Category Archives: Software

Category containing all information relating to software.

Google Earth 5 – Now with ocean view and time travel!

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Google has recently launched the brand new version 5 of the popular Google Earth.

New features include a brand new oceanic view, which means you can dive into the oceans as wel as use the land view. On top of that, you can go “back in time” and see the historical changes of places over time.

A lot of new content has been added, including useful resources from companies like National Geograhpic and the BBC.

You can even record yourself touring around the world of Google Earth.

Sadly, I can’t install it at the moment becuase the Google Updater/installer refuses to cooperate and running the actual Google Earth installer just brings up an error, so that’s not a great kick off for me. I’ll try and get it running in XP or on another PC sometime so I can write a quick review.

While you’re waiting, head over to http://earth.google.com to grab a copy for yourself.

Top five plugins I’d recommend for WordPress

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Well, you’ll probably know GEEK! (and most of the other sites I run) strongly rely on WordPress. It’s a fantastic platform, not only for blogging. It’s extremely customizable and you can just spend hours messing around with all the config with it. It’s also extremely reliable and as long as your server is up, it is there open to the web. And if you’ve got WordPress installed with cPanel on your server, running your website is a dream. Perhaps sometime I’ll do a post on cPanel.

Anyway, I also use quite a few plugins with GEEK!. Some of them are vital to me, and some of them I just use to add a bit of feel to the site. So, I thought I would do a top 5 to show my favourite and most loved plugins for WordPress. Remember, all plugins are free and a lot of them are open source so don’t restrain yourself. However try not to have too many as it will hog up resources on your server and your webhost may not be too happy about this. I would definitely say don’t use more than 15 simultaneously.

Here are your top 5:

  1. Statpress: A fantastic stats system for any blog or site hosted with WordPress. It monitors all the traffic coming into your site, and manages it into individual visitors, pageviews, spiders (bots) and feeds. You can look at detailed statistics on what browser, OS, country and versions each IP that visited your site was using. You can monitor specific IPs and search for specific results. The only thing I don’t like is that you can’t get it to ignore your own IP (as far as I know anyway) so that might be an issue for some users. Try it anyway, it uses little resources and doesn’t use Javascript so won’t miss anyone not using Javascript.
  2. Sidebar Login: I like this plugin because it means any user can log onto their account with your site by just using the sidebar of your site. Saves having to go to the wp-login page. I mainly have it because I’m lazy, but also because it is very useful. I prefer it to the meta widget WordPress provides.
  3. All in One SEO Pack: A great plugin if you want to get your site out on the web search sites (which… most people do). Will sort out your META title, description and tags for you. Just type in what you want and it will make sure its on search engines like Google and Yahoo.
  4. Genki Announcement: A simple but useful plugin which allows you to post announcements on your site. It proves quite useful if you need to alert users of scheduled downtimes or other simular warnings. It’s not compatitable with all themes, but most work so you should be OK.
  5. Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam (external): A great system for comment SPAM reduction. Will add a CAPTCHA to your website’s comments form so that real users will be seperated from computer spam. You can also set it so registered users that are logged in do not have to fill the CAPTCHA in. If you’re getting lots of spam, this is the plugin for you.

So there you have it – my favourite WordPress plugins. They are all compatitable with WordPress 2.7 (I’ve tested them) so you should be fine. See what you think. If you’ve got any other great plugins you’d like to recommend, throw in a comment!

Should you defragment your RAM? (How to guide)

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Well, everybody knows that Vista can’t really be ran on 1GB RAM – especially if you use a lot of system programs. I personally know differently, because I’ve found out that if you can “defragment” your systems RAM once the amount of available RAM falls below a certain point, you can clear up some used RAM (often quite a lot) and make your computer much more usable.

Trouble is, there isn’t much free software you can find that does the thing I want it to do. I have found one program, though, and despite the fact it doesn’t claim it will run on Windows Vista (the program was created in 2003), it will run fine without any issues.

You can grab the program here, and it is completely free (unlike most of the shareware I found on the internet). Just download the ZIP file, run the included EXE file, and when it is installed and it runs for the first time say Yes when it asks if you want to configure it.

Make sure your configuration options match mine:

ram

When that’s done, you should see it defragment in a dialog box. When it’s done, just click Send to Tray. You’ll see in the notification tray area a black box with a number in it. That is the amount of RAM available.

The system will automatically defragment the RAM when less than 1/3 of it is available. But, if you want to manually defrag it, just double click the icon.

Simple as that. You’ll get better performance and also be able to run more programs at the same time. The program will automatically load up on boot, so you won’t have to constantly reload it.

Also, the program will work on all computers from Windows 95 upwards so you can basically use it on any PC.

Enjoy, and post a comment if you have any problems.

XP just can’t be friends with Windows 7

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Well, it’s bad news for anyone using Windows XP who thinks that maybe they’ll be doing an upgrade to Windows 7. Microsoft have said that you will only be able to actually upgrade without cleaning your hard disk if you have Vista. Windows XP users will have to do a clean install, and whichever way you put it – that’s not an upgrade, it’s a clean install.

Microsoft does this every time and it does bug me quite a lot.

In my opinion, Microsoft should have an upgrade system for XP because they know very well that there are a huge amount of us still happily using out XP systems, and if Microsoft even wants to make us think about moving up a gear, they should at least make it a little easier for us. Instead, we have to go through all the hassle of backing up files, finding program disks and product keys. Oh it’s just such a hassle.

Come on Microsoft, put your thinking caps on!

Microsoft confirms Windows 7 editions

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Microsoft has confirmed the versions of Windows 7 that will be available to the public on the release of Windows 7. They are relatively similar to Windows Vista, except from a few minor changes.

Windows 7 Home Basic: Almost identical to features of Vista – no Aero and now Media Center. Worryingly, there are rumours that Microsoft has set this so you can only run 3 applications at the same time. Apparently, Microsoft has set this version to be for “developing countries”.

Windows 7 Home Premium: Again, similar to Vista. Introduces Aero interface and Media Center and supposedly removes 3 application limit if that rumour is true. Also introduces media streaming (?).

Windows 7 Professional: I’m guessing just a knock-off of Windows Vista Business. Will supposedly include file encryption facilities, user-group policy management and a couple of other useful business facilities.

Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate: Similar comparison to Vista Ultimate. You get some extra features that may come in handy to both business and home users.

As for the Windows Home Basic rumours, Microsoft has said that most “developed countries” such as Japan, Europe, the US and Australia won’t ever see Home Basic. It is thought that Home Basic will only be introduced there to keep them “away from Linux and pirated copies of Windows”.

Home Premium will become the standard in more “developed countries”, which I personally think is a good thing. I hate Vista Home Basic and can’t live without my Home Premium so I won’t miss Home Basic.

But that looks as if that is the plan of action from Microsoft. I’m looking forward to the launch of the Release Candidate of Windows 7, but we’ll have to wait and see as to when that is due for release.