Firefox Add-on: Magic Password Generator

Something that is big to help you stay secure online is to have different passwords for each web site that you use. Not one of them should be the same. The reason for this: if one of your accounts becomes compromised then your other sites with account information are still good. Everything will still be safe. Now doing this sounds like a really great idea doing this can be totally another story. Well if you are a Firefox user there is a great add-on you can download called Magic Password Generator.

Magically make custom passwords for each website, based off of a single master password. Also fills in username and email address fields…

As like most computer users it can be hard for even me to create unique web site passwords. When I get the chance I am going to try this out and see how it works for me. It sounds like it will be very promising and can really help me out. But for now check it out below and leave your comments.

Link: Magic Password Generator

Google Dashboard

Just recently Google released a new feature to help make your account management with them much easier. It’s called Google Dashboard and it doesn’t just have to be used as an account management tool. It can tell you everything that Google knows about you with all of the services you use with them.

Google Dashboard is a new service that shows a summary of the data stored with a Google account. You’ll soon find a link to Google Dashboard in the "personal settings" of the "my account" page.

The dashboard lists some of the information associated with the Google services you use: your name, your email address, the number of contacts, the number of conversations in your Gmail inbox, your Google profile, the most recent entries from the web history etc. It’s a long answer to the question: "What does Google know about me?".

I checked this out myself and it’s rather detailed. If you got a Google Account and need a good way to manage the different parts then Google Dashboard is a great fit for you. And it’s a good way to find out what kind of dirt they have on you. Check it out!

Top 20 Technology Underdogs

I got an email from PC World a few months back about different technology underdogs. A few examples they mentioned in this list would be the Zune and trackballs. Both of them are popular technology products but are not number one in their category. The Zune made by Microsoft is just below the Apple iPod. Trackballs are below the mouse and a few other technologies such as the track pad. Check out the article if you have some time to kill.

Link: Top 20 Tech Underdogs

How Does “Garbage” Get Onto Your Computer?

As I talked about a few days ago you must be aware of "sneaky" installers. These installers place other programs and junk onto your computer which for most users would be considered useless. If you have ever when through your computer to get rid of this junk you may notice things such as browser toolbars and unknown utilities. Knowing how this happens is a good way to prevent this from happening again.

There is a good article listed on The How-To Geek website that talks about how this kind of junk gets on your computer. It’s definitely worth a good look if it seems like you are always having problems with unknown garbage getting onto your computer.

Link: How Does Spyware, Malware or Crapware Get on My Computer?

Probably the Best Free Security List in the World

I ran across this list the other day and let me tell you, this list is huge! I cannot tell you how many different types of security software are on this list but probably just about every kind imaginable. If you are looking for security software, whether it be a good antivirus or firewall, then check out this list. I’m going to check this out in the future when I have more time and see what kind of software would be good to use.

Link: Security Software List

Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

During the month of November Microsoft released their beta preview of the new Microsoft Office 2010 to TechNet Developers and the general public a few days later. It’s rather similar to Microsoft Office 2007 in most of the programs with just a few changes here and there. Probably the biggest change that I have noticed is the redesigned interface with Microsoft OneNote. Take a look at this guide for a complete walkthrough of the new Microsoft Office.

Link: First Look: Microsoft Office 2010

Firefox Add-on: Vacuum Places Improved 1

If you are a Firefox user something you may notice is overtime your browser will begin to move slower than it used to. One of the causes for this is your places database (where your history and bookmarks are stored) becomes fragmented and full of clutter overtime. A nice add-on to cleanup this junk and make Firefox run faster for you is called Vacuum Places Improved 1.

Defragments your Firefox “Places” database (history/bookmarks)
This greatly reduces the lag while typing in the address bar and the start-up time.
This extension features configurable automatic cleaning, periodic reminder, and internationalization.

I just installed this add-on and have noticed a slight performance boost on my laptop. It seems like the add-on does exactly what it’s meant to do. If Firefox seems to be running slower for you then this add-on may do the trick.

