Brandon Dimmel

Optimize Usb Drives As purchased, most USB drives default to a FAT (File Allocation Table) partition. To enable NTFS (Windows NT File System) which features vastly greater performance, follow this guide. This is a handy tool for getting the best ... possible speed out of your brand new USB storage device. http://www.zenosys.com Windows Service Configurations This Windows Service Configurations tool includes explanations of each service and advice on which services you can safely disable. Discussions of Win 2K, XP, Vista and Windows 7 are all included (scroll the left side of the website). http:// ... (view more)

Taskbar Shuffle Taskbar Shuffle is a simple, small, free utility that allows you to rearrange your Wndows taskbar buttons using drag-and-drop techniques. This is very useful when customizing your desktop, and it makes for easier navigation than ever ... before! http://www.freewebs.com Links2tray Links2Tray is a utility that resides in the system tray (near the clock). It displays a menu combining Internet Explorer's Favorites and Bookmarks from Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera. You can load any link's web page in either Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera (assuming you have these ... (view more)

So, a couple days have come and gone and we're without any real evidence that the Conficker worm was a legitimate threat. Was it all just a bunch of hooey? Maybe, but if there's one thing we should take away from the debacle, it's that the problem ... isn't yet solved, even if there was no disaster. Most security experts were just happy to breathe a sigh of relief when April 1st came and went without planes falling out of the sky. "I'm not sure what to think," remarked BT chief security officer Bruce Schneier. "In a sense, the whole Conficker thing just puts a name on a general problem." (Source ... (view more)

Conficker SWS Scanner SWS is an easy way to test networks for Conficker, thanks to researchers at The Honeynet Project. According to Dan Kaminsky, "What we've found is pretty cool: Conficker actually changes what Windows looks like on the network, ... and this change can be detected remotely, anonymously, and very, very quickly. You can literally ask a server if it's infected with Conficker, and it will tell you." The link is to SWS, on Kaminsky's site, which is a quick scanner for Conficker. http://www.doxpara.com What Changed WhatChanged is a simple utility that searches for modified ... (view more)

Well, you made it through another April Fool's without being convinced your mother-in-law was moving in, your wife left with the mailman, or the Pittsburgh Pirates were Vegas' pick for the 2009 World Series. However, there were some pretty nifty ... jokes played this year, and we'll go over a few of them here. Some are simply ridiculous. For instance, it's unlikely Toshiba will fool anyone with its Petbook K9, which it calls the world's very first notebook for canines (and I don't doubt it). The tech giant's tag line for its goofy new device? "Playing fetch is so last year." It sure sounds like a ... (view more)

Microsoft's highly anticipated Windows Mobile application store has yet to launch, but the company has effectively stirred the tech market into a frenzy with the recent unveiling of several notable supporting developers at the CTIA Wireless trade ... show in Las Vegas yesterday. (Source: pcmag.com ) The list includes a number of recognizable names for anyone with a computer or a game console. Among the most notable developers currently working on apps are news and weather networks: Accuweather.com Associated Press CNBC Video game developers and retailers: Electronic Arts (EA) Mobile Gameloft ... (view more)

Safehouse Explorer SafeHouse Explorer creates hidden private storage areas on your harddrive to hold your confidential files. Your files are completely invisible until you enter a password. After the password is entered, you can access your files ... using SafeHouse Explorer's familiar drag-and-drop Explorer-like interface. http://www.instantfundas.com 7-Zip 7-Zip is a file archiving program with a high compression ratio approximately 2% to 10% better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip. Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats along with integration into the Windows Shell make ... (view more)

Disney has taken one step closer to posting many of its popular ABC and ESPN shows on YouTube. For now the deal includes only "short-form video content," but hopes are that the media giant will eventually begin shifting popular TV series to Google's ... iconic video site. It also appears that YouTube mainstream media concerns over copyright conflicts are beginning to dissipate. Despite a recent expedition by Warner to censor any videos using its music, previous deals with studios like MGM demonstrate that YouTube is now being taken very seriously by Hollywood and silver screen heavyweights. ... (view more)

Pitaschio Pitaschio is a window management tool for MS Windows. It allows you to: snap other windows together when moving and resizing windows; restrict a window position to one side of the screen; always keep a window above all other windows; ... minimize a window to the system tray, and more! http://pitaschio.ara3.net Recaptcha Mailhide reCAPTCHA Mailhide helps you protect your inbox by asking people to solve a captcha before they can view your email address on a web site. The captcha can only be solved by humans, so this stops spammers from gaining access to your email address through ... (view more)

Think video games are wasting away a new generation of frag-happy, overweight teens? Nutritionists might have good reason to be worried, but optometrists could soon be pushing action games on patients after a recent study found they can actually ... improve eye sight. According to a study launched by the University of Rochester in New York, those participants who played a significant amount of action video games were better able to differentiate between varying shades of gray. Doesn't sound notable? Well, researchers believe it could actually help people see at night, particularly when they're ... (view more)