Knowing the status of your hard drive is a great way to prepare for problems that may potentially arise. And thanks to CrystalDiskInfo obtaining this information from your hard drive couldn’t be any easier.

CrystalDisk will gather data from your hard drive and will let you know its current temperature, the number of power cycles and even the number of hours the drive has been on. All this information comes in handy when trying to determine the root of a system crash or data failure, especially when you’re dealing with an older drive in a crowded system case where cooling may not be optimal.

Notice the report above showing “Caution” for my “Reallocated sectors Count” status? This error may raise a few eyebrows on a new drive, but not on my laptop with 6,123 hours of use on it.

All drives eventually have bad sectors that are remapped, but my personal opinion is that this really shouldn’t begin to become much of an issue until the drive is at least three years old, and even then, should only require more frequent backups, monitoring and full surface scans, until the drive really begins to fail from normal wear-and-tear.

CrystalDisk is a free application available for Windows and is a Hiddenpcmaster Approved Utility.

Via Download Squad

As many of you already know, I am a self proclaimed computer geek. I have been tinkering with computers since my first Packard Bell 286 bought second hand back in 1990 and Prodigy and Compuserve were the first Internet service providers to introduce “the internet”. I have assisted countless co-workers, family members and real life customers acquired via word of mouth and many from craigs list through all kinds of issues from basic “How do I do that” operations to complete business networking setups and maintenance.

One of the most frustrating parts of being the geek is “phone support”. Trying to walk people through procedures is mostly a leap of faith and the hope that the enduser is actually aware of all the things happening on the screen.

Enter the Solution:

CrossLoop is a free, secure screen-sharing utility designed for people of all technical skill levels. CrossLoop extends the boundaries of traditional screen sharing by enabling non-technical users to get connected from anywhere on the Internet in seconds without changing any firewall or router settings. It only takes a few minutes to setup and no sign up is required. Security is built into all aspects of CrossLoop.

Session data is encrypted at the end-points before being sent using a 128-bit encryption algorithm and a randomly generated 12-digit access code. CrossLoop includes file transfer support, and switch control feature. Adds creation of a free CrossLoop accounts to create a dynamic public profile page, reserve your custom CrossLoop URL, view your session history, as well as widgets to promote yourself as a tech support specialist.

Version 2.20 enables any Helper to show his/her availability to any customer seeking help and get notified of leads immediately.

Other screen sharing applications have been long known for their expense and complicated setups. CrossLoop levels this playing field as a FREE, easy to use, easy to setup process making my technical support experience a dream!

CrossLoop simplifies the process of securely working with friends located in different physical locations and across different network environments. CrossLoop enables you to see the screen and control the mouse and keyboard on a remote computer. It is as if you are working side by side at the same PC.

You can get up and running with CrossLoop in under 2 minutes. Simply download and install the application and it will automatically configure itself to your network environment.

PC Requirements:

CrossLoop requires Windows 2000 or newer, including Vista; 128 MB RAM or greater; 2 MB hard drive space and a broadband internet connection

Thanks CrossLoop!

Hiddenpcmaster.

This utility has been approved worthy by the Hiddenpcmaster Top Utility section

http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/ Coming 2nd quarter 2008

* Battlefield Heroes™ is a brand new Play 4 Free game from the people that brought you the multi-million selling Battlefield 1942™ and Battlefield 2™
* It’s a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels — easy to pick up and play, but with deep character development
* It will be released for the PC as a free download in Summer 2008

Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico (Monday June-2-2008) Seven competitors from yesterday cyclist race were severely injured after being hit by a drunk driver, one of them died and other three were hospitalized. The drunk driver was arrested after the rest of the participants tried to lynch him.

30 year old Alejandro Alvarez, from Brownsville,Texas, was pronounced dead on the scene, while Alejandro Salvador Tamez, 18, Juan Machaita, 38, and Guadalupe Martinez,, 16, were severely injured.

Cyclists were participating in a race from Matamoros to Bagdad Beach, when drunk driver Jesse Campos, a Brownsville, Texas resident, in his Ford Grand Marquis, license 659-FKF from Texas, impacted seven cyclists, even as they were being escorted by Local Transit Officials.

Click picture for larger view, click again for normal view.

via Cellar Picture of the day

My Dad was a simple man. You might say he was too simple in a world that is growing ever more complicated. But he understood that in everything there is a right way and a wrong way to do things and the only option is to do the right thing.

My Dad ingrained in me a strong work ethic, for working as hard as you can is the only way to have no doubts about yourself at the end of the day. He taught me to always help others, for some day we might need help ourselves and good deeds have a way of getting back to you when the time is right. He taught me to be strong for those around us, but not to be afraid to bend when you have to. He was a man that others knew they could depend on in their time of need. He taught me that leading by example was the best way to be true to yourself, and to those around you.

My Dad lived a hard life for the most part, he took that in stride and did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt. And in so doing, he taught me to do the same. Don’t cry about it, fix it was his philosophy, and it was a lesson learned. Most importantly of all, he taught me that we are not the most important thing in the world. Instead, the most important things were those around us. He lived his life being there for the people that needed him, and those who knew and loved him will always thank him for that.

My Dad always led by example and to those of us fortunate enough to know him, that example was a very good one. He was not a man to get lost in the fluff of life, instead he believed you should lay a solid foundation in the life that you have and then you build on that foundation until the structure is a good, strong structure. You build your character one deed at a time until the structure defines the person behind it. And then you open that structure up to your loved ones and friends so that they might be protected by it too.

