Some goodies spotted

1. Are you annoying at having to register on a free web site just to read some news or view some information? Here is a simple method to get access to protected content without need to endure the annoyance of signing up for an account.
2. Restart Windows without restarting your computer. The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart. Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice. Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down combo box under “What do you want the computer to do?” to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.
3. 15 coolest Firefox tricks. Browser Firefox is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, it just gets better and better. But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser, writes Leo Babauta. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.
4. Carry an entire operating system in your pocket. Scott Dunn says that running applications from a USB flash drive on a public computer is convenient but exposes you to malware and other limitations of the host PC. By installing a Windows-like version of Linux on a flash drive, you can take a complete operating system wherever you go and work in a safe, secure environment, even in an Internet café.

Pimp your browser

"Thanks to online video, Web apps, social networking, and so on, the humble Web browser is being pushed to do more and to do it faster," writes Chris Brandrick in PC World. With a few simple tweaks and tools, you can improve your browsing experience and save yourself some time in the process.

How to stop Firefox stealing your focus

While I love Firefox, it has an annoying little habit. When you click on a hyperlink inside a program or document - for instance in an email - it launches a Firefox window and puts the other program in the background. There are a couple of fixes for this annoyance, which Rhiannon explains over at the Gizmo website.

Friday miscellany

Here's a Friday collection of sighted/cited pieces of interest:
Users running Microsoft Office can stump nearly three-fourths of all known attacks targeting the suite by applying just one three-year-old patch, according to recently published data. Almost three-out-of four attacks -- 71% of all those spotted in the first half of 2009 -- exploited a vulnerability in Word that was patched in June 2006, Microsoft said in its bi-annual security intelligence report, released Monday. The flaw was fixed in the MS06-027 security update issued. (~ PC World)
Here is very brief tutorial showing you how to set Firefox to open your bookmarks in a new tab, rather than taking over the existing one. (~ Simple Help)
"With hundreds of daily updates from friends on Facebook and Twitter, do people actually feel closer to each other? It turns out the average American is more socially isolated today than 20 years ago, as measured by the number of self-reported confidants in a person’s life. Yet contrary to popular opinion, usage of cellphones and the Internet is not to blame, according to a new study." Well yes, except that the study also shows that people who use social networks such as Facebook or Linkedin are 30 percent less likely to know their neighbors. (~ New York Times)
If you turn to your MP3 collection when you're stressed out, you're not alone. The American Psychological Association found that a majority of people polled for the last two years running claim music as their number one stress reliever. (~ Lifehacker)

More on security

Mozilla has now unblocked a Microsoft add-on thought to pose a danger due to a software vulnerability, but a second add-on remains blocked, the organization said on Sunday. (See post yesterday, and today's item at PC World.)
Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime and reported in The Washington Post. Cyberthieves are increasingly planting fake security alerts that pop up when computer users access a legitimate website. The "alert" warns them of a virus and offers security software, sometimes for free and sometimes for a fee.
Meanwhile, if you are confused about what security you need for your computer, Gizmo has come up with an online Wizard designed to help you select the best free security software for your PC, based on the version of Windows that you use, your technical computer skills and your general level of security risk.

Firefox blocks unwanted Microsoft intrusion

This week is definitely a case of 'you win some, you lose some' for Microsoft. On the win side, Windows 7 (see following post). On the lose side, a real nasty. If you use Firefox browser, in the last couple of days you have probably noticed a pop-up window saying that Firefox is blocking some software installed by Microsoft. The thing is, Microsoft installed the code secretly back in February, and it is making not only Firefox but its own browser, Internet Explorer, vulnerable to attacks. The blogosphere is livid, and this PC World article explains why.

Speed up Firefox

Firefox is my favourite browser, particularly because of the amazing range of really useful add-ons available. But I have become increasingly frustrated lately with the treacle slowness at which it loads, which seems to have got worse over time. Apparently this is a common problem, caused by fragmentation of the profile databases that Firefox uses. If you are a new user of Firefox, it loads fine, but as your usage expands, so the program slows. Thus I was delighted to come across a free utility that really does speed up Firefox. I installed it today, and immediately noticed a major improvement. Thanks to Gizmo for the heads up - you can read his article here, along with a pointer to the download.

Speed up your browser

There are many things that can slow down your internet browser. If you use Firefox, one of them is the way the browser keeps a track of what you are doing. Firefox automatically takes a snapshot of your browsing session every ten seconds. It does this so that if Firefox crashes, you'll be able to get back to where you were quickly and easily. But when you view Flash content (eg, YouTube videos), this default snapshot feature can make your video pause and buffer, spoiling your viewing experience. To fix this is not difficult, fortunately. All you have to do is adjust how frequently Firefox creates session restore save points. Doing this might mean that if the browser crashes, a recently opened tab may get left behind, but if you watch a lot of Flash video, this tweak may be a good compromise.
1. Type ‘about:config’ in to the browser address bar and press the return key. This will bring up a bewildering array of Firefox’s more detailed settings.
2. In the the filter box at the top of the page, type in the following command (minus quotes): "browser.sessionstore.interval" (or just scroll down till you find it).
3. Once you find the command, edit the value of 10000 (10 seconds in milliseconds) to something more suitable such as 180000, which is 3 minutes.

