July 2014

Chrome OS had a a bit of a rough start on the scene, with the first Chromebooks getting little real attention. But Google has beefed up its offering and Chromebooks now find their way into schools and businesses.

But the search giant isn't sitting back, resting on what it has done, but instead moving forward, continuing to improve the operating system with little enhancements.

Adobe has just launched a new program called PlayPanel. Some reports on Hacker News indicate that it is being advertised with Flash updates, but I cannot verify that claim after having updated Flash on two different PCs without that happening.

You can head over to the PlayPanel page on the Adobe website to download it. Before you do so, you may want to know more about requirements and the functionality that the program offers before you do so.

Most web browsers ship with basic password management capabilities these days. They remember passwords for you if you want, and most provide you with options to add a master password to protect the passwords from unauthorized access by users or third-party programs.

While that is comfortable and used by many, some users prefer third-party tools as they allow them to synchronize the data between different Internet browsers or ship with other features that they require.

With smartphones and tablets reaching saturation points in many countries, it is time to hop on to the next big thing. Most companies are betting big on so-called wearables which can be divided into two main groups currently: smartwatches and bands.

Bands or fitness bands are not necessarily a new thing. Companies like Nike, Polar or Fitbit have created products that you can purchase right now. I'd like to call them first generation products.

Depending on the hard drive or drives connected to your computer, it can be difficult to determine how busy they are. While you usually get a good indicator if you use a platter-based drive that is busy, as you hear it literally working, you cannot really tell if you use a silent Solid State Drive.

There may be other indicators. Files may not load as fast as usually, or downloads are slow because the hard drive is busy and cannot write them as fast they the data comes in.

I have been using the excellent F.Lux to automatically adjust the screen color temperature and brightness based on the time of day.

Once configured, F.Lux handles the changing automatically in the background so that you do not have to take care of that anymore.

The main of the program is to match the color temperature to the light conditions in the room. That's beneficial for the eyes and may also help you sleep better if you happen to work on the computer until you go to bed.

One of the things that you need to take care of as a webmaster is to make sure that links are working properly on your site.

Broken links cause bad user experience among other things. Say you have reviewed a software program and the link pointing to it is broken.

Reasons for that can be manifold. Maybe you have made an error pasting it into the article, or maybe the site the program was hosted on moved or was deleted by its author.

Sometimes, you have to make hard decisions in life. Decisions that are not always optimal at that time but are influenced by other factors that are important to you.

When Google started out, it was the clear underdog. I loved the service from the minute it went online and openly spread the word about it.

Have you tried Google? The search is way better than whatever you are using right now. Give it a try. Then came Gmail, Google Reader, Google Maps and dozens of other services that improved what had been standard in regards to email, RSS reading or mapping for years.

When you run a remote service on your home computer, one of the things that you need to take into account is a changing IP address. The issue here is that if your IP address changes, you and everyone else connecting to that service needs to use it.

Since many home Internet connections get dynamic IP addresses regularly, it means that you have to communicate those changes to everyone so that your service remains accessible.

Back in the good old days of computing, HiJack This was a go-to program for many who wanted to audit several key areas of their Windows system.

The program was sold eventually to Trend Micro and was turned into a free project again after a while. Nowadays, it is available on the Sourceforge website for download.

Why I'm telling you this? Because HiJack Hunter is a comparable program in terms of functionality that it offers.