PC Memoirs

Free Windows terminal emulator applications are numerous. Most of them are built around Putty, one of the most popular free terminal emulators available.

As this article will show, there are many downsides to using these applications. They might not end up being as free as you think. Developing what you need for internal company operations, or for dealing with your clients will require some serious features. Free applications make many claims, but they are also the cause of many problems.

Some things to consider:

* Security: Free applications often do not come with many (if any) of the security features you will require to do business with serious clients. In many cases, you can purchase these security add-ons and licenses, andwill cost a packet. By the time you have all the security required by your customers, you probably should have paid for a professionally built program. Your open source application may claim to have true SSH security, but how sure can you be you have full protection? Are there gaping backdoors for hackers?

* Support of systems: The Windows environment is changing fast. They have already been using the 64bit environment for some time. It is highly unlikely your free terminal emulator will be able to handle anything more than the 32bit environment.

Read the rest »

Choosing a terminal emulator can be a bit unnerving when you first start. There’s a wide range of possible systems, variants, and operational considerations. However, it’s not as hard as it looks. You can get a good terminal emulator that can simplify operations and do a lot for productivity quite easily. Important: You should consult with your computer support people to get a good map of the operational issues before you make up your mind, but we’ve got a good basic guide to selection issues to help you decide.

Terminal emulators and systems

Depending on the type of system you use and your operational needs, you may require:

• Data security – This is critical, basic “risk management” for major systems. It’s also considered best practice by IT professionals as a good all-round way to insure against any possibility of compromised data systems.
• Keyboard mapping – This is used to achieve maximum fluency in your programming, and it’s a particularly valuable, productive asset for programmers.
• Character set support – Going very much hand in hand with keyboard mapping, character set support provides good operational support for all program languages.
• Multi session capabilities – The ability to run several applications simultaneously is obviously useful, but the new generation of multi session means these applications can run independently and be configured separately.
• Keyboard macros – Another high productivity feature, used for commonly required functions.
• User defined toolbars – More productivity, creating a simple “point and click” capability for navigation.

Read the rest »

If you love Mozilla Firefox but hate the brain drain on your computer, then you are not alone. Millions of Firefox’s loyal users are frustrated with the browser’s strange idiosyncrasy. But what can you do to prevent Firefox from eating your computer’s memory? Try one of these four tricks!

Plugins and add-ons

Sometimes simple things can muck up the works. On Firefox you can customize it many different ways. However, those customizations can be one of the causes of a memory drain. Things like themes, extensions and plugins can make Firefox run slow. To solve this problem, remove as many unnecessary add-ons as you can.

On MozillaZine one user said: “I was using 7 extensions for Firefox, with no theme at all and my browser would sit, three tabs open, my website, admin panel and Netvibes. 200MB utilization. Seemed a bit odd. Got rid of the extensions I didn’t need and bam my computer went back to a reasonable number, 50mb.”

Look-see

Mozilla offers a place to go for tips and help: MozillaZine. The site also offers a problematic extensions list for Firefox. The list illustrates extension-specific conflicts and information. See if you can improve your memory by changing a few plugins to more economical settings.

Read the rest »

The hacker group Anonymous claimed last Monday that they had acquired and shared source code for Symantec’s PCAnywhere and Norton Antivirus. If confirmed, this would represent a major breach in the company’s security.

It appears that in mid-January a Symantec employee offered a hacker who used the name Yamatough $50,000 in exchange for reassurances that the software code had been destroyed. In an interview with Reuters, Yamatough said “We tricked them into offering us a bribe so we could humiliate them.”

In a strange turn, it appears the employee who was offering the money was actually a decoy set up by a law enforcement agency in an attempt to catch the hacker in an extortion plot.

The company is apparently looking into the alleged breach and is refusing to comment, as an investigation is currently under way.

In the final message of the email correspondence back and forth between Yamatough and the Symantec employee, the hacker announced that the deal was off and the code would be released on Feb. 7.

This will be a huge setback for Symantec. As of 2007, Norton Antivirus held a 61 percent share of the market for antivirus software.

Read the rest »

Following from the enormous success of last year’s Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure video game, Activision have recently leaked the upcoming release of the franchise’s next installment: Skylanders Giants.

The conveniently named Skylanders Giants “builds upon the ground breaking fundamentals of the first game-merging the physical and virtual realms with an innovative line of cross-platform toy figures that have “brains,” which players everywhere can magically bring to life in the world of Skylands,” said Activision. Like the original game title Giants will also feature all new arenas, more gameplay options in Battle Mode, enhanced Elemental Zones, new Hero Challenges, and much more.

Eight new giant Skylanders characters will be released each being more than twice the size of the first edition Skylanders figures, both out of the box and in the game. They will also feature built in lights that illuminate when they’re placed near the Portal of Power. The first of these behemoth characters to be announced are a giant version of Cynder, the dark dragoness and Tree Rex, who bears a passing resemblance to Stump Smash and can only be assumed to be an earth element Skylander.

Read the rest »