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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Open Source, Troubleshooting, Windows x64

Keep an eye on your system's vitals with Yet Another Process Monitor

Fans of the ribbon interface who want a full-featured alternative to task manager, check out Yet Another Process Monitor.

Apart from showing task manager-esque information about running processes, YAPM also provides details about Windows services and your network activity. The system information panel provides realtime monitoring of processor, memory, and disk activity. Service startup types can be managed, processor affinities specified, and there's a grayed-out option for limiting CPU usage that will likely be active in a future version.

Don't recognize a specific process (say, for example igfxpers.exe)? Highlight it and click the internet search button to be taken directly to Google's results for clarification. You can also put YAPM's Kung Fu to use monitoring remote machines on your network.

In all honesty, there's so much built in to YAPM that you really need to download it and give it a try - assuming you want a better system monitor.

YAPM is free, requires no installation, and open source to boot. I won't go so far as to call it completely portable (the .Net 2.0 framework is required), but I'm all for applications that don't make me click through a setup.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Productivity

Launch Windows programs remotely with Application Access Server


It's no secret that I'm a big TeamViewer fan. However, there are some chores that just don't require launching a full-featured remote control program - like restarting our point-of-sale system's Btrieve engine.

Application Access Server provides a lightweight alternative. Once you've got it installed and configured, you can issue commands to a remote machine by connecting to it using any web browser. AAS has built-in support for DynDns.org for automatic IP updating and DDNS access, so all you've got to do is choose a port for the server and forward access from your router (if necessary).

Adding launchable applications is done via the configuration menu, and it's a simple procedure. You can also configure multiple users and select which accounts have access to specific applications. Apps can be launched in three modes - normal, silent, and stealth - depending on how discreet you need to be. AAS is fairly light weight, using about 8Mb of memory when running.

It's a handy application to add to your Windows remote administration toolkit.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

XP Syspad centralizes access to Windows XP functions



If you're looking for a slightly more efficient way to access the numerous built-in features Windows XP provides, Xtort's XP Syspad may be of interest to you.

The program's main window provides basic process information and menus that link to just about every OS function you'd ever be looking for. Examples? MSconfig, sysedit, control userpasswords2, iexpress (self-extracting package creator), services.msc.

These are things I access all the time, so I've gotten used to using win+r and typing the application's name to launch it, so firing up Syspad is saving me more than a couple keystrokes.

It can also show and hide desktop icons, recover XP and Office product keys, display your current IP address, clean temp files, quickly access system folders, much more. The list installed programs is a nice alternative to add/remove programs: it loads in a split second and allows you to launch uninstallers as well as remove items from the programs list.

Read more →

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Microsoft, Freeware, Browsers

Use RepairIE to tweak, lock down, and fix Internet Explorer


Fire up the half-megabyte, portable RepairIE and you're presented with five tabs to help make administering Internet Explorer an uncomplicated process.

Configuration options are broken down into appearance, features, network connections, search, and security. To change a yes/no option, simply double click it and confirm your action.

RepairIE provides an incredible number of options for configuring not only the Internet Exlporer interface, but its options menu as well. For starters, you can restrict your users from altering the homepage or toolbars, prevent them from downloading files, and disable access to file URLs.

Read more →

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Nawras PC Supervisor Configures Local Security Controls


If installing a program like Trust No Exe isn't your style, you can always use registry edits and policy changes to lock down PCs. That can be a little tiresome, but Nawras PC Supervisor makes it as simple as checking a few boxes.

PC Supervisor gives you control over just about everything you might want to restrict. Control panel access can either be blocked completely or limited to only those options you want displayed. Hide drive letters and features like "run as," network connections, and the places bar.

Use it to disable everything from registry editing and task manager to display settings changes. Set up privacy tweaks like auto-clearing the recent files list and hiding the last logged on username.

Granted, most of these changes can be made using gpedit.msc and secpol.msc (built-in controls in Windows XP Pro), but PC supervisor's interface is easier to get around and it can make changes on XP Home installs as well.

PC Supervisor doesn't require installation, and is completely free. Right now there's no help file, but it's still a nice addition to your admin toolbox.

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Trust No Exe Blocks Application Startups - Windows Only


While I'm sure you're responsible with the programs you run on your computer, what about the other people you work and live with? If you're an administrator or share your computer with anyone else, you might want to check out Trust-No-Exe.

What does it do? It installs as a service and can block any executable process: exe, dll, sys, com, etc. Set up allow and deny folders, start the service, and programs just won't launch anymore. It'll block attempted launches from anything - floppy or USB drives, network shares, wherever. Theoretically, you could even use it as a basic malware defense by adding your temporary internet files to the denied list.

Since it's a service, it's always protecting your PC. Just be sure you lock down access to services.msc and your control panel, since there's no password option to keep users out.

It's an oldie, but a goodie, and definitely a good, simple way to prevent annoying installs and inappropriate use.

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Security, Utilities, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source, Unix

OpenSSH 4.4 released

OpenSSH 4.4The OpenSSH team has officially realeased OpenSSH 4.4/4.4p. The latest updates to the popular ssh server and ssh/sftp client include some extremely advanced features for administrators, as well as the requisite OpenSSH security audits. As of 4.4, sshd_conf now supports a "Match" directive for conditional configuration to tailor the server to specific clients based on user, group, hostname, or ip, and also a "ForceCommand" option, which can be used in conjunction with the new Match directive, to execute a specific command, regardless of or in addition to what a client requests. this is a neat way for sysadmins to grab the attention of particular users without resorting to changing their shells or other hacks. They've added some new logging facilities and authentication options, too.

4.4p includes compilable options for hardware SSL acceleratoin, experimental SELinux support, experimental Solaris process contract support.

If you're wondering what all this 4.4p stuff is about, it's pretty simple. OpenSSH is a part of the OpenBSD project, and OpenSSH is developed, first and foremost, as an OpenBSD system utility. The base system takes full advantage of the OpenBSD environment, and relies on some facilities--such as OpenBSD malloc behavior--that may not be available on other systems. Since the team wants wide adoption of what they believe to be the best and most secure sshd out there, though, they also release a portable "p" version that will compile in a generic "unix" environment and is widely tested on systems ranging from an array of Linux flavors, to OS X, to HP-UX.

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Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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