Tech Junky

If you feel that the anti-virus you just installed is perfectly fine to protect your PC, then think again. Nasty new viruses, worms, malware and spyware are born about every minute. If so is the case, then they can invade your computer, beating your anti-virus away.

Now it’s time to protect yourself through online virus scanners. Yep, you heard it right – ‘online virus scanners’. These scanners use varied scanning mechanisms and possess the latest virus signature databases. The virus definitions are updated quite frequently and thus protect you from the latest threats.

Many of the big anti-virus companies nowadays provide users access to an online scanner. Here’s a look at the best free online virus scanner:

1. Microsoft Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner: The OneCare Safety Scanner is an online service from Microsoft. This easy-to-use scanner will search your PC to detect all that malware and sytem vulnerabilities. It even assists you in removing them. It might not be that effective against the latest threats but still helps. It can also help you improve upon your system performance by curing certain system issues.

2. Avast! Online Scanner: The Avast! Online scanner is a free and fast scanner. While it limits you to just scan one file at a particular time, it’s good if you want to check a few of your suspicious files. It also doesn’t scan files which are more than 512kb in size. So make sure you got the file size right.

3. F-Secure Online Virus Scanner: To proceed with F-Secure, you’ll firstly need to download it’s 22MB update database. After you get hold of the updates, you can begin with the scan and removal process. It works only with IE 6 or higher and makes use of ActiveX and JavaScript. Basically, the primary version is for Windows XP and 2000 users. Vista users can scan their systems using the recently released F-Secure Online Scanner 3.3 Beta.

4. BitDefender Online Scanner: The BitDefender Online scanner will scan your hard drive and boot sectors. Scanning with the defaults will even enable it to remove the infections automatically. If you want, you can even limit the scan to certain folders. You also have the option to save the scan reports for a later analysis. This program too works with only Internet Explorer.

5. Kaspersky, Mcaffee Free Scan & Panda ActiveScan: Wondering why I’ve categorizing these three scanners under one roof? It’s so because these programs scan your computer perfectly but when the time comes for removal of threats, they’ll not be so helpful. You may try these for getting reports on the infections your PC persists. They might even give you certain tips on how to deal with these. Maybe they’ll be useful? – LoL!

Although you can scan your computer for threats using these programs but remember that these are not an alternative for your regular anti-virus software. These can be a sort of second line for defense. You need to install a good anti-virus to stay protected.

Are you in need of some software? Then why not try some freeware stuff instead of buying software for you PC. Here are 5 cool freeware finds that will cost you absolutely nothing to download or use.

File Management:
1. Restoration: Cursing yourself on why you emptied the recycle bin? If yes, then no need to worry as you can recover your lost data. Restoration is basically a data recovery tool which attempts to recover deleted files whose bytes are still present on your hard drive. The chances of recovering a file are more if it was recently deleted. This tool can even be used as a shredder for deleting private files you no longer require. The best part about this utility is it’s small size (just 4k) and no installation requirement. You can even run it from a floppy or a USB.

Download Restoration ..

2. Folder Guide: Navigating to frequently used folders in Windows is a bit of a time consuming job. One cure for this problem is XFilesDialog but it will cost you over $40. As a free alternative, why not try the simple and elegant Folder Guide. With this tool, you can either add your favorite folders in its settings window, or you can just right-click a folder in Explorer and choose ‘Add to Folder Guide‘. After you are over with creating your folder list, just right-click in any Explorer window or in any Open and Save dialog box. In the context menu, choose your destination from the Folder Guide submenu, and you’ll be at once redirected to that folder.

Download Folder Guide ..

Security Utilities:
3. Androsa FileProtector: What exactly this tool does is that it lets you password-protect your files with up to 256-bit AES encryption. You’ve to just drag your files or folders into the FileProtector window, allot a password and define some other settings, and you’re all done. This tool can even compress files while it’s encrypting them and create self-extracting archives. For added privacy, you can also scramble the file names. A portable version is also available which gives you the ease to run it from a USB.

Download Androsa FileProtector ..

Internet:
4. IE7Pro: The Internet Explorer in it’s seventh release finally came loaded with tabs and some other features that were not available to users earlier. To add some more power to the Internet Explorer, try out the free IE7Pro. IE7Pro is a free add-on which gives users features like a configurable ad blocker, mouse gestures, tab management and crash recovery of your last-open tabs. It also allows dynamic spell checking of anything you type into a browser and the options to save a Web page as an image file. Moreover, it includes a number of user scripts, like it adds a Download link to YouTube videos. You can find numerous features under the pop-up menu whose icon IE7Pro adds to IE’s status bar.

