Computer News

Thurrott.com
Paul Thurrott has left Winsupersite.com and is now at Thurrott.com.
Good luck Paul!

Interesting Reads
Six Colors – How I rip DVDs and Blu-rays
How-To Geek – Here’s What Happens When You Install the Top 10 Download.com Apps

Reader Emails

Q – Is there a free alternative to True Image?
A – Several. I recommend Clonezilla.

Q – What happened to your Twitter page?
A – I briefly tried the Social Media thing. I honestly don’t get it.

Q – I’m looking for a notebook. Do you have any recommendations?
A – My baseline currently would be:
– Intel Core I5 or I7.
– SSD
– < 6GB RAM

Foxy Lady
Firefox 34 is out.
New features include Yahoo as default search :rolleyes:
Download (Windows, EN-US)
Release Notes
Download other languages and operating systems
Firefox 34 for Android is available in the Play Store.

Paint It Black
Paint.net 4.0.4 released.
“this update greatly improves performance in some key areas”
Announcement
Download
Plugins

Cinnamon Girl
Linux Mint 17.1 with Cinnamon and Mate desktops released.

The Times They Are a-Changin’
With TrueCrypt no longer being developed many folks are looking elsewhere for disk encryption software.
VeraCrypt is one alternative and they’ve released version 1.0e.

Flash Ah-Ahh!
Flash has been updated to version 15.0.0.239.
Download:
Flash for IE
Flash for other browsers
Main download page
Windows 8 users check Windows Update.
Of course this means Google Chrome has been updated too…
“The stable channel has been updated to 39.0.2171.71 for Windows, Mac and Linux. This release contains an update for Adobe Flash as well as a number of other fixes. ”
Download or update from within the program.

U-G-L-Y You Ain’t Got No Alibi
CCleaner v5 is out. New interface and optimizations.
Download
Version History
***Pay attention during install. May attempt to install unwanted programs.

I wish you all a safe and pleasant Thanksgiving,
Eric

Software
BleachBit 1.6
VirtualBox 4.3.20

Detekt
Several privacy outfits have banded together to release Detekt.
“Detekt is a free tool that scans your Windows computer for traces of FinFisher and Hacking Team RCS, commercial surveillance spyware that has been identified to be also used to target and monitor human rights defenders and journalists around the world.”
It does not work on Windows 8.1 64-bit.

Reader Emails
Q – Does the 8.1 workaround work for systems that came with 8.1 preinstalled? I used ProduKey to find my product key, but when I enter it into the Windows 8 Setup it does not work. Any thoughts? Thanks.

A – Why would you need a workaround for a 8.1 key?
If you don’t have an 8.1 ISO you can make one: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media
Generic keys are here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx
You may also want to check out: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forums/42-Windows-8 😉

– – – – –

Q – I loved your article and I enjoy Open Suse 13.2,, but one thing really irks me and that is the software patterns.
I remove all the patterns, yet the system still re-installs unwanted packages everytime i install software ( I even select packages selected by user), yet still I am unable to slim my installation. For me this is the biggest problem that Open Suse has and theefore stops newbies from using it.
Any ideas?

A – That ticked me off too. This behavior did not happen in previous versions of openSUSE. When I mentioned it in the forums they acted like I’ve got a screw loose.
To fix it: YaST > Software Management > Options > check Ignore Recommended Packages for Already Installed Packages.