The Vault

New driver update utility Device Doctor finds outdated drivers on your PC, and helps you download the latest version—without charging you a dime. Using the utility, which can be installed or used as a portable application, is about as easy as it gets—just click the Begin Scan button, wait a couple of seconds, and you will be shown a list of drivers that can be updated. The download button for each driver will take you to their web site, where you can download the drivers for free, without signing up for anything at all. Most of the drivers come with setup programs, but some of them are nothing more than zip files, and would need to be installed manually—hopefully something they can improve on in the future.

During our testing, we used the application on half a dozen PCs, and had varied results—on our XP test system, Device Doctor worked well and accurately found new drivers, but for Windows 7 we didn't have as much luck, with a few incorrect drivers being thrown at us. That said, Windows 7 was only released recently, so expect that support to improve in the future.

Device Doctor isn't perfect yet, but as a completely free, portable application that you can toss on your thumb drive, it's well worth a look. It might even save you some time searching for new drivers while you are fixing mom's PC.

Device Doctor is a free download for Windows only. Be sure to check out the full How-To Geek review for a more in-depth look, as well as instructions on installing drivers manually [via How-To Geek].

While Microsoft Security Essentials has gotten mostly glowing reviews so far, some users are still hesitant to install it. One thing holding up some users is Windows Update. You can't update your Security Essentials definitions automatically if the Windows Update service is disabled. And while keeping your system fully patched is a necessity, not everyone wants to allow Windows to do it for them - they prefer the going manual route.

Fortunately, Microsoft knows this. After all, Security Essentials is based on Forefront - their enterprise antivirus product. And in the enterprise it's common practice to install updates manually. To that end, Security Essentials definitions can be downloaded as a standalone executable from Microsoft. They're available from the Malware Protection Center where you'll also find the current defs for Forefront and Defender.
Download the .exe yourself, run it, and your Security Essentials is up-to-date! Better yet, set up an app like Ketarin to handle scheduled downloads for you or use the MSE Update Utility. This a simple app that updates Microsoft Security Essentials when Windows Update is disabled. Windows Update service is responsible for frequently updating MSE. But once it is disabled via Group Policy Editor, MSE won’t update anymore. Download: MSE Update Utility Installer, MSE Update Utility Zipped

One of the most requested features for Google Maps Mobile was to add turn-by-turn navigation. In the past, this wasn't possible because of the licensing fees that had to be paid for each user of the navigation system. Now that Google no longer uses data from TeleAtlas in the US, turn-by-turn navigation can be added for free.

Google's blog announces that Google Maps Navigation will be available in Android 2.0. The first mobile phone that comes with Android 2.0 is Motorola Droid. "This new feature comes with everything you'd expect to find in a GPS navigation system, like 3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting. But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone's Internet connection." And unlike other navigation systems, it's free.
For now, Google Maps Navigation is only available for the US, but it will certainly be available in other countries when Google collects enough mapping data.

Billed as the world’s first smartphone with Android 2.0, Motorola Droid arrives on the Verizon network November 6, the carrier officially confirmed today via a press release. The official announcement arrives on the heels of an unprecedented buzz that Verizon’s anti-Apple and anti-AT&T ads and the DroidDoes.com mini-site successfully generated. Verizon Wireless is the nation’s largest wireless carrier.

Verizon said that the Droid is designed to “outperform where other smartphones fall short.” Sanjay Jha, co-chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices, hailed Droid’s “warp-speed web browsing” and a “mammoth screen.”

Companies that provide navigation solutions aren't afraid that they'll lose their customers. "There's a lot of content included in our applications that gets updated on an ongoing basis--and that costs money. Millions of customers use our service because of its reliability, ease of use and additional features. People are willing to pay a premium to have something work all the time on their phones," said a TeleNav spokesperson.

