Owner: tech toppicks : technology news URL:http://techtoppicks.com Join Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:37:01 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Technology blog about the latest in software, hardware, gadgets, how-tos and more. Site statistics:Click here
Tips to increase boot speed and XP 2007-02-14 06:49:28 Every hates to wait for the system to reboot, then load the OS, and even worse to have a slow OS after boot. Here are a few tips I’ve compiled for speeding up your system. I can’t take all the credit some of these came from other sites noted at the bottom of this post. I have used all of these tweaks on my slow laptop and it revived it back to usefulness… Enjoy!
BIOS
Disable secondary SATA controllers if you are not using them
Disable floppy seek if you never use your floppy drive
Set your hard drive as first in boot priority
XP
Disable junk from Startup : Go to Start > Run > Type: msconfig ; press enter > go to the Startup Tab and uncheck extra programs you do not use. If you have any errors later, just go back in and recheck the associated programs.
Disable extra services that you do not use : Go to Start > Run > Type: Services.msc ; press enter. For services you do not need, right click them, go to Properties, in the next windows you’
Windows Dreamscene Preview Released for Vista Ultimate 2007-02-14 06:29:14 Microsoft has released Dreamscene preview to VistaUltimate
users on its Windows
Updates site. For those that are not familiar with Dreamscene, the software allows for full motion video to use as your background just as easily as you would select a stationary picture background. The software requires a video card that is capable of pushing the Vista Aero interface and surprisingly enough uses less CPU than you would think.Â
I actually had a chance to test the software about a week ago in a leaked release and surprisingly enough it ran pretty well on an Nvidia Quadro card. The one nag I have is that if you have any video with a fair amount of motion to it it can be very distracting, you will find a great wow effect in the product however, I am not sure I’d run it longer than a few minutes just to show some friends.
If you try it and would like a few extra videos, check out Vista Ultimate
Read more:Preview
, Windows Dreamscene
Off Topic: Heat & Glo makes Fire from Water 2007-02-14 05:57:22 This is different from your everyday gadget and tech news but I figured this would make for an interesting read. Fireplace company Heat & Glo has announced a fireplace that makes
100% heat efficiency by using standard tap water and electrolysis which seperates the hydrogen and oxygen which the unit uses for fuel. The Aqueon as it is called then add the oxygen as a secondary source to add flame color and brightness all the while releasing only oxygen and water vapor into the room.Â
Other features of their unit include:
Cleanest burning fireplace
Replenishes Oxygen
100% heat efficiency
Generates 31,000 BTU/Hour of heat
Requires 220 single phase VAC 60 amp circuit and uses 1/2 gallon of water/hour
Don’t expect to run out and purchase one now though, due to the complexity of the unit pricing and availability has yet to be announced. Sound expensive :) At least we know we’re on the right move for alternative fuels.
Source: Heat & Glo
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Fully Cracked 2007-02-14 05:40:18 BoingBoing posted an article today revealing that another member of the Doom9 forums has sucessfully defeated the encryption used on both HD-DVDs as well as Blu-Ray discs. This task was previously done by a software cracker that went by the handle Muslix64, however, his software was only capable of extracting the volume key from the disc. The new software is capable of defeating all AACS-locked discs, an encryption that took years to develop and only weeks to crack.
In a DRM and copy protected world, this is yet another example of how even the slightest mistake or shortcut can leave an open hole for a hacker to implement software to take advantage of new technologies. Once again the media companies are on the run…
Read the original article at BoingBoing
Also, the original Doom9 Forums Thread
Read more:Cracked
InPics.net: Free picture based computer tutorials 2007-02-14 05:03:03 If you’re like me and don’t have the patience to read through long paragraphs when you need to get something done InPictures is for you. The site which is all online tutorials will teach you how to do various tasks in Office, OpenOffice, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and basic HTML & CSS all with pictures to assist you. This is a great first stop resource for anyone that needs a quick guide to get you going and for those with a visual memory.
They are always working on new tutorials to get you going with future releases ranging in Office 2007, Photoshop, Fireworks, MySQL, and PHP. If you would like to join their mailing list for when new releases arrive click here.
