April 12th, 2017
This sounds like a convenient addition to Firefox, although it doesn’t appear to offer many new functions beyond what is already available via about:config.
Mozilla plans to add a Performance section to the Settings page of the Firefox web browser that allows users to modify some performance related parameters in the UI. The roll-out of Firefox’s multi-process architecture was a big step in the right direction for Mozilla. The architecture separates the browser’s core from sites and applications.
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Tags: about:config, animations, firefox, Performance Settings, prefetching
Posted in software evaluation | Comments Off on Firefox gets a Performance Settings Section
April 11th, 2017
If you’re a regular user of Microsoft’s CodePlex site, it’s probably a good idea to start researching a few alternatives …
Microsoft announced yesterday that it will shut down its open-source project hosting website CodePlex on December 15, 2017. The company launched CodePlex in 2006 as a place to “share software”. CodePlex enabled anyone to create and share projects. The site offered various tools for that, including a wiki software, source control based on Mercurial, Subversion, Git discussion forums, issues tracking, RSS support, and a lot more.
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Tags: .NET, ASP.NET, CodePlex, GitHub, microsoft
Posted in General News | Comments Off on Microsoft Shuts Down CodePlex on December 15th, 2017
April 10th, 2017
From most reports, this first release doesn’t contain anything that users will find particularly amazing. But at least it’s reassuring to know that this version of the Creators Update marks the beginning of the next feature update development phase.
The Windows 10 Creators Update has been available as a manual download and installation since April the 5th, and will be available through Windows Update next Tuesday (April 11th). This apparently does not keep Microsoft from releasing the first build of the next feature update for Windows 10 to the Fast Ring release channel.
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Tags: Cortana, Creator's Update, Insider Preview Build, Windows 10
Posted in General News | Comments Off on First Post Windows 10 Creators Update Build 16170 Released
April 7th, 2017
In order for Netflix’s download feature to make any sense at all, they really need to let us know where files are going, so we don’t quickly fill up our hard drives with downloaded movies.
Netflix enabled the downloading of — some — TV show episodes and movies in the company’s application for Windows 10 recently. It allows you to download these shows and movies to the local device, and watch them at a later point in time. Ideal for adding some to your laptop before you spend the next ten hours or so flying to Japan, or spending the vacation with your kids in a place with bad or no Internet reception at all.
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Tags: download, file location, netflix, Windows 10
Posted in tech tips | Comments Off on Where does Netflix Download Shows to on Windows 10?
April 6th, 2017
If you’ve noticed that an unfamiliar program, named Runtime Broker is hogging more than 15% of your memory and causing your PC to run slow, here’s how to deal with it.
Microsoft introduced the Runtime Broker process (RuntimeBroker.exe) in Windows 8, and kept on using it in Windows 10 as well. Runtime Broker is a legitimate Windows process, but one with quite a bad reputation for increasing CPU load and memory usage on systems sporadically.
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Tags: CPU load, memory, Runtime Broker, task manager
Posted in tech tips | Comments Off on What is Runtime Broker and Why is it Causing High CPU Load?
April 5th, 2017
This definitely seems like a very useful capability, but as the article states, the service is presently swamped with requests for downloads. So it might be a good idea to wait until the newness of the service wears off before trying it out yourself.
Website Downloader is a relatively new service that enables you to download individual pages or entire archives of websites on the Wayback Machine site. The Wayback Machine, part of the Internet Archive, is a very useful service. It enables you to browse website snapshots recorded by the site’s crawler.
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Tags: archive.org, Wayback Machine, Website Downloader
Posted in General News | Comments Off on Website Downloader – Download Entire Wayback Machine Site Archives
April 4th, 2017
Here’s an interesting sneak peek at Microsoft’s soon to be released Unified Troubleshooting Page for Windows 10
The upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, out April 11th, 2017 officially and on April 5th, 2017 for early adopters, ships with a unified Troubleshooting page to fix issues.
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Tags: Troubleshoot Settings, Unified Troubleshooting Page, Windows 10 Creators Update
Posted in software evaluation | Comments Off on Windows 10 Creators Update: Unified Troubleshooting Page
April 3rd, 2017
If you’re in the habit of regularly running Disk Cleanup to clean your system files, you’ll probably find this useful.
The following tip provides you with information on how to speed up the loading of Disk Cleanup’s “clean system files” option on Windows. Disk Cleanup is a built-in tool on Windows devices that users may utilize to remove temporary data from the operating system. It is not as complete as dedicated third-party cleaning programs such as CCleaner or Privazer, but it may still remove Gigabytes of disk content that is no longer needed from the system.
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Tags: clean system files, Creator's Update, disk cleanup, Windows 10
Posted in tech tips | Comments Off on Windows Tip – Speed Up Disk Cleanup System Files Loading
March 31st, 2017
It’s surprising that Chrome has taken so long to implement changes that protect users from malicious pop-up ads; Firefox took care of this problem years ago.
Google implemented a change in Chrome’s JavaScript popup handling behavior recently that restricts JavaScript popups. The change, which landed in Chrome Canary and Dev already, improves the handling of JavaScript alert(), confirm() and prompt() dialogs that pages may throw in the browser. Chrome up until now, and that is still true for Chrome Stable and Beta, handled these JavaScript dialogs per browser-window.
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Tags: chrome, firefox, javascript, popup
Posted in General News, security | Comments Off on Chrome’s JavaScript Popup Handling Changes
March 30th, 2017
Given recent changes in US internet privacy policies, this article is particularly timely (even though it appears to have been written before the change in policy took place.)
Internet Service Providers may be able to sell your web history in the United States without you giving your consent. The new ruling passed the US Senate and the House of Representatives already, and the last thing standing in its way is the President of the United States.
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Tags: DNS, encryption, https, vpn
Posted in privacy, tech tips | Comments Off on How to Prevent Your ISP from Snooping on You
