Apple iPad Air 2 is thinner and speedier than its predecessors

Apple’s iPad Air 2 is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and should be speedier as well, thanks to a new processor.

It also has improved camera and security features, as does the iPad Mini 3, Apple said Thursday during an event at it’s Cupertino, California, campus, unveiling the tablets at a time when the company’s dominance in that market has waned.

The iPad Air 2, which has a 9.7-inch screen, is 6.1 millimeter thick, which is 18 percent thinner than the iPad Air. The Air 2 offers 10 hours of battery life.

The tablet has the all-new A8X chip, which is a variant of the A8 chip in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The chip is 40 percent faster and provides 2.5 times better graphics than the A7 chip in the iPad Air.

“We’re able to deliver console-level graphics in your hand,” said Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide marketing.

Other features include an 8-megapixel iSight rear camera and a FaceTime front camera. The iSight camera can take 1080p video that can be manipulated in multiple modes such as slow motion and time lapse.

Image and video manipulation tools such as Pixelmator and Replay will help users edit, repair and manipulate images, taking advantage of the faster graphics processor.

The iPad Mini 3 has a 7.9-inch screen, an A7 chip, a 5-megapixel iSight rear camera, a FaceTime camera and 802.11ac wireless.

Both tablets have the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, which lets users bypass passwords when logging into a smartphone or buying things online. The fingerprint technology is used with the Apple Pay payment system.

The iPad Air 2 is priced at US$499 for 16GB and Wi-Fi storage, $599 for 64GB and $699 for 128GB. A version of the tablet with cellular connectivity is $130 more.

The iPad Mini 3 is priced at $399 for 16GB, $499 for 64GB and $599 for 128GB.

Both tablets can be ordered now, with shipping set for next week.

The tablets are hitting the market at a time when Android tablet makers Samsung, Lenovo and Asus are gaining ground on Apple. Apple’s tablet shipments declined 9.3 percent during the second quarter of 2014 compared to the same quarter last year, while overall worldwide tablet shipments went up 11 percent, according to IDC.

Apple faces further challenges as more users opt for larger-screen smartphones and hybrid devices instead of tablets. The iPhone 6 Plus, which has a 5.5-inch screen, is off to a hot start, and could hurt iPad sales. And Google’s Nexus 9, the first 64-bit Android tablet, starts shipping next month.

IDC is projecting overall worldwide tablet shipments to grow by just 6.5 percent this year.

But Apple CEO Tim Cook put a—predictably—positive spin on the situation at the event, noting that the company has sold 225 million tablets.

“We’ve sold more iPads in the first four years than any product in our history,” Cook said.

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The 10 worst people you meet working in IT

You're definitely going to meet them. Hopefull you aren't one of them.

Every human being is a unique and special person who doesn't quite fit into any category, of course. That said, if you've worked in IT long enough, you've probably learned to identify certain ... types. Call them Jungian archetypes, but for people you don't like. Once you've started to recognize them, you see them everywhere. We asked a host of IT pros to describe the type of IT pro they like least, and we got some colorful answers. Have you ever dealt with some of these worst people in IT? Or worse: do you recognize yourself in these descriptions? It's not too late to take another path.

The Consultant
Liam Kavanaugh has been upgrading Windows 2003 servers at his company, with "help" from The Consultant. "He turns up in a car far more expensive than any that the actual IT department can afford. You show him your setup and he looks confused. Any deviation from a lab environment and he can't cope. Eventually you end up doing all his work for them while he warns you that installing the software on a virtual server/physical server, a Windows/Linux server, one with no wallpaper/one with pretty wallpaper IS NOT STANDARD and he can't be held accountable."

"Eventually, you get a £2,000 bill, and the managing director sends our a message thanking the 'consulting team' for doing a good job."

The Braggy Numbers Guy
Chris Collision has had enough of The Braggy Numbers Guy, a "semi-literate 'marketing' dude. Everything that goes right is because he's great: everything that goes wrong is because nobody listens to him. (Those who have long memories may remember that he was in every meeting that led up to something going wrong, and that he had nothing to say in any of them.) Never responds to an email; never sends an email to do anything but throw somebody under the bus or take credit for someone else's work. Refuses to use the company's project managing tools. Likes to bark at people and stomp around like he's still in the army. No matter what you know, say, or have done, he's got a topper."

