Possibly one of the least updated items on any system is the drivers. What’s a driver? It’s software that enables hardware components to function, so if you bought a webcam and plugged it in there’s a fair chance that it won’t work properly or at the least give you the very basic operation of that webcam but pop in the accompanying cd or visit the website to download the program for the webcam and install it then (usually after a reboot) your webcam will spring in to life and perform all the functions that it is meant to do.
With today’s Windows 7 things are changing for the better, the webcam scenario above is now unlikely to happen although it still can but usually Windows 7 will help you out greatly. If you plug something in and Windows cannot locate the driver for it then it will simply head off in to the Internet and perform a search to find it for you. It doesn’t always work but it’s far better than Windows XP efforts used to be, in the case Windows fails to find the required driver then it’s a manual search from yours truly which can be like a lucky dip. Some manufacturers websites are excellent and provide easy links for you to find what drivers you need however other sites are just plain miserable and will cause you a lot of grief.
Having something like Driver Detective is like having your very own butler looking after your system’s drivers, it keeps an eye on all of them and there are a lot of them, more than you realise. It will also notify you of any updates that have been released which is where many users fail to keep on top of, let’s face it if it works then why would you? However on a few occasions I have fixed clients systems problems just by installing an updated driver and gamers really need to keep on top of the graphic card drivers as these can make a massive difference to the graphic cards performance.
A pie chart showing system and other drivers (green and blue)
while the red is out of day and yellow signifies no drivers at all.
After the program installs you will be taken through a couple of screens to set up your system, it’s mainly to check that the program has identified your system correctly. After that a scan is performed and a list will show what drivers you have and if they are currently the latest versions.
There are a few tabs across the top of the screen and they are all basic in their functions and easy to follow.
History
Any drivers that need downloading on to your system will be shown here, you can find the driver information, download alternative drivers (which can sometimes be very useful with graphic cards as they can be very fussy with their drivers), install drivers and backup drivers.
Tools
Only a few options here which is in keeping with simple layout of the program. Basically you can choose where the drivers are downloaded to, show alternative drivers, search Microsoft for drivers and include items that are USB devices plugged in or not. The System Restore function as you would expect will allow you to rollback and use the previous drivers.
EZ Migrator
This is a great utility that I have now incorporated in my arsenal of weapons when dealing with clients computers, it is an absolute bugbear when upgrading users systems to a newer operating system and then having to find the drivers to go on it. With EZ Migrator you can transfer drivers to another system that’s using a newer or even an older operating system and just use the cd created by EZ Migrator, easy peasy, or just wipe your system and reload Windows with drivers using EZ Migrator.
Conclusion
This is a very simple program to use without looking too basic and being ineffective, it can currently find over 27 million drivers including those that are specific to big named companies such as Dell, HP and Toshiba. It works on all operating systems 32 and 64bit as well and is especially useful in that it works on Server 2003 and 2008 flavours, servers can be a pain to get the right drivers for.
Seeing the price at $29.99 I was concerned that this was quite high but for the money this covers ten computers for a year, not sure how many of us have ten systems but it can be very useful for small businesses and for a further $9.99 you can extend the license for an extra year. If you are sitting on the fence on whether to buy it or not you’ll find it comes with a 30 day money back guarantee so you can take it for a spin with no risk.
If you have difficulty with doing anything slightly technical then this program will take the headache away from you and keep tabs on the drivers without you having to worry about them. It’s also a useful tool for computer techies although the price tag may be a bit of putting for them.
Get more information about Driver Detective here…
New from Stellar is a password recovery tool, this one is for Microsoft Access from the earliest version 97 up to Access 2007, I’ve yet to see any news if this works with 2010. It works with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 and also covers Windows 2000 and 2003 server operating systems, interesting to see that new software being released are still catering for Windows 2000/Server 2000 which suggests there are still a fair number of these machines in active use.
Operating of the software is simplicity in itself, just browse to the database within the program and click ‘Find Password’ you can specify the parameters such as password length and characters if you have some idea of what the password might be. Once that is done you can then save the password to a text file for later retrieval or simply write on a sticky note and place it on your monitor (slapped wrist).
Cost is a reasonable €39 Euros or $49 for a single user or €63 and $79 for commercial use.
More information here…
IE7Pro – Don’t be fooled by the name, this works for IE6 and onwards. This has a rather large amount of built-in features that turn IE into a muscle-bound browser.
