Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Tech: Quicksilver now Open Source!

TUAW.com reports that Quicksilver is now open source. If you haven't tried Quicksilver before, I highly recommend trying it out. Quicksilver is basically does what Spotlight does, but better.

I primarily use Quicksilver to launch programs, but the extremely flexible plugin system and huge list of plugins provide tons of extra feature to Quicksilver. You assign a hotkey to Quicksilver, and after that it allows you to launch a multitude of tasks from just a few key strokes.

MacRumors has a nice guide to the intricacies of using Quicksilver.

Labels: Apple Mac OS X, Free software, Mac Apps, Open Source, Quicksilver

Article Link posted by Edward at 5:38 PM
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Thursday, August 02, 2007

Tech: Anti Virus / Malware Software

I sometimes wonder how some people keep getting their PCs infected with virus. I rarely ever get any virus on my PC, even when I wasn't using any Anti-Virus software. And I haven't caught a virus yet ( cross my fingers ) since I got my first Mac in 2001. I don't even think there exists a virus for OS X in the wild. Let's hope that stays that way.

Whatever the case, my customers that are running Windows often have virus or malware problems. Here are a few tools that I have found helpful in cleaning and preventing virus and malware:

AVG Free - Free, and runs with pretty low resources. AVG purchased an Anti Spyware company a while back and is offering an excellent Anti Spyware package as well ( though not free ).
Avast - There is also a Free Anti Virus version of Avast for home users. Like AVG, it provides excellent virus protection for relatively low resource usage ( though I feel Avast is a little more resource hungry than AVG )
Kaspersky - There is no Free version for Kaspersky. However, from various reports on the net Kaspersky seems to be one of if not THE best Anti Virus software on the market. Very accurate and extremely efficient in identifying and scanning for virus. It is reported that Kaspersky is the most effivient Anti Virus software out there.

Spybot Search & Destroy - This is my favorite Spyware and Malware scanning and removal software. It is completely Free and development depends on users' donations. Spybot paired with AVG will provide pretty comprehensive protection for your Windows PC without the bloat of Norton or McAfee suites.
CCleaner - A Free tool to clean up various thing on your Windows PC.
Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel - A Free tool by Mike Lin that let's you easily turn-off all those pesky little applications that start when you boot Windows.

Although Macs aren't as vulnerable as Windows to virus now, they can still spread virus by passing them on via various means:

ClamXav - ClamXav is a gui frontend for the open source ClamAV antivirus software. It's probably a good idea to have this installed and run every now and then in case you are passing on virus unknowingly.

Labels: Anti Virus, Antivirus, Clean Up PC, Free software, Free Windows tools, Mac Virus, Malware, Spyware

posted by Edward at 1:05 PM
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