There’s always a tragic story behind our New Year resolutions and goal setting endeavors. Reams have been written on how to stick to resolutions. So, let me try to add a few pages here with a slightly different take on email in the future services. Emailing yourself in the future could serve as reminders to alert you about sticking to the path.

You can also use these future emails to create tiny time capsules. For e.g. if you have losing weight as a goal, you can post a photo of your current girth and then open it as a future date to see whether you shed the weight or the goal. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the service will stick around in a year’s time, but suddenly being reminded of your goals sometimes helps to jolt that laziness off your bones.

Lettermelater

Lettermelater is a rich tool that allows you to create HTML emails, add attachments (photos), and even send it from within your default email account. The service allows you to set a future date, down to the last minute, when the letter will get delivered. You can also specify CC and BCC recipients; helpful if you are part of a group that’s mentoring each other towards a goal. But the feature I like is Lettermelater gives you the option to set up multiple recurring emails by selecting a range and interval, or selecting the dates individually.

FutureMe

With FutureMe, you don’t have to log-in before sending out an email into the future. You can choose to go anonymous and put your emails into public view. The collection of public FutureMe emails is an interesting read. The mail interface lacks a rich text editor, but you can include pictures (webcam snaps or from the desktop) with your emails. Maybe, you can just ask yourself if you are still alive after December 2012. Keeping yourself alive inspite of the foreboding predictions of the Mayans could be a nice New Year resolution.

Eternity Message

The About Me page says something about the original intention of the site – We had originally written the application to capture our thoughts, experiences, and life lessons so those could be shared with our children.

The service uses a secure protocol and the servers store the future messages – they are not sent out as emails. Recipients receive a notification to view the future message on the site itself. An early warning notification is also sent to the sender 3 days prior to the actual delivery. Eternity Message comes in two versions – a paid one which allows you to send messages 60 years into the future and a free Lite version that allows you to send the email up to 1 year in the future and to a single person. The message has to stay within 1000 characters – that should be enough for a New Year resolution.

Email Future

Schedule a goals-to-achieve email in the future with this text only service and pat yourself in one year’s time when you can tick off a few from your 2012 New Year resolution’s list. You can also send it to four other addresses if you want to gloat about your achievements one year down the line. Of course, there’s a high chance that you could also have four eggs on your face. Email Future allows you to set a private or public (anonymous) permission.

Mail Freezr

Put your future emails in ice-cold storage and bring them back to live on January 1^st, next year. You can freely freeze your emails for any period between 1 – 100 years, so you are probably safe if you put down your resolutions for the year and check them out next year.

2012 will be soon over. The future will come soon enough. List out your goals using these services and when you get the mail from the past in your inbox, you can either gloat or regret that you let another year pass by without ticking off a few from your goals list. Are you using a geeky way to set your New Year resolutions? Or are they already lying in the waste basket?

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA06.png" alt="security misconfiguration" /> class="vt-p" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc184923">Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a free tool, designed for IT professionals of small and medium-sized businesses. Given its clear graphical user interface however, it also serves as a great security tool for personal use. MBSA analyzes the class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Security" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security/">security setup of local and networked Windows computers and can identify common security misconfigurations or missing updates.

You can class="vt-p" title="Download MBSA 2.2" href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=02be8aee-a3b6-4d94-b1c9-4b1989e0900c">download MBSA 2.2 from the Microsoft Download Center. It is available for 64-bit (x64) and 32-bit (x86) Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2. Moreover, it comes in four different languages: German (DE), English (EN), French (FR), and Japanese (JA).

Getting Started

The startup interface of MBSA is very simple and basically offers only three options: scan a computer, scan multiple computers, or view existing security scan reports. The sidebar also offers links to the program documentation and the Microsoft security website.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA01.png" border="0" alt="security misconfiguration" />

Note that you require Administrator rights for all machines that you wish to scan. You can scan a single or multiple systems based on the computer name or IP address. If you select to scan multiple computers, you need to enter a domain name or a range of IP addresses.

