Link Dump...Sweep your Sidewalk!

CC Photo Credit: by Choctopus on Flickr

Too many links to deal with.  Posting for posterity or those who love to sift through dirt....

Microsoft Mania

The Windows Experience Blog : Windows Search 4.0 Released to Web

Windows Search 4.0 - Microsoft

Windows Search 4.0 Now Available - Josh's Windows Weblog - Windows Connected

Yep.  Downloaded it on my XP Pro system at work.  Operates wonderfully.  Yes I could search my emails via Outlook's "Find/Advanced Find" and my system via the "F3" key but Windows Search really provides a unified way of managing to find the piles of information on my system.  Took almost a full day to build the index, but once built, it self-updates on the fly.  Definitely worth looking into if you are dealing with a flood of information and files on your system.

Netmon 3.2 Beta Begins - Josh's Windows Weblog - Windows Connected

Network Monitor : Network Monitor 3.2 Beta has released!!!

Network Monitor : Santa’s Bag was Full

Lots of new features have been added. Check out the hops.

Windows Installer 4.5 is available - Josh's Windows Weblog - Windows Connected

Windows Installer 4.5 - Microsoft KB942288.

Do you need it? Probably not until Automatic Updates tosses it to you to catch, but if you want to live on the cutting edge, go get-it.

Are Windows Vista icons facing the wrong way? - istartedsomething

Hadn't even noticed this and now that Long Zheng points it out it will bother me to no end.  Great. Why the switch from the "correctly oriented" drafts? Seems Microsoft thought that they would look funny otherwise as they appear in the Vista "start Orb" menu when mousing over items.  Hmmm.

Fixing Windows Vista, Part 5: Faster, smarter search - Ed Bott's Microsoft Report @ ZDNet

Lots of great tips for dealing with searching on Vista...includes installing the aforementioned Windows Search application.

10 top tweaks for Windows Vista - Ed Bott's Microsoft Report @ ZDNet

Lots of great common-sense tips for both new Vista users and those who are now dedicated fans.

Windows Incident Response Blog

Lots of great information flowing this week from Harlan Carvey.

RegRipper Plugin Updates - teases on new helpful plugins.

Portable Devices on Vista - very useful information to show what removable devices have been attached to a Vista system and when.

NTFS Alternate Data Streams - great background on using internal tools to Vista to look for ADS, along with great supporting links for more information.

Memory Collection and Analysis - Harlan shares some new tools for memory dumping and parsing off a system, including a free tool, mdd (Memory DD). 

MDD was designed specifically to harvest a physical memory image from a running system. The software can copy up to 4 GB of memory to a file for later analysis. In this regard, MDD was built to harvest data that could be analyzed by another tool or software program to identify root kits and other malicious code residing undetectable on a system. - ManTech International Corporation product description.

Firefox Growing Pains

Firefox 3.1 (Shiretoko) planned features draft - Mozilla Links.  It is probably right around the corner when we will be seeing the final release of Firefox 3.0.  So what next?  New project is to be called "Shiretoko" after the Japanese national park. Planned are a visual tab-switching feature and visual thumbnail version of list all tabs.  Places might get some more improvements and some code handling refinements.

The great Google Browser Sync Extension for Firefox has been abandoned for Firefox 3.

Google Ditches Browser Sync Extension for Firefox 3 - Cybernet News

Google discontinues Google Browser Sync - Download Squad

I loved it for a long time with Firefox 2.0 but eventually gave up and started back making a backup of my JSON file and just copying it manually between my systems.

Foxmarks is compatible with Firefox 3.0 now so that is a very popular option.

Also according to Mozilla Lab's Weave Status Update, a major update will be issued by June 20th.  This project looks to provide some awesome Firefox 3.0 bookmark (and more?) syncing between systems.

I plan on adopting this one (at least on a trial basis) when it comes out.

Keep the faith, Younglings and Padawans.....the fox of fire is still with us!

--Claus