Ramblings of an old Doc
DrJBHL's Articles In Personal Computing » Page 17
January 7, 2011 by DrJBHL
  This is a “Special Request” dedicated to TheAVMan for all the folks on Stardock sites using Windows 7 phones.     How to download updates link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/howto/wp7/basics/how-do-i-update-my-phone-software.aspx And a special little present - a link to the apps for your phone: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/apps/default.aspx Microsoft has finally gone official on its website and declared t...
January 4, 2011 by DrJBHL
    Everyone makes New Year's resolutions (yep, I've heard the one about 1920 x 1080p). This one should bring peace of mind to WC'ers with children aged 6–12. Bringing this to you makes me feel better about being a grandparent, and yes...talk to your children about it for your grandchildren. You might be accused of being a “helicopter grandparent”, but don't forget, helicopters are for rescue, too. Ask Kids is a search engine designed exclusively fo...
January 3, 2011 by DrJBHL
  First, you've undoubtedly noticed Reporter Winky . My special thanks to Xiandi for allowing me to use her art in my posts. On my last post I showed how to create a Windows 7 themepack. But what if you want to use the wallpapers of any themepack separately? Well if you are using  7-Zip as your extraction utility, it shouldn’t be a problem! Simply right click on the themepack file and select “Extract”.   But if you are not using ...
January 3, 2011 by DrJBHL
    Well, the holidays are over, the tinsel, decorations and trees are coming down, the wrapping paper saved or disposed of....but you have memories: The children, grandchildren, loved ones, friends, festive meals, dancing, great parties, etc. After you've processed and fixed up your images, you can burn a disk, put them on Skydrive, file them away... OR You can make your own .themepack  and you can make a desktop theme with rotating wallpapers, special sounds, fa...
January 2, 2011 by DrJBHL
  So why is Doc telling us about a Trojan-Virus for a phone so few have? The reason is that Sydneysiders PM'd me with this story and by doing so in her usual, understated Ozzie way, dropped a bomb with a sputtering fuse right in my lap(top).    The implications are quite unpleasant for us all.   First some background. A virus infecting mobile phones using Google's Android operating system has emerged in China that can allow a hacker to gain access t...
December 31, 2010 by DrJBHL
  Some Fireworks For Your Desktop From MS   Happy New Year … a healthier, happier and more financially sound one for all! So, this is a shorty post…. designed to make it a prettier one for your computer. What happens today? "Fireworks", that’s what! So mosey on over to Microsoft and get the brand new Fireworks Theme!   And pick up “Arctic” while you’re at it …. Both themes are loaded with absolutel...
December 29, 2010 by DrJBHL
Apps for your W7 Phone Windows Phone 7 is the newest kid on the Smartphone block, but this kid comes highly recommended. WP7's got some great apps worth grabbing, even in its very young Market, and you can try them all free. These look to me to be solid picks. That's right—with the vast majority of apps in WP7's Market, you can click the "Try" button to give a limited version of any paid app a go before committing to a purchase. There are also apps that are straight-up free. It do...
December 27, 2010 by DrJBHL
  At the request of a Community member (no, neither Jafo nor Zubaz), I'm doing a post about adding a spell checker to help while writing. Some but not all Windows apps have built-in spell checking of some sort. If you want to add spell checking to all of your apps (or a select group) let's look at tinySpell. Please note: There is a paid version of this software (tinySpell+) available as well for those who want extra functionality. The tinySpell I am posting about is the free version. T...
January 19, 2011 by DrJBHL
  At times you may have only a single website open and yet you may find your Modem’s light flickering actively, indicating steady a data transfer. Apart from your browser, silently, there are several programs which may be accessing the internet from your Windows PC without your knowledge. Might be a good thing to find out which are! To find out which programs are accessing the internet, download and use TCPEye , a freeware ! TCPEye is network monitoring software t...
January 19, 2011 by DrJBHL
Two hackers who made a mockery of AT&T and Apple's iPad security are getting the book thrown at them in a US court. Daniel Spitler and Andrew Auernheimer took just five days to nick the data of 120,000 iPad users and pass it on to the Gawker website. They shared the code they used to do it with their mates. The code mimicked an iPad so that AT&T 's servers were fooled into believing that they were communicating with an Apple customer who would never dream of turning over its ...
January 18, 2011 by DrJBHL
  These guys just don’t get it.   Privacy concerns voiced by users prompt the company to revise its plan to let Facebook apps access users' home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Demonstrating yet again that it doesn't really understand privacy concerns, Facebook on Friday told developers that their Facebook apps could now ask permission for access to users' home addresses and mobile phone numbers. Folks, please REFUSE any such access! The comp...
January 18, 2011 by DrJBHL
  The PDF converter software, PDZFilla, is now completely free for a limited period.  This isn’t like any other PDF conversion software though as PDFZilla doesn’t convert your documents into Adobe’s portable document format, instead it can convert PDFs back into editable files. It’s main features include… Convert PDF to Word Convert PDF to Word with all text and Graphical data. Convert PDF to RTF Convert PDF to Rich Text F...
January 18, 2011 by DrJBHL
    I bring this news item to you because of all we’ve been discussing lately in my posts regarding passwords, safety on facebook (and other social networking sites) and online security. Even if I could I would not remove the less pleasant aspects of this incident as censorship is as distasteful as the details. I am reporting them to you because they clearly emphasize what we all have posted and the replies to the posts. A recently-arrested hacker reportedly used pers...
January 17, 2011 by DrJBHL
      The Kama Sutra virus which raised its head in 2006 is back again. This time with a PowerPoint presentation promising to share with you the various Kama Sutra positions. The slides, which would probably raise an eyebrow if viewed in your office shows thirteen different positions, some with fanciful names such as “The Frog”, “Wheelbarrow” and “Lyons Stagecoach”. The malware comes as a file called Real kamasutra.pp...
January 17, 2011 by DrJBHL
  Microsoft has jumped totally into the war of Cloud computing. To compete with Google and Amazon, Microsoft introduced cloud computing with Windows Azure technology. Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid.  It means, using the infrastructure of the company providing the cloud service. Along with big Enterprises, Microso...