Friday, February 13, 2009

Good news for VT computer users

Goodwill in Williston offers FREE computer recycling


Is your dead computer collection crowding out your Foosball table? Wish you had room in your closet for clothing rather than CPUs gone kaput? Load it all up and bring it to Goodwill (329 Harvest Lane, Williston, 879-0088; Mon-Sat 9-5; Sun 10-5), which will accept any brand of computer for free! Here's what you can bring:

CPUs, monitors, laptops, cords, keyboards, mice, scanners, printers, fax machines, and computer parts.


This is an on-going program developed in partnership with Dell.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

FileHippo.com Update Checker

This is a slick (and free) small application that once installed does its job quickly & thoroughly. I like it a lot and have used the information it provides to update some of the pograms on my laptop.

If you decide to try it, remember that you don't have to upgrade every program identified. As one example, I would not upgrade my copy of Internet Explorer 6.

The contents of the web page is displayed below, or you can simply click here to see it on the FileHippo web site, where you will be certain to see the latest information.

 FileHippo.com Update Checker


 



Welcome to the new FileHippo.com Update Checker!
We're currently beta testing this exciting new addition to our website and have released it as a public beta for everyone to download.







Update Checker v1.030 Beta
FHSetup.exe (153kb)
Download nowNote: If you wish to download the standalone version without an installer then click here.

What is it?
The Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions and then send this information to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download.


But it gets better...
The client is FREE, just over 100kb to download and only takes seconds to run! In fact on our test machines the process is complete in under 2 seconds!

What are the requirements?
The Update Checker works on any Windows PC running Vista, XP, 2003, 2000, ME or 98.
It requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is installed, which you may download directly from here, or the installer will prompt and download it automatically.

Changes
Version 1.030
Compatibility fixes and better proxy support.
Version 1.029
Minor bug fixes and Google Chrome support.
Version 1.028
Fixes for non-English systems and permissions changes.
Version 1.025
Various bug fixes and performance improvements. Plus new internal scanning features.
Version 1.023
Fixed bugs in ignore list and improved speed. Plus many internal improvements.
Version 1.022
Adds better Internet connection support, advanced options and bug fixes.
Version 1.021
Adds system tray icon checking in the background. (Simply run the new installer or use the "/background" command-line parameter.)
Additionally you can now ignore updates and programs that you don't want to be informed about!


Privacy Policy
The Update Checker will not send any personal information back to FileHippo.com. The only information collected is a list of programs and their versions, along with the operating system details to help with processing. Additionally none of this is linked to your IP address and the logs are deleted after processing.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Windows XP SP3

I have finally gotten around to installing Windows XP SP3. I just installed it on my Acer TravelMate 4220 laptop. It installed without any hitches, and the system seems to be running fine. I imagine this will be the last service pack for XP, support for which will end in 2014. While I expect XP to last just fine until then, the real trick will most likely be keeping the hardware going that long!

I have not heard of any problems installing XP SP3 since its early days when there was a problem on HP PCs that had AMD microprocessors. If I had one of those machines now, I'd check the HP web site to make sure there are no remaining issues before I installed SP3.

I still see no reason for installing Internet Explorer 7 or subsequent releases. I am happy with Mozilla's Firefox for now.