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Posts with tag monitor

Filed under: Utilities, Browsers

Find and Fix Dead Pixels With Your Browser!

You've probably heard of Dead Pixel Buddy, a free app that helps you locate dead or stuck pixels on your LCD monitor. One of our devoted readers has sent us an interesting alternative that runs in your browser.

Willy Ci
has coded it as part of his portfolio, and it's elegantly simple. Pick a color with the palette tool, click go full screen, and your monitor is instantly awash in glorious pixel-hunting color.

Since it's browser-based, it'll run on any platform (as long as Adobe Flash is supported).

Both machines I used for testing had a slight issue escaping from full screen - the chooser didn't reappear, and my mouse pointer vanished. Simply mousing up to the tab bar and right-click reloading the tab solved the problem.

Once you've pinpointed the trouble spots, head over to killdeadpixel.com and see if you can't revive them with their trippy animated gif. Switching to one of the fullscreen modes makes stuck pixels easy to spot by giving you a black background to work with. No guarantees it'll wake them up, but it's worth a shot since most manufacturers won't warranty a screen with fewer than three problematic pixels.

Filed under: Security, E-mail, Web services, Google

Gmail adding log-in monitoring features

gmail log-in monitoring features
Have you ever asked yourself, "Is someone else using my email account?" Well, if you're the cautious type, Google just added a few log-in monitoring features to its email service, so such paranoid questions won't feel so pressing anymore.

Wondering if you're Gmail account is open in multiple locations? Just look at the very, very bottom of the main Gmail page. It'll say something to the sound of: "This account is open in one other location." Click on the "details" link next to it to get taken to, well, a details page.

It'll give you the deets on the most recent sessions including the access type and IP address. It's not the end-all for email hijacking, but at the very least it'll help you point-out intruders. And if you don't see the feature yet, sit tight, Google is slowly rolling out the feature to all accounts.

Filed under: Photo, Utilities

Auto wallpaper multiple monitors with...AutoWallpaper

Are you lucky enough to have more than one monitor on your computer? Sure it looks cool, and it's fun to show off to friends..but it's very helpful with productivity too.

What's the first thing you do when you set up a new machine or monitor? Throw up fresh new wallpaper of course! Your mom, your cat, or your wife or girlfriend (hopefully not both, awkward!).

AutoWallpaper comes from a company called AlternativeRealities Software. It solves the multi-monitor / multi-wallpaper problem.

It's out for Windows and Mac and only costs $10. It's well worth it because you can not only manage wallpapers on your monitors, you can add effects and gradients as well.

My favorite feature though? Set your wallpapers to change whenever you want. That's right, if you want new wallpapers at exactly 9pm, you can do it.

Give it a shot and drop a link to a screenshot of your hot new wallpaper in the comments!

[Hat tip to snowbear]

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services

Spice up web analytics with some Basil

basil web analyticsJust when you thought the world of web analytics was a little bland, Basil arrives to spice things up a bit.

Basil takes out the pages of raw web traffic data that we once had to sift through and analyze, and does all the hard work for us. They provide easy to use clean interface design [reminding us of Mint] to make it easier for figuring out what the popular pages of your website are, and what search engine delivers the most traffic to your site.

Basil makes it easy to track the pages and data you want to check out by proving a dashboard of four major topic areas, visitors, pages, referrers, and search engines. Data is compiled in easy to read reports, you can check out a demo on the Basil website.

Basil web analytics is available for $25 U.S. which allows for installing the software on one domain.

[via eHub]

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Web services, Commercial

Mint 2.0: Web stats package gets major upgrade

Mint 2.0: web statistics package receives major upgrade
As I get more serious about the writing I'm doing on a couple of personal sites, I've also become more interested in finding a good web statistics tool to learn everything I can about my visitors. This is why a 2.0 upgrade to Mint, a powerful and stylish web-based monitoring package we found back in 2005, couldn't have come at a better time. Created by Shaun Inman, web designer extraordinaire, Mint has everything you need to keep track of, well, everything you need to, along with a flourishing plugin community called the Peppermill for adding just about anything you want.

Now Mint 2.0 costs $30 per domain (upgrades from version 1 are $19), but after checking out the screencasts and live demo, you can color me sold. I've been bouncing between using monthly services like SiteMeter and even FeedBurner's new StandardStats for websites, and neither of them hold a candle to the style, extensibility, power and gorgeous design of Shaun's Mint. Besides, I'm always happier paying a lump sum over subscribing, so Mint is going to pay for itself in just a few months anyway.

If you're looking for one of the most impressive web stats packages that you can run on your own servers, Mint looks like a fantastic option.

[via Daring Fireball]

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Utilities, Productivity, Web services, Google

Google Analytics for everyone

google analytics website trackingGoogle has released its online analytics software to anyone that wants to use it to interact with their website.

Google Analytics lets users track visitors, identify navigational issues, track keywords, and where visitors are coming from. Analytics will also tie into your Google AdWords account and let you know how visitors found your site, where they came from, how they were referred, and measure your total AdWords campaign effectiveness.

Google also has a "Conversion University". A place where Analytics users can go to read up on marketing and content optimization tips from industry experts. Current new articles in the University include Increasing Conversions with Internal Search and Monitoring Visitor Conversion.

Google Analytics is simple to set up. Log in using your Google Account ID, and enter the domain you want to monitor first. Multiple domains can be added later. A code snippet has to be added to the end of all HTML pages that you wish to monitor. Google Analytics displays a nice dashboard with Executive, Conversion, Marketing, and Content summaries, as well as Marketing Optimization, and Content Optimization reports. I am currently testing it out, and so far so good. It is easily a welcome addition to your current tracking software.

Filed under: Internet, Security, Utilities, Features, Windows, Office, Productivity, Web services, Freeware, P2P

AOL Active Security Monitor review

AOL Active Security Monitor
There are tons of threatening viruses, spyware, and other yucky things out there in the world wide web. They have the powers to potentially access your computer if it is not locked down with security software, ensuring there are no kinds of intrusions and any malicious hacking going on. Is your computer protected against the many potentially dangerous things floating around the internet? Do you know for sure? How can you know for sure? And how do you get started and stay on top of your computers security? AOL has made it easier. A whole lot easier at ensuring you know how your computer is doing, staying up to date with its security, and protecting against all things threatening. I recently installed AOL's Active Security Monitor to check out my systems vitals, and how I was doing at staying secure on the machines I connect to the internet with. I knew I was lacking in some areas, but not that much!

Disclosure: Download Squad is owned by AOL. Nonetheless, the following is a completely unbiased review of AOL's Active Security Monitor software by myself. I absolutely loved it, and think it does a very effective job at ensuring users know how secure their computer really is and aiding in increasing security when needed.

Read more →

Filed under: Utilities, Video, Windows, Freeware

MultiRes for fast resolution switching

multiresI never used QuickRes, because back in Win95 I never needed so many different resolutions. Nowadays, between 3d apps and word processing, I find myself switching resolutions all too frequently. And of course with multiple monitors, and various sizes becoming the norm, it's all too easy to jump resolutions on a regular basis. So Lockergnome alerted me to a little free app called MultiRes, which is a lot like QuickRes. It's just a little tray item that opens up all the resolutions for each monitor (you can't create new ones, just access the ones from the drivers) and allows you to switch quickly. There are also scripting capabilities, which is pretty cool for you CLI guys.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

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