Visit: in pictures
Total Copy - Enhanced Windows Copy 2007-02-13 07:54:37 Ravnik.net’s Total
Copy software is an app to enhance the Windows
copy process. If you’re like me and copying files all day over a network or between various hard drives you know how frustrating it can be when a copy fails in the middle of the transfer for some various reason. This is where Total Copy steps in.
Total Copy has quite a few improvements over the standard copy process, I’ll list them below.
Pause/Resuming - You may pause the copy and resume at any time later on.
Auto-pause on error - network goes down, run out of HDD space, the copy will pause and you can resume when the error is fixed
Resume on power failure - Resume copy even after total power loss
Speedlimit - Adjust the speed of the copy if you’re doing other tasks and need to slow it down
Total Copy is 10% faster locally, and 1% faster over a network than Windows own copy.
Info - Total Copy displays copy speed, a % bar, and KB remaining
Does not modify the Windows copy, it’s an addon
Disposable E-mail addresses with Guerrilla Mail 2007-02-13 04:40:42 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Every one of us has been in that bind where a site or service will ask you for your e-mail address and you just don’t want them to have it cause you’re tired of junk mail. Guerrilla Mail is free service that will answer your calls; it will create a timed 15 minute temporary e-mail account for you to use including a temporary mailbox that only requires a refresh to check it. Once you get your e-mail from the site you have signed up for, save the information and let your account time out. No more spam :) If you need a little more time to wait you can click a link for an additional 15 minutes added onto your timer. This is a great service I expect I will use frquently and in the name of spam so will you.
Visit: Guerrilla Mail
Read more:Disposable
, addresses
, mail addresses
ATI R600 Spec Roundup 2007-02-13 04:18:33 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
The graphics card battle is still heating up with ATI/AMD releasing its latest monster, the R600 GPU. The new chip is surrounded with mystery and speculation as no official technical specs have been released by ATI, however, there has been enough leaked information to make a decent analysis of what is upcoming from NVIDIA’s main competitor.
So let’s begin..
Core frequency: 700 MHz to 800 MHz (rumored at over 1000 MHz)
GDDR3 @ 900 MHz for initial release, GDDR4 @ 1.1 GHz for March revision
Total Memory Bandwidth - 115 GB/s on GDDR3 ; 140 GB/s on 2.5 Ghz GDDR4
512 Bit Memory Controller, full 32 bit per chip connection
DirectX 10 full compatibility
32 TMUs, 16 ROPs
32 FP internal processing
Hardware support of GPU clustering
Hardware support of DVI-HDCP as well as Quad-DVI output support on workstation versions
105 Billion Shader Operations Per Second
2 Billion Triangle Calculations Per Second
28 Gigatexels Per Second
Power Consumption: 265W
IE7 Won't Start? What to do. 2007-02-10 03:45:42 I came across an error with Internet Explorer 7 the other day where it would close and shut down immediately. All this occured shortly after installing the Alexa Toolbar (which I quickly uninstalled later), if you have a problem with IE7 not starting it is probably an addon that is making this happen. Here are the steps to debugging.
1) Click Start
to bring up the Start Menu.
2) Go to All Programs > Accessories > System Tools, and the click Internet Explorer (No Add-Ons)
**If IE starts using the No-Addons command and not the other way you know for sure you have an addon that is corrupting. If this is the case, go to step 3.
3) Go to Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet Connections > Internet Options > click the Programs tab, at the bottom, click Manage add-ons.
4) Look for any Add-ons that you may have recently installed or do not look necessary and start by disabling them. You will click the addon in the list, then below that click Disable, and OK.
Try
Great Guide for Installing Programs in Ubuntu 2007-02-07 05:07:36 I remember the first time I loaded Linux I had no idea how to do anything, and installing programs was a whole other nightmare, but I quickly figured everything out and love running Ubuntu
as a secondary operating system. To prevent everyone else from running through that same newbie stage the guys over at CutlerSoftware.com have written a descript guide on how to install anything in Ubuntu Linux from the basic easy installation using the “Synaptic Package Manager” which I can more easily relate to the Windows Updates of open source software because it is click and install all the way to installing packages manually from .deb to .rpm and more. On top of using Automatix which we previously posted before, you have all the easiest and greatest utilities to quickly switch over to using Linux and feeling comfortable.
