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The Consumer Edition of the patch detector BigFix is more. It used to detect if a thread was at the PC (like a wrong setting or performance tweak hints) or a Windows patch was released but not installed.

Having started up BigFix today, I found the following screenshot and a link to a remove tool (but I bet the usual uninstaller would have done this job, aswell!)

Bigfix was one of the greatest things especially when it still detected application updates in co-op with Tucows

Technorati Tags: Windows, BigFix
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Commodo released the beta of their Commodo Firewall Pro (more info: downloads, screenshots, etc) and in my eyes it’s the best freeware 64bit firewall, yet!

Here is the why:

My Windows XP X64 firewall history:

1. Network AAccess Manager (Nvidia’s hardware firewall – implemented into the nForce4 chipset).

sidenote: I knew it was buggy, so even MSI – the maker of my motherboard – suggsted to theirs users to not enable it, but it’s still better than the Windows XP Firewall!

Unfortunately it stopped working after I have got the Netgear WPN824 RangeMax v2 router, because it would fail to attach the correct IP address on startup

2. Time to try Tiny Firewall 64, which worked until Microsoft released Windows XP X64 Service Pack 2, which caused bluescreens. Aso Tiny Firewall was no longer on sale!. So a lose-lose sitution in either way!

3. Then I had to really use the Windows Firewal for a while! 🙁

4. I found Jetico Personal Firewall in the freeware variant (shortly after I found out that Tiny Firewall 64 was no more and I was tired of the Windows XP Firewall) and I was glad that it still worked after I applied SP2. However, it caused a bluescreen after a certain version was installed if I tried to update the:

-Jetico Personal Firewall itself
-DirectX 9
-ATI Catalyst drivers

It was the same firewall driver conflict Tiny Firewall 64 had.

5. I was stuck with outdated firewall, ATI drivers and DirectX runtime becaus I didn’t want to stay unprotected.

Now that I have Commodo, all works great!

Thanks a lot! 🙂

Technorati Tags: 64bit, Vista, Windows, Commodo, firewall, X64, xp
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Microsoft just released Technical Information
for the Performance and Reliability Pack (KB938979) in the Error Reporting function of Windows Vista!

(Yet only available in English).

Furthermore, Real Arcade Installation screenshot for you:

As you can see something went wrong and of course Real Networks still lives behind the moon since Windows Vista is not there to choose in their questionaire! =)

Technorati Tags: 64bit, Vista, Windows, update, upgrade, X64, xp
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Microsoft released the finals of the Windows Vista Performance and Reliability Pack packs! It’s yet not available with Windows Update, but it has to be downloaded manually. direct download links (X64 versions!) download is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Windows, only!

If you need the 32bit versions look out at Microsoft Download Center!

Is it worth to download it? Yes, it is!

For the first time I have managed to install RealArcade! 🙂

Also certain things open faster now! I am sure it has a lot of other improvements I didn’t find yet!

Technorati Tags: 64bit, Vista, Windows, update, upgrade, X64, xp
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Is Safari so bad on Windows?
Since the beginning, it works for me (after fixing some firewall related/installer issue).
It works stable, runs smooth, didn’t crash for me and even displayed my blog correctly! And this on Windows Vista eventhough only officially supported since the latests builds.

However Opera will stay being my primary browser! Forever! 🙂

Technorati Tags: Windows, Safari, 64bit, Vista, browser, X64
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Yahoo scares me somehow.

A bit of background information:

Since PostInfo, the portal for postal news world wide, is closed, they made a Yahoo Group out of it.

In the past I never participated in them as I would have used my Yahoo account for it. BUt I avoid it whenever I can as I want to stick with ICQ and Skype only and my 3 primary email accounts I already have.

Somehow, it figured out 2 email forwarding addresses, which is scary as I don’t think I have told them. Yahoo just connected the latter 2 to my Yahoo account without asking me for permission!

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Groups
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Microsoft released a Windows Vista Performance and a Reliability Pack for Windows Vista X86 and X64. Quoting Start64, it has been released to beta testers yet and shall fix the following issues:

938979 – Vista Performance and Reliability Pack

-Improves performance in resuming back to the desktop from the Photo and Windows Energy screensaver.

-Resolves an issue where some secured web pages using advanced security technologies may not get displayed in Internet Explorer on Windows Vista.

-Resolves an issue where a shared printer may not get installed if the printer is connected to a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system and User Access Control is disabled on the Vista client.

-Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.
Improves the performance in calculating the ‘estimated time remaining’ when copying/moving large files.

-Improves performance in bringing up Login Screen after resuming from Hibernate.

-Resolves an issue where synchronization of offline files to a server can get corrupted.

-Resolves a compatibility issue with RAW images created by Canon EOS 1D/1DS Digital SLR Camera which can lead to data loss. This only affects RAW images created by these two specific camera models.

-Resolves an issue where a computer can lose its default Gateway address when resuming from sleep mode.

-Improves the performance when copying or moving entire directories containing large amounts of data or files.

-Improves the performance of Vista’s Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

938194 Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack

-Improved reliability and compatibility of Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.

-Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
Increased compatibility with many video drivers.

-Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.

-Improved quality of playback for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disks on large monitors.

-Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.

-Improved Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.

-Improved the reliability of Windows Calendar in Vista.

-Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.

-Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.

-Increased reliability and performance of Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

The download links published everywhere are no longer valid but according to NeoWin, the packs are planned to be shipped with the next Patch Day which appears to happen on upcomming Tuesday!

Some of the issues I have experienced myself already like reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed. In my case, the ICQ Toolbar that is shipped with ICQ 6 causes Internet Explorer to crash for me!

Technorati Tags: 64bit, Vista, Windows, update, upgrade, X64, xp
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Orkut allows now to add feeds and blogs to your profile!
Since Orkut and Blogger are both on Google servers sinnce last year and use the same account system, it automatically detected my bog here and offered me to add it to my profile. Interestingly, yet I found no way how to remove it if I suddenly decide otherwise.

Interestingly, it also added automatically the feed of my blog to the feeds list (however this I can delete if I wish).

Technorati Tags: Orkut, blog
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Since a few days the English homepage from Nvidia appears down for me, strange!

I have tried from different ISPs and PCs.

Maybe they got attacked?

Update: Details posted by a friend:

“Merman wrote: Joerg, I just tried http://nvidia.com and got the same 500 error…

However, going to www.nvidia.com seemed to work…”

I have emailed Nvidia to let them know.

Technorati Tags: nVidia, hardware
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ICQ6 is out in Bulgarian now (branded), released by Bulgarian ABV. It’s probably also featuring provider related services and functions in its xtraz, just like ICQ 6 German Pro7 and ICQ 6 German Sat1.
Maybe such will also appear sooner or later appear if you use the official English client and live in the matching country Just like it happened in ICQ 5.1

Anyway, it’s interesting that ABV is among the first now since they only did that for ICQ 5 and skipped ICQ 5.1.

If you are interested in the Xtraz, see my SAT1 Xtraz description. Only new in ICQ 6 are:

–Auto Xtra: This one nothing more than a virtual agency for arranged lifts.

–Horoscope Xtra: Read your personal hororoscope or make a love or partner test

Xtraz description by me of the Pro 7 German client

New in ICQ 6 is just the PlanetPopstars Xtra which is a sing comunity that allows to upload your own singing by using your phone or judge the singing of others.

Technorati Tags: ICQ, ICQ6, ABV, Sat1, Pro7, Bulgarian, German
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