When it comes to self hosted blog packages, WordPress is probably the most well known and widely used. While WordPress can be run on any web server, it is specifically developed to be deployed on Apache web servers. So for those of you who use Windows hosts and want a fully featured blog platform, take a look at BlogEngine.NET. BlogEngine.NET is an open source...

Giving the 10% of you out there who use the Safari browser a bit of love, today Apple released Safari 5 for download. I am a Firefox user, so I was curious about the new features offered by Safari and a few of them are actually pretty interesting:Safari Reader – this is a pretty good idea as it brings the content you are reading to the forefront while...

Recently, I have been reading a lot about a relatively new PDF reader product, Nitro PDF, so I decided to give it a try. After about a week of usage, I am pretty impressed. In fact, I have uninstalled SumatraPDF and CutePDF writer from my system and solely use Nitro PDF. This free product boasts an impressive list of features which most free readers do not...

Whenever a new major version is released for one of the big browsers, there are typically several articles posted which pit them against each other to measure relative performance. So right on cue with the initial releases of Internet Explorer 9, here is a fairly objective comparison of the new browser to Firefox, Chrome and Safari (sorry no Opera). The...

Changing it up a bit, I would like to pose a question to our readers to see what you think. When building/purchasing a computer, there are 3 essential hardware components which determine overall how fast the computer runs:Processor Memory Hard Drive (platter based, not SSD since they are not yet standard)To address the “what about XXX” up front:...

One of the very few programs I have gone on record as officially recommending is the excellent WinPatrol monitoring utility. So to keep you updated, earlier this week a new version was released which adds registry monitoring: I frequently get recommendations from pros on new registry locations which should be monitored.  In some cases, these locations are...

If you follow tech news at all, for the past month you have probably seen plenty of the Apple vs. Adobe Flash battle royale. While Apple is standing behind it’s claim of choosing exclude Flash on their iDevices for stability reasons, an innovative group of developers appear to have come up with a solution which runs Flash via JavaScript: Smokescreen. While...

Due to it’s popularity, Facebook has become a breeding ground for widespread malware and phishing attacks. One such vehicle for these attacks is the use of Facebook Apps. Apps can be particularly dangerous because they can tap into your personal information and hand it over to the app’s developer to use for who knows what. For a good tip on how to...

If you want the best to two worlds: the power and features of Microsoft Office and the collaboration tools of Google Docs, then bind them together with OffiSync. OffiSync Supercharges Microsoft Office, enabling users to significantly improve the way they create, collaborate and share their documents by integrating Microsoft Office with Google Docs, and Google...

As many readers may know, I am not a big believer in anti-virus programs as an essential program for computer protection, however I ultimately had to cave due to customer VPN requirements and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. But enough about me and onto an interesting article with some statistics about the effectiveness of AV programs. From the...