The Dumb Nerd
Being a nerd is the core of a lot of techies' self-image, but as Nathan E. points out, not all nerds are created equal. Dumb Nerds "thinks that because they are a nerd, they're smart. They work with computers but are actually Really Bad with computers. They don't understand their mistakes, and in fact struggle to recognize them as mistakes. They cannot follow directions and do not have the technical skills to fix any problems that come from missing a step. They are often furries or Whovians with a dim grasp of the difference between fiction and reality. Quite often they are experimenting with polyamory and cannot shut up about it. Bonus points for stupid hats and sword collections."

The Underqualified Humanities Degree Middle Manager
Is the Underqualified Humanities Degree Middle Manager your boss? Woe be unto you, explains Chris Collision: "No business background. No visible useful skills. Tends to assume that his general intelligence qualifies him as an understander of everything. No managerial experience, so he's constantly mad at his employees for not reading his mind. Bitterly resents and fights against any reduction of his responsibilities, but actually does almost no work and complains about what work he does (have to) do. Cracks jokes in meetings as his primary contribution to them. Sulks when any idea he has isn't instantly adopted/praised. Special flower who reserves the bulk of his contempt for people who act like they think they're special flowers."

The Mansplainer
Like many women in tech, Erin R. has had too many encounters with The Mansplainer. She's had to deal with her current nemesis because "I was asked to fix up the CSS on our main home page recently (since he was being slow about getting it done). He came over to explain basic concepts to me -- for example, if I change the main .css file, that will affect all the pages, not just the main page. I pointed out that I am well aware of how CSS works, and he seemed surprised. He continued explaining basic HTML and CSS concepts, all of which I knew. He also decided that he was entitled to use my keyboard to demonstrate these things."

The #Disruptor Boss
The #Disruptor Boss would not get the irony of the hashtag in this slide's title. "A smart, generally worthwhile human whose critical faculties turn right off when confronted with any/all tech-type buzzwords. Particularly vulnerable to manipulation by the Braggy Numbers Guy. Wants to run with the big, big companies, and will drop every name he can think of, because he thinks that'll be helpful. Hobbies include vaguely describing nebulous aims and demonstrating zero follow-through. Will under no circumstances actually assign any resources to support the achievement of his nebulous aims. Springs for lunch a lot, though, so there's that."

The Political Theorist
Nathan E. has had one too many arguments with The Political Theorist, who is "often blindingly smart but extremely undisciplined as a thinker. Makes the classic fallacy that because they are great at coding, their ideas about politics must be equally great. Often found saying 'If the government would just do X, then Y,' as if politics were as amenable to flow control as a Perl script. Usually Libertarian, which I find hilarious in light of the current wage theft lawsuits in Silicon Valley. Who could have foreseen that a group that thinks unions are all bad and the the market and business is always right and good would have the money colluded right out of their pockets?"

The QA Killjoy
"Okay, I get that everybody hates QA," says Chris Collision: "All they ever do is point at things that are bad and broken and wrong and why can't they ever say that something works for a change." But the QA Killjoy is in a class of their own. "There's a specific type that gravitates toward the field, a type for whom it is very, personally, important to be right. Impossible to work with or have a human interaction with. (Unless you write a detailed user story for them to follow, I guess.)"

The Technologist
You may work in technology, but even so, you might become very tired of dealing with The Technologist. "Technology is awful. I don't care about the iWatch or your mega-Tivo or how you ran Cat 6 in your house so you could stream TV to any of the possible places where you might go to the bathroom. I do this all day; I don't want to think about it when I go home and you shouldn't either."

The Impossible To Fire
Gripe as you will about these types, but many of them will outlast you wherever you work. Liam Kavanaugh says The Impossible To Fire are particularly prevalent in countries with restrictive labor laws. "In 2006 I was in charge of imaging all the new PCs ready to go out. I checked how they did it at some of the other sites, thinking that they would know more and have better methods. One place in Germany deployed all their Windows XP machines by first installing Windows 98 and then upgrading them to Windows XP. In 2006. When I asked why, I was told that the guy who did it had been with the company 15 years, and why should he change?"

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Dense server battle to heat up with Intel's Xeon D

Intel's first Broadwell server chip, Xeon D, will be in servers next year

Ahead of competition from ARM servers, Intel is putting more weight in the server space with a new Xeon D family of chips, which will be in systems next year.

Xeon D chips will be the first server chips based on the Broadwell architecture, and will go into dense servers starting next year, the chipmaker said at the Intel Developer Forum.

Intel has started shipping the Xeon D chips to customers for testing, said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group, during a keynote on Wednesday.

The chips are targeted at hyperscale workloads, in which servers are consistently added to scale performance. Companies like Facebook and Google buy servers in the thousands to deal with growing workloads.

