Time to say Goodbye.

Hiddenpcmaster’s Headquarters has been fun for the past 7 + years! but it is time to move on to bigger and better. I appreciate all of your comments and encouragement during those years.

This space will be replaced by my lifelong passion, and hopefully you will follow me in my quest to become a professional photographer @ www.walterbellphotography.com

I’m sure this is old news, but Security Essentials by Microsoft seems to be the real thing!

Microsoft’s new free Security Essentials (MSE) looks like it can get the job done, according to new scanning tests conducted by AV-Test.org.

The free standalone antivirus product has caused a stir since its release last week, as might be expected when the words “Microsoft” and “free” are involved. But following AV-Test.org tests last week, it looks to have the goods.

Malware detection:
MSE detected 98.44% of AV-Tests’s collected zoo of 545,034 viruses, worms, backdoors, bots and Trojans, an entirely respectable showing. However, it didn’t do nearly as well when it came to detecting adware and spyware, such as bank info stealers, and detected only 90.95% of the 14,222 samples.

As expected, MSE detected 100% of the samples in the Wildlist. Most reputable AV apps detect all the Wildlist samples.

More in http://pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/pcw.nsf/feature/1545F1D0B613C0C6CC257645006EC471

For a link : http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Did I mention, FREE!

The best feature of the iPod’s audiobook format is the ability to resume playback at a particular point even if you play something else or turn the iPod off. There are many online services where you can obtain audiobooks, but most of them are in MP3, which the iPod just treats as regular music. With a few steps, it is easy to convert MP3 files (or any other filetype that iTunes can play) into the native iPod audiobook format. There are a lot of different methods out there, but this seems to be the easiest:

I have iTunes 8.x .

First, drag the file into your itunes library.
Second, find it (probably in music)
Third, right click the “song.”

Get info >Options > (where it says “Media kind: Music”
change the “music” to audiobook in the dropdown list.)

Click ok and it should be moved to “audiobooks” under “library”

Tada!

“WHY SO SERIOUS ??”

I don’t watch commercials! and Tivo doesn’t advertise this but it does have a 30 second skip feature!

The feature is buried within the programming of the TiVo device and can be brought to the surface using an Easter Egg. After enabling the 30 second skip feature, The skip-to-hash button becomes a 30 second skip button. Once you begin using this feature, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

So how do I do this? It’s easy.

1. Grab your TiVo remote.
2. Bring up any recorded program. (I believe you have to be watching a recorded program rather than “Live TV” in order to enable the feature.)
3. On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence:

select play select 3 0 select
SELECT PLAY SELECT 3 0 SELECT
4. If you’ve successfully entered the code, you should hear three “bings” in succession to let you know that you’ve successfully enabled the 30 second skip feature.
5. The skip-to-hash button on your remote will now skip forward 30 seconds during playback.
6. The previous function of the skip to hash button (that is, jumping to the next “hash” mark on the playback progress bar at the bottom of the screen) can still be accessed by first pressing fast forward or reverse. Press the fast forward button and then press skip-to-hash and the playback will advance to the next hashmark (or the end of the program if you’re close to the end of playback.) Press the rewind button and then the skip-to-hash and you jump back to the previous hash mark, or the beginning of the program depending on your place in the playback. Skipping past the end of the program takes you back to the start of playback.

Note that you’ll have to re-enable this feature any time your TiVo is rebooted (such as after a power outage or a software update.)

Should you not like the 30 second skip, you can disable it by re-entering the Easter Egg exactly as you did to enable it.

DISCLAIMER: No guarantees that these features will work on your TiVo, nor that it will continue to work in the future. Furthermore, if your TiVo catches fire or explodes or anything else goes wrong, it’s not my fault. Use these Easter Eggs at your own risk.

KeyScrambler, a web browser plugin, encrypts your keystrokes to protect your important personal information from keyloggers KeyScrambler is a web browser plugin that will encrypt your keystrokes for protecting your personal data from keyloggers

When you type on your keyboard, the keys travel along a path within the operating system before it arrives at your browser. Keyloggers plant themselves along this path and observe and record your keystrokes. The collected information is then sent to the criminals who will use it to steal from you
KeyScrambler defeats keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level, deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the keys you’ve typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which are completely indecipherable
Unlike anti-virus and anti-spyware programs that depend on recognition to remove keyloggers that they know about, KeyScrambler will protect you from both known and unknown keyloggers

Great for use on Laptops too!

http://www.qfxsoftware.com/Download.htm

Who would have thought such talent lurked beneath the mask of my co-worker and friend Bob Hennessy.

Check out his YouTube Video’s:

http://www.youtube.com/user/radialarts

Check out his Harmonica Website:

http://www.radialarts.com/harp.html

and Photography too!

http://www.radialarts.com

Windows Home Server users (you know who you are!) Don’t need to read this article

Some weeks ago I read the first article about the new virus/worm Conficker C which apparently has managed to infect millions of computers but hasn’t done anything yet. Recently CNN ran an article that speculates that April Fools Day (next Wednesday, April 1) is the trigger date. and there’s lots of drama !

It all seems very exciting, and, much like the run up to Y2K (remember that?), some experts think that it will be no big deal, while other predict the end of the world as we know it.

There are many, many people far more qualified than I to assess the real risk of the situation, but I do have a suggestion for all readers of the Hiddenpcmaster Headquarters community — why don’t you make a backup of all your computer files (if you haven’t done so recently) before April 1 just in case? Even if you’re a Mac user and not worried about Conficker, if you haven’t made a back up recently, why not use this occasion to do so? After all, there are still floods, fires and storms of locusts that crop up from time to time and don’t care about Mac vs PC.

Lots of people follow the advice to change the battery in the smoke detector every fall on the night when we turn the clocks back to standard time from daylight savings. Even if Conficker C turns out to be No Big Deal (or has a different doomsday date) if you backup your files now, you’ll have a recent backup no matter what comes to pass.

It goes without saying that before you run a back up you should use an anti-virus program to ensure your data is clean.

Of course, if the world ends, you won’t need the back up, but if lots of computers are affected, you might be really glad you did.

Regards,

Hiddenpcmaster