Some of the features;
- Tabbed Browsing Management
- Spell Check
- Inline Search
- Super Drag Drop
- Crash Recovery
- Proxy Switcher
- Mouse Gesture
- Tab History
- User Agent Switcher
- Webpage Capture
- Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform
And many more features, just visit the website for a full rundown.
Lastpass – A password and auto form manager that doesn’t store passwords on your system but in the cloud instead, it is all fully encrypted and having the passwords stored on the Lastpass servers you can access the details anywhere with an Internet connection. You can also let Lastpass generate passwords for you and it will remember all the passwords you need instead of you having to, works on all browsers.
Bugmenot – Bypasses the registration needed for some websites by using shared logins. They also have a website if you can’t find a plugin for your browser.
Convert with Zamzar – Converts all sorts of files to the format of your choice documents, images, videos, music and e-books and more. This is all done online and once converted you can download the files to your system. Plugin is available across all formats and you can go online and use the website instead.
As you can see Firefox rules the roost when it comes to plug-ins, add-ons and extensions, the numbers are simply vast and is especially telling when it has a rather smallish 30% share of the market. Google Chrome has only just begun and has a healthy number of extensions, whether it will catch up with Firefox we’ll see in time but several Firefox plug-in developers have said that their plug-ins will not work in Chrome as the browser does not have the flexibility Firefox has.
So what about Internet Explorer, well I found quite a few excellent plug-ins but when I went to check out the developers to find more information quite often the websites didn’t exist. The plug-ins were still available from CNet, ZDNet or Brothersoft etc but some of them were reported to be infected with Trojans even though the sites were claiming to be spyware free. Internet Explorer is always going to lag behind in the extension stakes (not open source) but it is a very capable browser nonetheless, it’s just targeted far more due to its sheer number of users.
IE tab – Just as with Firefox this add-on allows you to browse a site as if you were using Internet Explorer to overcome any website difficulties because of Chrome.
Google Mail Checker Plus – A simple extension that displays the number of unread emails in the top right hand corner of Chrome, you are able to read mail and mark or delete it accordingly all from within the tab.
Invisible Hand – When browsing for products this extension will notify you if it is available elsewhere at a cheaper price and gives you the link to see for yourself.
Awesome Screenshot: Capture & Annotate – As it describes this can capture a whole page or just a section which you can then annotate with shapes or text and then upload in one click. It comes with numerous features to enhance the screenshot and you can upload to several websites including the usual suspects such as Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, coming soon to Firefox.
Chrome currency converter – Automatically converts prices on the fly to the currency of your choice, supports up to 37 currencies so far, very useful if you dabble in shopping abroad.
Google Quick Scroll – Intends to make your searches quicker and more relevant, when you search for a term and you click on the result sometimes the info you want may not be easily seen, Quick scroll will alert you to the text you typed in to Google and by clicking on the text you will be taken to the relevant information within the page. It is very small and unobtrusive.
Chromey Calculator – A scientific scrolling calculator so you can always go back to previous inputs and this combines the power of Google and Wolfram Alpha. You can type in things like how many seconds in a day or the mass of the earth as well as your usual arithmetic questions.
Send from Gmail – when you click on an email link a Gmail compose box will open instead of the usual default Outlook or Outlook express.
Google Chrome to Phone Extension –
Xmarks – Exactly the same as in the Firefox version, synchronise all your bookmarks across any or all of your computers at home or at work.
I thought I would have a look at the mass of plug-ins/add-ons that are available for the three most popular browsers and list what I believe are the most useful, of course my selection may not be what you think is the best, it’s horses for courses as they say and I’m sure there are many other plug-ins that ‘rock’ and it hasn’t been listed.
I know there will be many users that don’t use these browsers or will have a preference and say one is better than the other, I myself, use Safari predominately (I have Firefox, Chrome and Opera installed) and Opera is considered to be the fastest and most complete browser there is but the three listed below have the market share by quite a margin and with IE9 in beta performing very well and the next version of Firefox being virtually re-written to compete with IE and Chrome I can’t see the situation changing for some years.
We’ll start with Firefox which seems to have millions of plug-ins so condensing them to a small list is always going to be a challenge and will not suit everyone. Some of the plug-ins are available for other browsers.
Xmarks – formerly known as foxmarks and originally a Firefox plugin this blinding utility will synchronise your bookmarks/favourites across multiple computers and also different browsers. It currently supports Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer. Fantastic for those that use two or more computers.
Personas plus – A plug in for changing the skin, over 180,000 to choose from and has had over twenty-seven million downloads.