Download IE7Pro ..

Multimedia:
5. Wavosaur: Do you need to edit short audio programs or add sound effects or loops to your audio files? If so, then check out the Wavosaur audio editor. This program has no installer and it doesn’t even add itself to the Registry, giving you the ability to run it from a flash drive. It provides you with all the basic audio editing functions, and even gives you some audio analysis features as well. If you want to get yourself additional effects, you can download the free plug-ins. The one limitation with this tool is that it cannot open Windows audio (.wma) files but with it’s other features, it definitely accounts for a good freeware.

Download Wavosaur ..

These freewares will definitely help you in some or the other way and might even cut your costs on buying softwares.
Which freeware do you like? Do tell us in your comments.

XPERIA X1, the latest offering from Sony is a high end multimedia and communication combo phone featuring an “arc slider”. The arc slder gives you the option to slide the screen sideways so as to bring out the full Qwerty keyboard into display. The phone sports a good look, thanks to the aluminium finish. Furthermore, the device makes use of the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS.

Looking at the specifications, the device features a 3-inch wide VGA (800 x 480) touchscreen display and weighs around 145 gm and is 16.7 mm thick. A Qualcomm 7200A CPU running at 528 MHz powers the phone’s operations. It has 128MB RAM and a 1500 mAh battery. Moreover, it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, A2DP Bluetooth, aGPS and WiFi. The on board memory is just 400MB but can be expanded via microSD cards.

The phone runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 OS. It even has a built-in GPS receiver and a built-in handsfree. An FM radio with RDS is also included in the set. An MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player, Motion sensor and Picture editor are among the softwares present in the phone.

You can expect the phone to hit stores by the second quarter of 2008. Sony has not yet disclosed pricing information.

It’s something that many Firefox users don’t know – Firefox is by default optimized for dial-up connections. If so is the case, then it’s not giving you the performance which you should get with your broadband connection. To get the most out of Firefox, you will need to manually change some settings.

Before you go any forward, I suggest you to first backup your Firefox’s Registry so that you be a safer side. To do so, close Firefox, select Start > Run and type “%appdata%\mozilla\firefox\profiles” (without quotes) and press Enter. The resulting Windows Explorer window will contain a folder with a wierd name, like ‘4hw0enat.default‘. Open that folder, and then copy the file prefs.js to a safe location.

After the backup, open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Then enter network.http in the filter field. Now make the following changes:

Find the entry named network.http.pipelining in the list. Double-click on it to set it to ‘true‘.

Moving ahead, double-click on network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. A dialog box titled ‘Enter integer value’ pops up. Enter a value higher than the default 4; 10-15 would be fine. Press Enter.

Also double-click network.http.proxy.pipelining to set it to ‘true’.

Now right-click anywhere on the page and select New > Integer. In the ‘New integer value’ box, enter the following text -
string: nglayout.initialpaint.delay
and press Enter. Set its value to 0 (zero) in the box that succeeds it, and press Enter again.

Thats it. The next time you surf the web using Firefox, you’ll definitely see a faster loading time.

You must have often come across really lengthy URL’s like the one listed below.

http://images.google.co.in/images?q=images&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&

client=&rls=:en-US:official&hs=pZY&start=180&sa=N&ndsp=20

Such long links might even be a problem for webmasters who try to keep their website links short, sweet and clean. You might want to shorten your URL’s.

It is very well possible to crop your links. You can find a lot of sites offering you such a service. They make your link look like a page on their site but when you open it, it redirects you to your own page.

As an example, this is the shorter version of the above mentioned URL: http://tinyurl.com/25hnpj

Isn’t this one a lot better than what you witnessed previously?

There are many sites which can cut down your links. I’ve collected a list of services which can do this task for you.
Check ‘em out:

1. AZQQ
2. Doiop
3. Hop2
4. hURL.to
5. Mem URL
6. Not Long
7. Shortless
8. Snip URL
9. Tiny URL
10. URL Beach
11. XADDR
12. Xil.in

These services can definitely make your links shorter and attractive.
Know about more such services ? Then please tell us about them in your comments.