Psystar, the Miami-based PC manufacturer that’s still in a protracted legal battle with Apple over selling PCs that come pre-installed with Mac OS X, has begun offering Rebel EFI – software that lets any generic PC run Mac OS X. It costs $90, though Psystar is selling it for $50. The software lets PCs equipped with Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem CPUs to run Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard.” A limited-function demo is available for download from Psystar’s Web site.

Psystar reportedly is starting an approval program that will vet specific PC components to work with their software. “The most common hardware set-ups are compatible, and through PsyLabs we will continue to work toward the Rebel EFI supporting an ever-broader range of hardware profiles,” reads a statement.

In related news, Psystar notes that Rebel EFI works with Microsoft’s newly-released Windows 7 operating system.

Features:

• DUBL: The Darwin Universal Boot Loader allows for the easy installation and management and up to six different operating systems.
• Safe Update: The Update tool screens and approves software updates available from Apple. Safe Update also allows for the detection and acquisition of the most up-to-date hardware profiles available from Psystar.
• Support: Rebel EFI provides direct customer service through the interface itself. Support is also made available via email at support@psystar.com.
• Psystar Labs Approval: Unique approval system helps to provide extended support to Rebel EFI users. Visit the Psystar Labs page for more information on this exciting new initiative.

Windows Virtual PC, Virtual Box and VMware Workstation are some popular applications that allow you to create new virtual machines on a Windows PC but the only problem with these programs is that they require you do everything from scratch.

Microsoft’s Sysinternals team has released a simple application called Disk2vhd, that lets you easily migrate an existing computer to a virtualized hard drive (VHD). It’s a tiny utility doesn’t even require instillation. When you run Disk2vhd, it will immediately show you all the drives and partitions on your computer that it can migrate to a VHD.  Simply select a drive that you wish to create a VHD file from and click “Create.” Disk2vhd will convert the hard drive into a VHD file even if the computer /drive is currently in use.

When the Virtual Machine VHD file is created, you can run it in any desktop virtualization program including the free Windows Virtual PC, Virtual Box, or VMware Player. You can also mount the virtual machine as a standard hard drive in Windows 7, and can even boot from it if your computer is running Windows 7 Ultimate.

You may use Disk2vhd to create virtual machines of your Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and higher machines, including x64 systems.

Let’s say you have a computer that is already running all the software programs you frequently use, but you now want to move to a new computer or upgrade your operating system. You can then consider creating a virtual machine of your old machine using the Microsoft utility and this will help you use all your favorite programs (with the same settings) on the new machine.

You can also use virtualization to create a ghost image of your hard drive in a single file and this will be handy in the event of a disk failure. Disk2vhd is an useful tool that will make it much easier for you to enjoy the benefits of virtualization without being too technical.

Microsoft has released the final version of its new anti-virus and anti-spyware program "Microsoft Security Essentials" aka MSE (version 1.0, build 1.0.1611.0) that provides protection against viruses, spyware, rootkits, and trojans for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Microsoft has always recommended that its users use real-time antimalware protection, but this release will mark the company's first free solution.

MSE replaces Windows Live OneCare — a subscription antivirus service — and Windows Defender, which only protects users from adware and spyware. MSE is a small-footprint program ideal for computers that lack processing power or broadband Internet connections, such as netbooks. It's very easy to install Security Essentials and using it is even easier than one might expect. Updates and upgrades are automatic, so there's no need to worry about having the latest protection. It's easy to tell if you're protected – when the Security Essentials icon is green, your status is good. It's as simple as that.

Microsoft announced Morro on November 18, 2008. It marked a change in Microsoft's consumer antivirus marketing strategy. Instead of offering a subscription antivirus with a host of other tools — parental controls, photo backup, and a firewall, Morro would be free for all genuine installations of Windows and simply offer protection against malware. Microsoft Forefront will be offered alongside Morro, with central management tools not present in Morro. While OneCare offered a Managed Firewall, PC Performance Tuning, Data and Restore, Multi-PC Management, and Printer Sharing, MSE is really closer to Forefront Client Security, Microsoft's antivirus product for the enterprise. MSE is a basic security suite designed for consumers but based on the Forefront Client Security desktop agent, solely providing malware detection and removal, but lacking Forefront Client Security's centralized management features. It includes the same antimalware engine (dubbed "Microsoft Malware Protection Engine", or MSMPENG for short), and virus definitions that all other Microsoft desktop antimalware products share, including Forefront Client Security, Windows Live OneCare, and Windows Defender (Defender excludes the antivirus definitions which are separate from the antispyware definitions).