For this demonstration I went with scanning a single computer.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA02.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

The scanning options are straightforward, although not necessarily clear for the inexperienced user. If you don’t understand what some of the options mean, click the > Scanning Options link at the bottom for detailed explanations. The information will load in a separate Internet Explorer window.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA03.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

The scan merely takes a few seconds and returns an overview of issues found in different categories. Each item is scored and a summary of the result is provided, along with links to further information material.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA04.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

Checks that were passed receive a green score, items that could not be checked are marked with a grey minus, room for improvements is highlighted by a blue score, a yellow score indicates a non-critical vulnerability and a red score alerts the user to a failed check and thus a critical security issue. Follow the respective links for detailed information about what was scanned or instructions on how an issue can be corrected.

All reports are saved and can be accessed at a later time for reference. You can also print or copy your report to the clipboard.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA05.png" border="0" alt="security misconfiguration" />

Conclusion

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is a very good tool to quickly get an overview of security-related settings on your Windows machine. Instructions for correcting detected security misconfigurations are very clear and should therefore be easy to follow for the average user. Overall, the documentation is surprisingly detailed and well done, almost as if Microsoft expected non-IT folks to use this tool.

It must be said though that fixing most configurations does require some basic understanding of how Windows works. For example an issue with the file system is not necessarily security relevant and the instructions do not provide information on how to find the drive that doesn’t run NTFS. Moreover, some issues require advanced knowledge and should be left to the experts to be fixed, for example setting a password expiration.

For more information, also have a look at this article from Microsoft Patterns & Practices: class="vt-p" title="How To: Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647642.aspx">How To Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.

What is your opinion? Do you think this is a useful tool? Please share your thoughts!

Image credits: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=59716684">beboy />
/> Hey Facebookers, make sure to join href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof" target="_blank">MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already!

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href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/test-computer-security-misconfigurations-microsoft-baseline-security-analyzer/">Test Your Computer For Security Misconfigurations With Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

More articles about: href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/administration/" title="administration" rel="tag">administration, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/analyzer/" title="analyzer" rel="tag">analyzer, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/microsoft/" title="Microsoft" rel="tag">Microsoft, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/network/" title="network" rel="tag">network, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/scanner/" title="scanner" rel="tag">scanner, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security/" title="security" rel="tag">security, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security-tips/" title="security tips" rel="tag">security tips, href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/troubleshoot/" title="troubleshoot" rel="tag">troubleshoot />

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA06.png" alt="security misconfiguration" /> class="vt-p" href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc184923">Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a free tool, designed for IT professionals of small and medium-sized businesses. Given its clear graphical user interface however, it also serves as a great security tool for personal use. MBSA analyzes the class="vt-p" title="MakeUseOf Tag: Security" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/security/">security setup of local and networked Windows computers and can identify common security misconfigurations or missing updates.

You can class="vt-p" title="Download MBSA 2.2" href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=02be8aee-a3b6-4d94-b1c9-4b1989e0900c">download MBSA 2.2 from the Microsoft Download Center. It is available for 64-bit (x64) and 32-bit (x86) Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2. Moreover, it comes in four different languages: German (DE), English (EN), French (FR), and Japanese (JA).

Getting Started

The startup interface of MBSA is very simple and basically offers only three options: scan a computer, scan multiple computers, or view existing security scan reports. The sidebar also offers links to the program documentation and the Microsoft security website.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA01.png" border="0" alt="security misconfiguration" />

Note that you require Administrator rights for all machines that you wish to scan. You can scan a single or multiple systems based on the computer name or IP address. If you select to scan multiple computers, you need to enter a domain name or a range of IP addresses.

For this demonstration I went with scanning a single computer.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA02.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

The scanning options are straightforward, although not necessarily clear for the inexperienced user. If you don’t understand what some of the options mean, click the > Scanning Options link at the bottom for detailed explanations. The information will load in a separate Internet Explorer window.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA03.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

The scan merely takes a few seconds and returns an overview of issues found in different categories. Each item is scored and a summary of the result is provided, along with links to further information material.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA04.png" border="0" alt="security configuration" />

Checks that were passed receive a green score, items that could not be checked are marked with a grey minus, room for improvements is highlighted by a blue score, a yellow score indicates a non-critical vulnerability and a red score alerts the user to a failed check and thus a critical security issue. Follow the respective links for detailed information about what was scanned or instructions on how an issue can be corrected.

