July 2014

AnyDesk is a new remote desktop software developed by ex-TeamViewer employees that has been released as a beta recently.

TeamViewer, best known for its ease of use that gets rid of most technicalities such as IP addresses, firewalls or ports is one of the most popular programs in the remote desktop market.

The main idea behind AnyDesk was to deliver the same level of comfort in terms of use but to improve the technical side of things.

Buying successful extensions and adding monetization options to them, usually in the form of ad injections on websites users visit, seems to be a profitable business model.

While it is unclear if the company controlling the popular FDV Downloader extension for Chrome has changed, it is confirmed that it has started to inject advertisement on web pages you visit.

Most televisions can be connected to computer systems these days. This is usually done via HDMI and really easy, as you only need to connect the TV to the computer using a HDMI cable.

Once done, the TV should show up as a secondary monitor on your system so that you can use it for most activities right out of the box.

Depending on where PC and TV are located, you may use PC input devices to control what is going on, or use a controller instead if they are not next to each other.

Most online companies make available privacy related settings that their customers can modify to their liking. The default settings are often less than optimal and making sure that everything is set up properly is one of the first things that you should do.

In fact, it is also important to check those settings regularly just to make sure nothing has changed.

Electrolysis (e10s) is one of the core improvements for Firefox that Mozilla is currently working on. The feature adds so-called multi-process support to Firefox in a way similar to how Chromium-based browsers make use of it already.

A multi-process architecture that separates the browser's core from open websites and plugin contents improves not only the stability of the browser but also the security of it.

This should not be confused with sandboxing though even though Electrolysis is the gateway to make that happen later on.

If there is a niche on mobile devices that is flooded with apps it is the weather niche. There are so many weather apps available that it would take weeks to test them all.

And if you are thinking of launching a weather app to one of the stores, you better make sure that it offers something that other apps don't offer.

The forecast.io service on the Web does that for instance, and Microsoft's Climatology app for Android aims in that direction as well.

Whenever you connect to a website using any browser, the site receives a variety of information automatically. While not all sites process the information or record them, some may very well use them for tracking and other purposes.

Web services such as the EFF's Panopticlick highlight the information that websites may retrieve while you are connecting to them.

This may include the operating system and web browser, screen size, system fonts or which plugins are available.

When you are tasked with analyzing a issue in detail on a PC running Windows, a malware attack for example, it is often necessary to look beyond the obvious and use tools that provide you with a detailed low-level view of what is going on.

While some recommend to start clean by formatting the PC and installing Windows anew, if you want to analyze what happened, you need specialized tools for that purpose.

As a webmaster, I know that it is crucial to keep an eye on your websites at all times. When they go down, you lose business, reputation and maybe even rankings in search engines if the downtime is too long.

That's all bad and every minute that can be shaved off the downtime is important.

That's were domain monitoring comes in. Since you cannot possibly monitor your domains 24/7 on your own, you need automation to help you deal with that.

I prefer desktop mail programs over cloud-based web mail services for a variety of reasons. Mozilla Thunderbird has been my preferred desktop email client for many years.

I consider it one of the best clients in this regard even though Mozilla more or less decided to put it on life support. While most see this as a bad thing, it does not necessarily have to be, considering that there is not much that you can add to an email client in terms of functionality once you have the basics covered.