Bill Mullins' Weblog – Tech Thoughts

Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – April 1, 2010

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PCMag After Hours: Bonus Best Free Software Episode – Eric has spent the last several months of his life working on PCMag’s Best Free Software of 2010, so why not spend another 20 minutes on the subject? We take you on a tour of the best of the best. For those with tech writing attention deficit disorder, consider this your crash course.

AquaSnap Brings Enhanced Aero Effects to Windows XP Through Windows 7 – If all you’re interested in is taking advantage of Aero-style effects in Windows XP like snapping application windows to the edges of your monitor, AquaSnap has you covered. You can step beyond the basics in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 with additional AquaSnap tweaks.

SurfSpeed 2: How Fast Is Your Web Browser? – How fast is your connection? I mean, how fast is it really? – SurfSpeed, our free “surfing speedometer”‘ knows for sure. (Registration required).

Help: 12 Tips for Printing Great Photos – With a bit of knowledge and practice, you should be able to print great-looking photos at home. Here are 12 techniques for improving the quality of your prints.

Lifehacker: Why You Should Never Pay More Than $10 For HDMI Cables – You’ve probably guessed that gold-plated cables for your home theater are entirely unnecessary. Still, there must be some small quality difference for all that price, right? Mint.com’s blog lays out the answer: No, not at all.

Product Spotlight: Comodo Internet Security 4.0 – Comodo Internet Security 4.0 secures your computer from Internet threats with a firewall, anti-virus protection and advanced intrusion prevention.

Hacker Finds a Way to Exploit PDF Files, Without Vulnerability – A security researcher has managed to create a proof-of-concept PDF file that executes an embedded executable without exploiting any security vulnerabilities. The PDF hack, when combined with clever social engineering techniques, could potentially allow code execution attacks if a user simply opens a rigged PDF file.

Yahoo E-Mail Accounts Hacked in China, Taiwan – Yahoo email accounts of some journalists and activists whose work relates to China were compromised in an attack discovered this week, days after Google announced it would move its Chinese-language search services out of China due to censorship concerns.

Off Topic:

Square Large Numbers in Your Head Quickly – Square Large Numbers in Your Head QuicklyQuick: What’s 192…without your calculator? (361.) Squaring complex, two-digit numbers in your head isn’t that difficult if you know a simple trick, according to the Secrets of Mental Math author Michael Shermer.

Driving and phones impair safety unless you’re a ’supertasker’ – Multi-tasking has its limits. A study by University of Utah psychologists found that people just can’t talk on the cell phone and drive at the same time without safety problems—except for a few “supertaskers.”

GOD FORCED TO RECALL HUMANS – There was bad news for God this week as the well-known deity was forced to recall thousands of examples of His popular Human Being after reports that the model could be prone to unexpected attacks of unbelievable stupidity. (submitted by dar).

Today’s Quote:

“I’m still an atheist, thank God.”

–    Luis Bunuel

Today’s Free Downloads:

Screenshot Captor – Screenshot Captor takes control of the Windows PrintScreen key and gives you fine control over the screenshot process. This tool can grab a region, a window, or an entire screen. It can even piece together a big screenshot from a scrolling window.

The Rasterbator – The Rasterbator is a very good program for printing out large rasterized images–images made up of small dots–on a normal printer. With it, you’ll be able to take photos and other images and create banners, posters, and other large images

10 Downloads to Power Up Your Printer – Locked up in your printer is far more power than you might imagine. We’ve assembled ten great printer downloads that can reduce paper and ink consumption, print out CD and DVD labels, create posters, and generate business cards–and that’s just a start. Check out these free and affordably priced utilities.

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