10 Daily Things

Generally speaking, the march of technological progress gives consumers what they expect. More stuff for less money, all the time. Hurrah.

Sometimes, though, some segment of the high-tech industry gets caught in an unprogressive eddy for a while. And it’s usually the fault of oversimplification.

As Albert Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Boiling complex concepts down to simple numbers always makes it easier for people to think they understand them, but they often actually don’t.

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Total Commander (formerly known as Windows Commander) is an old software (introduced at 1996), I cannot live without. I’m using it for many years on every Windows OS I ever had without any problem at all.
This is a “one on everything” solution for file management, based on the old “classic” Norton Commander of the “hard to remember” DOS years.

It’s main features are:
- Two file windows side by side. The two windows are displaying every drive of the system. Copy/Move/Delete/Rename of files between them is just as easy as counting 1..2..3! You can mark files as selected/unselected from the windows using wildcards.
- Enhanced search function. Light Speed searches by filename wildcards and string matching inside the files. The results can be displayed at one of the two windows and work with them as a normal file list of a drive.
- Quick View panel with bitmap display. You don’t like the internal viewer? Just set it up, to use your favorites viewers/editors.
- ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE archive handling + plugins. Yes all of them! Some of the compression types are built-in, for the others you have to define your external packer/unpacker. You’re able to work with compressed files, just as a regular drive of your system. Copy/Move/Delete/Rename of files contained inside the compressed files is just to easy to describe!
- Built-in FTP client with FXP (server to server) and HTTP proxy support. Yes! Exactly this! Nothing more powerful than this. Setup your server connection list. Login as a regular or anonymous user. Copy files of a compressed file at the remote FTP location. Resume is fully supported, but FXP must be supported by the remote servers in order to work. Multi server connections are fully supported and the server is listed as a remote drive! FTP Server download list and background transfers with speed limit are fully supported.
- Tabbed interface. In case you need more that two file windows, the tabbing is there to help you. Create new tabs at any file window and list at them any other drive, FTP server, directory.
- Full Windows share support.
- Regular expressions, in case you need more powerful searches.
- Encode, Decode, Split, Combine, Compare, Multi Rename files.
- Directory Synchronization.
- Thumnbails view.
- Parallel port transfer function (direct cable connection), works between Win95/98/NT/2000/3.1 and DOS!
- Custom columns view allow to show additional file details.
- Direct access to Network Neighbourhood.
- Multiple language support

If you’re not satisfied with this features list, then you can use addons to enchance Total Commander with anything from email readers/composers and CD/DVD burners to mp3 taggers and System services/registry/events/processes listers/editors!

Total Commander comes in four versions:
- 32 bit version
- 16 bit version
- Pocket version for Pocket PC, Windows CE and Smartphone
- USB stick installer

This is a shareware software, sold at 34 euros. The shareware version is working for 30 days. After the 30 days trial period is still fully functional, but everytime you run it, you must press one random buttom out of the three available. So, you can continue using it after these 30 days, but this brilliant software worths every cent.

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The beta of Firefox’s next version doesn’t have any radical changes, but it does include a few nifty tweaks. Can it continue to challenge IE?

The just-released beta of Firefox 2 may disappoint those who expected a major overhaul, but it adds a variety of useful features that make it a must-have upgrade for Firefox users, including anti-phishing filtering, better RSS handling, a built-in spell checker, and more advanced tab handling.

In contrast to the dramatic redesign Microsoft has given to Internet Explorer 7, this is more an incremental upgrade than a major one. The final versions of both browsers will be strikingly similar in features, although not in design. When the two releases are final, IE will have largely caught up to Firefox, although the large ecosystem of Firefox extensions still gives the open-source browser the edge in usefulness.

Read the full article @ Information Week >>>

What is Virtual PC?
Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. Use virtual machines to run operating systems such as MS-DOS®, Windows, and OS/2. You can run multiple operating systems at once on a single physical computer and switch between them as easily as switching applications—instantly, with a mouse click.

…and according Microsoft:
Whether Microsoft virtualization technology is an important component of your existing infrastructure or you’re just a Virtual PC enthusiast, you can now download Virtual PC 2004 absolutely free. Microsoft is also offering the free download of Virtual PC 2007, with support for Windows Vista in 2007.

It has always been a frequent question — “Will I benefit from multiple processors?” With the growing popularity of dual core processors, the topic is more important than ever! Will multiple processors or a dual core processor be beneficial to you, and what are the differences between them? These are the questions this article will attempt to lay to rest.

A major question for some people getting ready to buy a high-end system is whether they want or need to have two processors available to them. For anyone doing video editing, multi-threaded applications, or a lot of multitasking the answer is a very clear ‘yes’. Then the question becomes whether two separate processors (as in a dual Xeon or Opteron system) is the way to go, or whether a single dual-core CPU (like a Pentium D or Athlon64 X2) will do just as well. Dual CPU vs dual core — which is better?!

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