Windows Vista: Change Your Computers Name

When you setup your computer you need to give it a name (such as: deathstar, homecomputer, etc.). If at a later time you want to change the name of your computer, follow the instructions below:

    * Log in to Vista with an account that has administrator privileges.
    * From the Start menu and right-click Computer and select Properties.
    * Under 'Computer Name, Domain, and Workgroup' section, click the 'Change settings' link.
    * On the Computer Name tab, press the Change... button.
    * Enter the new computer name in the field.

    * If necessary, press the More... button and enter the domain name provided by your company or ISP.

Miro goes 1.0

Miro (formerly called 'Democracy Player') is a free application that turns your computer into an internet video player. The player is available for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Miro lets you subscribe and download audio and video podcasts that are available on the net. It also supports full-screen mode, plays several popular video formats, and downloads files via BitTorrent.

The Windows system requirements for running the software are: Windows XP, 128MB of RAM.

What is the big deal about 802.11n?

TechRepublic.com reports: "802.11n is being touted as the networking standard that will unwire the network world. Most people are not convinced, yet curious to see how one defends such a claim. The 802.11n standard has two top-level mandates (unwiring the world not being one of them): Achieve higher data rates and retain backward compatibility with legacy 802.11a/b/g devices. The significance of requiring backward compatibility shouldn’t be taken lightly since it complicates the development process exponentially. Yet the 802.11n group has come up with a soon-to-be-ratified standard that meets both objectives."

This is probably the best article that I have read to date on the 802.11n standard. It appears to be most complex and featured pack of all the 802.11 specifications released so far.

How to Upgrade a Graphics Card

PC Magazine reports: "Windows Vista is the most graphically intensive operating system
ever, and DirectX 10, its multimedia and gaming component, has computer users all over
the world considering upgrading their PCs. With its 3D-driven Aero graphical user interface (GUI),
Vista requires more graphics-card muscle than XP does. And because
DirectX 10 isn't backward-compatible, gamers who are captivated by
its powerful specs are being forced to upgrade their hardware in order
to enjoy it."

This article explains how to buy a graphic card for your Windows Vista computer to take full advantage of the Areo interface.

Internet Explorer: Automatically Clearing the Cache

Internet Explorer (IE) automatically keeps a local copy of all the web pages, images, and other objects that you view in your browser. The reason for doing this is to speed up the browsing experience by keeping local copies of the content that has not changed when you revisit a web page.

There are two reasons some people don't like these file stored on their hard drive. First and foremost for privacy reasons, and second because it can consume a lot of space.

You can manually clear the cache from the Tools menu, by selecting Internet Options. Then on the General tab, pressing the Delete Files button. You can also configure IE to automatically clear the browser cache when you exit the program.

    * From the Internet Options dialog, select the Advanced tab.

    * In the Setting listbox, under the Security section, check 'Empty Temporary Internet
       Files folder when browser is closed'.
    * Press the OK button.

Alarm Raised for Critical Broadcom Wi-Fi Driver Flaw

eWeek reports: "Computer security analysts are raising the alarm for a critical vulnerability in the Broadcom wireless driver embedded in PCs from HP, Dell, Gateway and eMachines."

This seemed like the hot topic of the day. Basically there's a stack-based buffer overflow exploit in the Broadcom BCMWL5.SYS wireless device driver. Basically if you use your Wi-Fi card to hookup to the Internet in a public place, you could theoretically have your computer taken over by this exploit.

Broadcom has released a fixed driver to its partners, but the availability of fixes appears to be limited. Check with your Wi-Fi card manufacture to find out if you're affected.

Notepad Trick

Windows Notepad has a little known log function that will insert the date and time into the file every time a specially created document is re-opened. All you have to do is open a new instance of Notepad, and type .LOG as the first line of the file. Now save the document and close it, and re-open the document, the current date and time will be appended to the end of the file.