Take the time to read about Automatix as well as CutlerSoftware’s Guide
and you’ll see just how easy it is.
View: Cutler Software : How to Install A Read more:Great
, Programs
OQO UMPC adds Verizon Broadband to service lineup 2007-02-06 04:20:33 OQO, the portable PC maker announced it will offer a version of it’s UMPC that will have connectivity with Verizon
Wireless’ broadband built directly into the device to allow for a truly portable wireless PC experience. Verizon’s EV-DO network averages a connectivity speed of ~400-700 kbps and is available in around 250 major cities.
For anyone that has wanted a UMPC but couldn’t see the use, now is the time. This will make for a great device with full capability for either work or home use. With a feature like this I will not be surprised if we see more UMPCs floating around. Hopefully more major players will jump onboard!
Source: BetaNews
Read more:lineup
New version of Netscape browser coming 2007-02-06 04:08:55 Netscape is about a release a new version
of their browser
, the teaser image on the left is from the Netscape Blog. The new browser, which is updated and maintained by AOL since 2005 is expected for initial release in the next few months.
Some of the features include standardized support for newsfeeds as well a direct integration with Netscape’s social networking side Netscape.com which is most closely compared to Digg.com. Many extensions for their social networking site will be directly integrated into their browser.
The new browser is going to be designed and built around the Mozilla Firefox code with compatbility for Firefox extensions as well. For more information and possibly future screenshots, view the Netscape Blog here.
Read more:Netscape
Introducing Windows Live Writer 2007-02-06 03:36:39 The Windows
Live Spaces team has released a desktop application that is supposed to make it easier to write posts on not only your Windows Live Spaces Blog, but is supposed to support other formats as well such as Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, Movable Type, and more. I actually have a few blogger accounts and would be greatly interested in a faster easier way to write posts on the blog so I will check this out soon and let you all know. Google actually released a plug-in for Word that seems to be all over everyones blog as a suggested utility, however, even Blogger says the utility does not work with their current version.
Windows Live writer allows for WYSIWYG authoring so you should know exactly how your post is going to look before hitting the send button, as well as photo publishing and even map publishing using the Windows Live Local service.
If anyone has tried this, please feel free to write some comments against this post, otherwise I will have a follow up post for later vie Read more:Introducing
, Writer
, Live Writer
Microsoft raises prices of support… 2007-02-06 02:58:55 Microsoft has decided to raise its “per-incident” support prices upon the release of Vista and Office 2007, initially after purchase you have 90 days of support free of charge, then rates apply afterwards.Â
Prices are as follows:
Vista and XP support -  Was: $39   Now: $59   per incident
Office XP and 2007Â Â Â Â -Â Â Â Was: $35Â Â Â Now:Â $49Â Â per incident
General Support (unchanged) - $35 per incident
The changes according to a Microsoft spokesperson were timed in conjunction with the launch of Vista and Office 2007 and is in-line with industry standards. They analyzed the prices in reference to GDP per capita to reflect the value of and Microsoft’s investment in customer support.
Source: Neowin.net
Read more:Microsoft
Freeware: Transfer your data to a larger hard drive with HDClone 2007-02-06 02:42:05 Software developer Miray Software has a freeware utility that allows you to easily transfer your entire hard drive
over to a newer larger one in just a matter of minutes. The software will do a complete migration of your software including Windows and all, a completely solid backup of your old hard drive on your newer larger one. Naturally the freeware is crippled in a few ways so that you lose the benefits of the paid software such as high data rates, USB support, and a few other things, but for anyone that just wants to do a simple copy at home, this utility should be perfect for you. If nothing hang onto it for that rainy day when you decide to upgrade. For a comparison of the utilities, check the chart below.