Xeon D is effectively a system-on-chip, and will combine many components to deliver power-efficient performance for Web-based, storage or networking workloads. The chip family will have I/O and controllers for networking and storage appliances.

Intel already offers the Xeon E3 and also Atom chips code-named Avoton to process online workloads. But the Xeon D chip will be faster and more power hungry than Avoton, which is based on an architecture called Silvermont used in mobile chips. The Xeon D chips will draw 15 watts of power and more, Bryant said.

The goal with Xeon D is to help customers pack more performance-per-watt in servers, Bryant said.

Intel previously projected Xeon D, code-named Broadwell DE, to ship as early as late 2014. But PC, tablet and server chips based on Broadwell have been delayed due to manufacturing glitches.

Bryant also said Intel wanted to provide chips that could be customized for specific workloads, which it already does for specific customers like eBay. During the keynote, Bryant said that Intel will allow FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to be built into the same package as chips, though didn't point specifically to Xeon D. Intel has packaged FPGAs with server chips for years now.

Xeon D will gear up Intel for a battle with ARM, whose processor designs will be in servers next year. AppliedMicro and Advanced Micro Devices are making 64-bit ARM chips for dense servers, but the products have been delayed. Nvidia and Samsung have cancelled plans to make server chips based on ARM.

Intel's chips already go into more than 90 percent of servers, and server makers like Dell have said that the chances for success of ARM servers are diminishing due to product delays. The ARM server chips are based on the ARMv8 architecture, and have integrated networking, storage and I/O controllers. Intel also has a head-start on software development over ARM.

Xeon D will also be Intel's first server chip made using the 14-nanometer process, which will provide power-efficiency and performance benefits. The first chips made using the 14-nm process called Core M are already due to become available in tablet-laptop hybrids starting later this month.

Intel earlier this week announced the Xeon E5-2600 v3 chips, which are based on the Haswell architecture. The Xeon E5 chips have accounted for more than 80 percent of Intel's server chip shipments. Intel's Xeon E5 line will transition over to Broadwell sometime next year.

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Data centers are the new polluters

IT managers may be too cautious about managing power, and businesses are unwilling to invest in efficiency, study finds

U.S. data centers are using more electricity than they need. It takes 34 power plants, each capable of generating 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity, to power all the data centers in operation today. By 2020, the nation will need another 17 similarly sized power plants to meet projected data center energy demands as economic activity becomes increasingly digital.

Increased electrical generation from fossil fuels means release of more carbon emissions. But this added pollution doesn't have to be, according to a new report on data center energy efficiency from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental action organization.
Whatever happened to Green IT?

In term of national energy, data centers in total used 91 billion (kilowatts) kWh in 2013, and by 2020, will be using 139 billion kWh, a 53% increase.
NRDC Data center efficiency chartThis chart shows the estimated cost and power usage by U.S. data centers in 2013 and 2020, and the number of power plants needed to support this increased demand. The last column shows carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in millions of metric tons. (Source: NRDC)

The report argues that improved energy efficiency practices by data centers could cut energy waste by at least 40%. The problems hindering efficiency include comatose or ghost servers, which use power but don't run any workloads; overprovisioned IT resources; lack of virtualization; and procurement models that don't address energy efficiency. The typical computer server operates at no more than 12% to 18% of capacity, and as many as 30% of servers are comatose, the report states.

The paper tallies up the consequences of inattention and neglect on a national scale. It was assembled and reviewed with help from organizations including Microsoft, Google, Dell, Intel, The Green Grid, Uptime Institute and Facebook, which made "technical and substantial contributions."

The NRDC makes a sharp distinction between large data centers run by large cloud providers, which account for about 5% of the total data center energy usage. Throughout the data center industry, there are "numerous shining examples of ultra-efficient data centers," the study notes. These aren't the problem. It's the thousands of other mainstream business and government data centers, and small, corporate or multi-tenant operations, that are the problem, the paper argues.

The efficiency accomplishments of the big cloud providers, "could lead to the perception that the problem is largely solved," said Pierre Delforge, director of the NRDC's high-tech sector on energy efficiency, but it doesn't fit the reality of most data centers.

Data centers are "one of the few large industrial electricity uses which are growing," Delforge said, and they are a key factor in creating demand for new power plants in some regions.

Businesses that move to co-location, multi-tenant data center facilities don't necessarily make efficiency gains. Customers may be charged on space-based pricing, paying by the rack or square footage, with a limit on how much power they can use before additional charges kick in. But this model offers little incentive to operate equipment as efficiently as possible.

