Category Archives: Software

Category containing all information relating to software.

Mac’s 25th Birthday

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Now I’ve never been a big fan of Mac’s (I’ve been a Windows user since day one) but I thought I ought to write a post to celebrate 25 years of Mac history.

Yes, today, 24th January 2009, marks 25 years of the good old Macintosh.

Remember the first Macintosh around back in 1984? You might want to take a look at this… it’s a video of the first ever Mac demonstration with Steve Jobs.

But there you go… something to think about. What was the first Mac you ever owned? Have you ever owned one – or are you the Windows type?

Happy Birthday to Macintosh…

Get your music back from your iPod

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You ever had the problem where your computer’s hard drive gives way and you loose all your music, but it’s on the iPod. If only you could get that music back to your computer…

Well, over the last couple of years, lots of companies have come up with software, both freeware and shareware, which will recover music (and possibly videos) from your iPod.

That way, you can recover any music you’ve lost and stick it straight back on your computer.

Have a look at iPodRip, at http://www.ipodrip.com/. It’s not freeware, but it will get all of your music and playlists back. And if you aren’t short of time, have a good browse around as there’s plenty of freeware around if you’ve got the time to look for it.

Have a look, and post any comments if you can find any decent software you’d like to recommend.

Tiscali Router (Siemens SE587) and confusing port forwarding…

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I use Tiscali Broadband very regularly, and generally the service they provide is fantastic. The broadband is very cheap for what you get, and most of the time I have no problems. Except…

The Tiscali router firmware is quite strange. Especially in the port forwarding settings. In my scenario, I need to be able to port forward my Network Drive up to the internet so I can access it when I’m not at home (or so that downloads on http://download02.geekonthepc.com work). Ok, that’s fine, I just put the port forwarding info into the config settings…

 

Router Config

Look OK to you (you might want to see a full size image but clicking on the image)? Looks OK to me.

So I go to test it – open up Filezilla, and go to my IP, and wait a sec – connection rejected by server? What?

So I go back and check the settings again. No, they are fine. What’s going on?

Well, after several hours of endless confusion, I’ve finally worked out how (oddly) it works.

It does actually port forward, however if you try and access it on the same Tiscali router you are trying to port forward from, for some reason the connection is rejected. But if you go to another wi-fi connection, it will allow it and you’ll get in.

It’s very odd, but at least it’s working. You can be sure that its working if you go to http://status.geekonthepc.com/networkdrive and it’ll ping it from the Tiscali router (update: the server has since been taken off the internet).

So there you go, Tiscali port forwarding does work – it’s just a firmware bug that Tiscali/Siemens should just sort out.

Review: Windows Live Essentials 2009

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It’s finally arrived – the finished edition of Windows Live Essentials from Microsoft Live, including the well known Windows Live Messenger, as well as Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Photo Gallery plus the Windows Live Family Safety and toolbar.

We’ve waited not far off a year for the newest version of Windows Live Messenger to appear on our screens, so I’ll kick off with that. The new interface of Windows Live Messenger is fantasic and is also much more customizable than the last version. It looks especially good if you have a version of Windows Vista (or Windows 7 Beta – it works on that too) with the Aero glass. It doesn’t look quite as good in XP. Nevertheless, looks aren’t everything, the new features are good. There’s a new groups feature – where you can create groups of your favourite mates and they all share the group with everyone in it, as well as a new favourites group for you personally. Fans of the Sharing Folders will be disappointed, as it would appear they have been scrapped. I personally never used the Sharing Folders as I would just send a file manually.

Windows Live Mail is also very good. New improvements include a much cleaner interface which is much more user friendly. Under the hood, there aren’t many really noticeable changes, but it is still definitely worth downloading and using – especially if you use Windows Live Hotmail a lot.

Windows Live Writer is a good blog editing program, but I don’t personally use it myself as I’m quite happy to simply use the WordPress admin interface to add whatever I need to. However, it does include some neat features including picture editing, and it does have some cool plugin support. However, nothing will beat the ease of use in the WordPress dashboard, and since they are both free, I’d go for WordPress.

The Windows Live Photo Gallery has always been something I’ve used when I’ve been viewing photos from my digital camera. It’s neat and tidy, and resembles the Windows Media Player interface vaguely. It’s also a simple way of transporting photos from your camera or memory card to your computer.

If you need a good package for writing blogs, talking to friends, emailing and viewing your photos, go ahead and download this. Computer manufacturers are already dispatching this with their systems (Dell has agreed to do this recently) so you may already have these programs with a new PC. If you don’t, head over to download.live.com to get it for free.

Windows 7 Beta: Hands On Review

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Well, after several hours last night in line for a download of Windows 7, I finally have it installed on the computer. I’ve had a little play-around with it and seen what the biggest new features are, and also checked to see if there are any common bugs.

Anyway, what do I think? Well generally I think it looks very promising. The speed and performance is relatively good, there aren’t too many bugs despite it being in beta, and overall it looks side of it is relatively good.

There are a few things I don’t like, such as the new “super bar” (new name for the start bar). I don’t think that designed very well at all at the moment – but don’t forget when Vista beta 1 went out the start bar looked nothing like the final release. Personally, I’m not a fan of the “super bar” not showing my window names. I don’t know what other people think, but I much prefer having the names of my windows shown to me all the time, instead of having to hover over the logo.

However, I do like the new feature on the “super bar” that shows on demand information such as recently used items, commonly used features and the likes. That would be very useful to me.

I’m a fan of the new boot screen which looks snazzy while not to over the top. The nice glow of the Windows logo looks good with the simple ‘Starting Windows’ text below it. Boot time isn’t fantastic on a 1GB RAM laptop with a dual core processor (running in Virtual PC over XP), but it’s not worryingly slow and I’m sure if I had just installed it on a proper partition on my computer it would have been much quicker.

Media Center has had a few modifications, but nothing ground-breaking yet. There’s a few new features, but I wouldn’t get too excited about that yet.

So should you go and get a download from Microsoft? Well, if you really want to test it for yourself, go ahead. Beware that Microsoft are limiting download to 2.5 million and the servers have been under extreme pressure since the launch of the download yesterday. You are very unlikely to be able to get in first time (or even second or third) so unless you’ve got a lot of spare time on your hands, just don’t bother. To give you an idea, I waited nearly 6 hours to merely get to the download. The download itself took another hour and a half or so (it’s a 3GB file so don’t download it if you are on strict bandwidth limits) and then you have to worry about the actuall install process, which on a slow computer may take a good hour or two. You could end up spending a whole afternoon and maybe some of your evening on this.

So if you want a simple answer, I recommend you don’t go downloading it unless you really want to see for yourself. But, on the other hand, I do think it is something to look forward to as Microsoft are saying it could be ready in time for Christmas 09.

Next up on the reviews list is the new Windows Live Essentials pack, which will be on review here on GEEK! in the next few days.

Update: Microsoft has postponed the public release of the BETA due to high traffic. They say that especially this morning there was excessive traffic to the beta. They are now “adding infrastructure support” and I hope the beta will be up again for download soon!

Further Update: Just went and tested the beta download, and the news that the beta is no longer available isn’t entirely correct. You can still download the beta. I just went to the Technet page and tried getting to the download, and it worked first time. Go and get it now if you want a download.