Before installation, MSE checks for a validated copy of Windows. No registration or personal information is required. The program will disable Windows Defender, as it provides protection against malware, not limited to spyware and adware. Updates are published 3 times a day to Microsoft Update. Using default settings, archived files are decompressed, and then scanned. File downloads and e-mail attachments are also scanned. Its Dynamic Signature Service attempts to better identify malicious files by checking for updates if an application exhibits suspicious behavior. Before taking action against a suspect file, MSE prompts for user input. If no response is received in 10 minutes, then the suspected malware is handled according to its default action, letting MSE determine what to do with the malware. System Restore points are created before removing found malware.

That shiny, new netbook you’re using does everything you want it to do, but Windows XP is definitely showing its age with the old-school interface. What you need is a free utility that adds lots of features with updated graphics. That’s where XPize comes in, as it adds lots of pretty bells and whistles.

XPize is the product of a project run by volunteer developers, and it updates many of the UI elements in Windows XP to make them look fresher. It adds a number of nice visual styles that don’t change Windows XP; they just make it look more modern. It is perfect for netbooks, most of which run XP. Give it a try if you want to spruce up that old XP interface. There is also a Vize for you Vista users, and the group plans a Sevenize once Windows 7 is released.

Unlike simply patching the theme.dll file—a common and old way of swapping out the appearance of Windows XP with non-Microsoft themes—XPize actually updates icons and interface components across the board. You'll no longer be stuck with some semi-modern looking icons and some dinosaur'ish Windows 98-era icon design that Microsoft never got around to polishing up for the XP release.

XPize comes pre-bundled with several alternative XP themes and allows you to not only change the main theme and enjoy newer icons, but it also allows you to do some deeper tweaking like easily swapping out the login and shut down menus. If you've been hesitant to muck around with such matters, XPize makes it nearly automatic—all you need to do is pick the look you want and reboot. XPize is freeware, Windows only.

Google Docs Viewer is a new online service by the Google Docs team that makes it possible to view document like Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint directly in the web browser. The advantage of this option is that it is no longer required to download the document to the local computer system to view it. There are obviously other services that offer a similar functionality like the Firefox add-on Open It Online. The main difference is that Google Docs Viewer is not limited to a specific plugin, web browser or software.

There are two options on how to use Google Docs Viewer:

The first option is to visit the Google Docs Viewer website. All it takes to view a document online is to paste its url into the web form at the page. This will then display three links that can be pasted and embedded into websites. Probably the most interesting option is to view the document directly online. This will open the document on a new page.

The second option is even simpler than that. All it takes is to append the url of the document to the basic Google Docs Viewer url:

http://docs.google.com/gview?url=

This will only display the document on a new page. The links to embed the document are not displayed with this method. Google Docs Viewer offers an interesting option to users who want to quickly view a document without having to download it. It can also be helpful if no viewer for the document type is available on the local computer system.

Radiohead has already done it and now another well-known group is releasing its latest album for free, but this release is on a much bigger scale.

Smashing Pumpkins has announced through its official website that the latest album, entitled Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, will be released for free on the Internet. The new material consists of 44 new tracks which will be released one at a time beginning on Halloween. The posting makes it very clear these are totally free with no information required from the downloader:

Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.

Once all the songs are available Smashing Pumpkins will then release the money-making versions. Those will include a very limited release of 11 EP’s each containing 4 songs with collectible art and possibly additional material included. There will also be digital, paid-for releases of some songs that come with additional demo versions of tracks not otherwise available. Finally a deluxe box set will also be available that contains all the songs, but not all of the material available in the EP’s.

