Rather than re-inventing an explanation, AutoRuns has a great “elevator pitch” on their website:

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

Typically Sysinternal tools are awesome, and this program is no exception. Even better, there is a command line version which allows you to easily output your system information to a text files. For hard core tweakers and power users, this is a must have utility.

One tool I have found to be very valuable is the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. In a nutshell, this tool scans your computer for common security problems (settings) and checks installations of data applications (SQL, MDAC, etc.) for updates and vulnerabilities. From the article “How To: Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer“:

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) checks for available updates to the operating system, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), MSXML (Microsoft XML Parser), .NET Framework, and SQL Server. MBSA also scans a computer for insecure configuration settings. When MBSA checks for Windows service packs and patches, it includes in its scan Windows components, such as Internet Information Services (IIS) and COM+. MBSA uses Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) technologies to determine needed updates. This Microsoft Update data source is obtained either directly from the Microsoft Update Web site or, if offline or in a secure environment, from an offline catalog file named Wsusscn2.cab.

It is not feasible for me to be an expert on all things Windows security, so this tool is very helpful in making sure servers are reasonably secured. The utility works on all versions of Windows Server and Windows Vista and is recommended for any Windows system administrators.

No thanks we said and went over to eBay and found the exact same part number, brand new, for $80. We placed the order and the part shipped the next day. A 375+% savings isn’t bad at all.

So the next time you need a part for something off-warranty, consider eBay. There are tons of surplus resellers which are running constant “Buy It Now” auctions so you can get exactly what you need.

One very handy trick I found is that you can copy virtual hard drives (.vhd) files and instantly get another environment. For example, you could build a new virtual PC hard drive and load XP with all the updates and then simply copy the VHD file to a new file name and, whola!, you now have two ready to go environments. All you have to do is just run through the virtual PC creation wizard and set it to use an existing hard drive (your copied VHD file) and you are ready to go.

If you have to deploy several environments quickly, this is a great trick to know.

To avoid this, you can either close Outlook completely, disable the notification (In Outlook 2003/2007: Right click on the Outlook icon in your system tray and uncheck ‘Show New Mail Desktop Alert’) or, if you have multiple monitors, you can move it. I commonly share my desktop to demonstrate stuff, so I have just simply moved the new mail notification box to my second monitor (do this by dragging the popup to the second monitor when you get a new notification). This way I don’t have to remember to shut it off or close Outlook completely each time and when I get a notification, it appears on a monitor which is not shared.

The author explains their experience in upgrading both ways as well as the benefits and drawbacks to each. Having done two Ubuntu upgrades myself (5.10 to 6.06 and 6.06 to 7.04), I found a clean install each time was what worked best for me. Of course, the decision is yours to make and you probably cannot go wrong with either choice.

Of course, the #1 thing to do before any upgrade is to make sure your data is backed up!

This extension is pretty simple to use. You just add the symbols and/or indexes in you want to monitor and set both a refresh and rotation (how often the stock symbols rotate from one to the next) time in the options and off you go. You can place the constantly updated ticker data in either the status bar or in a custom tool bar.

Go ahead and drive yourself crazy with this one…

Well, give your overclocked PC a power reducing tune-up with the help of this Tech ARP article titled “Reducing The Power Consumption Of Overclocked PCs“. From what I gathered in the article, the steps which decrease power usage have no noticable impact on the performance of your overclocked PC, so you have nothing to lose… except some power consumption.

After all, if you are overclocking, you probably like to tweak… this helps you make more tweaks to save some cash to apply to your next project.

Naturally, the first thing I thought is our mail server has been compromised. Long story short, that was not the case. Next, I thought it was our client machines which have been hijacked… again, not the case. It turns out we are just victims of “backscatter” spam.

The article linked above (ironically, I saw this the day after the problem started) explains what backscatter spam is, what causes it and how to handle it. This is an informative read for those of you are concerned with all the undeliverable email messages you have been getting.

How to create a scheduled task in:

• Windows XP (this information is virtually the same in Windows 2000)
• Windows Vista
• Mac OS X Panther
• Linux (using crontab)

In addition, I found this comparison of scheduled task between Windows XP and OS X to be interesting.

Happy automating.