Click here for the Miray Software Homepage
                                 Â
                        Â
Read more:Freeware
, HDClone
Technorati WTF in online :) 2007-02-01 14:42:19 Technorati has finally launched their own social networking site, the new site is codenamed: Technorati WTF, which stands for Where’s the Fire? Read more:Technorati
, online
DailyRotation.com and Tech Toppicks 2007-02-17 03:45:32 I wanted to give a quick shout and thank you to Robert (Bob) the owner of DailyRotation.com. For those that haven’t been to DailyRotation, you really should check it out. I use DailyRotation on a daily basis to keep up with the latest news and headlines from my favorite sites in one easy to use location. The other day I noticed the hit count for the site went up drastically and after checking it turned out that tech toppicks was added as a default option for the site.Â
A little explanation… DailyRotation, sister site to Shell Extension City, is a centralized site where you can pick and customize the layout of RSS feeds from your favorite sites all in one easy location. Once you pick your favorites you can choose from various helpful options to customize your page to your liking as well as make suggestions for other favorites you have. Last I checked the site had a PageRank of an 8, which is a great rating and well deserved.
If you follow the headlines like I do, th
Watch TV and Videos online for free. 2007-02-17 03:20:07 I ran across this link over at the ghacks site and thought it would be great to forward this on to you all. OneTipADay.com has a great listing of various websites that you can watch TV or videos on. They break down the list into general TV and sports TV for those that are sports only TV watchers.
Check out their site @ OneTipADay.com
Also, another great link is alluc.org, a site that posts their numbers first thing on the top of their site, view their site here: alluc.org
Here are the alluc.org stats:
TV-shows: 17992 links
Cartoons: 5151Â links
Movies: 2582 links
Anime: 12235 links
Music videos: 5741 links
Sport: 957 links
If you happen to know more, please feel free to tell everyone about them by hitting the Comments link below this post. Enjoy!
Read more:online
Updates to the site 2007-03-01 14:57:19 Apologies to all, I’ve been very busy at work and have not had much time to update the site. I hope to have quite a few updates over the weekend and next week to make up for it. Thank you for your patience and keep checking back.
Add NVIDIA support for Quadro FX and NVS cards in Vista 2007-03-29 14:44:16 Tweaks R Us has a list of modified NVIDIA drivers and .INFs that allow support for your Quadro NVS and FX cards in Vista
. NVIDIA dropped support of these cards in Vista due to Aero and DirectX support, but with these modified drivers you can still use your cards.
If you would like to use your Quadro and FX Nvidia cards in Vista check out their modified XTreme-G drivers page by click here > Tweaks R Us Xtreme-G Drivers
RTHDCPL.EXE : Illegal System DLL Relocation Fix 2007-04-09 04:22:01 I’ve noticed numerous people around forums and local friends as well recently receiving the error: “The system dll user32.dll was relocated in memory. The application will not run properly. The relocation occurred because the dll c:WINDOWSsystem32hhctrl.ocx occupied an address range reserved for Windows system dlls. The vendor supplying the dll should be contacted for a new dll.” The error will prevent the Realtek HD Control Panel from starting up.
After a little bit of searching I noticed a hotfix from Microsoft that fixes the error after installation and a reboot. Here is their explanation : “This problem may occur after you install security update 925902 (MS07-017) and security update 928843 (MS07-008). The Hhctrl.ocx file that is included in security update 928843 and the User32.dll file that is included in security update 925902 have conflicting base addresses. This problem occurs if the program loads the Hhctrl.ocx file before it loads the User32. Read more:System
, Relocation
Followup: Display Link USB video card technology begins to surface 2007-06-09 17:41:12 USB Video cards are not a new concept. Having one that supports high resolutions at high color is. Tech company Display
Link developed a technology that is able to support resolutions of up to 1600×1200 with full color over a USB interface. They have already begun licensing the technology to several companies for integration into USB video
cards and unviversal USB docking stations such as Toshiba’s Dyna Dock and IOGEAR’s USB video adapter. The little known manufacturer Goodway Technology has also began licensing the technology. With overseas manufacturers in play expect to see USB VGA devices offered at very low prices. Despite their also being able to offer transmission of video signals wirelessly this is not their biggest technological feat. They have also worked with top LCD manufacturer, Samsung, who has released the 940UX display based on Display Link’s technology. The 19″ monitor is connected to the computer via a single U Read more:surface
Review: Sprint Mobile Broadband for Laptops 2007-06-12 23:04:31 About a week ago I was forced away from my cable modem broadband connection due to restrictions the apartment complex I live in had posted. The only choice I had to replace my beloved cable modem was to go with a DSL Plan from BellSouth. All of this at once made me quite unhappy….