In total, the report says U.S. data centers used 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity last year, "enough to power all of New York City's households twice over and growing." By 2020, annual data center energy consumption is expected to reach 140 billion kilowatt hours.

If companies used data center best practices, the report states, the economic benefits would be substantial. A 40% reduction in energy use, which the report says is only half of the technically possible reduction, would equal $3.8 billion in savings for businesses.

The report also finds that energy efficiency progress is slowing. Once the obvious efficiency projects, such as isolating hot and cold aisles, are accomplished, addition investment in energy efficiency becomes harder to justify because of cost or a perception that they may increase risk. IT managers are "extremely cautious," about implementing aggressive energy management because it could introduce more risk to uptime, the report notes.

There are a number of measurements used to determine the efficiency of data centers, and the report recommends development of tools for determining CPU utilization, average server utilization, and average data center utilization. It says that "broad adoption of these simple utilization metrics across the data center industry would provide visibility on the IT efficiency of data centers, thereby creating market incentives for operators to optimize the utilization of their IT assets. "

The NRDC isn't the first to look at this issue. In 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, working with a broad range of data center operators and industry groups, released a report on data center power usage that found that the energy use of the nation's servers and data centers in 2006 "is estimated to be more than double the electricity that was consumed for this purpose in 2000." It called for energy efficiency improvements.

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Twitter to remove images of deceased upon request

Twitter has some reservations in granting wishes of kin

Twitter said late Tuesday it will remove images and videos of deceased people upon the request of family members, but it put conditions on the policy.

The microblogging service made the announcement a week after the daughter of the late comedian Robin Williams said she would quit Twitter after receiving gruesome images of him from online trolls.

The move also comes as Twitter tried to delete images and video depicting the death of U.S. photojournalist James Foley, who was apparently killed by the militant group Islamic State, better known as ISIS.

"In order to respect the wishes of loved ones, Twitter will remove imagery of deceased individuals in certain circumstances," Twitter spokesman Nu Wexler said in a message about the update to its policies.

"When reviewing such media removal requests, Twitter considers public interest factors such as the newsworthiness of the content and may not be able to honor every request."

Twitter, which boasts 271 million active monthly users, posted details of the policy that require the estate or a person's family member to provide documents such as copies of a death certificate and government-issued identification.

Family members or other authorized people can request the removal of photos or video of deceased people on Twitter "from when critical injury occurs to the moments before or after death," it said.

Twitter still refuses to provide account access to anyone, even if they are related to the person who has died.

Women have been the target of threats an abuse on Twitter, and critics have urged the company to change its Twitter Rules. A year ago, it introduced an "in-tweet" abuse button to report violations.

But some have complained that it's still impossible to stop determined trolls.

"Ive endured this for two years, and so have countless others," Twitter user Imani Gandy recently wrote about the racist invective she suffers at the hands of one particular troll.

"He creates hundreds of accounts to tweet his inane ramblings to my friends, online acquaintances and even my work. He latches on to any tweet of mine and harasses anyone that I interact with."

She criticized Twitter for being slow to act and having no solutions beyond suspending accounts, adding she and other users are trying to get Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to strengthen the service's abuse policies.

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25 useful, free tools for every Windows desktop

Whatever your poison -- Windows 7 or 8, updated or not -- there's a desktop tool just begging to become part of your repertoire.

Top 25 free tools for every Windows desktop
While smartphones descend on computer cognoscenti like Mongol hordes and tablets tempt the tried and true, the good ol’ Windows desktop still reigns supreme in many corners of the modern tech world. That’s where I live, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

If you haven’t looked at free desktop programs lately, you’ll be surprised. The inexorable shift to a post-PC world hasn’t deadened the market or dulled innovation. Quite the contrary. The current crop of free-for-personal-use (and cheap for corporate use) desktop apps runs rings around the best tools we had not long ago.

Productivity, file management, media, system, security -- here are my top choices for the most useful free and almost-free desktop apps, tested on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 Update 1.

Top free desktop productivity tool: FreeCommander XE
Whether you’re using File Explorer in Windows 7 or Windows Explorer in Windows 8/8.1, you’re up against the same, lame Explorer layout we’ve known for more than a decade, plus or minus a few icons on a Ribbon. FreeCommander XE presents the obvious solution -- two side-by-side panes for independent navigating and copying -- along with an entire cookie jar full of worthwhile one-click features.

Although some of the download versions of FreeCommander XE bundle unrelenting crapware, the version available from the FreeCommander site installs without a hitch or a hitchhiker.