Yoonoo – For those who love to socialise online and keep up to date with the latest notifications, all of your social sites are combined within one sidebar from your browser. It supports MSN messenger, Facebook, My Space, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo Chat Flickr and more. Available for Chrome as a Beta.
Feedly – Organises your favourite sites into a web page in a magazine type format.
SearchPreview – This was known as Google preview but it can now provide previews of websites from Yahoo and Bing search results.
Greasemonkey – A placeholder for scripts to alter how you want websites to display. Currently there are over 50,000 scripts to download or you can write your own.
Scripts that are available include being able to download videos from YouTube to removing all Facebook ads and so much more. ‘Greasemonkey for IE’ is a different plug in made especially for IE.
Better Gmail 2 – Provides extra features to Gmail within Firefox. Turns it into a Gmail client and allows you to get notified of an unread email, preview what type of attachments and create better organised labels and more.
Stumbleupon – Discover websites that are of an interest to you and receive links from your friends who know your interests and share the sites with you. Works across all browsers and has a massive following.
GSpace – This plugin turns your Gmail account into a storage area for all your files. This is quite a nifty feature as usually you would have to pay a price to store anything over 2 GB and this gives you 7 GB for free more if you have several Gmail accounts. You can simply transfer and access your files in an easy to use interface. Be warned I have had reports of users getting their accounts locked for uploading lots of music in one go you have to do it gradually and over time.
Quickjava – Disables not just Java and JavaScript but Flash, Silverlight and any images from websites can be done from the statusbar and you can quickly turn them on again. This is very good for speeding up your browsing activity and for those that are very security conscious, it is also a very safe way of browsing but obviously limited for an increasing number of sites that rely on scripts and flashy stuff.
Web of Trust – A nice security feature that checks the safety of the website by using a traffic light system. Green for safe, yellow for caution and red for stop don’t go there. It is powered by other surfers that report sites that are safe or dangerous and commercial sites can apply for the WoT seal to display on their website for a fee.
DownThemAll – A powerful download manager that can handle multiple links in a website with a single click. The premise is that it splits the files you wish to download into smaller pieces and then simultaneously downloads them at the same time in parallel if you like.
IE Tab – Unfortunately even in this day and age there are still websites that do not display or perform correctly unless you are using Internet Explorer and certain Microsoft features may only perform correctly in Internet Explorer such Outlook Web Access. IE Tab mimics the same behaviour as if you were using Internet Explorer this allowing the website to display as it should, a must have and now supports Chrome too.
If you use Adobe Reader or Acrobat and let’s face it that includes most of us then the latest round of patches is definitely something that you need to implement. A grand total of 23 vulnerabilities were sealed and most of those were designed to stop the availability of certain code being executed to hijack the computer, therefore these patches are rather critical.
So important are they that Adobe released the patches a week ahead of schedule, please visit the site for the latest information and news on how to obtain the latest Adobe Acrobat or Reader versions.
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb10-21.html
Still continuing with Microsoft, news has been released that IE9 beta is now available for all to use and evaluate. Highlights include hardware accelerated browsing and HTML5 compatibility which is going to be the next standard for websites, HTML5 will allow video and audio playback without additional plugins or codecs as well as numerous other features. It also scores an impressive 95/100 on the Acid3 tests which is a big improvement over previous releases of Internet Explorer.
If you fancy trying out IE9 then go here;
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ and then play with some of the demos or try the demos with IE8 and then IE9 to see the difference.
In use I found the performance to be on par with Google chrome so it looks to be a promising start in fact it even lookslike Chrome with its similar minimalist approach.
I imagine many of the iPhone and possibly iPad users out there may have this installed already but if not then read on because if you love your apps then this will be tremendously useful to you.
Appadvice is what it sounds, an app that keeps you up to date with the latest app releases but not only that you also have access to reviews, updates and news from the Appstore. It keeps all the news and updates you want in one tidy package and has been very well received and highly ranked by those that have used it. List of features below are all included on the iPhone but they may not be ready for the iPad just yet.
- Appguides – Compares Apps that have the same function and rates them.
- AppLists – Apps bundled into sections for specific people and needs.
- AppNews – Latest news form the App store.
- Appisodes – Video news on a daily basis about the latest apps.
- New Apps – Provides a list of all the new apps that are released every day.
- AppSales – Tells you what apps have had their prices lowered to get some bargains.
- Updated Apps – Lists any apps that receive an update.
