“Software” collection
Discover essential software reviews and tutorials designed to enhance your productivity and digital security. Learn how to navigate complex operating systems, optimize professional tools, and protect your information with our expert software evaluations.
HTD Tech Briefs
View all →September 19, 2007
iPhone: New “Pirate” app for TLAPD
Just in time for "Talk Like a Pirate Day," a new application was released for the iPhone that lets you snap a picture of a person/thing and let you "piratize" it. It's at version 0.2 as of this writing...pretty fun! Just press the START button and your phone snaps a picture. Then drag the 3 other images around and voila!…
Read more →September 18, 2007
WordPress: People can view your Plugin Folder unless you fix!
As I was working on the update to my blog theme, I found a security hole that I think has existed for a long time in WordPress. While not incredibly devastating, nor directly tied to "code" within WordPress, it is a hole that is very easy to fix. The concern is more with KNOWING the types of plugins that a…
Read more →September 13, 2007
iPhone: Rumor – iUnlock and AppInstaller incompatible
I received a report from a reader (Nick) that he is having issues with his AppInstaller after installing iUnlock. Essentially, he could not install and uninstall applications on his iPhone after using iUnlock. So, thinking this through, it made sense that this would not work. AppInstaller pushes a customized version of the Firmware to your iPhone. iUnlock modifies some of…
Read more →September 13, 2007
Fix-it: Outlook 2007 Emails not showing in Preview Pane, constant crashes, and Windows Desktop Search not returning results
I recently helped a friend work through and some issues he was having with Outlook 2007. They were some strange, yet common problems, namely: Not being able to view emails within the Preview Pane Constant crashing of Outlook A slower than normal refresh of things My understanding is that this is actually a fairly common issue just from viewing a…
Read more →September 12, 2007
iPhone: Brief Reviews of ApolloIM, MobileChat, Summerboard, MobileTwitterific, Mines, iBlackjack, and MobileToDoList
It's nice that, for now, Apple seems to be "okay" with allowing third-party applications to be installed on the iPhone (although now there seems to be some backtracking by Apple with a new statement that "software updates will most likely break" native apps). Despite this, the movement is growing, especially with the combined forces of Nullriver Software and PXL Package…
Read more →September 10, 2007
WordPress update: Version 2.2.3 released with Security Fix
Just updated my blog with WordPress version 2.2.3 (haven't taken the plunge with the beta version 2.3 yet but I am working on a new theme). The 2.2.3 version is just a security release that they recommend people upgrade to, especially regarding two high-priority bugs. The following bugs were closed: 3002 - On Windows machines register_activation_hook() does not work if…
Read more →August 30, 2007
Netvibes & iPhone Compatible at last!
WOAH! I just reloaded my default home page and there is now a yellow message saying "Netvibes goes mobile! Now, you can check your Netvibes page on your mobile phone or your iPhone at the following address: http://m.netvibes.com" and of course I had to see how they implemented it. Well, the quick answer is, AMAZINGLY WELL! [Updated: they now have…
Read more →August 30, 2007
iPhone app: ApolloIM version updated to -0.9 with connection persistence
As mentioned previously, ApolloIM has been updated from version -1 to -0.9 and now includes partial "suspend mode." I have installed and tested it and it seems to work ok. However, the author clearly notes on his development site that there are some limitations to how well this works. If, for example, your iPhone enters a low-power mode (e.g., if…
Read more →August 29, 2007
iPhone app: Built-in RSS reader provided by .MAC
Gee, you learn something new every day. I was playing around with an installed RSS reader from the TappInstaller app and I figured I would see how Safari on the iPhone would react to an RSS feed. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! I had read that an RSS reader was being developed, but now I guess it is live. I…
Read more →August 29, 2007
iPhone App: ApolloIM update on its way
I have reinstalled the Apptapp Installer mentioned in my previous post and it seems to be more stable now (of course I am not monkeying around in the bowels of my directory structure this time). It was updated to version 2.4 as of this writing. There are plenty of new applications now available for install including the first Instant Messaging…
Read more →August 24, 2007
iPhone: Jailbreaking, Application Installing, Playing, Corrupting, Panicking, Resetting and Restoring
The subject of this post pretty much sums it up in a nutshell. So here are the details. First a little background. I come from a very varied cell-phone history. I was a big Sidekick users but got a bit tired of it because of the closed architecture and the fact that I couldn't make things "the way I wanted…
Read more →August 15, 2007
iPhone App: Telekinesis – remote access your Mac through mini web apps on iPhone
Now this code creation really wow-ed me! I was searching to find out if LogMeIn worked on the iPhone. (It does, sort of, but impossible to mimic button clicks...yet. But that is another story.) So I found a really interesting application called telekinesis (hosted at Google code) that truly impressed me. It doesn't profess to be a Remote Control application…
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