My Dad was a great man. He loved his family with a passion that was unquestioned, and he was proud of each of us in so many ways. He is the reason that I have become the person I am today, and I thank him for that. For I can think of no better thing in the world than to be the legacy of this man. Thank you Dad for all that you’ve done.

You are so missed, but you live on in all of those you have touched.

It’s not very often that a piece of software makes me giddy. Xobni for Outlook does just that! Check this NY Times article…

Adam Smith was 12 when Microsoft introduced its desktop e-mail program, Outlook.

Jeff Bonforte, left, Matt Brezina and Adam Smith created Xobni to help organize Outlook e-mail.

Outlook is now the most popular e-mail tool in the world, used by hundreds of millions of people. And Mr. Smith, now 23, thinks that the program is so poorly suited for most people’s intensive e-mail habits that he has co-founded a company, Xobni, intended to fix it.

“Using Outlook today is like taking a Volkswagen Beetle into space,” Mr. Smith said. “People are kind of exerting all these stresses upon it that it wasn’t originally designed to withstand.”

Xobni, based in San Francisco, is introducing a new tool on Monday that plugs into Outlook. Mr. Smith’s general complaint — one that is shared by many users of Outlook — is that the more the program is used, the slower it gets and the harder it is to search for e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

To solve these problems, Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards and pronounced zob-nee) has produced free downloadable software that, once installed, indexes all the e-mail in Outlook and makes those messages quickly and easily searchable. The software, available at www.xobni.com, will also be sold to companies.

Other programs, like Google Desktop, perform that same basic index-and-search function. But Xobni, which its creators call an “intelligent filter,” adds a few more features. When it scours the inbox, it extracts phone numbers it thinks are associated with the sender. So when a user searches for a person, Xobni presents the number in a side panel to Outlook.

The software also interprets the social relationships between people who are sending messages to each other. For example Xobni recognizes that if an executive sends a copy to someone else on each message he or she sends, it might be to an assistant or another colleague. When someone using Xobni searches for that executive in Outlook, the second person is listed as well.

Extracting these social networking features from e-mail is an enticing proposition in Silicon Valley these days, and as a result, the San Francisco-based company and its 14 employees have become a magnet for attention.

The company raised $4 million from the investment funds of Vinod Khosla, a Sun Microsystems co-founder, and Niklas Zennstrom, one of the creators of Skype. In February, Bill Gates demonstrated the program at Microsoft’s San Jose developers’ conference and called it “the next generation in social networking.”

Microsoft loves it when developers improve its programs, and Xobni is no exception. But executives at the start-up describe an “awkward dance” with Microsoft over the last few months. This year, Microsoft and Xobni held preliminary talks about Microsoft acquiring the startup. But negotiations broke down over price, the future independence of the company inside Microsoft and the willingness of Xobni employees to move to Seattle.

The company was founded by two former graduate students, Mr. Smith in computer science and Matt Brezina, 27, in electrical engineering, who met on internships in Washington in 2006. Last year the co-founders went through a Silicon Valley start-up boot camp, called Y Combinator, where they received an initial investment and temporary offices.

Xobni now has ambitions that extend well beyond Microsoft Outlook. Jeff Bonforte, a 35-year-old former Yahoo vice president, joined Xobni as chief executive in February. He plans to expand Xobni’s reach to various e-mail programs, like the popular Web-based services Yahoo Mail, Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail as well as social networks like Facebook and Linkedin.

Mr. Bonforte imagines that one day when people type a name into the Xobni search box, the software will find e-mail, instant messages and other online communications from that person even if he or she sent those messages on several Web-based services.

“We want to know about the relationships that exist in multiple inboxes,” he said.

Xobni will face competition in its quest to improve online communications. All of the major Internet companies talk about making e-mail smarter and more socially aware. And Web e-mail services like Gmail and Hotmail are growing much more rapidly than the desktop-based Outlook, where Xobni is planting its flag, for now.

At Yahoo in particular, Mr. Bonforte’s former colleagues have frequently spoken publicly about pursuing the next generation of “smart” e-mail.

“We feel like there’s a rich opportunity to create a smarter inbox by leveraging the people you are connecting to and contacting to most often,” said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president and Mr. Bonforte’s former boss. “That is a key initiative for Yahoo in 2008.”

It’s a whole new look at your email:

Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.

After a quick install, you’ll see the new Xobni toolbar appear in Outlook - and suddenly information will become much easier to find. When a new email arrives, the sender’s full communication history appears in the Xobni sidebar, including past conversations, attachments and contact details. Xobni also includes a blazing fast email search tool.

Watch this quick tutorial on youtube …

I’m sure your convinced by now. Now go and get it!

This utility has been approved worthy by the Hiddenpcmaster Top Utility section

FEAR NOT!

Hiddenpcmaster’s Headquarters is not dead, but rather has been in a dormant state due to lack of anything decent to post. I like to think of my little world as a repository of information, utilities, family news, humor, hot deals, etc. But frankly, as I have continued to comb the internet for goodies, anything worth posting has been few and far between.

This is why I would highly recommend using a RSS newsfeed reader which would save you the time of checking a non changing web page, but rather an alert when a page has changed!

Both Lonnie of the Squirrelman blog and I have hinted in the past about the importance of an RSS feed reader and it’s revolutionary approach to web surfing. We can’t stress it enough.

Now…..

All of you Outlook users need to strap yourself in before you read my next post. It truly will propel you into a whole new way to use the tired old email client.

I’m still waiting for the day that all fax machines get the “send to email address” option.