Posts

Posted on

Slimming Down AVG

There are many companies out there that offer a free antivirus programs to home users. Avast! is one, as is Avira, BitDefender, and AVG. AVG, however, appears to be the sole vendor to offer a free antivirus program for the x64 versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. And since I just got a new x64 computer running Vista Home Premium, I was in the market for a new AV solution. So I downloaded and installed AVG Free 8… only to recoil at how bloated the whole thing had become!

AVG Free 8 has, in my opinion, two big problems: the Link Scanner and the Notification Area.

According to About.com, Link Scanner is “a tool that protects the user from visiting malformed sites from a search engine. So for example, if you were to open up Google and type ‘skiing’ and Google returned 100 sites concerning skiing, Link Scanner would visit each of those sites and determine if you were at risk by clicking on any of the supplied links”. This is a giant waste of bandwidth for nearly everyone involved – especially since the same types of sites that Link Scanner blocks are easily blocked by Internet Explorer and Firefox’s phishing filters, as well as OpenDNS’s servers if you use that service. More importantly, Link Scanner visibly slows down Google and adds these annoying green icons all over your results page:

AVG Link Scanner

So – how do you disable the Link Scanner?

Continue reading “Slimming Down AVG”

Posted on

Windows 7: MP3 Warning!

The latest beta (test) version of Microsoft Windows – currently known as “Windows 7” – leaked to the Internet just before Christmas. Millions have downloaded it illegally… but you might want to hold off on actually installing it. Microsoft recently admitted to a bug in the included Windows Media Player 12 which can delete the first couple of seconds of every mp3 file it plays!

What actually happens is that Windows will corrupt any MP3 file with a header larger than 16KB if that file’s metadata is overwritten. So your data will become corrupted if you manually edit the ID3 tags in Windows Explorer *or* have WMP set to automatically fetch the artwork and other information over the Internet (which is the default setting if you picked the “Express Setup” of WMP 12).

This bug applies to leaked build 7000 of Windows 7 only. It does not apply to any other Microsoft operating system, or any other build of Windows 7. Although Microsoft is working on a patch for this, you can avoid it completely by not using WMP12 or using any built-in tool for editing metadata. Risk takers are advised to turn off the “download artwork” option if they must use WMP12 in Windows 7.

Read more about it here.

Posted on

What’s Wrong With This?

Quick – what’s wrong with this sign?

Welsh Sign

OK, it’s a trick question of sorts… unless you speak Welsh.

You see, all signs in Wales are required by law to be in both Welsh and English. No one on the Swansea council knew enough of the tongue to translate the English portion of the sign into Welsh, so they emailed the text to a translator they’d used before. Unfortunately, the translator was out of the office, and he or she had the “Out of Office Assistant” turned on. When the Swansea council got a reply to their email, they simply assumed that this was the correct translation. And so… the Welsh portion of this sign reads…

“I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

Posted on

Steelers 2009 Schedule: Much Easier!

The Steelers 2009 schedule was outlined on Monday, and it looks to be much easier than this years.

Home:

Baltimore, Minnesota, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Oakland, San Diego and Green Bay.

Road:

Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland,  Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit and Miami.

Of course, times and exact dates haven’t been published yet. Read more about it here.

Posted on

I’m back!

In case you hadn’t noticed it from the new posts, I’m back online. I got a new computer for Christmas – a triple core x64 box from AMD, thankyouverymuch – and getting that box up and running was no problem. However, I also upgraded my SBS server from my ancient BP6 to my old desktop – a 3 GHz P4 – and for some reason, SBS just doesn’t like the P4 very much. I had to install SBS several times to get a stable OS, and many times I appeared to have succeeded, only to find that some component wasn’t working properly. What fun!

In any case, everything is up and running at the moment, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Posted on

Funny Pics

Hamas fires rocks into Israel. Israel strikes back. Pro-Palestinian whiners start protesting at the United Nations… only someone forgot to spell-check this guy’s sign:

(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)

Yeah, take THAT, apple, grape and cranberry! Juice shouldn’t be allowed to exist! Juice controls the media and all the banks! Juice runs this country!

What an idiot! Hey, maybe he can hang out with the Get a Brain Morans guy! And yes, the above is a real picture that has not been Photoshopped. See the original here.

Continue reading “Funny Pics”

Posted on

And so, the heads start to roll…

No big surprises here, but the Cleveland Browns have fired head coach Romeo Crennel, the Detroit Lions have fired Rod Marinelli, and the New York Jets have fired Eric Mangini. OK, the last one is a bit of a surprise… the coach they once called “Mangenius” had a bad year (he was 23-26 overall with the Jets). I just didn’t expect the firing to come so soon.

In other news, the tests on Big Ben’s noggin came back negative, so you can expect to see him play against either the Ravens or Dolphins in two weeks.