Top free desktop productivity tool: 7-Zip
Every desktop user needs 7-Zip. While Windows 8 (finally!) added the ability to look into ISO files -- you still need 7-Zip to see them in Win7 -- Win8’s Windows Explorer still doesn’t support RAR compressed files, which are becoming more common as Mac use continues to rise. 7-Zip also creates password-protected Zip files, as well as self-extracting Zips.

You don’t need to register or pay for 7-Zip.

Don’t fall for a website with a similar name. To get the real, original, one and only free 7-Zip, with a crapware-free installer, go to 7-zip.org. There’s support on the 7-Zip Sourceforge page.

Top free desktop productivity tool: EditPad Lite
Notepad is soooooo last century.

Even with all of the fantastic new brightly colored file formats running around today, everybody, sooner or later, needs a text editor. Let’s hear it for EditPad Lite.

With tabs, undo/redo, Unicode support, cut/copy/paste, and search and replace all in a svelte and fast package, EditPad Lite works wonders. Free for personal use, the pro/corporate package costs as little as $9 per user. Pay for the product, and you also get a spell-checker.

Top free desktop productivity tool: PicPick
If you've ever tried to use the Windows Snipping Tool to capture fleeting images on the screen -- notification boxes that go away when you click, or popover menus that disappear the minute you move your mouse -- you're in for a treat.

PicPick lets you take screenshots with the press of a key, and pressing the key doesn't make ephemeral items on the screen run for cover. Once you've taken the shot, PicPick pops your screen into an editor with tools for resizing and editing. Add automatic file naming, on-screen magnification at selectable levels, a pixel ruler, color picker, and a half-dozen other screenshooting aids, and you end up with a versatile, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink shooter. Just watch out for crapware.

Top free desktop productivity tool: Tixati
If you aren’t yet using torrents, now’s the time to start.

For years I’ve used and recommended uTorrent, but the current version’s installer includes the notorious piece of crapware known as OpenCandy. I wouldn’t touch uTorrent now with a ten foot barber pole.

Instead, try Tixati. It’s simple (no Java, no .Net), fast, easy to use, supports magnet links (which really simplify downloads), with extensive bandwidth reporting and management. Be careful when you navigate the download site. You may see an ad at the top of the page that says Download. If so, don’t click it -- horrendous crapware may lurk. Instead, follow the link to an official mirror site.

Top free desktop productivity tool: Tixati
If you aren’t yet using torrents, now’s the time to start.

For years I’ve used and recommended uTorrent, but the current version’s installer includes the notorious piece of crapware known as OpenCandy. I wouldn’t touch uTorrent now with a ten foot barber pole.

Instead, try Tixati. It’s simple (no Java, no .Net), fast, easy to use, supports magnet links (which really simplify downloads), with extensive bandwidth reporting and management. Be careful when you navigate the download site. You may see an ad at the top of the page that says Download. If so, don’t click it -- horrendous crapware may lurk. Instead, follow the link to an official mirror site.

Top free desktop file management tool: File Shredder
Even if you don’t wear a little tinfoil hat, from time to time you may want to completely delete a specific file or overwrite an entire drive before you give it away.

If you do wear a little tinfoil hat, File Shredder will help you graduate to the big leagues. Shred files, folders, free space, entire drives, you name it, using any of several shredding algorithms.

Pro tip: When you get to the download page, don’t click the Download icons -- those lead to a Zip manager and Download manager that aren’t exactly what you want. Instead, click on the link in the text that says “download File Shredder.”

Top free desktop file management tool: Auslogics Duplicate File Finder
While the cost of cloud storage is rapidly approaching zero, most of us are still tied to hard drives here on earth. If you think your hard drive might have 10 different copies of a specific photo of your last birthday party, well, it probably does.

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder’s easy-to-use interface makes it relatively easy to find and select the duplicated files you want to delete, then stick the selected files in the Recycle Bin.

A word of caution: While the Auslogic’s installer wants to put all sorts of junk on your machine, all the options are confined to one “Free Search Offer by Spigot” panel. Uncheck all of the junk, and you’ll end up with a very usable duplicate finder. Don’t install Spigot.

Top free desktop file management tool: SpaceSniffer
Want to know what’s taking up all the space on your hard drive? Run SpaceSniffer.

No installation required -- it runs from a simple EXE -- no malware, no funny stuff. You end up with a patchwork quilt of files and folders. Click on a folder or file to get more details. Double-click on a folder to see all of the components.

There’s even a filtering capability so you can look at all of your MP4 files or JPGs. Great way to zoom in on the big space hogs.

