The top 10 TechRepublic tools and gadgets of 2009 | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com

The top 10 TechRepublic tools and gadgets of 2009 10 Things TechRepublic.com

“1: The XCopy Tool

The XCopy command has risen from the ashes of deprecation to save you time and make your file management tasks easier. This tool automates the process for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

2: The ARP Gadget

Windows offers a command-line utility that lets you examine or modify the ARP cache. To make the tool easier to use, Greg Shultz has ‘gadgetized’ it for Vista and Windows 7.

3: The Netstat Gadget

The Netstat utility can help solve vexing connectivity issues - but its command-line interface isn’t for everyone. This free Vista / Windows 7 gadget makes the tool much easier to use.

4: The Route Gadget

This handy gadget offers the diagnostic benefits of the Route command without the command-line hassles.

5: The Route Utility

This HTML Application uses the Windows Script Host and VBScript to give the Windows Route command-line tool a more friendly and efficient GUI front end. Use it the next time you need to troubleshoot Windows TCP/IP connectivity problems.

6: The PathPing Gadget

This Vista / Windows 7 gadget automates the powerful PathPing utility, making it easier for you to isolate the cause of network problems.

7: Windows Vista IPConfig Gadget

After building his Vista IP Configuration Tool, Greg Shultz responded to member requests and created this Sidebar gadget to make things even easier.

8: Windows Vista Registration Changer tool

When a system changes hands, it’s a good idea to update the registration information to reflect the new user. This simple GUI app lets you quickly knock out the task so you don’t have to wade through the Registry Editor to make the changes.

9: Windows 7 installation flowchart

A successful Windows 7 migration begins with careful planning and decision making. Rick Vanover built a flowchart to guide you through each step.

10: Unemployment Rescue Kit

When IT program manager Andrew Makar found himself the victim of unexpected downsizing, he mapped out a strategy for finding a new job - and it worked. The tips, tactics, and contact matrix tool included in this download will help you build your own plan of action for finding your next career opportunity.”

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1258&tag=nl.e103

Simplify file management with the XCopy Tool | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

Simplify file management with the XCopy Tool Microsoft Windows TechRepublic.com

“XCopy is still a viable file management tool, Greg Schultz updated the XCopy Tool, an HTML application he created back in 2002. This updated version, which you can download for free, works in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.”

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1930&tag=nl.e064

reBlog from Chris Gonsalves: Spiceworks Adds Tasty Power Plug-In

Image via Wikipedia

I found this fascinating quote today:

• Remote power consumption management that allows users to track the electricity being used by PCs, laptops, and other networked devices. This includes the ability to use Wake On LAN and Intel’s vPro technologies to power devices on and off.


• A power management dashboard with a map of networked machines and devices along with their on/off status.


• A “Dollar Savings” view that displays estimates of costs per day and month based on current price/kwh and watts used by networked devices.

Chris Gonsalves, Spiceworks Adds Tasty Power Plug-In, Nov 2009

You should read the whole article.

Six Online Resume Tools Reviewed by Webware

Job hunting is a stressfull way of life in the current economy. Cnet's Webware introduces six tools that relieve some of that stress by making it easier to build and make available resumes.

in reference to: Get that job: Six online resume tools | Webware - CNET (view on Google Sidewiki)

Unwanted Software from Apple

For a long time now, I've wasted time unchecking items that are useless to me. I've never owned an ipod or iphone. I don't need mobileme, safari, for most of the time apple has pushed it has been a security problem in Windows, but that hasn't slowed apple down. Not one bit

in reference to: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

We're in a service war

This is Bings attempt to differ from other engines by making life easier for the searcher. Booble has already begun to respond. For the casual searcher, Bing might be more useful. Definitely more usable.
in reference to: Bing - Deep Links Makes Life As A New Mom Easier - Search Blog - Bing Community (view on Google Sidewiki)

Deeper Links in the Chain of Competition

Competition is a beautiful thing. Bing uses deep links as a standard feature. Google shows more deep links in varied contexts and formats. May the user win.

in reference to: Yes, Google Is Showing Deeper Sitelinks In Different Formats (view on Google Sidewiki)

Microsoft's Browser Best at Beating Malware - PC World

Microsoft's Browser Best at Beating Malware - PC World:

"While IE8 blocked eight of 10 of the malware-distributing sites that NSS included in its 12-day test, the nearest competitor, Mozilla's Firefox 3.0, caught just 27% of the same sites. Apple's Safari 4.0 and Google's Chrome 2.0, meanwhile, blocked only 21% and 7% of the sites, respectively. Opera Software's browser properly identified only 1%."

