There are a handful of websites that make my job easier as a computer technician (especially Technibbles forums). These sites may contain hard-to-get drivers, special information or marketing materials. So, here is a list of websites that computer technicians will find very useful.
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Wired.com has posted an article in their blog about leaked screenshots of the next Windows operating system.

It says that the next Windows will be an incremental evolution rather than a major change like moving from XP to Vista. Their source for this info was a Russian site with a domain of whatsnext.ru.

One of the new features will be the ability to pin items on the Start menu. There is also a new Windows Recovery Center for rolling back to a previous state or recover from a backup disk.

An update is also included in the article which says that the screenshots may be fake.

Source: Wired

Vista4Experts is a small, free, standalone utility designed for computer experts who dont want all the annoying “features” that Microsoft Vista offers. With Vista4Experts you can easily turn off the User Account Control, Security Center notifications, Windows Defenders daily scan, Balloon Tips, Automatic Updates, Windows Sidebar, Aero, etc… There are also many other tweaks such as switching back Control Panels “Classic” view, adding Google to the Internet Explorer search bar, always show Internet Explorer 7’s menu and more.
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An article has been posted at Computerworld about a person’s experience on running the final code of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista.

He noted that copying files to local disks and across networks are slower before he installed the service pack even though Microsoft says that its internal testing shows an improvement of speed of up to 50%.

The article is four pages long and there are also images about what users can expect in the service pack.

Another thing that he noted is that a user’s PC may feel sluggish and that’s due to the fact that the SuperFetch data is cleared after the SP1 installation. So, as time goes on, the user’s computer will regather the data once more to regain its previous speed.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD

Adobe has released a new version of their PDF reader software. The new version is 8.1.2 and it was released on Feb 7. However, the night before its release, hackers has exploited that flaws that existed on previous versions according to the article at The Register.

iDefense thinks that the Adobe exploiters are the same people who took advantage of a RealPlayer zero-day exploit. They reported that banner ads have actively served PDF files that are malicious which installs a Trojan on a user’s computer.

The updated version resolved performance and stability issues and other security flaws.

Source: The Register

RealTechNews has posted an article about the latest updates for Windows Vista.

The site mentioned that two updates were released today. One of them is the servicing stack update which has a code of KB937287 while the other is a multi-component update and its code is KB938371. The author of the article noted that Vista Enterprise and Ultimate users must install the KB9355509 update before the KB938371 update.

These patches have a rating of “important” according to the article and they can be installed via the Windows Update feature in Windows Vista.

Users must apply those two (or three in the cases of Enterprise/Ultimate users) updates before they should install Vista SP1 to avoid driver issues.

Source: RealTechNews

A few weeks ago I wrote about the problem with the computer repair industry. This week I will be talking about the problem with the software industry with a focus on Norton and Vista.
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Three patches has been released for Firefox version 2.0.0.12 according to an article at The Register.

It fixes a web browsing history, forward navigation stealing bugs and other vulnerabilities. These updates were released via the automatic update feature of the browser.

The Register notes that this Firefox update was just one of the updates that many users needed to install for the past week. This week, patches for Skype, Adobe Reader, and QuickTime are expected to be released. Microsoft will also release twelve patches on Patch Tuesday.

Source: The Register

The Register has posted a report that spammers have cracked the protection of Windows Live and they were able to create thousands of email accounts.

Websense says that the spammers installed a bot on computers and then it established connections on the Windows Live mail service. It was able to bypass the Captcha, which stands for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart,” requirement about a third of the time.

“Some customers were actually flagging the mail as legitimate because it was coming from Microsoft Live. Clearly, (spammers) are using the fact that (the services) are legitimate,” said Dan Hubbard of Websense.

Source: The Register

Microsoft has responded on the “Save XP” petition that was set up by Infoworld which asks the company to extend their support beyond the June 30 2008 date.

“We’re aware of it, but are listening first and foremost to feedback we hear from partners and customers about what makes sense based on their needs. That’s what informed our decision to extend the availability of XP initially, and what will continue to guide us,” said a Microsoft spokesperson.

The spokesperson added that “…OEMs will continue to sell XP through 30 June 2008 and system builders will be able to sell XP through January 2009 as they cater to the small business markets.”

Source: PC PRO