October 2014

Just like many other native Windows programs, the Windows Services Manager is a basic application that is easy to use but lacks advanced features.

While you can use it to manage services, for instance by disabling services or starting services manually, it lacks features such as an option to filter services by name.

Advanced Services Manager for Windows is a free program that improves the native application. Please note that it requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.5 and needs to be started with elevated privileges on the target system.

We live in a connected world and each one of us has many options when it comes to connecting others. While it is still possible to use a phone for that, other types of communication such as messaging apps or video chat have become more popular and are widely used by millions each day.

The majority of these solutions have in common that you need an account to use them. This is true for services like Skype or Google Hangouts for example, WhatsApp or the Facebook application.

Google announced Android 5.0 Lollipop on October 15. It is the next major upgrade for Android that is supposed to launch in the coming weeks.

Android 5.0 is feature packed. It features a new Material Design user interface which can be best described as a refined Google Now interface with elements sliding on top and into each other.

The operating system features new animations and buttons, and new notifications  as well.

The release of the Windows 10 Preview some time ago revealed some of the features that Microsoft plans to integrate in the upcoming operating system.

Probably the biggest feature is the redesigned start menu that mixes traditional desktop programs with Start application tiles.

There are other features of note, a new virtual desktop manager for example, the ability to run apps in windows or improvements to the command prompt.

One of the first things that I do whenever a connection to a host is not established is to run a basic tracert command on the command line just to find out where the problem may lie.

There are other ways to do so, for instance by using an online service to check whether a domain is up or not.

PingHurry is a free program for the Windows operating system that adds an interface to network related command line tools.

Note: The application requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 to run. It is free for personal and commercial use.

Even if you are running a high-res monitor you may encounter situations where websites cannot be displayed in full directly on the screen.

If a page is long you may need to scroll vertically to access all the contents displayed on it. It is possible to make room by eliminating browser UI elements that get in the way.

If you never use the bookmarks toolbar for instance, you may want to remove it from the UI as you get an additional 30 or so pixels to display website contents.

I replaced a platter-based hard drive in a Thinkpad laptop that I bought with a faster Samsung SSD 840 drive to speed things up significantly.

Samsung acknowledged the existence of a read performance bug in September 2014 and promised to fix the issue by releasing a firmware update for affected Evo models.

A security vulnerability in SSL 3.0 has been uncovered by Bodo Möller and two other Google employees that attackers can exploit to calculate the plaintext of secure connections.

When you open the File Explorer in Windows 10, or more precisely the Windows 10 preview that Microsoft released two weeks ago, you will notice that it starts on a Home page instead of This PC.

This Home page lists the favorites, frequent folders and recent files, but no drives for example. These can be accessed on the left in the sidebar though along with networks drives or the cloud service OneDrive.

Welcome to the Microsoft's October 2014 Patch Day overview. It provides an in-depth analysis and information about all security bulletins and updates that Microsoft released for its products since the September patch day.

Microsoft released eight security bulletins this month fixing a total of 24 vulnerabilities in company products such as the Microsoft Windows operating system, Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office.

Three of the bulletins have received the highest severity rating of critical and five the second highest rating of important.