All reports are saved and can be accessed at a later time for reference. You can also print or copy your report to the clipboard.

class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/MBSA05.png" border="0" alt="security misconfiguration" />

Conclusion

Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is a very good tool to quickly get an overview of security-related settings on your Windows machine. Instructions for correcting detected security misconfigurations are very clear and should therefore be easy to follow for the average user. Overall, the documentation is surprisingly detailed and well done, almost as if Microsoft expected non-IT folks to use this tool.

It must be said though that fixing most configurations does require some basic understanding of how Windows works. For example an issue with the file system is not necessarily security relevant and the instructions do not provide information on how to find the drive that doesn’t run NTFS. Moreover, some issues require advanced knowledge and should be left to the experts to be fixed, for example setting a password expiration.

For more information, also have a look at this article from Microsoft Patterns & Practices: class="vt-p" title="How To: Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647642.aspx">How To Use the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer.

What is your opinion? Do you think this is a useful tool? Please share your thoughts!

Image credits: class="vt-p" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=59716684">beboy />
/> Hey Facebookers, make sure to join href="http://www.facebook.com/makeuseof" target="_blank">MakeUseOf on Facebook and get access to some exclusve stuff. Over 105,000 fans already!

/>

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/test-computer-security-misconfigurations-microsoft-baseline-security-analyzer/">Test Your Computer For Security Misconfigurations With Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer-intro.jpg" alt="skill assessment test"/>Success in the modern job market is underlined by one simple fact – the skills you bring to the table. The fresh web service called href="http://smarterer.com/">Smarterer aims to shake our inertia about learning skills and make smarter workers out of us all. Smarterer pits us against the technology, digital, and social tools we use every day and tells us if we are able or inept with them.

Smarterer’s mission is to put a number (or a score) on the skills we write about in our resumes. If you have the smarts, let’s head below and see how Smarterer and its battery of tests validate your digital savvy.

What Is Smarterer?

Smarterer tests your skill level and knowledge in the digital apps you use every day. The web app has developed a proprietary system and algorithm that can benchmark anyone’s skill in just 10 questions and 60 seconds.

The Smarterer blog says – Smarterer’s scoring algorithm validates and quantifies skills using an 800 point scale, similar to the GMAT or SAT, and provides users labels such as “smart”, “smarter,” and “smarterer” to describe their skill level at a glance. Only 5 percent of users score in the top level, which reflects the adaptive nature of the algorithm and their rank against the community of users.

More importantly, the blog also says that Smarterer is designed for professionals within the first 10 years of their careers — college students who have little experience (but a broad set of skills that make them employable) and individuals who are making their first or second career move and need to show skills to get the next great job.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer.jpg" alt="skill assessment test" width="580" height="284" />

Bring On The Tests…

Register and log into Smarterer. Smarterer allows us to take as well as create skill assessment tests. Just to get a feel of things, I think I will take a few tests and see how I score. There are nearly 70+ tests with the likes of Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn interspersed in the midst of tests like Dog Training and Literature for Children.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer01.jpg" alt="computer skill test" width="580" height="302" />

Some of these tests are of course user-created but it goes to show that as the variety starts piling up, you can really put all facets of your personality under the scanner.

