If you are a system administrator that needs to monitor the activity and internet behaviour of all employees/clients/students etc… one of the latest features of Internet Explorer 8 will be quite a nightmare for you.

This feature is the InPrivate Browsing, which prevents Internet Explorer from recording any kind of data about your browsing session or habits.

Basically, when in an InPrivate Browsing session, no cookies are created, no temporary Internet files, no history, no form data, and anything else that a browser would normally record.

Therefore in some cases, this feature must be disabled for good.

You can do this by going into Group Policy and changing the setting there:

Step 1: Go to Start, then Run and type in gpedit.msc.

Step 2: Now navigate to the following section:
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Internet Explorer / InPrivate

Step 3: Now on the right-hand side, go ahead and double-click Turn off InPrivate Browsing and choose Enabled.

If you keep looking, you will also see the options for turning off InPrivate Filtering, not collecting InPrivate Filtering data, and setting the InPrivate Filtering Threshold. Enjoy!

It’s a common situation where you sometime have a document (Word documents, excel spreadsheets, powerpoint presentations etc…) transported to another location (computer) only to find out that this computer is not equipped with the appropriate software to view it. Sadly this happened to me several times, and it ended up in either having to install the software, or else multiple trips to convert the document to a readable format. This can be both costly and time consuming!

Luckily, now you can use the Internet to help you in those emergency situations (where you absolutely cant do otherwise!

http://www.viewdocsonline.com/ is a cool site that lets you view some of the most common types of files that are handled in offices on a daily basis. Currently, the online service supports the following formats for viewing online: PDF, XLS, XLSX, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, PPS, PS, TXT, RTF, ODT, ODP, SXW, SXI, and more.

You can upload the document to the web site, and it will convert it for easy reading (but not perfect). Alternatively, if the file is hosted on a server somewhere, you can also paste in the URL that directly points to a file, which saves you from having to download the file to your computer.

too bad this site was not created earlier (like 5 years ago!) it would have saved me so much time and useless trips between offices and clients.

I recently came across the game Prototype when browsing around the latest releases section of a popular online game store. I can honestly say that I had heard absolutely nothing about this game before, but the title and game box intrigued me and I decided to take a leap of faith and just buy the game. I’m so glad I did!!

This game takes you through a viral outbreak in New York, a disaster of epic proportion, turning the population into mutants and zombie-like charachters.  The military in this game arre trying their best to contain this outbreak, while Alex Mercer (the main character of the game is trying to figure out what’s happening, while trying to not get caught in the crossfire.

Alex Mercer wakes up one day in a morgue with absolutely no memory of his past. The only difference is that he has now a huge arsenal of amazing powers and incredible agility. He finds himself with the ability to shape shift, absorb “consume” other beings (human and mutants alike) jump incredible heights, run at blistering speed, glide over buildings and with a vast array of transformations that make his body a lethal weapon.

Prototype is a single player, open-world action game with a vast city landscape with free roaming abilities, and therefore you can play around the city in between one mission and another or play the various mini missions that are usually highlighted in green pointers.
Though you play as a man bestowed with superhero power, Mercer is anything but heroic. There are no moral choices here. Mercer has vowed to destroy those responsible for his current situation and he has the means to do it. To gain new powers or refill your health bar, you’ll literally absorb other living beings. Find yourself a little low on hit points and you can simply grab an innocent bystander, crush his or her head, and then consume them for a quick boost. If you find yourself in a pinch with attack choppers chasing you through the roads, you can absorb a person and morph into their likeness to blend in with the crowd.

The storyline involves about 30 missions including simple seek and destroy missions, stealthy infiltrations, escort missions and massive boss battles. Most of these missions are standard in design. In fact, if you’ve played many open-world games, you’ve probably played identical copies of these in the past. And since repetition is oftentimes the name of the game here, you can be sure you’ll be doing uninspired tasks over and over again.

The concept of collectibles that are usually scatttered around the city has been extended to what’s called the Web of Intrigue. These are people that, by being hunted down and consumed, reveal splintered visions of the infection’s history. They’re slick and wonderfully tantalizing — little in Prototype is more exhilarating than being in the midst of a tough mission only to see one of these targets stroll by.
There are a couple of other diversions that I found interesting, as well, including army bases that must be stealthily infiltrated to score weapon and skill upgrades. It’s through these that you can even unlock the ability to call in airstrikes. I quickly had this skill maxed out — infiltrating the bases is pretty darn fun.

As for the game’s bad side, Prototype unfortunately has rather bland and boring city scape. The blandness is seen throughout in a city recreated with few landmarks and instead filled with generic, lifeless buildings. Move quickly along the building tops and trees, bushes, cars and other structures pop in and out as the game struggles to draw them. Everything else is shrouded in an ugly fog. In a game where you spend much of the time pouncing from one roof to the next, this ugliness is felt throughout. Just climb a building or get in a helicopter and look out at the skyline to get an eyeful of Prototype’s ugliness. However, the animations used when Alex uses his powers are downright amazing, and it gives a very real feel. Running up the side of a building, doing a flip over a railing, and then leaping off into a charged drop attack just feels cool.