“IE8's skills at sniffing out malware sites improved by 17% since March, said Rick Moy, president of NSS Labs, the firm that conducted the benchmarks. The testing was sponsored by Microsoft's security team.

IE8's improvement, and its dominance over competitors, could make some users reconsider their decision to abandon Microsoft's browser for one of its challengers. "Should people rethink that decision?" Moy asked. "By [this] data, absolutely."”
http://www.pcworld.com/article/170260/microsofts_browser_best_at_beating_malware.html?tk=nl_wbx_h_crawl1

Researchers find insecure BIOS 'rootkit' pre-loaded in laptops | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

Researchers find insecure BIOS 'rootkit' pre-loaded in laptops Zero Day ZDNet.com: "“

This is a rootkit. It might be legitimate rootkit, but it’s a dangerous rootkit,” Sacco declared. The research team stumbled upon the rootkit-like technology in the course of their work on BIOS-based malware attacks. At last year’s CanSecWest security conference, the duo demonstrate methods for infecting the BIOS with persistent code that survive reboots and reflashing attempts."

Computrace LoJack for Laptops, which is is pre-installed on about 60 percent of all new laptops, is a software agent that lives in the BIOS and periodically calls home to a central authority for instructions in case a laptop is stolen. The call-home mechanism allows the central authority to instruct the BIOS agent towipe all information as a security measure, or to track the whereabouts ofthe system.

For it to be an effective theft-recover service, Ortega and Sacco explained that it has to be stealthy, must have complete control of the system and must be highly-persistent to survive a hard disk wipe or operating system reinstall.

Computrace LoJack for Laptops a popular laptop theft-recovery service that ships on notebooks made by HP, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Gateway, Asus and Panasonic is actually a dangerous BIOS rootkit that can be hijacked and controlled by malicious hackers.

The service contains design vulnerabilities and a lack of strong authentication that can lead to “a complete and persistent compromise of an affected system,” according to Black Hat conference presentation by researchers Alfredo Ortega and Anibal Sacco from Core Security Technologies.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3828&tag=nl.e539

Microsoft Outlook 2010

Business Contact Manager for Microsoft Outlook 2010 Technical Preview Released

By bcmteam

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia
“You have probably seen Office 2010 Technical Preview announcements in the press. Microsoft released a preview of Office 2010 yesterday to a limited number of users. Technical Preview is invitation only program. Office 2010 also comes with a brand new version of the Business Contact Manager. If you have received Technical Preview invitation, we highly recommend that you install new version of the Business Contact Manager, try new features, and give us feedback. You can download and install the Business Contact Manager from Microsoft Connect site (it's listed along with Office 2010 Tech Preview download)

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Here is a list of some of the top features. We will be writing more about these and many other features in the coming weeks.

1. New User Interface: BCM features a completely redesigned user interface. The new UI is task oriented, and features activity dashboards, business metric gadgets, configurable tabbed views, and customizable preview panes. The User Interface is fully customizable and allows end-users to select the view elements that fit their business needs. The new UI also integrates with the Office Ribbon and the BackStage.

2. Dashboard: BCM offers a fully featured dashboard that enables users to manage their entire business and daily activities. The dashboard is fully customizable and can include a large number of sales, marketing, project management and utility gadgets. The dashboard will help users get a high level picture of their business and manage their priorities and tasks.

3. New Form Designer: BCM provides a new visual form designer that allows users to completely modify all BCM forms. Users can add up to 300 custom fields, remove fields (including default form fields) and add pages to forms. Customizations can be exported, imported, and shared across the organization.

4. Custom Entities: With BCM 2010 users can better model their business processes by defining custom “contact” and “account” type entities. For instance, healthcare companies will be able to create “doctors”, “patients”, “practices”, etc. The custom entities benefit from all business functions such as aggregating communication history, reporting, and so forth.