Download: Vacuum Places Improved 1

Important News

As I mentioned on Thursday of last week I had some exciting news that I wanted to share with everyone regarding the future of Big D’s Tech Resource. All of these changes are hopefully going to be positive ones that will help everyone get more out of this site and can learn as much as possible. Below are the list of changes and why these changes are going to be occurring.

A New Location

Over the course of the past month I have begun working on moving Big D’s Tech Resource over to a new host. The current host is WordPress.com and I have been quite happy with them but I have encountered a few problems along the way.

The first problem I ran into was coming to the conclusion that I had no way to change the details of my current theme by modifying the HTML or CSS code. So I have been unable to make minor design changes to make the site work and feel more professional. (Note the problem with the broken JPEG that has been in the top right hand title bar for roughly the past two or three months). I can pay about $15 a year to fix this problem but it won’t help me with all my problems.

The second problem I ran into was the default WordPress search engine doesn’t really work out the greatest. It’s ok but I felt the search could be better. I use search extensively everyday on the computer, probably performing around two dozen searches a day. Taking this into consideration I realized how important search is and I wanted to change my search provider.

Google Custom Search

Google is in my opinion the best search engine out there and does a great job at indexing the pages and giving relevant search results based on what users are looking for. I could have paid the $15 a year fee to change the code and use the search engine but WordPress.com does not allow you to make money off your blogs. Mainly because this is a free blog and you are not paying a host and are using there resources mostly without charge.

Google Custom Search places ads on the right side of the search results page and these ads can generate revenue for your site. Since I could have potentially made money by using Google Custom Search it would not have worked out on this current site.

Random Post Generator

A nice feature that I wanted to have a long time ago was the ability to generate random posts from the older archived posts. The new site will have two different way of utilizing this feature:

• The Home Page – On the home page about two posts down will contain a random post generator. The first two posts will contain the most recent posts and the third one on the home page will be pulled out of the archives. The location of this might change but I’m pretty sure the location of this will be ideal.
• The Sidebar – The second random post generator will be located in the sidebar on the right side of the page as a widget. It will be near the very top of every page so this way random posts will always be available to hopefully help you find something else useful to look at while you are browsing.

Twitter Plug-In

Something that is new in a way will be the ability to follow this site on Twitter. It’s currently available but doesn’t really stand out very much in my opinion. Instead of this being in the sidebar near the top of the page it will be a stationary object at the very top right of the page. Clicking on the plug-in will take you to the official Big D’s Tech Resource Twitter page which is updated with the most recent posts as feeds.

There have been a few bugs with this as of late but when its fixed it will be a great way to track what is going on here at Big D’s Tech Resource without having to visit the site everyday if you are short on time. Each Tweet has a TinyURL to the post title on Twitter. If you haven’t signed up yet now is a good time as I will be trying to tweet custom tech headlines in the future that won’t always be visible on the site.

New Official Email Address

There has probably been a few of you out there wanting to get in touch with me here on the site. Well as of right now there has been no contact page or any personal way to get in touch with me. Twitter and the Facebook Fan Page have pretty much been it but I don’t really consider that as a way to contact someone. I have never felt comfortable with putting my personal email address on the site just in case it gets spammed.

Well my new host offers you the ability to create a custom email address for your own site. I have taken advantage of this and will be creating a contact page with this available on it for anyone to contact me. Use this as a way to make suggestions or ask questions. I will help you out if I can and do the best I can. And if I don’t know the answer I will plainly state that and will try and guide you in the best way to get your question and troubles resolved. Hopefully this will be a great resource for anyone to use.

Slight Theme Change

The new site will have a slightly different theme and what I mean by slightly different I mean mainly a different color scheme. The sidebar will still remain on the right side of the page and will contain just about the same things that are currently there. The biggest thing that will be removed is the Top Posts and Top Clicks widgets. Hopefully this will not be a huge inconvenience.