Aside from specific infected buildings, no structural damage can be done. You can’t even knock over billboards. And when you do take down the few buildings you’re allowed to damage, the resulting explosion is laughably bad. All of the real chaos you can create is limited to vehicles and passing pedestrians. Your cool powers don’t feel quite so cool when you can’t even break a window by throwing a car at it. 

Prototype is a game with many super cool features. However, it lacks the finishing touches that make for a great and memorable game. It lacks a bit in attention to detail. Thankfully, Alex Mercer’s absorbing and shape shifting powers manage to overcome many of the shortcomings of Prototype. Though the missions themselves aren’t anything special, the vast array of powers provides their own variety and flair. I’ll be very looking forward for Prototype 2!!

I have been recently contacted by ClearApps and they provided me with a full software key for their software Network Inventory Advisor so I could give it a try, and review it on this blog.

ClearApps Network Inventory Advisor is an incredibly useful tool for system, administrators that require having an accurate and up to date inventory of all the software, hardware, operating systems etc… This could be for a variety of reasons, including hardware theft, unauthorised replacement of hardware, old or unauthorised software installation and so on…

I downloaded the software in a couple of seconds, since the software is only 6.88 MB. Installation was very quick and clear wizard style (Next, Next, Next) type. I did notice that during file copying, a couple of error prompts popped up saying "Invalid File Handle" Once theses were ok’ed, the installation continued on as usual.

Once the installation was done, I was presented with a first time load screen that asks you to either insert the registration code, or a button to evaluate the software. After that, you will be presented with a wizard, that will guide you though some customisability options.  These custom settings are basically there to make the software run better, depending on the size of your network. It will then run a scan to detect all the computers on your network and run the first inventory check though the entire network. Of course one must point out at this stage, that this could take a bit long on large network since the software has to connect to each computer and download the data. On my small home network, this was done in less than a minute. One should also point out that this scanner doesn’t need an agent software to run on each machine, that’s a really great!

The software "Ribbon" interface should be familiar to all those who already used Microsoft Office 2007 or tested out some beta versions or Windows 7. All the toolbar options are in plan sight and everything is very self explanatory.

When the software finished running the network auditing, it presented me with an incredible amount of information. The information was split into 4 different main categories, including a Summary tab, Software + Hardware tabs and "Other".

Starting with the summary section, this gives a good overview of the main hardware and software items and also an alerts section.

Software
The software section starts with an incredibly detailed operating system section, and then moves on to other important items like operating system hot fixes, a list of all installed software and security and protection software. You can also have an overview of the licences in use on the network, so you can track the keys that are being used, and re- use the unused keys.

Hardware
This section was one of the most important ones for me as it gives an incredible amount of detail on all the computer specifications like; models, manufacturers, CPU types & speeds, hard drives, network adapters, motherboards, video, audio, memory, peripherals and loads more! This is incredibly useful for companies who want to take a snapshot of the original network, and periodically check again if there have been any changes. For me this section was particularly useful to have a central store of all the specifications of the computers on my network. Therefore if a particular machine fails for one reason or another, from my main database I can obtain the specifications of any part, and replace with an appropriate compatible part.

Other items
The “other” tab, also gives you access to the shared resources, processes, services, plus local and domain user accounts.

All the details in the sections above, can be either viewed as an entire network summary format, or you can simply click on one individual computer and view it’s summary.  

Other features worth mentioning are:

• Scheduled reports allow you to setup an automatic schedule to run various tests according to your preferred schedule. This means that you can practically set this once and forget it. – Obviously there is still the need to monitor the actual final reports to see if there is anything to take care of.
• Exporting features – you can print or export the reports in various formats, including xml, html, sql and more.
• There are also a bunch of pre-set reports where you can scan your network for computers with low disk space, hardisk usage through the entire network, discovering users with no antivirus. And much more…
• The software is also available in multiple languages including; Spanish, Chinese, German, French, Japanese and Russian.

I really suggest you to give this software a try. If you are in the market for such software, or if your managers request ad-hoc reports out of the blue and they need them really quickly… this could be a perfect tool where it can save you an incredible amount of time. It costs only $89 for a 25 node network, and the prices get lower for larger networks.

Click here to visit ClearApps and download a free trial.

If you are not very good at spelling… don’t create Facebook tests!

With it’s new tag-line “The Fastest, most powerful iPhone yet” – Apple has launched the version 3 of the iPhone just today at the WWDC in San Francisco.

