Tech Weekly

Today's download of the day is one that I have been looking for a long time. I like to keep my icons on the taskbar in a certain order especially when I am at work. I know this sounds silly but it keeps my workflow smoother if I have them setup from left to right in the order that I would open them first thing in the morning and do my daily work.

I do from time to time have windows close unexpectedly or I close them and then my flow is all messed up. Well not anymore, by downloading and installing "Taskbar Shuffle" I am able to control and change the order of the icons in the taskbar by simply clicking and dragging them into whatever order that I chose. This same program also allows you to do the same thing with you icons in the system tray as well. In order to do this though you will have to hold down the "Control" key while clicking and dragging the icons around.

Labels: Download of the day

I know that I have this happen alot. I will out of habit start clicking "X's" to close programs because my desktop and taskbar are getting to full. Or I am trying to re-center my thoughts and get rid of some clutter on my screen. And all of the sudden I have closed a program that I wanted to keep open either because I was still working on it or had not saved etc...

With today's find for Download of the day you can save yourself and your work. With GoneIn60s even when you click to close an application it delays its shutdown. It will hide the application from view as though it has closed but for up to 60 seconds you can right click on the lightening icon in the system tray, select the closed application and it will spring right back open.

This program is a must have if you are like me and have fingers that are faster than you sometimes think.

Labels: Download of the day

Our download of the day is a free standing program that you can download by clicking HERE or the above picture. Once you have downloaded the program simply click to run and you will see a dialog box like the one below.

Simply check mark the items that you would like to uninstall and click next. If you do not have anything to uninstall a pop up box will notify you that this is the case and then the program will exit.

Labels: Download of the day

This program once installed loads into the right click menu. All you have to do is right-click on a file and choose "Remove on Next Reboot" and the file will be deleted the next time the computer restarts. You can download this by clicking HERE or the picture above.

Labels: Download of the day

Did you buy a new PC this past Holiday Season which came with the latest Norton or Symantec product installed with a trial version of an anti-virus or security product? Decided that you don't like how much of a CPU resource hog it is and not interested in purchasing it, but you just can't seem to get all of it uninstalled from your computer. Well you can fight with individually uninstalling all the applications or you can go with Symantec/Nortons removal tool which I must admit does a good job of taking out all the installations.

It will remove the following items:

• Norton AntiSpam 2004 - 2005
• Norton Antivirus 2003 - 2007.2
• Norton Ghost 2003, 9.0, and 10.0
• Norton GoBack 3.1 - 4.2
• Norton Internet Security 2003 - 2007.2
• Norton Password Manager
• Norton Personal Firewall 2003 - 2006
• Norton SystemWorks 2003 - 2007
• Norton Confidential Online 2007
• Norton Internet Security 2007 Add-on Pack
• Norton Save and Restore 1.0 - 2.0
• Norton 360

Follow these directions to download the Norton Removal Tool and run it to remove the above programs.

1. Click on the following link to download the Norton removal tool
   ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe
   
2. Click Save and save the file to your desktop
3. Close all  Norton Application windows you may have open, and double-click on Norton_Removal_Tool.exe to start the removal tool. Windows Vista users will have to right-click on the file and select "Run as Administrator"
4. After the removal tool finishes, you should be prompted to restart your computer.
5. Once the computer restarts, your Norton product should be uninstalled.

Labels: Do-it-yourself, Download of the day

Okay if you are looking at the article chances are you have either used one of the multitude of hard drive imaging software such as Norton's Ghost or True Image. You are probably wondering okay this is a download but is it beta ware? No it is currently freeware and Driveimage XML seems to work pretty well and get this you can make a hot copy of your drive if you have another location that you can save it to such as a second hard drive or an external one. Here a couple of the features from the download site.

The program allows you to:

Image creation uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe "hot images" even from drives currently in use.

Images are stored in XML files, allowing you to process them with 3rd party tools. Never again be stuck with a useless backup!

Restore images to drives without having to reboot.

DriveImage XML runs under Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista only. The program will backup, image and restore drives formatted with FAT 12, 16, 32 and NTFS.

You can download your copy from HERE.

Labels: Download of the day

By default since Windows 2000 your computer is set to automatically synchronize its internal clock with either ntp://time.windows.com or ntp://time.nist.gov servers? So why does your computer clock at work seem to be weirdly off from the "Real World"? Well I know when I used to have the correct permissions to set the time on my PC at work I would change it to match the "Real World" and sure as heck as soon as I rebooted that hunk it would go back to having the wrong time. Well unfortunately in a company or corporate network you most times either do not have "sufficient permissions" to change your clock setting or the network is sending a script out each time you reboot you box to sync. all the computers across the company to have the same time, adjusting for time zones of course if applicable.

So what does that have to do with this post and download you say? Well as far as work goes I right clicked on my "START" button went to properties and choose the "Taskbar" tab and unchecked the SHOW THE CLOCK option. Might not be the best fix but I have plenty of clocks with the right time on my person and desk to keep me on time at work.

At home its a different story I searched around to find a good way to insure that my clock would reflect the correct time since a lot of my life is based off of either using my Home PC to do something or my laptop. What I found was Dimension 4.

“Simply put, Dimension 4 v5.0 is the fastest and easiest way to synchronize your PC’s clock for Windows-based operating systems. Once Dimension 4 is installed, you’ll most likely forget that it’s even running. It’s that automatic.”

You may think that the incorrect time is a small annoyance that you can handle. Well, so did one of my ‘geek’ friends, until he could not make his encryption work. The authentication for the encryption program was based on the correct current time. If there was a discrepancy in the time, the encryption codes would not work. It took him a good weekend, plus a few days, to find out what the problem was. VIA: Dogreader

If you are a bit more comfortable with your computer and do not mind tinkering with the registry a bit here is a solution for you that will not involve running a program in the background.

1. Open the "CMD" window Click: Start --> Run --> Type CMD
2. Stop Windows time service type: net stop w32time
3. Add tick.usno.navy.mil and tock.usno.navy.mil as primary and secondary time servers, retain time.windows.com and time-b.nist.gov as third and fourth servers: Type the following into the CMD window
   
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers /v 0 /t REG_SZ /d tock.usno.navy.mil
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers /v 1 /t REG_SZ /d tick.usno.navy.mil
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers /v 2 /t REG_SZ /d time.windows.com
   reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers /v 3 /t REG_SZ /d time-b.nist.gov
4. Start the Windows time service back up type: net start w32time
5. Check everything is setup correctly by typing: W32tm /resync

Labels: Download of the day

Well with the holiday weekend just about to start I thought for the "Download of the Day" I would list a handy program that some folks may find useful. Have you ever had this happen when visiting family for the holidays? You just finished a great meal and your ready to relax on the couch when (insert relative of choice) comes over and blocks the tv and starts talking about how their computer is not running well at all. It is either not working at all or running so slow that it probably is completely infected with all manner of spam and malware.

As you listen it becomes obvious that not only has this been the case for a while but you have basically been ambushed. They knew you were going to be there for the holiday meal so they did not bother to try to get it fixed till then.

Now don't get me wrong. I love working on computers. Mine, yours and whoevers. But to make your diagnosis work a little quicker you might want to bring this little program along with you. Startup Inspector works great and is not nearly as picky about doing what you want with potentially harmful startup programs.

Labels: Download of the day