My Technology Guide

Norman Security Suite 8 DnBNOR edition is a special edition of the latest version of Norman Security Suite, offered free by the company. This special edition does not need any license key to install and activate the program, and will protect your computer for 4 years, which is really long!

Norman Security Suite 8 DnBNOR Special Edition does have some limitations. Features like Intrusion Guard, Privacy Tools and AntiSpam are disabled from this special edition, but users will have the standard Antivirus, Anti-spyware, Norman Personal Firewall and Parental Control features for free which is valid for 4 years. The offer page can be found here.

Microsoft few days back officially released Windows 7 SP1 Beta for public download. The beta version will expire on June 30, 2011 and after the expiration, users will have to either upgrade to a newer build or uninstall and return to the RTM build.

Users will not be able to upgrade directly from SP1 Beta to the final version of Windows 7 SP1. So, if a user installs SP1 Beta, then they will have to first uninstall it before installing SP1 final. If Windows 7 SP1 Beta uninstall routine fails, then the user has to do a clean install of Windows 7, which no user will like. Anyways, Microsoft has provided a simple guide on how to uninstall and remove Windows 7 SP1 Beta and revert back to the RTM build.

Microsoft has released the official beta version of Windows 7 SP1 at last publicly. Users who want to download and install the beta version of SP1 are first needed to register at the Evaluation Center. During registration remember to select IT or any developer related occupation to be able to download Windows 7 Service Pack 1. SP1 is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7, and are available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish language.

This service pack is also offered via Windows Update and in standard ISO image format, which is around 1.2 GB in size and required to be burned to a DVD first to use it.

Do you want to easily remove your User picture from Windows 7 Start Menu? Kishan Bagaria, one of our fellow mate and a member of The Windows Club Forum has came up with an one click solution. He has developed a free portable app known as Windows 7 Start Menu User Picture Remover that allows you to remove your User picture from your Windows 7 Start Menu with just one click.

To use this app, you just have to download it from his website door2windows and save it to a location on your hard drive. The download size of the app is amazingly only 441 KB for the ZIP version and 896 KB for the EXE version. After saving it, just run the app with Administrator rights and click on the Remove Start Menu User Picture button.

Most modern hard disks that are available today comes with a built-in feature called Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, or S.M.A.R.T. (sometimes written as SMART). Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology or SMART. The hard disk's integrated controller works with various sensors to check various aspects of the hard drive's performance, from this information, S.M.A.R.T. determines if the hard drive is behaving normally or not.

This helps the operating system keep an eye on the health of the drive, by checking its operating temperature, how long it takes to spin up to full speed, whether it encounters any read errors, and so on. When a failure is anticipated by S.M.A.R.T., the drive is typically replaced and returned to the manufacturer, who then analyzes these dead drives to discover where faults lie and how to prevent them from recurring on the next generation of hard disk drives.

You have just brought a brand new PC or laptop or netbook that came pre-installed with Windows 7 from one of the major manufacturers, viz. Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, etc. But the problem that you face when buying from them is you won't receive any Windows 7 installation media with your purchase. Instead, you will receive either a "recovery disc" (if you’re that much lucky) with your purchase or you'll have a "recovery partition" built-in your machine.

You may ask what is the problem here, as you can easily recover your Windows 7 or Vista, using the "recovery disk" or "recovery partition." Well, the problem is, when you use the recovery disks/recovery partition to recover Windows 7 or Vista, it will delete all your files and restore your computer to the state it was in when you first purchased it.

Microsoft Security Response Center has released a notification that Microsoft will issue 10 Security Bulletins addressing 34 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Microsoft Technet will host a webcast to address customer questions about the security bulletins the following day.

The list of affected operating systems includes Windows 2000, Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), and Windows Server 2008 R2. In terms of the Microsoft Office suites, all supported versions are affected on both Windows and Mac OS X. Three of the vulnerabilities are rated "Critical" and seven are rated "Important." At least two of the 10 patches will need a restart. February's Internet Explorer flaw and April's SharePoint vulnerability will both be patched this month.