WINDOWS LIVE ONECARE FAMILY SAFETY

Windows Vista will include deeply integrated parental controls to assist parents in monitoring kids' time online and preventing access to inappropriate web sites.

A more limited service for Windows XP is now available under the name Windows Live OneCare Family Safety. This is a beta release without all the features planned for the final product; at some point it will be more or less integrated into the Windows Live OneCare security service. Here's an article with more details about the beta version, and here's more info from Microsoft.

The Windows XP service prevents access to inappropriate sites but doesn't do anything else. The Vista service will add time restrictions and fine-grained control over specific programs and services - instant messaging, for example.

In a brief test today, it was a bit confusing to set up the accounts for family members but more disturbing that Internet access was glacially slow or broken. That could be opening day jitters, though, and the developers acknowledge on their blog that the setup process needs work. For the moment I've uninstalled it and gone back to testing Safe Eyes.

Reposted from bruceb.com/news/

SIMPLE SUNRISE & SUNSET

If you are like me, as the days grow shorter it's important to know whether I'll be running or cycling in the dark. I googled a lot of tools but this was the simplest. Download it and save it in your startup folder. It puts a little sun or moon in your system tray with a tooltip that gives you sunrise, sunset and time to the next.

INTEL CORE 2 PROCESSORS

You may have read the media coverage of Intel's blazing new processors, the first significant jump in processor technology in five years. They're so much faster than current processors that the tech magazines and labs are stunned. And they use less power, allowing them to run cooler. Yesterday the mobile versions of the processors for notebooks were rolled out.

This is a quantum leap. It's huge. Consequently Intel has dropped the price of its older processors and there's a lot of them in the channel, but there's every reason to believe that within six months the new processors will be the only reasonable choices on the market.

This new line of processors are named "Core 2." There are several models with the name "Core 2 Duo" and one named "Core 2 Extreme." Shop carefully as you are going to see a lot of low price "Dual Core" models, but if you want the newer technology, go for the "2".

Portions repeated from BruceB.com/news.

IMPORTANT DOWNLOADS

CompuDent has provided a quick link to many useful downloads for clients on this page.

MOZY

If your files aren't backed up, shame on you! Put two gigs of them on Mozy for free. Even if you have a backup, use Mozy as a second level of protection. In exchange for free storage you receive weekly e-mail advertisements—a small price to pay. PCMag reviewed this product as an Editor's Choice.

If you want a truly secure encryption, use GRC's password generator. Get a totally random password such as, "SwjWNZujrl7CrgR1Jh9uuPEyxW91WgYC0MCOqNqc1EcdsOcwxpNASRecBNmMaH0". Save the password to a file on your computer and use it for encryption.

RESURRECTING OLD COMPUTERS

Kim Komando daily tip on 8/16/6

Why you should recycle that piece of junk because it is cheaper to simply buy a new one. Or why do we think computers are different from VCRs, DVD players or anything else we choose to replace rather than repair, etc. because it is cheaper?

I will add one caveat - it will require time (AKA $'s) to move your data from the old computer to the new one. However, when you consider the better performance, it is money well spent.