These different versions of the song releases are aimed at collectors with the 44 tracks remaining available for free alongside them. So far the group has 53 songs to play with making it clear if you pay for the music you are going to get something extra. Read more at SmashingPumpkins.com

Windows only: Microsoft's Zune HD was released yesterday and it looks great, but whether you've got the latest Zune, an older model, or just like the Zune desktop player, Zune 4.0 brings new features and an improved look to desktop music players.

The Zune player sets itself apart from iTunes in one important way (not including the whole iPod vs. Zune support). As the Zune marketing folks put it: "Browse music, not spreadsheets." That is to say, the Zune player doesn't have the all-business text columns like iTunes, focusing instead on a rich graphical interface. (Though iTunes album views have headed in this direction, too.) It's a refreshing way to look at music, even though after playing with it, I'm not sure I really like it better. It seems better suited for a television and remote than monitor and mouse, and the way the new Quickplay page reacts to my mouse movements takes some getting used to. That said, it does look very nice. The update has also added:

• A new Quickplay page gives you "instant access to the stuff you care about most with shortcuts to favorites, recently downloaded or played music, and more."
• The Smart DJ feature can generate related playlists starting from any song on your computer and some music from the Zune Marketplace. (Think of it like Genius in iTunes.)
• An expanded Zune Marketplace includes more HD movies and TV shows.

Zune 4.0 is a free download, available for Windows 7, Vista, or XP. If you have a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Vista, download the 64-bit version of the Zune software.

The only option to install Google Chrome that is provided on the official website of the Google browser is an online installer that will perform the installation right after clicking on the install link. Some users and administrators might need a different solution. This can be because of firewall or network rules, distribution on computer systems that are not connected to the Internet or to save bandwidth by using the same installer on multiple computer systems.

There are probably additional reasons for a Google Chrome offline installer. There is however an easy – but somewhat hidden – option for users who want to download an offline installer for Google Chrome.

All that these users need to do is to append the parameter standalone=1 to the website where Google Chrome can be downloaded. Here are the two download links for the latest official and latest beta version of the Google browser:

Latest versions: Google Chrome Official and Google Chrome Beta

This will download the full installer of the selected Google Chrome browser to the local computer system. It is then possible to install Google Chrome without Internet connection by simply distributing the offline installer to the computer system where it should be installed.

The Google Chrome developers mentioned that it might not be possible to auto-update these versions of the Google Chrome browser. The auto update service should however be active when downloading the offline installers. They should work normally if an Internet connection is present to check for updates

Still not sure whether or not Windows 7 is a good fit for your workplace? Missed out on the RC download and wish you had something you could evaluate? You're in luck. Microsoft has made a 90-day trial download of Windows 7 Enterprise available. You can download the ISO image now. This is the RTM version, not the RC. What you're downloading is the same OS that will be available for purchase in a couple of months.
Both the 32 and 64-bit versions are available, and you don't have to be a member of TechNet, MSDN, the Partner Program, or have a Software Assurance agreement.

Just head to this page with your Windows Live ID handy to sign up. Officially, only IT professionals—you know, people who'd actually install the Enterprise edition—can download the installer disc image. Here's what the official FAQ says:

"IT pros, IT decision makers, and developers who are looking to test their hardware, software, and deployment strategies on Windows 7 can download the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial. You must correctly fill-out a survey to gain access to the download. Incorrect or incomplete surveys will be denied access to download Windows 7 Enterprise 90-Day Trial."

However, the survey doesn't appear to involve any background checking. As far as we can tell, anyone could claim to be an IT manager and download the installation image without issue. We wouldn't condone such blatant disregard for the rules, of course.

The FAQ also notes that the 90-day trial has a "product key built in," so no need to key in numbers during the installation. Just make sure to let the operating system activate within 10 days, or it'll start shutting down every hour. According to Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows, the Enterprise edition of Windows 7 has the same features as the retail Ultimate edition. In other words, it includes all of the goodies from the Home Premium and Business editions plus a handful of others.