Redesigned Links Page

As of right now the links page hasn’t really ever been changed since the site was started nearly 18 months ago. Exactly what I am going to do with the page is still in the works. I’m probably going to put another link to the Twitter Page and the link to the Facebook Fan Page. I also might include links to my favorite tech websites and include why I like and use them. I’ll let you know what I decide with this in the future.

Front Page Post Summaries

The front page (or home page) of Big D’s Tech Resource will no longer show full-length posts. They will now show summaries instead of the full post. Here is an example in the pictures below:

 

This was something that I was not wanting to change at first but I knew it had to be done eventually. I am working on a post about a utilities program called Glary Utilities that will be published sometime in March on the new site. The problem is the post is so long it’s longer than the current front page. Meaning it would make the front page very, very long, placing what I felt was too much information on the front page. All of the posts can be read by clicking “Read the rest of this entry >>” or by clicking on the title of the post. The picture on the right even shows a piece of the new Random Post feature that will be used on the new site.

Windows 7 Compatible Campaign

One of my plans to help users find software that will work with Windows 7. It will include a graphic that says “Compatible with Windows 7” on any post about a piece of software that can run on Windows 7. It will take some time to complete but my plans are to have this completed no later than March 31st.

About Page

Something that I have wanted to create since the site was first started was an About Page. I never knew how I wanted to go about the design of the page so I put this on hold until I got a feel of what I wanted on the page. It hasn’t been created yet but should be available by the first of March.

 

So as you can see many changes are going to be made. Hopefully most of them (if not all of them) are going to be positive to everyone who looks at the site on a regular basis. I have worked hard to make this site the best it can be and hopefully it’s helpful to everyone out there.

If you have a suggestion on how I can make Big D’s Tech Resource better leave a comment below. If I think its something that I can totally figure out how to do or sounds useful then it will be something I will try.

As for now the new site is available to look at but is currently in Beta. Everything posted here is available on the new site and all the new posts here will be available on the new site.

So what’s going to happen to this site? Well as of right now the final date anything will be posted here will be February 28, 2010. The following day on March 1, 2010 there will be a post stating we have moved and the location with a link of where we have moved to. It will never totally disappear as I need to have a WordPress.com account to use some of my plug-ins on my new blog. If you want to test drive the new site check it out and leave some feedback on how it looks and feels.

Link: http://www.bigdtechresource.com/ [New Site – In BETA]

Office 2007 Home and Student Allows Three Installations

I received an email from PCMech.com a few months ago about the ability of installing Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition on up to three PCs. Jason Faulkner did check this and as the license agreement states:

Licensed Device. You may install one copy of the software on three licensed devices in your household for use by people who reside there. The software is not licensed for use in any commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating business activities.

Now as I have mentioned many times in the past that college students should purchase the Ultimate Steal from Microsoft. It allows you to get all of the Microsoft Office 2007 software for only $59.95. But just in case you recently purchased a copy of Office 2007 Home and Student I thought I would just pass this along just in case. It just might come in handy.

Firefox Add-on: Middle Click to Go Back

The nice thing about Firefox is the fact there are endless ways to customize your browser. Google Chrome is quickly on Mozilla’s tail and is currently working on their own types of extensions. But in the meantime Firefox has a great add-on that will allow you to use the middle-click button on your mouse to go back.

You not only can use this as a way to go back but there are a few other things you can do with this add-on:

Three simple but powerful features:

1. Click middle mouse button on an empty space on the page to go back. (Middle-Click on a link still opens it on a new tab.)

2. Click middle mouse button on an empty space on tab bar to reopen the last closed tab. (clicking middle mouse button on a specific tab still closes that tab.)

3. Click middle mouse button on reload button to duplicate the page. (i.e. to reopen the page on a new tab.)

This add-on can definitely be useful for just about anyone. Using middle-click on your mouse to perform these repetitive tasks can end up saving you a lot of time throughout your day. Go ahead and check out this add-on and see what you think. Let me know what you think below in the comments.

Download: Middle Click to Go Back