New critical vulnerability in Internet Explorer

You'd think that the world's largest and richest software company could write software that doesn't currently need to patch "critical flaws"? Wrong. There is even an event called "Microsoft Tuesday" when they release the month's new batches of patches. But they've excelled themselves this time: Microsoft has taken the rare step of warning about a serious security flaw it hasn't fixed yet. The vulnerability affects Internet Explorer users whose computers run Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. It can allow hackers to remotely take control of victims' machines. The victims don't need to do anything to get infected, just visit a website that's been hacked. Security experts say criminals have been attacking the vulnerability for nearly a week. Thousands of sites have been hacked to serve up malicious software that exploits the vulnerability. People are drawn to these sites by clicking a link in spam e-mail. The so-called "zero day" vulnerability affects a part of software used to play video. The problem arises from the way the software interacts with Internet Explorer, which opens a hole for hackers to tunnel into. Microsoft urges vulnerable users to disable the problematic part of its software, which can be done from Microsoft's website, while the company works on a "patch" - or software fix - for the problem.
On the subject of browsers, I should note that Firefox has just released version 3.5, which has some important new features, and is supposed to load faster.

Restoring browser defaults

According to reports, a glitch in Internet Explorer 6 forced the new Microsoft search engine Bing onto users as the default search engine. Even when users manually altered their preferences, Bing came back. Micosoft says it has now fixed the problem, but similar problems have occurred before.
When one of the early versions of Windows 7 was released a month or so back, IE8 was automatically pushed as the default browser. This caused competitors Opera and Firefox to complain. If that has happened to you, and you want to reset Firefox or Opera as your default, there is a solution.
1. Close Internet Explorer if it's running, then start Firefox.
2. Click Tools, Options, then click the Advanced icon in the Options toolbar.
3. Click the General tab if it's not already selected, then make sure "Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup" is enabled.
4. Click Check Now, then confirm that you want to make Firefox your default browser.
5. Click OK and you're done.

Firefox v. IE8 - which is better?

Just to show that it's not biased, PC World has an article today comparing Firefox with Internet Explorer 8. It's a well-reasoned article, in which the author tends to come down on the side of IE8, although acknowledging Firefox has advantages in some areas, and admitting he runs both every day. One thing the article does not mention - and one of the biggest selling points for me - is the huge range of add-ons that have been written for Firefox by open-source developers all around the world. This is something that Microsoft cannot hope to emulate. It's a strange reversal of the Microsoft v. Macintosh battle. One of the strengths of Windows is the immense range of third party software that has been written for it for which there is no equivalent in the Apple world. If these third-party programs are helping to keep Microsoft well in front, surely the same is true for Firefox?

Firefox tips and tweaks

Despite the improvements to Internet Explorer 8, I am still a Firefox fan. And I'm not alone. One survey of the most used applications on Windows puts Firefox at the top, followed by Google's Chrome browser. Internet Explorer trailed at #3. And among the youngest users, IE did even worse. Anyway, PC World blogger Rick Broida has this helpful article showing you how to get the most from Firefox's tabs, tweak mousewheel behaviour, and use the spell check in forms.

Starting in safe mode

While the XP and Vista operating systems don't crash nearly as much as their predecessors, they still freeze from time to time. More commonly, a particular program refuses to work the way it should. The first line of attack is to simply restart (reboot) the computer, and most often that solves the problem (which in that case probably was to do with fragmented memory, or a conflict between two pieces of software). If that doesn't work, the next option is to reboot in "safe mode". This is a bare-bones working mode that disables all extensions, including printer drivers, internet, etc, and is a good mode in which to do trouble-shooting. Oftentimes, simply starting in safe mode and then rebooting in normal mode without doing anything else solves the problem. To reboot in safe mode, hold down the F8 key at the top of your keyboard while starting the computer. You will get some beeps, and the screen will show only black with white writing. At some point, it will stop and offer you three choices to continue. One of these is the safe mode, and you use the arrow keys at the right of your keyboard to choose this, and then press "Enter" to continue. When the computer is in safe mode, the screen operates at a lower resolution, which means all your icons will be bigger, and when you restart in normal mode, you will have the fun job of resorting all the icons.
Some people have difficulty with Firefox freezing, which may be caused by conflict between extensions and add-ons. You can also start Firefox in safe mode, which disables the extensions, and you can then turn them on one by one, to find out which is the culprit. You will find the safe mode by going to Start/Programs/Mozilla Firefox.

Alleviating frustrations

I used to be frustrated that I could not re-order the program and document buttons on the Windows taskbar at the foot of my screen. Taskbar Shuffle is an elegant, simple (and free) solution. With it installed, you just drag the buttons wherever you want.
If, like me, you don't like the "Awesome bar" feature of Firefox 3's address box - too much information, too cumbersome - Oldbar is a free add-on that takes it back to the Firefox 2 style. Now if someone can tell me a simple way to remove the Office 2007 "ribbon" style menus and get back to the Office 2003 style menus, I will kiss your feet.

Firefox rules, OK?

If you buy a PC, it comes with the Internet Explorer browser built in. If you buy a Mac, the browser is Safari. But the (also free) Firefox browser, available for both platforms, is rapidly gaining popularity, and may soon overtake IE. For me, it's a no-brainer: Firefox wins hands down on just about every count. It was the first to introduce tabs, so you can have multiple pages at the ready. It puts out new updates very regularly, whereas Microsoft is always lagging months or years behind. But the clincher is the thousands of add-ons available to enhance Firefox. My favourite is DownloadHelper, which lets me download to my computer videos from sites like YouTube.