Top free desktop file management tool: Comodo Backup
Windows 7 has a decent -- but not perfect -- backup and restore function. Windows 8 basically throws it all away. Yes, you can find vestiges of Win7 backup buried in the dregs of Windows 8, but it’s a pain. Microsoft wants you to use its new backup method, stick everything on OneDrive, and use Refresh/Restore should the proverbial hit the fan. Comodo Backup runs rings around all of them.

Comodo wants to back you up to the cloud, give you 10 GB of free online storage, then sell you the rest. But even if you choose to backup the old-fashioned way, Comodo Backup is free and works like a champ.

Top free desktop media tool: VLC Media Player
Another poster child for open source software, VLC Media Player plays just about anything -- including YouTube Flash FLV files -- with no additional software, no downloads, no headaches. I use it exclusively for videos.

Unlike other media players, VLC sports simple, Spartan controls, built-in codecs for almost every file type imaginable, and a large and vocal online support community. VLC plays Internet streaming media with a click, records played media, converts between file types, and even supports individual frame screen shots. Yes, there’s a Metro version. No, I don’t recommend it.

VLC is well-known for tolerating incomplete or damaged media files. It will even start to play downloaded media before the download’s finished.

Top free desktop media tool: Image Resizer
Once upon a time, the Windows XP PowerToys included a fabulous, simple, fast image resizer. Right-click on a photo, choose Resize Pictures, and the photo is reduced in size to a fraction of the original. With options for Small, Medium, Large, Mobile, and Custom, you can make the resized file as small as you like, and maintain a lot of image fidelity in the process.

But XP came and went, and Microsoft didn’t keep the PowerToys updated. Enter Brice Lambson, a Microsoft employee with a heart of gold -- and a mission to bring the free Image Resizer to the latest versions of Windows. Microsoft still doesn’t support Image Resizer. But Brice does.

Top free desktop media tool: Paint.net
With dozens of good -- even great -- free image editors around, it’s hard to pick one above the others. Irfanview, for example, has tremendous viewing, organizing, and resizing capabilities.

For powerful, easy-to-use photo editing, with layers, plug-ins, and all sorts of special effects, along with a compact and easily understood interface, I’ll stick with Paint.Net. Although it requires Windows’ hard-to-keep-updated .Net Framework, the program puts all of the editing tools a non-professional might reasonably expect into a remarkably intuitive package.

Watch out for bogus “Download” ads on the site.

Top free desktop media tool: VirtualDub
I know many people who swear at Windows Live Movie Maker, but don’t want to shell out the money for an expensive Windows video editor, and refuse to switch to Apple’s iMovie. For those people, VirtualDub is a good compromise -- and the price is right.

It’s almost entirely AVI-based, although it can handle screen captures, MPEG-1, and BMP files. If you’re working with AVI or your camera cranks out files in AVI (mine does), the restriction may not hurt. The program itself runs easily, fast, and very simply, with no installation required.

Top free desktop media tool: HandBrake

Windows doesn’t rip DVDs. Period.
While you’re bound to get a hundred different opinions from any collection of a dozen different RIAA lawyers, ripping DVDs for your own use (say, to play them from a computer that doesn’t have a DVD player, or to keep your three-year-old’s fingers off the shiny side) is a common, debatably illegal, activity. Ask your lawyer how she rips DVDs.

I rip DVDs all the time (so sue me), and when I do, I use Handbrake. Open source software at its finest, HandBrake has an enormous number of options that should cover even the most convoluted cases.

Top free desktop system tool: Secunia PSI
A key component in keeping your system up-to-date, Secunia Personal Software Inspector scans every program on your computer and tells you in no uncertain terms if you have any wayward programs that haven’t been patched. PSI knows about more than 3,000 different programs.You can tell Secunia PSI to automatically keep your programs updated, and unless there’s some sort of odd manual intervention required, everything gets patched behind the scenes.

I particularly appreciate the fact that PSI respects my Windows Update settings -- so while I have everything else updated automatically, it lets me install Microsoft patches on my own schedule. Free PSI is for personal use; CSI corporate editions available.

Top free desktop system tool: Autoruns
Microsoft’s venerable and free-as-a-breeze Autoruns finds more auto-starting programs (add-ins, drivers, codecs, gadgets, shell extensions, whatever) in more obscure places than any other program, anywhere. AutoRuns not only lists the auto-running programs, it lets you turn individual programs off.

