One of my antivirus benchmark is loading of a list of websites. To automate this test, I used WATIR to auto feeding of 50 websites one by one to Internet Explorer and then used HttpWatch to record the time taken to load all websites. The 50 websites are grabbed from real websites with an offline downloader and I noticed one of the problem is some sites has a few lines of javascript tracking code which makes the offline website load externally and that affects the accuracy of the benchmark. If the javascript lines are removed, then the offline website loads locally rather than requiring Internet connection.

Deleting or replacing a single line can be easily done automatically using TextCrawler but it doesn’t work on multiple lines. I didn’t want to edit all 50 HTML files and manually removing the lines so I looked for a more automated way. I found a really good free software that can remove or replace multiple lines of code and it takes only a few seconds to complete the job.
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The good thing about Java is the applet can be ran on different operating system such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS. One good example is the famous JDownloader that simplifies downloading files from One-Click-Hosters such as Rapidshare.com, Megaupload.com and hundreds of other similar websites. There are also free Java games that you can play online, scoreboards that uses Java to display the score live and many other online applications. Although installing Java is nearly a must nowadays, I do know a few people that doesn’t have Java Runtime installed on their computer.

They claim that Java slows down their computer and if you check in your task manager, there is a Java Quick Starter process jqs.exe that loads every time Windows is booted up. It is meant to improve initial startup time for most Java applets and applications. Other than that, people who have Java installed was affected by the Java Drive-By exploit which auto installs virus/spyware/trojan on the user’s computer if the user clicks the Yes button when visiting the website created by the hacker. If you’re using the latest version of Java, you will not be affected by this exploit. Having a good antivirus installed increases the chance of detecting the hidden installation of virus.

It is still possible to run Java applets and applications without installing Java by installing the portable version to your USB flash drive. Here’s a guide on how to do that.
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Let me start by saying I love the keyboard. For you people that grew up with a mouse in your hand for your first computers, or don’t enjoy using command line stuff, you might find it odd for me to say this. But I’ve personally found that I can type a lot faster then I can click. I know my girlfriend’s the same way, typing upwards of 100 Words Per Minute (WPM) and I can pull off a still impressive 35 WPM without looking down at my keyboard. And I love shortcuts, like Control+P to print, Control+Z to undo, Control-C/V to copy and paste… my hands when I’m going around the internet are often placed on the keyboard, even to scroll though a page. I credit this love of the keyboard to my first computer, the Commodore 64, because at that point, you had to type everything in by hand. It was not something you could master without lots of trial and error, and if you mistyped that one special command, you just hoped to heck you didn’t delete something important. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately I’ve been looking for some backup software to do what SyncBack Pro does, seeing as my father purchased a copy for himself when I posted the coupon a little while ago. I’ve been simplistic in the features, at least compared to Dad, because of the fact that he needed something that ran on his time and something he would do manually, without having to worry about resources being wasted on his computer. So I’ve been trying a few backup programs, among them, Oops! Backup stood out as a program that might do what I needed it to, and in testing, it has. In fact, what I find really ‘funny odd’ is the fact that it does exactly what I need it to do, but my dad’s still not impressed with it because of some minor issues I faced with it, seeing as my experience wasn’t flawless with it, but was mighty nice to see the help I got from the software vendor. Read the rest of this entry »

There are many threats in modern day life, from credit card fraud to identity theft that we’ve all known about for a while. After all, we all have that uncle or aunt or relative or whatever that we know has lost money to these scams. But as we also know, social engineering is one of the most cunning ways to make money and easily too… after all, who doesn’t trust a face that strikes us as someone who seems innocent enough?

But as Sophos found, up to about 45% of all Facebook users aren’t watching who they’re adding to their accounts. Daisy, a ‘duck’, got added about 46 times out of 100 when “she” made the offer, while Dinette, the ‘cat lady’ would get 49 out of 100. And these are people that didn’t even realize who or what Sophos is. [Link to the study]

So this rises the question: what should we do to prevent this from happening to ourselves? Well, a good first step is to make your Facebook as private as possible. Believe me when I say this has now become extremely easy to do so and an extremely wise idea to boot. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of us that are using Windows 7 and have a Professional or higher edition, Microsoft has kindly included a Windows XP Mode to download and install applications that don’t fully work in Windows 7. While I admit, I’ve use the XP Mode for some things, for most things, I haven’t had to touch it, because of the fact that the mass majority of my stuff works in Windows 7 fine, plus the fact that Windows 7′s XP Mode is just a glorified virtual machine with Windows XP pre-installed. But aside from that, it does work very well at what it does. Recently, it was updated to not require hardware virtualization so I downloaded it and tried it out on my laptop, which is running enough RAM to allow for XP mode for be pretty fast… or so I thought. Read the rest of this entry »

A while back, I provided my list of add-ons that I feel Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome should have by default installed on their browsers, and was asked why I included Greasemonkey, or rather, what scripts would I recommend. I’ve been using Greasemonkey for nearly as long as I’ve used Mozilla Firefox, being the second add-on I tried, and is always one of those first add-ons I install on a fresh copy of Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome and it’s derivatives, such as SRWare Iron (the derivative I use) or Maple Studio’s ChromePlus, can all take advantage of the following scripts without the use of Greasemonkey, however, I can not ensure reliability since Chrome/Iron is not my primary browser. However, all the provided ones I’ve personally tried and recommend to anyone who considers themselves in need of said tools. Read the rest of this entry »