Here’s a screen from the Google Search test I opened with:

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer02.jpg" alt="computer skill test" width="580" height="290" />

You can try out the single test question just to get a feel of things and how the system times you through each question. Correct responses are indicated by green, incorrect ones get emblazoned in red.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer03.jpg" alt="computer skill test" width="580" height="324" />

The tests are rapid and each question needs to be answered in 20 seconds or less. The screenshot below shows how I fared with Facebook (the results from my Google Search test weren’t red hot!):

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer04.jpg" alt="skill test" width="580" height="371" />

Your ‘smartness’ gets measured on an 800 point scale. As the screen shows, I am merely ‘smart’ so far, not the smartest one around. You can share your score via Twitter or Facebook. But I think I will make an attempt at improving them before I let the whole world in. You can answer a few more questions to improve your score and graduate up the smartness scale. There are some things which influence the final score. This is where the ‘intelligence’ of the site kicks in.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/smarterer05.jpg" alt="skill assessment test" width="506" height="243" />

Smarterer not only allows you to add your own questions to existing tests, but also create a brand new skill assessment test on a topic. You can create the tests, write the questions, and design the answers. If all goes well with the tests and your answers, you can see yourself on the leader board. Moreover, you can ‘show off’ you score with an embedded badge on your blog, website, or email.

There’s lot to like about Smarterer: from its very user-friendly and clean design to the speed of the tests. I liked the scoring system which made picking up the points not just a case of answering correctly. Do you have the smarts? Take a test on href="http://smarterer.com/">Smarterer and let us know your score for this href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/quiz/">quiz and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/learning/">learning app.

href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/put-digital-social-technical-skills-test-smarterer/">Put Your Digital, Social & Technical Skills To The Test With Smarterer is a post from: href="http://www.makeuseof.com">MakeUseOf

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/agt_update_recommended.png"/>When you’re pretty addicted to trying new applications like we are around this part of the web, our machines quickly become victims of heavy digital battery. To safeguard our computers, it’s always a good idea to use href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/portable-software-usb/">portable applications whenever possible. The application in question cannot store program settings or make changes in the Windows Registry so it poses little to no danger to our systems. However, the selection of portable applications may not always include a lesser-known or new application that we desperately want to test out, so the next best thing is to test drive them in isolated environments.

You might think it’s extra work to isolate these applications because you always keep your antivirus software updated and won’t ever think of downloading obscure software anyway. Yet practicing this type of caution by using special isolating software will likely be more beneficial in the long run. Having a computer overrun by viruses will not only be hair-splitting, but may also lead you to spend money to replace a machine that could have perfectly lived longer.

Let’s see then how you can protect your machine by isolating potentially unsafe applications.

Running Programs In Isolated Sandboxes

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/33.png" alt="" width="452" height="482" />We first took a good, long look at href="http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie">Sandboxie href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cool-programs-safe-from-hackers/">here, where we discussed how this Windows-only program creates virtual layers upon which programs can operate normally, that is, can perform read and write operations without permanently affecting your hard drive. href="http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie">Sandboxie basically runs your applications in isolated instances, namely sandboxes, so you can safely test drive even new or little-known programs that could potentially be unsafe.

After you install Sandboxie and its system-level drivers, you’ll see a yellow icon on the system tray and you’ll also be offered an online tutorial, which should open up in a web-browser that you can run sandboxed or not. Aside from letting you run a sandboxed web browser, Sandboxie lets you run sandboxed email programs, programs from the Start menu, executable programs or even from Windows Explorer.

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/41.png" alt="" width="415" height="324" />

Sandboxie might be useful in many cases where you simply aren’t sure of how safe a program is, but you’re still curious to try it. Since it isolates that program from the rest of your system, you’re pretty much safe to install it and dispose of it if you don’t like it or encounter a problem. Destroying that sandbox is a matter of either closing the running programs in that instance or removing the specific sandbox. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/53.png" alt="" width="470" height="455" />Even if you have many programs in that sandbox, the entire session is cleaned up with a one click.