After about a week of researching I decided to bite the bullet and go with a Sprint
/ Nextel Wireless broadband connection. This post is to give anyone that is curious a good solid review of the performance of Sprint’s service with a couple of my opinions mixed in.
Here are a few benchmarks that will help anyone trying to decide whether or not wireless is for them, or if you are just unsure of the performance for the price. I’m a firm believer that you can’t run just one benchmark to determine performance so I did two, I hope this helps.
OK, let’s start.
Inner City - Downtown ATL - Time: Noon (Benchmark: SpeakEasy)
Inner City - Downtown ATL - Time: Noon (Benchmark: DSL R Read more:Mobile
Intel shipping new DG33TL Micro-ATX motherboard with onboard DVI 2007-06-12 16:37:58 Intel has just released a new motherboard
in their Media series based on the new G33 chipset.The DG33TL is the first Micro ATX board from Intel to feature a total of three PCI-E slots (1 x16 and 2 x1) and a single PCI slot. It is also the first to feature native DVI output from the onbaord chipset. The board features Intel’s updated GMA X3100 graphics processor with Clear Video Technology. The new board will also support both dual and quad core processors up to 1333 FSB and up to DDR2800 RAM. if that is not enough it comes equipped with ports-a-plenty, with 12x USB ports, internal IR header, 2x Firewire headers, 6x SATAII ports, Gigabit ethernet, and a serial port header. Intel didn’t forget about the audio either, they have dropped in their Intel 7.1 channel HD Audio to provide 7.1 channel output via analog and digital outputs. Head over to Intel to read more
Read more:Intel
Silverstone: Innovative once again with their ML02 Modt chassis 2007-06-12 15:11:29 Silverstone is at again. They have released their new ML02 Media Center targeted chassis to market. The ML02 is a vast departure from the desktop focused ML01 but is a nice departure nonetheless. The ML02 features an Imon based front panel LCD with IR remote control. Being that it is based on the Imon LCD model, this means that your media center remote control will also be compatible with the IR receiver. The downside is that since it is a Modt platform your motherboard selections will be narrowed at best. The ML02 also only has a single expansion slot. So choose your hardware carefully.
Read more:Silverstone
, Innovative
Storage freaks rejoice: 1TB Hitachi Hard drives are shipping 2007-06-12 10:08:34 The drive that everyone has been waiting for is finally shipping. Hard drives have finally hit that magic number. Head over to Newegg to pick one up. But it will cost you a nice little chunk of change $399.99 to be exact. Quiet drive with 32MB of cache and ginormous capacity? Sounds good to me.
Read more:freaks
, Hitachi
VMWare tells Windows and OSX to shake hands 2007-06-11 23:23:40 VMWare integrated a new feature into the latest beta of it’s Fusion virtualization software. The latest feature sending shock all over the internet is called “Unity”.
Unity virtualizes XP applications in OSX so it appears the applications are actually a part of the Mac operating system. Fusion allows applications to be added to the Dock as well an applications menu that is supposed to resemble the Start Menu for user-friendliness.
There are videos floating around showing applications all the way up to Office 2007 running perfectly within the Fusion engine which shows compatbility with newer software interfaces recently released by Microsoft. VMWare also posts on their page that the software is compatible with USB 2.0 devices, 64-bit, and 3D-Accelerated Graphics.
If you are interested and would like to read more, visit the Fusion Homepage @ VMWare
Read more:VMWare
, tells
, Windows
Give Vista a more impressive boot image 2007-06-11 23:11:38 As many of you know now when Vista
boots all you see is the small white scrolling bar at the bottom until it reaches the next step in the boot sequence.
For those that don’t know, you can make one small setting to get another built-in boot loader that isn’t quite so boring. Here is an image below.
Much nicer huh? In order to get this new more colorful boot loader, follow this easy step process.
Go to Start Menu > In search box type “msconfig”, press Enter > The system configuration utility will come up. > Click the Boot tab > closer to the Middle / Right you will see a check box for NOGUIBOOT, it will be unchecked > Check box, click OK and reboot. After reboot a warning will come up for MSCONFIG, check the box and click OK and it will not come up again. Any time you make a change to the MSConfig utility it will ask you for this after a reboot. Congratulations! You’ve done it.
Now, for thos
Recommend Site To A Friend
