Tech Stuff

A website has posted 10 steps on how to install a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system in Windows 7.

To start off the process, a user need to download and install a software which is VMware Workstation 7. Also, there are two files that need to be downloaded.

VMware Workstation is the program that was used in the guide to install the Apple OS. There are five screen shots included in the article to help a user choose where and what option to press/choose.

Source: Redmond Pie

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Google has announced an Android related press conference for January 5, the same day that earlier reports indicated would see the launch of the Google Phone, Nexus One.

Invitations were sent to various members of the media Tuesday promoting the event at Google’s headquarters, to be held just as the annual CES gadget fest gets under way in Las Vegas. Expectations are high that Google will use the occasion to announce the launch of the Nexus One phone as its first phone sold directly to consumers.

It also seems Google is finally ready to address the questions that have risen about its Android strategy following reports that it planned to sell this particular phone directly to consumers through its Web site. Google has invested a lot of time and money during 2009 promoting the Android phones of its partners–namely Motorola and Verizon–and could be about to complicate the work of those partners with its own device.

In any event, Google’s announcement will likely kick off a crowded week for the technology industry and could perhaps overshadow any news to emerge from CES later in the week.

From CNET.com

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Have you ever had to backup a clients files to a CD or DVD? I think most of us have at some point and it can be tedious sorting out how many files will fit on a single disk, especially if the client has a lot of data.

This is where Capacity comes in to make the task of backing up to CD or DVD much easier. Capacity will automatically separate the files into different CD or DVD sized folders. It can even create these CD/DVD sized folders based on the file type if you want so you can keep all documents on one CD and pictures on another. There is also other sorting criteria such as by month created, by month modified and by file size.

Capacity is small and mostly portable (requires .NET 3.5) application with a donation-ware license. This means it is free to use but if you like it you should consider donating to the developer.

This application is definitely worth keeping on your onsite USB drive and the backup machine in your workshop.

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The fifth and final beta version of Firefox 3.6 has been released by Mozilla. It comes with a few tweaks on how the company allows third party software to integrate into the browser.

The release notes of Mozilla states, “This version is also faster and more responsive than previous versions, and has been optimised to run on small device operating systems such as Windows CE and Maemo.”

“Add-ons installed with previous versions of Firefox may not yet have been updated by their authors to work with Firefox 3.6 beta,” it notes.

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Windows 7’s processor cycles will go through the roof when opening corrupted media files according to an article at Softpedia.

Microsoft explains, “You have some corrupted .wav files in a folder on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When you open the folder, you encounter the following problems: The computer responds slowly. You cannot perform any other operations. You experience high CPU usage in the Explorer.exe process.”

Windows Media Player will stop to respond after opening corrupted .wav files and Wmplayer.exe will also generate high CPU usage according to the company.

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In Windows Vista and Windows 7 you can increase the performance of external hard drive by increasing its speed in just a few easy steps. This is possible because Windows Vista and Windows 7 operate external hard drives connected by USB differently than internal drives. By default, in Windows 7 and Vista, write catching is disabled so that you can safely remove the drive at almost any time. This works perfectly fine if you insert and remove your external hard drive very frequently; but if you have a large hard drive that you never disconnect from your computer write caching is still disabled which can decrease performance.

Step1: Click on the Windows start button, then right click on Computer and select Manage.

Step2: Click on Device Manager on the side menu.

Step3: Expand Disk Drives and select your external hard drive from the list.

Step4: Right click on the drive and select properties.

Step5: (Vista only) – on the Policies tab, select Optimize for performance

Step 6: (Vista only) Next, check enable write caching on the disk and enable advanced performance

Step 7: (Windows 7 only) Click on Enable write caching on the device.

Step 8: Press OK and Reboot the machine to enjoy the increased performance.

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A hardwired Ethernet network is, by nature, safer and more secure than WiFi, but it is still vulnerable. Instead of breaking into the network, as with WiFi, hackers usually break into one of the PCs on the network, which can give them access to the information on all the PCs. The following security tips apply to both wired and wireless networks. While there is no such thing as absolute security, the more of these tips you follow the more secure your wireless network will be.

Secure both the network and each PC

Use security software that comes with your wireless or wired router to secure the network.

• Rename your network. Out of the box, most routers use their own easily identifiable names (SSIDs) that make them easier for hackers to crack. Change the router name to one that doesn’t give you or the network type away.

• Use the media access control (MAC) feature that is usually included with your router. It lets you name each PC on the network and restrict network access to only those PCs.

• Secure each PC with its own firewall, so that even if a hacker gets into the network, he/she won’t be able to access the PCs on it.

Use strong password security

• The security software that comes with most routers usually offers several levels of password protection. Don’t use WEP (wired equivalent privacy) passwords as they are easily hacked. Use at least WPA (Wi-Fi protected access) or WPA Personal passwords, or an even more secure format, if offered.

• Create hard to decipher passwords. Don’t include your name, birth date, address or other obvious words or numbers. The best passwords are a random mix of letters, numbers, and characters, eight or more characters long.

• Change your password often. 

Use up-to-date security software

• Firewall protection for each computer in the network.

• Transaction security to help ensure your online shopping or banking transactions are secured.

• Antivirus protection to help keep viruses, Trojan horses and worms from infecting your PCs.

• Antispyware to block hackers from placing spyware on your PC.

• Email scanning to remove viruses from email.

To maximize the effectiveness of your Internet security software, make sure it is always up-to-date so that you are always protected from the very latest security threats.

Internet security software will help you maximize the safety and security of your home network. It adds security features that neither PCs nor network routers offer.

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Fix IE Utility is a small, freeware and portable application designed to help fix Internet Explorer after a Malware attack. Fix IE Utility will re-register 89 DLL and OCX files that are often de-registered in a Malware attack and are required for Internet Explorer to run smoothly. You will still need to run your usual malware removal applications but if Internet Explorer still wont work correctly after the system as been cleaned, its possible the malware de-registered some files and this is where Fix IE Utility helps. Many people would just suggest that the client could just switch to Firefox. However, the core of Internet Explorer is still used inside many other programs so it needs to be operational, even if you don’t use Internet Explorer as a web browser

Fix IE Utility has been tested on IE7 and IE8 on both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download from official site

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