Appadvice is available for $1.99.
And so the battle continues with Apple and its all-conquering iOS4 commanding a staggering 5-1 ratio ahead of second place Google Android which has steadily increased its market share but is still light years behind Apple, Nokia is the leader overall at 41% global market share.
Now Microsoft tries its hand again with Windows Phone 7 after many years of suffering criticism from its previous releases, could this be the last throw of the dice for Microsoft in the mobile phone market? On October 21st five, possibly more, phones will be released (in the UK at least) and will be available on Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Three networks, release in the US is set to be in November.
Windows Phone 7 has been in development for a few years and Microsoft has been deadly serious in bringing substantial improvements to the operating system. This is not just an upgrade from 6.5 but a completely new operating system with some features that look to be superior to anything that Apple and Google currently have.
Below are some features to look forward to;
- Apps with always on Internet connection allowing realtime updates to contacts, photos, home screens etc.
- Touch screen multi gestures.
- Hubs (centrally managed apps that are linked together be it games, office or social networking).
- Integrated Bing search with maps and built-in GPS.
Common features for all phones should be 16GB Storage, 5MP camera with flash, Video link below demonstrating HTC’s first Windows Phone 7 release.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/htc-hd7-first-hands-on/
Microsoft have laid minimum specifications for phone companies to adhere to and App developers will have to conform to a standard set by Microsoft to provide a certain level of quality whereas on Google Android developers have free reign to build apps any way they see fit. Gaming looks to be well covered with Xbox Live integration and with plenty of power to handle 3D games more videos here;
http://gizmodo.com/5661083/windows-phone-7s-first-games-and-apps-look-awesome
Early reviews around the web are quite glowing and full of praise for Microsoft, the main criteria being the operating system is quite a stark departure for the Redmond team and feels far more Apple like in its usage with some even saying that it is more user friendly and better thought out for the end user then the iPhones.
Gartner remains unconvinced in the long term for the fortunes of Microsoft in the smartphone market estimating that it will have just 4% global market share by 2014.
Virtualisation is now almost a standard among corporate networks. Those that don’t have it are either using very small networks or are waiting for the day when they can afford it. If you have the money it’s a wonderful way to provide flexibility and redundancy to your network. By heading down the virtualisation route the amount of benefits that are available to you are simply huge, below is just a few of the bigger ones.
- Consolidate physical boxes thus reducing power consumption and utilise more of the hardware.
- Save physical space due to the lower number of physical boxes needed.
- Host several different operating systems on one server.
- Less IT administrators needed to maintain network.
- Far greater fault tolerance providing a much more stable network.
- Easier and more reliable disaster recovery.
You can use VMServer at home or in the office although if you are in a network then you are at the mercy of the IT administrator and the group policies that apply to all the systems.
VMServer 2.0
This is mainly pitched for single system use rather than apply it network wide to multiple machines although you can do that if the purpose suits.
So why would you install it and what can it do for you?
Well for starters you can be quite willy-nilly with software installs, install them as you wish, try them out and then uninstall them. It’s a great way to try stuff out without affecting your main system, heck you can even download viruses on there if you wish (not recommended though). Fancy a bash at using Linux, no problem, just install inside VMServer and away you go, one or several versions. If you have a powerful system then try out numerous flavours of Linux or Windows, all on one system using VMServer.
There’s a Virtual Appliance Marketplace as well where there’s a ton of preconfigured software (VMWare Apps) for you to download within VMServer to try, some are free and some are commercial products ranging from hardware firewall devices to computer imaging software.
Installation
To download VMServer 2.0 you have to register at the VMWare site with your name and email, after that you can proceed to the download page. Important! Check your email to access the serial number; otherwise you cannot install the program.
For those use to or have tried VMServer 1.0 this install is very different. VMServer now uses a web interface to manage your virtual machines. The engine behind this is Apache Tomcat and is installed as part of the VMServer package. Installation is very straightforward and the hardest part is waiting for it to finish as it can take some time.
Once installed, click on the shortcut ‘VMware Server Home Page’ and you will be whisked to a webpage with a probably a warning about a certificate exception. If using Internet Explorer or Firefox just simply ‘Click to continue to this website’, Safari just gives up and doesn’t give you an option to proceed but there is a way, simply type http://127.0.0.1:8222/ui/# in the browser and you will get to the login screen. Then put in your username and password, what username and password, you didn’t get asked for one, it made me pause for a minute; all you have to do is put in your usual login details when you first log in to your system and you’re in.
