Mozilla has recently launched the final version of Firefox 3.5.
Personally, I haven’t got round to downloading it yet, but I’ll have a crack at upgrading tomorrow, and perhaps post a review sometime over the next few days if I find anything boastable about the new version.
If you’d like to get the latest version, you can either download the upgrade from www.firefox.com or grab it from the Check For Updates link in the Help menu of Firefox.
There are too many people around who have their wifi routers unsecured. Why? Well there are horrible people out there who think it’s right to connect to your wifi. Believe it or not, it’s stealing and if you are caught you will get in trouble.
It’s a really good idea to set up a security key for your wifi. It is simple to do and will save you a lot of hassle. OK, if you live in the middle of a field in a rural area, chances are that there won’t be any wifi-jackers (that’s what I call them) anywhere near you, but you never know.
I get questions from quite a few people about making a good, secure wifi key that’ll keep those unwanted wifi-jackers away. Most routers automatically set up a WEP key when you set them up, but they can be hard to remember and annoying when you need them regularly.
I say the same thing to everyone – there is an easy way to create a simple easy to set a key to remember. An important date you you (such as a birthday) and and another important 2 digit number (such as your house number). I suggest you have it like this:
DDMMYYYYHH
KEY: D – Day, M – Month, Y – Year, H – House number.
So, if my birthday was on the 12th of June 1978 (it isn’t, seriously!) and my house number was 9, I’d set it like this: 1206197809.
You won’t forget it, I promise. As long as you remember the structure you’ll be fine. I find it a really simple way to make a good, secure WEP key. As long as you don’t tell anyone else that it’s the structure of your security key, you won’t get any unwanted intruders chewing up all your bandwidth and getting you into trouble with the law.
Microsoft has unveiled the plans for pricing on Windows 7.
If you currently have a license for Windows Vista Home Premium, you will pay £79.99 for an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium when it is available. If you just want a normal copy of Windows, you will need to pay £149.99.
However, there will not be an upgrade DVD for Windows 7. In Europe, Microsoft decided not to sell a separate upgrade disk. Microsoft is doing this because they are trying to comply with various regulations.
However, there is good news. Microsoft will be offering a discount preorder of Windows 7 from the 15th July, meaning that UK users will be able to get a full copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for release day for just £49.99 – while stocks last.
So there is some good and bad news there, but I think I shall definitely opt in for the £49.99 early upgrade. A full version of Windows for that price is too good to miss!
If you are still running the Windows 7 Beta and haven’t bothered to update to the release candidate, you’re about to hit the bi-hourly shutdowns.
Starting July 1st, Windows 7 Beta users will start getting bi-hourly shutdowns, meaning that your computer will automatically be shut down every 2 hours.
If you want to avoid the Windows 7 Beta bi-hourly shutdowns, you’ll need to upgrade to the Release Candidate for free. You can download it from here for free until August 15th so make sure you upgrade if you want to continue using Windows 7.
I’ve discovered something very pleasing about the Freecom Network Drive today.
I was copying a bunch of files to my Network Drive today, not noticing that in the bunch there was a 6GB file, which in theory should not copy because there is theoretically a 4GB file size limit on the Freecom Network Drive since it is formatted in FAT32.
However, after leaving the computer to copy the files, I came back to check it later that afternoon, and to my amazement the file had copied with no issues. I opened the file from the Network Drive and it worked perfectly.
I was astonished, so I decided to connect the Network Drive up to my computer over USB to see if their had been any disguised file splitting or anything like that. And yes, there was. The file had split into one 4GB file and another 2GB file.
I connected the drive back up over LAN and the file was one 6GB file again.
I am very pleased with this, as it means that the 4GB file size limit is not necessarily true. Freecom doesn’t advertise the fact that the Freecom Network Drive can split files and therefore store files bigger than 4GB, so you might want to bare that in mind if you are considering getting a network drive in the near future.