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Check out the menus above for links to free software we recommend, free
information and free services we offer.
Follow the Services link for information on other paid services our company
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Jun 12, 2009
New Operating System Overview: Windows 7
Official Web Site:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/
From:
Microsoft Corporation
Available:
October 22, 2009
Pricing:
Consumers who purchase a new computer after June 26th will qualify for
a free upgrade to Windows 7 from these versions of Vista only:
Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. Vista Starter, Home Basic and
Enterprise editions are not included. Upgrade pricing from Vista TBD.
Rumored retail pricing for Home, Professional and Ultimate ($259, $299,
$319).
Hardware Requirements:
1GHz or faster 32-bit or 64-bit processor
1GB of memory and 16GB of free disk space (32-bit)
2GB of memory and 20GB of free disk space (64-bit)
Notable Feature:
"XP Mode" virtualization (run Windows XP applications inside of Windows 7).
Microsoft also has available a Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It scans your
PC to see if it's ready for Windows 7, and tells you about any known
compatibility issues:
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta
Jun 9, 2009
New Operating System Overview: Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6)
Official Web Site:
www.apple.com/macosx/
From:
Apple Inc.
Available:
September, 2009
Pricing:
$29 to upgrade from Leopard. Customers who purchase a qualifying new
Mac after June 8th can upgrade for $9.95.
Hardware Requirements:
Mac computer with Intel processor
1GB of memory, 5GB of free disk space
Notable Feature:
All native OS X apps, like Mail, Quicktime, Finder, and Safari, coded for 64-bit compatibility.
Jun 9, 2009
New Operating System Overview: Ubuntu 9.04
Official Web Site:
www.ubuntu.com
From:
Canonical
Pricing:
FREE
Hardware Requirements:
PC, 64-Bit PC and Intel-based Mac processor
256MB of memory, 384MB of memory (Live CD)
4GB of free disk space
Notable Feature:
Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix available for Netbooks which installs from flash drive.
Apr 19, 2009
Online Backup Services
Data backup is important for both home and business users. In addition to
your own local data backup (external hard drives, CD's, DVD's, etc.), you
should also consider using an online backup service. You should be backing
up your financial files, email, digital photos, music, scanned documents,
address books and any other data you create.
If you have a broadband connection to the internet, online backup services
can guarantee you have an additional offsite copy in case of fire, theft
or other natural disasters.
Setup is very easy and the backup is done automatically in the background
during idle time on your computer. Likewise, restoring data is very easy
too.
Two economical and dependable sevices we recommend are
Carbonite and
Mozy.
Both offer products for Windows or Mac.
Visit their web sites for more information and to sign up!
Feb 2, 2009
Don't buy a new computer with Windows Vista, unless...
... you get a free downgrade disk to Windows XP or a free upgrade disk for
Windows 7. The beta testing for Windows 7 is going well and this new version
of Windows may be available later this year. Many vendors are offering the
XP downgrade disks with Vista Business and Ultimate versions.
Jan 31, 2009
Beware of Antivirus 2009 or Antivirus Plus!
Antivirus 2008 is one of the latest counterfeit antispyware that devastates web.
Antivirus 2008 (and it's many clones, including Antivirus 2009, Antivirus Plus) is
a rogue anti-malware program that displays false results and misleading system
popup error messages that require you to first purchase the software before you
can remove anything.
It can appear after you install a video codec that came with Trojan horse, malware
or virus, or by just visiting a malicious or infected web site with a non-secure
web browser such as Internet Explorer 6 or earlier.
While you may indeed have spyware and malware on your system, this program will not
remove anything!
None of our recommended free removal tools were effective in removing this piece of
crap - many systems required a complete (and costly) re-install of Windows to fix.
However, we have found one new tool that removes most instances of this program:
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. The paid version includes realtime protection,
but the free install will work for removing Antivirus 2008, Antivirus 2009 and
Antivirus Plus. Download the program from
malwarebytes.org.
Jan 9, 2009
What to do when Windows Update fails
Windows Update has been very unreliable since about the time Windows XP Service Pack 3
appeared. Doing a clean install of Windows XP (pre SP3) and then running Windows
Update manually to get all the many patches and updates eventually fails, most
often with the symptoms that the updates are downloaded but the install mysteriously fails.
The Microsoft Knowledgebase is full of suggestions and workarounds. Most appear to
be complete time wasters in that they do not fix the problem.
This one program has worked for us over 80% of the time: Dial-a-fix from Lunarsoft.
Visit the
Lunarsoft Wiki and follow the links for Dial-a-fix.
Dec 14, 2008
Those annoying new Office File Formats
Beginning with the Microsoft Office 2007 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Micorsoft has
changed the default file structure to a new Open XML Format.
These files can be recognized by their new file extensions: .docx (Word), .xlsx (Excel)
and .pptx (PowerPoint).
Unfortunately, older versions of the Microsoft Office programs can not open or read
these files!
Fortunately, there is a set of updates available to allow most older versions of Office
(Microsoft Office 2003, Office XP, and Office 2000 only) to open, edit, and save documents
in the new formats.
Go here to download and install the
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.
These patches will also work for the free viewer programs.
TIP: The new Microsoft Office 2007 programs also allow you to do a "Save As..." in the
older file formats.
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