It will be hard to make out but the above is what you are presented with. It’s rather sparse at the moment but that’s simply because we haven’t installed any virtual machines yet. The two readings in the middle show how much resources are being used by the virtual machines, nice and low at the moment because there aren’t any, we’ll see how well my laptop copes when we install one and start using it.
Create Virtual Machine
This is quite a lengthy process and takes you through a number of steps but it’s all straightforward and nothing is complicated. The choice of operating systems is huge for Linux based or windows, even dating back to Windows 3.1 if you so wish.
Once configured it is now time to power on your virtual machine, so either click on the play button (green triangle) or ‘Power on Virtual Machine’ and then on the Inventory Menu on the left click on your virtual machine’s name not forgetting to put in the cd/dvd of your operating system or download a VM app from the marketplace. Across the top of the tabs is ‘Console’ this is where the action is and where you can interact with your virtual machines. At this point you may be asked to install a plugin to view the VM remote Console, without it you just get a blank screen, go ahead and install, if you have to close your browser then do so and fire up VMServer again.
Now with the plugin installed click on console and a new window opens up to view your virtual machine.
This screenshot shows I am in the middle of installing Ubuntu.
After a short while you will have a fully functional operating system on your VMServer and providing your system can handle it you can do this numerous times to have a host of operating systems all running together at the same time.
Snapshots
The very useful feature of having a virtual machine is that you can take snapshots, these snapshots are similar to System Restore in Windows where you can roll back to a previous state. Snapshots differs in that it applies to the whole virtual machine and not just parts of the registry. So if you take a snapshot straight after you install a virtual machine you will then have a fresh install to revert back to at your disposal.
Disaster Recovery
The number one usefulness of virtual machines (in my opinion) is that each virtual machine is just a file and you can copy that file and place it into any machine that has VMPlayer or VMServer installed and run it. I have seen virtual domain controllers transferred when the physical box died and installed on a lowly Pentium powered workstation, yes it ran like it was wading through treacle but the downtime was minimal, there was no data loss and once a new physical box was brought in, the file (domain controller) was just simply transferred back on to its new box and started up again. Without virtualisation you would have had to pull the data off, install the server operating system and then configure it, mess around with group policies and security and so on and so on with staff screaming at you to get it done yesterday. If you have the money then you can cluster the Virtual machines so if one physical box dies then the virtual machines are simply transferred to a new host automatically on the fly with just a blip in downtime, in fact it probably wouldn’t even get noticed. I’m getting ahead of myself as VMServer doesn’t have the ability of migrating hosts on the fly it’s aimed at a much more personal level.
The virtual machines are stored on the C Drive in the folder named appropriately Virtual Machines, inside are the operating system folders that you have installed on VMServer so just by copying these folders onto a pen drive or a DVD you can move them onto another machine and fire them up.
Here you can see a fully installed Ubuntu running on Windows 7, it runs very quickly even on my ageing laptop and doesn’t take up too many resources, much better than I thought, it would be interesting to see what would happen if I tried Vista or if I installed a few more operating systems and run them as well, I believe I would be probably pushing my luck a little bit.
So now I have two operating systems on my laptop and I can use them both at the same time doing the same or different tasks. The virtual Ubuntu is on my network and I can access the Internet or the network printer just as it would if it was on a standalone machine. I can also get it to browse files on my windows machine as well but you do need to configure Samba on Ubuntu first. Of course I can simply isolate the virtual machine instead and never allow it access to the outside world. If I really needed to I could install VMPlayer (can only host virtual machines and not create them) on another machine and fire up my Ubuntu on that.
Conclusion
VMServer 2.0 offers a slicker approach to virtualisation starting with the user interface which is quite similar to its enterprise product VSphere 4. Having a web interface to control your virtual machines could enable you to access them anywhere in the world or remotely manage them on your network. It now installs on virtually any hardware the only proviso is that you have at least 2GB of ram to get it to perform adequately; it will work with lower but certainly not as quickly. It is pretty easy to use for the beginners who would like to try virtualisation as well being powerful enough to use in corporate networks although the enterprise products bring so much better management tools for this purpose.
If you get stuck or need some information then there is an excellent Help file which contains an abundance of information to help you or you can always visit the website and the forums which is always busy.
There are numerous alternatives to using VMServer 2.0 and some of them are excellent and just as free but VMware is the long standing king when it comes to virtualisation, it’s by far the most popular format to use and it has unrivalled support.
