Brandon Dimmel

Not so long ago, Facebook took some serious slack for its decision to alter its privacy policy. The new scheme, many worried, could have allowed third parties to tinker with user accounts even after they had been terminated. Thankfully, Facebook ... backed off and now it's turning to users for an alternative. The original debate surrounded Facebook's terms of service policy. Early in February the social networking giant quietly unveiled a rather cold-hearted plan giving the site ownership of its users' accounts forever -- even if they decided to cut ties with the page. Understandably, users raged ... (view more)

Returnil Returnil is similar to a virtual machine program: it allows you to use a virtual copy of your operating system, with the real system being preserved and untouched in the background. This provides two key advantages: protection against ... threats (malware, exploits, etc), as well as convenience incase you need to revert your system. Returnil's personal edition is packed with all kinds of exciting features and is free of charge. http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com USB Flash Drive Write Protection Windows has a registry setting that can utilize USB write protection. Without the feature ... (view more)

What's the best way to make sure those who use the most bandwidth get charged the most money? How about a tiered, "consumption-based" billing system? That was Time Warner's plan for its services -- that is, until huge protests at the national level ... down forced them to scrap the idea. Rising Network Costs Rising network costs are becoming a problem for providers like Time Warner, who struggle with the increasing popularity of downloadable songs, TV shows, and movies -- along with a deepening economic depression. As Torrents and peer-to-peer (p2p) protocols continue to climb in popularity, the ... (view more)

Cache Booster AnalogX CacheBooster allows you to tweak your hard disk caching to help achieve the best possible performance from your system. Different types of programs require different settings, which is why CacheBooster comes configured with ... many of the most common uses which will automatically reconfigure themselves for your system! http://www.analogx.com Comodo Firewall And Antivirus Suite This award-winning firewall is designed to prevent unauthorized hackers from obtaining your private information. Comodo's antivirus software will scan your computer and remove viruses on a schedule ... (view more)

In what many will consider the 'lamest' move in the history of the tech universe, NASA has dismissed a recent attempt by Comedy Central's Steven Colbert to have the International Space Station's new living quarters bear his name. Despite a landslide ... vote in favor of Colbert's moniker, NASA went with "Tranquility" instead. 230,539 Vote 'Colbert' The poll went something like this: NASA asked visitors to its site to select from four predetermined options, including Earthrise, Legacy, Serenity, and Venture. However, it also left users the option of filling in their own suggestion -- opening the ... (view more)

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday came and went yesterday, bringing 23 fixes for a number of issues with its popular Office programs Excel and Word. At least several of these have been marked critical and most users should certainly consider the download. ... (Source: theregister.co.uk ) The most critical of the patches fixes an Excel flaw that could potentially allow a hacker to take remote control of an unpatched system. If an unprotected user opens a malicious and specially crafted Excel file, they could find their computer controlled by someone else effectively exploiting something called an ... (view more)

Sockso Sockso is a free, open-source, personal music server. It runs on your PC and is designed to be as simple as possible so that anyone can stream mp3s with friends across the internet in seconds. http://sockso.pu-gh.com/ MicroMighty Software ... Development Kit The MicroMighty Software Development Kit (SDK) is an ASP.NET project for developers that demonstrates the usage and abilities of the SDK namespaces and components through sample files and source code. http://micromighty.com Today's fresh software picks were provided courtesy of Bob Helmer at Shell Extension City. Please note that the ... (view more)

How much of your time does Facebook consume? According to a recent study, most college students that use Facebook also admitted to lower grade point averages than those who said they did not have an account on the popular social networking site. ... It's pretty obvious that most 9-to-5 employers feel Facebook wastes time, decreases productivity, and generally hurts the work ethic of employees. Thus, it's not particularly surprising that this recent Ohio State University study found that of those student participants who used Facebook, grade-point averages (GPA) hovered around 3.0 to 3.5 -- ... (view more)

Secure Email SecureEmail is a desktop application designed by Comodo (the same firm that makes Comodo firewall). SecureEmail automatically secures your email messages so your confidential data cannot be stolen or modified on its way through the ... Internet. It's security you install and forget; all outgoing emails are automatically encrypt and signed without the user having to manage the complex certificate exchange procedure. http://secure-email.comodo.com Port Analyzer Port Analyzer is a program that can monitor data through your computer's ethernet network ports. Receive unmatched support to ... (view more)

Last week the latest variant of the Conficker worm surfaced -- and just to prove it, the worm infected at least 700 computers at the University of Utah. According to school officials, two main systems are affected by the infection: the university's ... three hospitals, but also its adjoined medical, nursing, and pharmacy colleges. The tip-off was a simple one most of us are quick to associate with trouble: staff noticed something was amiss when Internet service slowed considerably and email correspondence bogged down altogether. (Source: allheadlinenews.com ) Researchers are still not entirely ... (view more)