There are many minor features, including the ability to filter out Microsoft-signed programs, a quick way to jump to folders holding auto-starting programs, and a command-line version that lets you display file hashes. AutoRuns doesn’t require installation. It’s a program that runs and collects its information, displays it (with a rather rudimentary user interface), lets you wrangle with your system, then fades away.

Top free desktop system tool: HWiNFO
If you’re curious about the hardware that beats inside your system, have I got a utility for you. HWiNFO delves into every nook and cranny. From the summary (shown here) to detailed Device Manager-style trees of information -- entire forests of information -- HWiNFO can tell you everything anyone could want to know about your machine.

There’s a separate real-time monitoring panel that tells you the current status of everything under the sun: Temperatures, speeds, usage, clocks, voltages, wattages, hard drive SMART stats, read rates, write rates, GPU load, network throughput, and on and on.

Top free desktop system tool: PDF-XChange Viewer
For years, I recommended Foxit Reader as my favorite PDF viewer. Then the folks at Foxit started piling crapware into the installer, and I finally gave up. Now, I recommend a better product -- not only with more features (including text overlay, which works for form filling, and OCR conversion), but also with fewer, uh, unintended installer hitchhikers.

PDF-XChange Viewer offers all the PDF functions that most desktop users need. For Windows 8 users it also keeps you from that awful Metro viewer. The Viewer is free for businesses, too.

Top free desktop system tool: Revo Uninstaller
Revo Uninstaller well and truly uninstalls programs, and it does so in an unexpected way. When you use Revo, it runs the program’s uninstaller and watches while the uninstaller works, looking for the location of program files and for Registry keys that the uninstaller zaps. It then goes in and removes leftover pieces, based on the locations and keys that the program’s uninstaller took out. Revo also consults its own internal database for commonly-left-behind bits, and roots those out as well.

The not-free “Pro” version monitors your system when you install a program, making removal easier and more complete. Pro will also uninstall remnants of programs that have already been uninstalled.

Top free desktop system tool: Process Explorer
Process Explorer tells you which files are currently open by what program. That feature alone has saved me half a head of hair because once it's identified by Process Explorer, the process that has locked up your file can be killed. Process Explorer also gives you full information on all of the svchost processes running on your PC. That accounts for the other half a head.

Mouse over a process, even a generic svchost, and you can see the command line that launched the process, the path to the executable file, and all of the Windows services being used. Right-click and you can go online to get more information about the executable.

Another must-have product from, yes, Microsoft.

Top free desktop system tool: Recuva
File undelete has been a mainstay of the PC utility market since the days of DOS. Far as I’m concerned, there’s never been an undelete tool better than Piriform’s Recuva (pronounced “recover”): fast, thorough, and free.

When you throw out the Windows Recycle Bin trash, the files aren’t destroyed; rather the space they occupy is earmarked for new data. Undelete routines scan the flotsam and jetsam and put the pieces back together. As long as you haven’t added new data to a drive, undelete (almost) always works; and even if you’ve added some data, there’s a good chance you can get most of the deleted stuff back.

Recuva does all of that and more, for your hard drive, USB drives, even memory cards.

Top free desktop security tool: LastPass
LastPass keeps track of your user ids, passwords, and some other settings, stores them in the cloud, and offers them to you with just a click. LastPass does its AES-256 encrypting and decrypting on your PC, using a master password that you have to remember. The data that gets stored in the cloud is encrypted, and without the key, the stored passwords can’t be broken, unless you know somebody who can crack AES-256 encryption.

LastPass works as a browser add-on for IE, Firefox or Chrome, so all of your passwords are stored in one place, accessible to any PC you happen to be using -- if you have the master password.

Top free desktop security tool: EMET
Microsoft’s EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) forces Windows to use two specific malware-busting defense systems. ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) relocates pieces of programs randomly, making it much harder for malware to hook into specific locations; DEP (Data Execution Protection) makes it much harder for malware to lurk in parts of memory that should contain data.

EMET breaks some -- even many -- programs. While it would be nice if all Windows applications would submit to EMET, they don’t. That said, there’s very little downside to installing EMET and telling the installer that you want to protect Java, Internet Explorer, and the Office programs.

Top free desktop security tool: Kaspersky TDSSKiller
The name may lead you to believe that TDSSKiller kills the TDSS rootkit, but the product does much more simply because so many common rootkits are based on, or derived from, TDSS. The current version detects and removes SST, Pihar, ZeroAccess, Sinowal, Whistler, Phanta, Trup, Stoned, RLoader, Cmoser, and Cidox. Unlike most rootkit killers, this one runs in Windows.