[via Windows Team Blog]

First launched back in 2006 as a CD trading service, Lala has evolved along with its market into the most comprehensive web-based service for listening to your music online and music downloads. Its offerings include full length album previews, an online store with 7 million songs, DRM-free high quality variable bit rate MP3 music downloads, a web-based music jukebox and social network, all in one tightly knit interface.

Once you’ve created an account, which doesn’t take more than 30 seconds and doesn’t require a credit card, you can preview whole songs and albums for free (once). Your existing music library can be easily imported using the Lala Music Mover, a small application that matches songs on your computer with the catalog of music downloads available online. It works on Windows as well as on Macs and doesn’t use a lot of resources. Once the upload process is completed, you can listen to all of your songs online, with no additional charge, no restrictions or ads, from any computer with an Internet connection. It will even import playlists and ratings (using the beta version).

Individual tracks can be purchased and downloaded in MP3 format without DRM and a high quality variable bit rate encoding. Downloads are automatically added to your iTunes or Windows Media Player if you installed the Lala Music Mover. For ten cents you can purchase the right to stream a song from the website as many times as desired, a so-called “web song“. Depending on the song popularity and release date, MP3 music downloads range from $0.79 to $1.29, the same pricing scheme of the iTunes Music Store. Lala has strong connections with the music industry and currently indexes over 7 million songs. The only caveat to this service is that it only works with United States IP addresses due to music licenses. Of course, you guys know how to get passed that. Go to Lala, give it a try and then come back to share your experiences in the comments. For more posts related to music, you should definitely have a look at MakeUseOf’s music section.

F-Secure Internet Security 2009, award winner of the prestigious “Best in test” award in Sweden and the top rated security product amongst vendors, is a reliable and powerful internet security software that can provide comprehensive protection against online threats. The Finnish security solution package includes antivirus, powerful anti-spyware, and an easy to use personal firewall. The F-Secure Internet Security 2009 also applies the latest DeepGuard 2.0 technology with network-enabled pre-recognition of malicious and benign software, reducing unnecessary user prompts and enabling lightning-fast protection against malware outbreaks. Other prominent features include rootkit detection, real time protection, automatic update, spam filtering to deny phishing attempts via emails and also parental control which allows concerned parents to set restriction parameters to block kids’ access to certain websites.

F-Secure Internet Security 2009 is amongst one of the more costly internet security solutions. Users need to pay approximately €79,90 for one year’s subscription. However, as part of its marketing promotion, the F-Secure German site and Chip Magazine Germany are currently jointly offering users 3 months’ free use of F-Secure Internet Security 2009 with full online update and support. If users intend to give it a try or enjoy 3 months’ full protection while surfing the internet, they can go to the promotional page via the link here and grab the valid activation code. The process is pretty simple. Fill in a valid email address and name and users will receive an email with the activation key.

Users can thence download the F-Secure Internet Security 2009 via the link here and enter the received activation code.

Open-source and cross-platform media jukebox Miro upgrades to version 2.5, and the improvements bring drastic changes to performance and useful tweaks to the interface. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Miro 2.5 introduces a database overhaul so intensive that users with large collections of video and music might face a delay of more than 10 minutes when they first launch the new version. However, Miro states that the delay should be a one-time event.

Once you've installed the update and launched it once, subsequent restarts should find program launch speeds of two to four times faster than before, says Miro.

Along with the database refresh, torrent fans should find better support for those file types and keyboard shortcuts have been redone to make it easier to navigate the program. Developers will appreciate the new documentation for hacking the database, while podcast junkies finally get direct support for audio podcasts.

Interface enhancements include a new library UI, categorized by the simple Video, Audio, and Other labels. Downloading from YouTube has been made easier, too, with a new button to facilitate that feature when you add YouTube as a sidebar site. Audio playback has received some surface tweaks as well, making it easier to navigate.