About the tools in the W8 Recovery Drive. 1. Creating a Recovery Drive for both a flash drive and an optical disc: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/create-a-recovery-drive-in-windows-8/7261 2. How to use the recovery drive in W8: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/be-ready-to-use-the-windows-8-recovery-drive/7287 3. How to use the automatic repair tool and how it works: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/how-the-wi...

  Folks, MS apparently didn’t pretest the patches thoroughly enough. “The issues affected users of various Office programs and suites, including Office 2013. In addition, two non-security patches for PowerPoint 2010 also had the same issue.” – Neowin.net Apparently now they’ve gotten their final fix. Even if you downloaded them before, download and install the fixes. So far, that’s two months running that MS has pulled inadequately ...

I hate passwords which expire. This is why.   Sorry your password has expired- you must register a new one.   Did anyone discover that password and hack my computer?   No, but your password has expired- you must get a new one.   Why do I need a new one since that one seems to be working pretty well?   Well, you must get a new one as they automatically expire every 30 days .   Can I use the old one and just re-register it?  ...

  Dave Cross is a truly gifted instructor…and member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame since 2009. I’ve learned a good deal from him. This time, there’ll be a long first day followed by one hour daily sessions, with homework assignments. I only wish I could join him in studio. The lessons are webcasts, and are free. They’ll be rerun on the same day for those on different schedules and time zones. You can enroll here: http://www.creativelive.com/courses/30-days-photosho...

  You’d best be doing the ones tied to IE and RCE, EoP (elevation of privileges), info disclosure and DoS. They’re “Critical”. Bulletin 3 will require a reboot. For further details: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-aug

  At Photoshop World, Adobe has announced a new offer for photographers and graphic artists. Used to be that if you wanted Photoshop CC, it would cost you $19.99 per month. Now, until December 31st, if you own a copy of Photoshop from CS3 or more recent, you are eligible for this offer: "Since introducing Photoshop CC, we’ve listened to feedback from a spectrum of our customers, from advanced professionals to casual enthusiasts. One common request was a solution spec...

  Comes to you from flagyl (you really have to change that nickname!). Per Paragon: “Paragon Drive Copy 12 Compact migrates your data to new hard drives, SSDs, hardware, and virtual machines. With Paragon Drive Copy 12 Compact , you’ll have access to a plethora of migration options (P2P, P2V, V2P, and V2V), plus enjoy support for drives with over 2 terabytes of capacity. A handy wizard walks you through each step of migrating your OS to an SSD, opening the door to ...

  But only one year.’Still, it’s a good deal more than the 7 GB MS gives you with Skydrive and all the others as well. Box and SugarSync offer 5 GB and Dropbox a pitiful 2 GB. Google Drive gives 15 GB free. Well…if you need more than 15 GB at least there’s an option if only for a year, and yeah, it’s obviously to get people there and then to charge after they’ve gotten comfy. If you decide to get the free storage, let them know I sent you....

  It’s been 5 years since GIMP’s last overhaul so this one’s been overdue. It now has a single window editing mode, although the multi window mode is the default. It can be changed in the “Windows” menu, and the preference will be remembered. Ars Technica has a ‘hands on’ review which might be more informative to read, as I’d only be quoting and I’ve never used GIMP. GIMP also gained a number of other design and usability improvements. The title bar on the floating palette...

  Even using the best practices, you can get hit with adware and toolbars (wait one while I duck out to Listerine my fingers). The usual source? Deceptive installers and deceptive download portals. They’ll get you every time. They’ll switch home pages and search engines. They really come pretty close to malware, imo. Anyway, you might get asked to help someone with multiple toolbars and adware crap on his box. There are good programs for that: Adware Cleaner, PC Decrapi...

  WaveShop is a free, portable easy audio editor for Windows. It’s open sourced, and can be used to edit part of the file without touching any other part. It’s also fast and lightweight (all of 3.2 Mb) and makes editing easy. You can see some screenies here: http://waveshop.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html Features: It is very fast in its operation because all processing is done inside the memory. Bit-perfect: sample aren’t going to change...

  For photographers, bloggers and graphics folks good news. This is a great way to compress images up to 90% and reclaim some space on your disk. When you compress images you change the quality. Sad fact of life. You even use types of storage which keep quality yet use large file types to prevent loss. This costs you space and therefore, as you produce more, you have to buy more storage and maintain it. It’s available for Windows OS only, and has a user friendly interface. ...

  Despite that, I ended up with 11 and a reboot. If you’d like to see what’s in the offing, it’s here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ie/security/bulletin/ms13-aug  

    Now I’ve seen crazy stuff before, but this takes the the cake. We have a “Chutzy” winner, folks. For those who don’t remember, the “Chutzy” is the award given for the most incredible achievement in the field of chutzpah (definition by example here ) for any given calendar year. The purpose of this “browser”? “PirateBrowser is a bundle package of the Tor client (Vidalia), FireFox Portable browser (with foxyproxy addon) and some custom configs ...

  I don’t know about you, but when I have to upload personal info, I get really nervous. You can get hacked during the time it takes to load the data, you can get jacked, the site can get hacked, Do they hash and salt? Is that code secure, etc. ad paranoia…? Well, you get it. Abine’s MaskMe isn’t new (they’re the ones who also make DNTme, btw). What IS cool is that the extension bundles a whole bunch of security tools into that extension. There’s a ‘free’ and a ‘paid’ versi...