No. This is not about the infamous Star Trek villain…. although he might be more famous, this Khan is far more beneficial. I can’t think of a more altruistic act than this, nor a better use of currently available technology. Kudos to Mr. Salman Khan. I can think of dozens of things I want to review. It’s a fantastic help for a child who’s struggling in a subject. The adult can sit and do it together with the child, and make learning a bonding experience instead of a d...

  The external link will lead you to comment #19 on coffeegrinder's thread regarding the Java vulnerability. You will find there a link to an article regarding the release of the patch and the link to the download page. Read the info in the table carefully. Also, "Choose wisely." Just to help - Download link:  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index-jsp-138363.html Or you can do it through the control panel. Choose Java, then the update ta...

  Thanks to ZubaZ for bringing my attention to this. Well, no surprise. They like the new version Start8.   The review discussed Start8’s unique features, and that it’s still a beta. Here are those features: You can get it (still free) here: https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ You can watch Brad’s YouTube presentation as well: Thanks for the good review, gHacks!

  Wizard1956 caught this one and pm’d me with it – thanks, Wiz! On BitsDuJour this $150 value is free, but only today (you have about 17 hrs. left).   Get ‘em while they’re free! Here: http://www.bitsdujour.com/ The download button is the green one on the upper right of the page.

    Samuel Silva lives in Portugal. “Ah, doc found a photoshop wizard. So what?”, you’re probably thinking. Well, I don’t know if Mr. Silva has or uses photoshop for anything, but that’s not how he produces his art. He uses 8 BIC ballpoint pens. He spent 30 hours producing the picture on the left from the photo on the right. He is simply incredible. He’s been drawing, sculpting and painting since he was 2 years old. He’s a lawyer, b...

  Island Dog told you about MS’s new Corporate Logo this past week. The folks weren’t crazy about it. Well, WC is kind of biased about W8 and after all, since XP, what we love the most (customization) options and enthusiasts has been shrinking. The colors? A (forbidden to say) “the artist formerly known as Metro now called Windows 8 only” Winflag (per Po’Smedley its awards stripped for doping), and a 50% gray (‘shoppers’ will understand t...

  To continue Island Dog’s post on Photoshop ( Adobe T.V. ), Lesa Snider (my Photoshop goddess) is doing an in depth (pun intended) three day webinar provided by the great folks at creativeLive . It will have a day on each of these topics: Selections. Adjustment layers. Smart objects.   All you have to do is sign up for a creativeLive account (free). Then enroll in whatever you like… There are generally replays of these classes, so if you&rsqu...

  First of all, in W8, “Windows Defender” is MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) and it will give antiviral and anti-malware protection (the two are now combined under one roof). W8 will come with it and the Windows firewall. That’s a good thing, right? Well, consider the fact that OEM’s (Dell, HP, etc.) and Security software companies make money from installing “trialware/bloatware” on new computers. The OEM’s make it from the various comp...

  Martin Brinkmann over at gHacks.net has just written a nice article “Going straight to the Windows 8 desktop”. I read it, and if you’re planning to update/upgrade to W8, I think you should as well. Start8 was mentioned prominently: You can get Start8 here: https://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ You can read more about Start8 here: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/16/going-straight-to-the-windows-8-desktop/#comment-1466310 https://forums.wincustomi...

  For a few years, I’ve been using a replacement for Task Manager which greatly amplifies it’s functionality as you can see from the screen shot below. It’s somewhat customizable as you can see in my screen shots, as well. The tray utility appears on mouse-over, or the data can appear permanently (in real time) by changing the display mode (screen shot 3) to 'On Top'.       Features: Detailed information about Tasks, Processes, Modu...

  Not from Time 0 but really impressive! It starts with the Universe being 4 billion years of age and goes to age 14 billion years. It was produced by a Harvard-Smithsonian team. Arepo is the software which did it. “Arepo's secret to producing accurate visualizations is its geometry; a grid that moves and flexes to mirror the motions of dark energy, dark matter, gasses and stars. Video playback of the celestial recreation clocks in at just over a minute, but it too...

    Some folks with Macs (Intel based) have noticed much shorter battery life and higher than normal CPU temperatures. This comes via Hankers: There’s a possible fix here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US It involves resetting your Mac’s SMC (System Management Controller) and it’s supposed to be an easy fix, though it won’t work for all battery types .

  This month it’s a mixed bag of patches to Windows, IE, MS SQL Server, MS Exchange, Server software and Developer Tools. The IE patches are for IE 6, 7 and 8. These are important, especially for businesses, as well as home users as browser attacks are the most common ways to compromise security. Bulletin five is very important as it addresses remote code execution on MS Exchange. This is a major attack target as it is the communications center for most businesses, and email ...

  I saw this over at PCMag , and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here we all are being thrilled by the pictures from Mars (yes, very expensive pictures) and what do I see? " MarsCuriosity: Anyone in Madrid, Spain or Canbarra who can help isolate the huge control signal used for the Mars Odyssey / Curiosity system please? The cypher and hopping is a standard mode, just need base frequency and recordings/feed of the huge signal going out. (yes we can spoof it both directions...

  Battle.net has tons of users. Blizzard (the folks who brought you WoW, StarCraft and Diablo) posted on the Blizzard website that it discovered an unlawful and unauthorized breach into its internal network, on August 4th. The following have been compromised (stolen), but there’s no evidence that credit card info was stolen: A global list of email addresses of Battle-net users For North-American players, which includes Latin America, Australia, New Zea...