Helpextend» utilities

Microsoft Security Essentials

Domini Mariano — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:15:33 +0000

About Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

Learn more at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center

Find information, definitions, and analyses of all the latest threats that Microsoft Security Essentials can help protect you against in the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.

Hylafax.org | Open Source Faxing Software

Domini Mariano — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:52:22 +0000

Telecommuniting is becoming a new trend in any industry specially with the current state of our economy. Organizations are cutting back and doing more with less and expects the same results or even better. Technology can definitely help in cutting down cost. Document management and exchange can easily be handled through email and it’s availability through mobile devices but other organization still relies on fax. Well we stumbled upon an open source electronic faxing software called HYLAFAX and you may want to test drive it to make sure it will meet your organization’s demand. It’s a little difficult to install but once you get it working, you will reap the benefits of it being free and functional.

K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat – It’s FREE

Domini Mariano — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:40:22 +0000

So you’ve been wondering what and where your employeer spend most of their time while under your payroll? or do you want to simply block your kids from going to non PG-13 sites? Well, you don’t have to look further because K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat has the asnwer and take this, it’s free – remember, we’ve created this site as a portal for cheap or better yet free solutions for your household or for small business owners. Feel free to use their software while it’s free.

Task Management?

Domini Mariano — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:44:22 +0000

TaskFreak! is a simple but efficient web based task manager written in PHP. Try it out!

http://taskfreak.com

P2P file sharing

Jason Mohan — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:56:24 +0000

I know what you thought, another illegal file sharing program. Alliance, allows you to create your own p2p network so you can add your friends, and share files and programs. May they be legal or illegal. Alliance website quotes the following:

“Alliance is a private and secure place to share files and communicate with people you know. It is easy to use and free.

Technically Alliance takes the best parts of BitTorrent (advanced multi-source downloading), DirectConnect (community) and WASTE (security).

With Alliance users create their own networks. You can either start a new network or get invited into an existing network by another Alliance user.” – www.alliancep2p.com

Give it a shot and let us know what you think.

Backup your pictures and documents online

Jason Mohan — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:26:25 +0000

Have you backed up your pc recently? Where are all those precious photos, documents, and programs backed up at? Most of us do what we call an offline backup (and if you are not doing any type of backup, all I have to say is keep your fingers crossed). An offline backup is a a backup that’s on another hard drive, cd, or dvd. This is a great way to backup, but it takes time especially if you have a laptop. Also if your backup set, and the original files are at or in the same location it’s not a good idea, especially if it’s caught in a fire. To solve both these problems, do an online backup. There are a few online backup tools to make your life a bit easier, and they backup anytime as long as you are online during the backup process. My favorite is idrive. I know of two more great backup utilities that people loved they are mozy, and carbonite. Mozy didn’t work for me very great. Everytime it took off to run the backup, and started to calculate the files that needed to be backed up it would stall. I tried three times on different occasions to get mozy to work on my laptop but it would never take. As far as carbonite is concerned, never tried it, but I’ve read from different forums that it lacks some features that mozy and idrive have, but it works. Not sure to this day why mozy didn’t work though, and their tech support wasn’t sure either.

So I decided to give idrive a shot, and to my amazement I loved it. It works perfectly, if there’s any problem to backup the data it sends me an email and lets me know. It also keeps the last 30 versions of any file it backups. Which proved very useful, when I needed a document recently. The problem was I saved the wrong version and the backup already took place. Luckily I logged into idrive web interface and was able to pick the correct version and download it. If you’re looking for a great online backup tool check out idrive. I’ve included a few features of idrive below, including a screenshot.

Idrive Features

1. Continous data protection – the minute you change a file it’s backed up immediately. You can turn this feature on or off, it’s your choice.

2. Web based – Forgot your file or presentation at home, if it got backed up, then log into the idrive web interface and download it no matter where you are.

3. Versioning – Keep the last 30 revisions of a file, so you can choose which one you want to restore.

Got malware, or spyware?

Jason Mohan — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:22:37 +0000

This has happened to all of us at some point, especially me. Malware and spyware just ruin the whole day sometimes trying to get problem fixed. Internet pop-ups, weird quirky things start to happen to your computer, or it just starts slowing down because of malware or spyware. Some of you may even call your IT friend who is good with computers. You don’t need to anymore. There are a few software utilities out there that will try to detect and remove malware, or spyware from your pc. They are free, some come with an upgraded version if you decide to pay. My three free favorites are Adware, Windows defender, and Spybot. Spybot is my favorite, it’s helped me a lot when I get malware or spyware on my pc. Download these utilities and see if your malware or spyware will just disappear. If so no more needing to call your IT friend. Saves you both time and money (if you were paying him/her in the first place).

1. Ad-ware – Not sure about the continuous protection on the free version, but it has a good tool to remove existing malware and spyware from your pc.

2. Windows Defender – Continuous protection, if you already have spyware, or malware on your pc it’s not the best tool to remove it though.

3. Spybot- Continuous protection, and it a very good tool to remove those stubborn malware or spyware crap of your pc.

Task manager on steroids?

Jason Mohan — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:11:18 +0000

Too many times I my pc ends up with some type of malware. Trying to end the process is tricky, finding where the .exe is that’s popping up webpages in my browser makes it very annoying. Then I find the culprit in the process list. I had one malware that spawned off three more of the executables if you tried to delete it, it took almost three days. Then it happened again, and I used process explorer, made life so much simpler. I love the task manager in windows but this free software it like task manager on steroids. It’s free, from microsoft and shows you what’s running in your process the path of the process, and who or what called the process. Try it it’s called Process Explorer from Microsoft (formerly Sysinternals). I didn’t provide a screenshot here, because the Microsoft site has one.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Belarc Advisor, find out what’s missing from your pc

Jason Mohan — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:43:22 +0000

I never heard about this program till a few days ago. I’ve seen the icon on a few peoples desktop but never new what it did. This program tells you what hotfixes, and /or patches you need to update your pc with, what’s missing and so forth. However there are many programs out there that do similar things, but this program combines it into one program suite. This program is called, Belarc a free program that analyzes your pc and software from top to bottom. One thing I really loved about this program is it shows you the product keys you used when you installed the software. This can prove invaluable when you have the software installed on a pc, and you need to install it on another pc, but you lost the cd-key, or product key. I’ve included a link and screenshot below.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Get the taskbar on both screens

Jason Mohan — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:17:23 +0000

So you bought two screens, and got it working with your video card. Great, now you turn on your computer and find out your taskbar doesn’t stretch across to the other screen. The second screen works, you can move windows to it back and forth, but the taskbar doesn’t go across to the second screen. This is the normal behavior in windows xp. However we got a solution for you, with the help of a little software called ultramon. Unfortunately, it’s not a free software but they give you a 30 trial. You can use more than ten monitors. I like the software and think it’s worth the $40.00 it costs for a license. See as many windows as I have open, trying to search the taskbar for that one window I’m looking for is not an easy task when my taskbar works only on one screen. Ultramon has other great features also like wallpaper stretching across all your screens, screensaver on both screens, and window management options. Check out their site.