April 17, 2008
Two search engines help you find Windows info
How many times have you said to yourself, "I know I saw an article three or four months ago, but now I'm danged if I can find it"? Our site now makes it easier for you to locate the exact trick you're looking for in more than 6,000 articles that our contributors have written in the past few years — or on the entire Web. Read more »
Flash ads bearing malware plague popular sites
A Flash-based advertisement that appeared last week on the USA Today site downloaded malicious code to users' computers, generating erroneous warnings of a malware infestation and offering a phony solution. The Flash vulnerability is so widespread that such "malvertisements" may be present on thousands of sites, but there are measures you can take to reduce your exposure. Read more »
The U.S. election process, in a nutshell
For the first time in decades, voters of all stripes are actually paying attention. But just how does the whole U.S. political system work, anyway? Read more »
Three fast, thorough, easy-to-use disk cleaners
CCleaner, Cleanup Assistant, and DTweak Pro are powerful, ready-to-run tools that target junk files and more. Along with these best-of-breed, GUI-based disk-cleanup tools, I'll tell you about the most popular choices sent in by your fellow readers — and maybe by you! Read more »
The best — and worst — personal firewalls
If you chose the firewall on your PC based on reputation, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. The Matousec Firewall Challenge answers the million-dollar question: "Is my firewall really protecting me?" Read more »
.NET Service Pack 1 creates a tax-season .MESS
An unannounced auto-deployment of Microsoft's .NET Service Pack 1 rocked the accounting industry by affecting key applications right before the U.S. tax deadline. This week, I'll help you control the damage by providing you with a primer on .NET patching. Read more »
