, even with that new digital camera, takes smarts and know-how. To help you make the most of your digicam on your next trip, Microsoft At Home asked top photo gurus for their professional tips. Badly taken vacation snaps can be awfully disappointing, but good ones are a lifelong treasure. Learn how.
AutoStitch
So your vacation pictures are starting to pile up, and you're looking for some free editing tools? Consider this panoramic stitching program: It's fully functional, and it does a decent job.
Though the program doesn't have much of a user interface, it could hardly be easier to use: Just select your series of photos, and AutoStitch automatically lines them up and stitches them together.
If you like the result, save your finished panorama. You don't get any frills, and the advanced options are too geeky for most people. But it certainly is free.
Version:
Price: Free
Restoration
We've all done it: You accidentally delete a vital file a few minutes before an urgent deadline--and then can't find it in the Recycle Bin. Fortunately, you needn't panic yet. Restoration scans your hard drive, floppy disk, or USB thumb drive and finds files that have been deleted (Windows doesn't actually destroy files you delete--it just marks the space they occupy as being available). You can then recover any recently deleted files it finds with a single mouse click. You can filter the results if you know the name of the file you are looking for, which is much easier than wading through the list of the hundreds of deleted files it usually finds (including temporary files, cached Web files, etc). Though the program has not been updated since 2004, it still worked well in my informal tests and it recovered several files that I had deleted without problems.
Version: 3.2.13
Price: Free
Motherboard Monitor
Is your PC getting toasty? Motherboard Monitor monitors and reports on the temperature inside your PC's case using the built-in sensors on the processor and motherboard. If things get too warm, it can sound an alarm and automatically shut down your PC before anything gets damaged. It can also monitor the voltages your power supply is outputting, and warn you if they fall below a certain level. Two caveats: Motherboard Monitor doesn't work with all motherboards, and the author stopped updating the program in 2004. But it's still useful for those who have built their own system, or added components to their system, and want to make sure it doesn't overheat.
--Richard Baguley
Version: 5.3.7
Price: Free
Download Motherboard Monitor now at:
Startup Control Panel
Programs that automatically start up with Windows can be annoying, especially when they hog system memory and bog down your system. Startup Control Panel lets you take control of this process. It lists all of the programs that are set to start when Windows does, and allows you to decide what gets to start up with Windows and what doesn't. This easy-to-use program is available as either a Control Panel applet or as a stand-alone program. To prevent a program from starting up with Windows, just right-click it in Startup Control Panel, and select Disable. If you later decide you want the program to run, just reenable it, or select Run Now and it will launch.
--Richard Baguley
Version: 2.8
Price: Free
Exposure
Alien Skin's new Exposure software is designed to let you create professional-quality digital photos. With Exposure you can simulate the warmth and softness of film (both color and black and white), reproduce realistic film grain, and simplify your digital photography workflow, the vendor claims.
Exposure is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop, and other popular editing programs.
Version:
Price: Free demo; $199 to purchase