5. Sales Management: Business Contact Manager will allow users to define and track sales processes in an easy and straightforward manner. Users will be able to define multiple sales activities in multiple sales stages. Execution of sales activities is tracked directly on the opportunity and various dashboard gadgets and reports provide comprehensive analysis of sales status.

6. Lead Management: Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2010 helps users track their business leads and the process of converting those leads into contacts and/or business opportunities. Leads in BCM are lightweight (customizable) contacts that also include a lead score which is either manually assigned or calculated based on a set of scoring criteria. Users can set scoring criteria that makes sense in their business, helping track the quality of the lead and optimizing the sales process

7. Call List: With Business Contact Manager 2010, users will be able to manage the process of calling multiple contacts. This feature offers an easy to use user interface that takes the hassle out of tracking the calling process and analyzing its results. Call List will also provide the ability to define a call script that can be used when conducting the call, guiding the caller and providing a template for capturing responses.

8. Improved Reporting: Business Contact Manager will include enhanced business reporting. Reports will offer improved customization, sorting, and filtering, and custom reports can be defined and shared across the organization.

9. Performance & Reliability: Business Contact Manager comes with significant performance improvements.

You can also follow the Office 2010 buzz @ the social community of your choice:

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/microsoftoffice

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/office

• YouTube: www.youtube.com/officevideos

• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=1913738&trk=anet_ug_grppro ”

Courtesy of Microsoft via Bloglines
http://blogs.msdn.com/bcm/archive/2009/07/14/business-contact-manager-for-microsoft-outlook-2010-technical-preview-released.aspx

Inside AdSense: Now offering AdSense in Google Sites

Inside AdSense: Now offering AdSense in Google Sites:

"Google Sites is a free product that simplifies the process of creating secure group websites, whether you're building a family website or a company intranet. You can publish pages with the click of a button, edit web pages like documents, and add videos, presentations, and calendars to your pages. Information is stored securely online, and you decide who can edit or view the site."

Basically these sites are somewhere in between intranets and extranets. They are not thw public web.

So, does it make sense to put ads on these in order to make a few cents off of family members, or co-workers and employees? Google thinks s, but I don't.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/07/now-offering-adsense-in-google-sites.html

» Google Video search results poisoned to serve malware | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

» Google Video search results poisoned to serve malware Zero Day ZDNet.com:

"From the real-time syndication of hot Google Trends keywords, maintaining AdWords campaigns, to the plain simple blackhat search engine optimization tactics, cybercriminals are constantly looking for new ways to acquire traffic by enjoying the clean reputation of each and every Web 2.0 property. From LinkedIn, Bebo, Picasa and ImageShack, to Twitter, everyone’s targeted efficiently using automated account registration tools.

During the last couple of days, a single group involved in a countless number of blackhat SEO campaigns across the Web, started massively targeting Google Video with a campaign that has already managed to hijack approximately 400,000 search queries in order to trick users into visiting a bogus and malware serving (W32/AutoTDSS.BNA!worm) adult web site.

What’s particularly interesting about this campaign relying entirely on Google Video traffic to flourish, is that instead of sticking to the adult content in their keywords inventory, the cybercriminals have been in fact syndicating legitimate YouTube video titles from a variety of topics. Therefore, the number of legitimate videos used is proportional to the comprehensiveness of the campaign, in this case, over 400,000 search queries, a number that is increasing in real-time since they keep having their bogus content crawled by Google Video.

…Moreover, based on the fact that they maintain a portfolio of 21 publisher domains with bogus and non-existent video content currently crawled, a simple tactic that they’re using could entirely hijack a search query at Google Video. How come? By simply duplicating the content on their publisher domains, the top 5 search results for a particular video can be easily served from any of the 21 publisher domains, making it look like different sites have the same content.

The search engine results poisoning works as follows. Upon clicking, a Google Video user coming across to any content from any of their 21 publisher domains, is taken to a single redirection point (porncowboys .net/continue.php), then to the well known adult site template abused by cybercriminals (xfucked .org/video.php?genre=babes&id=7375), where the user is told that “Your Flash Version is too old. Your browser cannot play this file. Click “OK” to download and install update for Flash Video Player” and the malware is served if he’s tricked into it (trackgame .net/download/FlashPlayer.v3.181.exe)."…

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2433&tag=nl.e539