The new iPhone has a mix of new features, including;

• A faster, more powerful CPU (There are no exact details, however in the official specifications “twice as fast” is clearly mentioned
• Spotlight search – make a search through the contents of your phone
• Has an improved 3MP camera which now has autofocus and auto white balance.
• Camera can now also record video at 30fps – with on device video editing capabilities
• Voice dialing and voice music controls
• MMS Capability to send and receive images and video
• Copy and paste features (about time!!)
• 7.2Mbps HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Water and oil resistant surface
• Integrated magnetic compass
• Improved battery life

The design of the phone was left unchanged and looks exactly the same as the iPhone 3G. Still goes for Flash support. This is not yet available!

A long time ago I owned an original Sony PSP. Unfortunately I thought it was one of the most boring consoles I ever had, and after trying a couple of games, I decided to get rid of it, and sold it to a friend of mine. Later on, I bought the Nintendo DS and I absolutely loved it, the touch screen features and interaction in the games was something that captured my attention – and it still is, since I recently upgraded to a Nintendo DSi.

Its all boils down to personal preference. Lots of people won’t agree with me, and some more do. Yes, it’s obvious that the DSi has bad graphics and the games are not as great looking as the PSP, but in my opinion, the gameplay and the “addictive” aspect of the game is more important to me than any amazing graphics. Read the rest of this entry »

In this section, we are aiming to create the largest database of twitter tools available on the net. Feel free to recommend any tools you have created or tools that you use frequently in the comment area below.

So without further ado. Here is the largest twitter tools list in the universe! (in no particular order!!)

1. http://www.tweetvolume.com – calculates and compares the volume of mentions of a particular word or phrase. Very handy to compare brand names. Ex. Yahoo Vs Google
2. http://www.twittercounter.com – shows you a nice nifty graph of your follower growth, plus you can compare twitter-er A vs twitter-er B
3. http://www.twitterholic.com – this is one of the tools I personally use frequently. It allows you to see a follower growth chart, and also show the top followers per location. – so you can actually find out the top twitterer in your city/region/country!
4. http://www.tweetdeck.com - Great tool to help organize your @replies and direct messages. It also shows the last 200 Tweets by your followers and you can, with the help of a handy over picture box, reply, direct message, retweet, favorite, mark as read, and a few more choices.
5. https://www.destroytwitter.com – Similar to both TweetDeck and Twhirl.
6. http://www.mrtweet.net - If your looking for relevant followers let Mr Tweet find them for you. It’s a great way to expand your Twitter network. You can keep track of basic stats for yourself, review people following you that you are not following, and discover people to follow as recommended by MrTweet.
7. http://www.twellow.com – The Yellow Pages for Twitter. It helps you find people to follow using categories and a really great map feature called TwellowHood, which will allow you to search a map to find people by location.
8. http://www.twitbin.com – Put a Twitter client in your Firefox sidebar.
9. http://www.tweet-r.com – Mac/PC Client allows users to upload and share files and photos.
10. http://www.twitpic.com - A great way to share pictures on Twitter.
11. http://www.useqwitter.com - Need to know when someone stops following you? Qwitter will email you to let you know who stopped following you.
12. http://labs.creazy.net/twignature/ - Create an add to Twitter button with your name on it (like the one I use). You can choose from three different styles and multiple sizes.
13. http://www.twitpay.me – A service similar to PayPal that allows you to send or recieve money using Twitter.
14. http://twitter.com/timer - Need to be reminded of something? Follow Timer on Twitter, send a direct message of what you need to be reminded of at amount of time.
15. http://rick.jinlabs.com/code/twitter/ - A plugin for WordPress that will display your Tweets on the sidebar of your blog.
16. http://www.joedolson.com/articles/wp-to-twitter/ - It sends a Twitter Update when you post something new on your WordPress blog.
17. We are not even close to finish this list… More to come soon!

After the previous announcement of the release of the Nokia N97. It’s been now confirmed that it will begin selling in June in more than 75 countries.

This device features a tilting 3.5″ touch display, QWERTY keyboard and a fully customizable home screen plus from day one it will offer also instant access to the full range of Ovi services.

The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s first device to feature a personalizable home screen, which can be customized with a range of widgets which bring live information directly to the device. These widgets include key social networking destinations like Facebook and Hi5, news services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as shopping and weather information. It’s one of the product top selling points and is majorily target to people who feel the need to be connected all the time.

The Nokia N97 is the first device to ship with the Ovi Store, which offers easy access to applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, and much more. Ovi Store has paid and free content from a range content providers and developers, including Paramount Pictures, Facebook and Qik, as well as a selection of Twitter applications.

The Nokia N97 also has direct access to the huge catalog of music in the Nokia Music Store. With multiple high-speed connectivity options and 32GB of storage (up to 48GB using a microSD card) it is possible to directly download and store songs on the handset.