TechBlog

In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, Greg Shultz shows you how to use some of the new features in Windows 7’s Event Viewer to investigate boot time and track down issues that can cause a slowdown in the boot process. This download is available as an entry in the TechRepublic Microsoft Windows Blog. Credit to ZDNet.

Mozilla Labs: The “Chromeless” project experiments with the idea of removing the current browser user interface and replacing it with a flexible platform which allows for the creation of new browser UI using standard Web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Introduction Have you ever had an idea to improve the user interface of your browser? Have you ever actually gone and tried to make that idea a reality? If you have, you would have probably used technologies like XUL and XPCOM. Much of the user interface (browser chrome) of Firefox is implemented in XUL, which uses a lot of Web-based technologies such as the DOM and JavaScript. Firefox is put together in a way that seasoned developers are able implement features with amazing efficiency, but at the same time, the browser interface in XUL represents a barrier for potential contributors. What if the parts of the browser that are most interesting to contributors were implemented in standard Web technologies such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript? What kinds of wild-eyed experimentation would we see if a new conception of browser UI could be prototyped in about the same time it takes to write a web page? ...

I was reading an article on PCWorld’s website about the upcoming Google Chrome OS: So far so good. Except that I inadvertently clicked on one of their sponsored links: which ironically states “Here is all about spyware removal and even more.” After a few redirects, my browser is hijacked by one of those FakeAV scanners: Here is the HTTP traffic capture screenshot and log: ...

Facebook continues its quest to revamp its popular Photos feature with the launch of the number one most requested feature of them all: drag-and-drop organizing. Demonstrated in the video above, drag-and-drop organizing is exactly as it sounds; users can now drag and drop albums and photos into any order they desire. Today’s launch follows last month’s upgrade of Facebook Photos, which brought high resolution photo uploads and an in-line photo viewer to the News Feed. ...

My favorite music player in old days ‘Winamp’ has now released its official app (currently in Beta) for Android devices. The app is available as a free download to everyone. Winamp media player is a nice app for Android. It offers a complete media management solution by seamlessly syncing with the Winamp desktop library. In addition to high quality playback and persistent player controls, Winamp for Android offers wireless desktop sync with your Winamp desktop application. ...

Google’s ultra high speed fiber network — which the company says can offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second — is about to get its first trial outside of the Googleplex. The trial is fairly small and not too far from home; the company will be deploying its network at Stanford University to “a group of approximately 850 faculty- and staff-owned homes on campus. “ Google also points out that this isn’t part of its call for small-to-mid-sized communities to submit proposals to get “Google Fiber” in their towns. That competition sparked an amusing social media battle earlier this year between dozens (if not hundreds) of towns ranging from Topeka, Kansas, to Huntsville, Alabama. Google says that they, “still plan to announce our selected community or communities by the end of the year.” ...

BERLIN — Google on Thursday said 244,000 people in Germany had asked the company to remove images of their houses and apartments from its Street View maps, but that the requests would not derail its plans to activate the service this year. The figure was in line with what German data protection officials had previously estimated. The officials predicted that several hundred thousand people would opt out. In a blog posting on its Web site, Google said 2.9 percent of the 8.5 million households in Germany’s 20 largest cities had opted out of the service. ...

An Arizona computer specialist has admitted taking part in a conspiracy that used large networks of compromised computers to inflate the value of stocks so they could later be sold at a profit. James Bragg, 41, of Chandler, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and fraud, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. It wasn’t immediately clear when sentencing is to take place. ...

A German source is signaling that those who haven’t downloaded FaceTime for Mac just yet may want to hold back on the desire to video chat with their iPhone-wielding friends, as there may be some serious security risks involved. During yesterday’s Back to the Mac special event held in Cupertino, California, Apple’s CEO confirmed the availability of FaceTime for Mac. The application effectively enables anyone with a mac running Snow Leopard to use their computer’s iSight camera and mic to talk to their iPhone, iPod touch-equipped friends. ...

A new extension, called Facebook Disconnect, blocks contact between your browser and Facebook’s servers when you’re browsing the regular Web. Facebook Disconnect will prevent the sending of data back to Facebook across the one million sites that use the Facebook Connect service. Read it at Download Squad Before (Left) – After (Right) While there are other ways to do this manually, they usually amount to a full block on *.facebook.com/* traffic, whereas this extension still allows normal use of your Facebook account and leaves “like” buttons on websites completely intact for you to continue sharing.