To run the program, fill out the form on the TDSSKiller page, wait for Kaspersky to send you a download link. Download the program and run it -- no installer, just an EXE. If any rootkits are found, you’ll be given the opportunity to Delete/Cure, Copy to quarantine, or Skip each identified interloper.

Top free desktop security tool: Malwarebytes
No doubt you already have an antivirus program. I use, and recommend, Microsoft Security Essentials (or Windows Defender in Win8, which is basically the same thing), but there are many good alternatives.

Malwarebytes is different. The free version is designed to run manually -- I run mine once a week. Malwarebytes picks up all sorts of creepy crawlies that get past AV programs. When combined with the support on the Malwarebytes forum, Malwarebytes is the ultimate fallback for infected systems -- whether you know they’re infected or not.

A word of warning
It’s never been easy to download freeware, but with the proliferation of sites (even well-known sites!) that bundle their own loads of crap in the installer make finding the real, clean product harder than ever.

While coming up with these recommendations, I was impressed by the number of “Download” icons like the one shown here. If you look at the very tiny print, you’ll notice that the Download link appears on an advertisement. In this case, if you click on the green box just above the phrase “Download Tixati v1.96,” and unleash the installer, your system will get a big shot of junk.

Now, more than ever, you have to be very careful where you click.

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Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com

Windows XP: No IE9 for you

Microsoft becomes first major browser maker to drop support for world's most popular OS

Microsoft's new browser, Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), will not run on Windows XP, now or when the software eventually ships, the company confirmed Tuesday.

The move makes Microsoft the first major browser developer to drop support for XP, the world's most popular operating system, in a future release.

Although Microsoft excluded Windows XP from the list for the IE9 developer preview, it sidestepped the question about which versions of Windows the final browser would support. In an IE9 FAQ, for example, Microsoft responded, "It's too early to talk about features of the Internet Explorer 9 Beta" to the query, "Will Internet Explorer 9 run on Windows XP?"
dialog box
This dialog box pops up during attempts to install IE9 Platform Preview on Windows XP.

That caused some users to demand a straight answer. "Please tell whether the final version will run on Windows XP SP3 or not," said someone identified as "eXPerience" in a comment to a blog post by Dean Hachamovich, Microsoft's general manager for the IE team. "If not, please be clear about it. Really, enough is enough of keeping users in the lurch about Windows XP support."

Others bashed Microsoft on the assumption that IE9 would never run on XP. "Dropping Windows XP support is one of the worst decisions ever taken by [the] IE team, probably even worse than disbanding the IE team back in the IE6 days," claimed an anonymous commenter.

Microsoft had offered up broad hints that IE9 was not in Windows XP's future, however. Tuesday, a company spokeswoman said the new browser needs a "modern operating system," a phrase that hasn't been paired with Window XP for years. "Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001," she added, clearly referring to XP, which appeared that year.

Windows XP's inability to run the Platform Preview or the final browser stems from, IE9's graphics hardware acceleration, which relies on the Direct2D and DirectWrite DirectX APIs (applications programming interfaces). Support for those APIs is built into Windows 7, and was added to Vista and Windows Server 2008 last October, but cannot be extended to Windows XP.

Some users worried that by halting browser development for Windows XP, Microsoft would repeat a current problem, getting customers to ditch IE6 for a newer version. "Those who choose to stay with XP will be forced to [then] stay forever on IE8, which will become the new IE6," said a user named Danny Gibbons in a comment on Hachamovich's blog.

Tough, said Sheri McLeish, Forrester Research's browser analyst. "This is the stick to get off XP," she said. Windows XP users will solve the browser problem themselves when they upgrade, as most eventually will, to Windows 7. "What are they going to do, go to Linux or run XP forever?" she asked.

Still, IE9's inability to run on Windows XP will prevent it from becoming widespread until the nearly-nine-year-old OS loses significant share to Windows 7. According to Web metrics company NetApplications' most recent data, if IE9 was released today, it would be able to run on just over a quarter -- 27% -- of all Windows machines.

No other major browser maker has announced plans to stop supporting Windows XP, but several have dropped other operating systems or platforms. Last month, for instance, Mozilla said it would not support Apple's Mac OS X 10.4, known as "Tiger," in future upgrades to Firefox. Google's Chrome for the Mac, meanwhile, only runs on Intel-based Macs, not on the older PowerPC-based machines that were discontinued in 2006.

The IE9 Platform Preview can be downloaded from Microsoft's site. It requires Windows 7, Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 or Windows 2008 R2.

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Best Microsoft MCTS Certification, Microsoft MCITP Training at certkingdom.com