 Custom Search Guy recommends: A free desktop tool that monitors, or restarts, your VMware virtual machines. Download your free VM Console Ezine 178 – Utilities for ChristmasFed up of getting socks for Christmas? Here are handy utilities to ask your relatives to get for you instead. For example, with Lo Jack you can savour the anti-theft technology while protecting your laptop.
Lo Jack for Laptop ProtectionThe idea is that you install a Lo Jack client into your computer’s BIOS firmware (3 clicks and you are done). The Agent in your computer then maintains daily contact with the Absolute Monitoring Center. Should your computer be stolen then report it to Lo Jack. They will step-up the contact ping to 15 minute intervals, which should enable the police to catch the thief. If it’s the sensitive nature of the data in the wrong hands that worries you, then Lo Jack can delete data on the laptop remotely. Incidentally there is a version of Lo Jack for cars. Check out the Lo Jack site. Manic (Maniac?) TimeFrighten yourself; record your computer usage. Manic Time is handy for seeing through those New Year resolutions whether they be positive or ‘denial’. Download ManicTime KeyTweakKeyTweak seems like a tool for an April 1st prank. However, I can see ‘business uses’ if you have international connections. Download KeyTweak NotePad ++Guy cannot see the point of this program, whereas his friend ‘Mad Mick’ swears by it. Guy says, ‘If the normal built-in notepad cannot get the job done, then I go to one of two extremes, buy a proper script editor, or just use Word for Windows’. Mad Mick says that while ‘NotePad ++ is a good-enough versatile script editor, the reason he likes it so much is that Notepad ++ is just so much more fun and techie than any other text editor.’ We both say, it’s free and make up your own mind. Download NotePad++ Try the Orion Network Performance MonitorWhat I like about SolarWinds is their mantra of ‘built by network engineers for network engineers’. If you get a chance look around their site and seek out the head geek videos. Josh Stephens is that rare geek, someone with network skills, who can also explain lucidly on camera what is going and how to configure the settings. Now I must confess to an impure thought, Josh is so slick on the videos that I wondered if he was in fact an actor, but no, Josh is the real deal, a techie who talks the talk AND walks the walk. As my website indicates, over the years I have dabbled with tweaking computer performance. However, I regard Orion Network Performance Monitor (NPM) as the ‘big tackle’. Big in the sense that has the power to zoom into network trouble spots, and big in the comprehensive range of checks that it manages. If you are reviewing performance monitors, then take advantage of Solarwinds offer to download a free trial of Orion NPM v10.2. MacAfee Site AdvisorMake an online check of any site. You probably don’t really need this utility very often, but if you are curious about a site Test now.
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