Monthly Archives: July 2013

Hamachi VPN

VAN stands for Virtual Private Networking, but what it really means is using the Internet for networking your computers.

This has the advantage of networking over great distances, rather than the limitations of CAT5 cable length, or WiFi range. In fact, for some computer users, networking has had no practical purpose in the same room or building. In the past, networking has been difficult to setup, especially VPN. Many computer users have never created a network before and may not realize the uses. It’s good for: sharing files, sharing printers, sharing hard drives, network games, operating a computer remotely, ftp, video streaming, or anything else a network can do. Now, new tools make the task of creating a VPN easier.

A good tool for VPN is Hamachi. It is available for download in both free and premium versions. Hamachi is easy to install, and easy to use. Hamachi must be installed on all computers you intend to network. Hamachi is highly secure, and works on multiple Operating Systems. Once your VPN is setup, any connection to the Internet becomes a network connection. WiFi service at a cafe, dial up from home, or broadband in your hotel room all seamlessly connect your VPN. Now enjoy the power of computers working together anywhere. Print a Document on the office laser jet from your laptop in the airport. Open and edit a file on the office PC from home. Play a game with your friend hundreds of miles away. Make your network as big as the planet.

VoIP Technology

VoIP is an industry buzzword that seems to be everywhere these days. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. VoIP technology takes your analog voice and packetizes it for transmission over a data network. Modern day VoIP utilizes RTP packets for voice and MGCP or SIP for signaling.

Mozilla Firefox Download

Mozilla Firefox is a free-to-download web browser in direct competition with Internet Explorer. It has won many awards from various computer magazines and is safe and reliable. My favorite feature is the ability of Firefox to locate, download and install the required plugins for a webpage with no hassle. This a definite advantage over IE. Also, having tabs within a window rather than new windows allows for faster moving from one window to another. In my experience it is more adept than IE at blocking unwanted downloads and is marginally more user friendly on the whole.

Wizz RSS News Reader

Wizz RSS Feed and News Reader is a great freeware plugin/addon for Mozilla Firefox that makes subscribing to and reading RSS feeds a breeze.

The Wizz RSS Reader is fully integrated into Firefox and installs an easy to use toolbar to access all of its features which include supporting all versions of RSS feeds, GZIP compressed feeds, Atom 0.3 and 1.0 feeds, OPML import and export and integrated Feedster and Feedbase searching. One of the best features I have found form using the reader is it’s ability to save your feeds to the Wizz servers, and then you can download them into all of the other computer you use. A great piece of software at an incredible price (free!)

Remove DRM

So you’ve bought your music via Itunes or Yahoo Music or any of the other legal music purchasing sites, and now you want to put it onto all of your music/video equipment? Sorry, no! Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM — you’re not really in control of your music or videos. The DRM controls in these purchased files won’t let you do everything you want to, but help is here now. A free trial download of Tunebite will put you back into control. At 4x speed, your music is re-sampled by your PC, turning your DRM-protected files into wide-open MP3s. Now your music, or even your videos, can be put onto all of your devices at the same time. You can burn as many CDs for your car as you like. It was your money, now it’s your music. Visit www.tunebite.com and find out just how to regain the control DRM took away.

Photo Noise Reduction

Shockingly, photo editing doesn’t begin and end with Photoshop. Imagenomic’s Noiseware is an invaluable addition for digital photographers. Noiseware is a powerful piece of software that quickly cleans up photos that may otherwise be ruined by noise (Image noise corresponds to visible grain or particles present in the image). Not only is Noiseware handy, but it comes in a number of varieties to meet your usage needs. Noiseware is available as both a Photoshop plug-in or as a standalone application. The product is available as a free “Community Edition” or in a variety of pay editions depending upon your needs. http://www.imagenomic.com/