Additional uses for Sandboxie could be loading up a program that you don’t really need to have installed but might need to use it once in a blue moon, like ImgBurn or uTorrent. You could also use Sandboxie to load up additional instances of a running program, like a second instance of, say, Firefox so you can log on to your secondary Google Account and what not. It’s a pretty nice way to use programs safely since they fully work without limitations or incompatibilities. In fact, it’s pretty hard to tell apart from a regular, non-sandboxed running application. The only way to distinguish the sandboxed program is by looking at the title bar of the window. /> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/63.png" alt="" width="546" height="475" />

Sandboxie is free for personal use, but the free version allows not more than one sandbox running at a time. While Sandboxie is pretty popular, there are similar applications that can provide a sandboxed environment for a program. Among these are href="http://www.evalaze.de/en/Evalaze-Softwarevirtualisierung-Evalazer/">Evalaze, href="http://www.gentlesecurity.com/geswall.html">GeSWaLL, href="http://www.trustware.com/BufferZone-Pro/">BufferZone Pro, href="http://icoresoftware.com/">iCore Virtual Accounts, and the former href="http://download.cnet.com/Software-Virtualization-Solution-SVS/3000-2651_4-10516806.html?tag=mncol;1">Altiris Software Virtualization Solution (SVS), for which I’ve found no way of obtaining a personal license.

Undoing System Changes After Installing A Program

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/71.jpg" alt="" width="540" height="426" /> href="http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/">Returnil System Safe Free is a program for Windows that basically lets your machine revert back to its original system status after a reboot. Download it href="http://download.cnet.com/Returnil-System-Safe-Free-2011/3000-2239_4-10704691.html?tag=mncol;1">here. What Returnil does is it clones your operating system, creating a virtual environment, which will be loaded in lieu of your original OS when you restart your system after installing Returnil. This will allow you to run or install even the most obscure programs without getting your computer infected since it will undo everything and return to its original state on the next system restart. Though it uninstalls any program you might have installed in your virtual environment, you can still save documents and files to a flash drive so you’ll have those even after a restart. Returnil might be one of the easiest ways on this list to roll back the system after you’ve tested out potentially unsafe applications, as all you need to do is restart the system, but a drawback is that you cannot install programs that require you to reboot after installation, which will promptly revert back to the original, unadulterated state.

Forget Installing – Just Run Windows Applications From Your Browser

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/81.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="221" />If you don’t want to install another program to help you isolate applications, you might want to check href="http://spoon.net/">Spoon, a website that runs a type of revolutionary virtualization software to stream desktop applications to your Windows machine. We have href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/spoon-runs-windows-desktop-applications-browser/">covered it in detail before. With Spoon, you can run any of the supported Windows desktop applications using just your browser and the downloadable Spoon plugin. Supported applications include popular web browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox, even productivity apps and games. The selection of supported apps consists of mostly popularly-used applications on Windows, for which you won’t notice the differences compared to a natively-running Windows application.

We also discussed a different type of application virtualization with href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-groups-portable-applications-cameyo-windows/">Cameyo, href="http://www.vmlite.com/index.php/products/vmlite-virtualapps-studio/overview">VMLite VirtualApps Studio, and href="http://enigmaprotector.com/en/aboutvb.html">Enigma Virtual Box, all of which are free programs that let you href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pac-easily-create-portable-apps-programming-knowledge-required-windows/">create portable applications from programs you already have installed. On a related not, see also our homebrewed workaround to href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-skype-work-on-a-portable-usb-stick/">create a portable version from Skype, and also see href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/build-customized-portable-fast-operating-system-slax/">how to build your own portable OS with Slax.

Do you tend to download lots of applications on your primary machine? If so, do you use any of these programs?

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Shutterstock-Stopwatch.jpg" alt="website speed test"/>Not every website can be a Google. No; not in terms of scale but in terms of the speed with which it loads up in our browsers. Minimalism is great, but it does not go with the need to put more content and animated ads on the webpage. It is sometimes a trade-off which every web designer has to make.

Creating faster webpages is one of the commandments of great web design. A slow loading speed not only indicates poor design but is also a huge turn-off for visitors. Slow loading webpages could also be symptoms of bugs or any other bottleneck.

The first step you can take to optimize your website is to put it through a speed test. These ten tools are few of the many which can help test loading speeds and give cues to create faster webpages.

href="http://webwait.com/">WebWait

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load01.jpg" alt="website speed test" width="580" height="344" />

The timer gives you the average loading time of your website. Enter the URL of your site, set the number of runs, and get the results in terms of Average, Median, and Standard Deviation after the runs are through. You can set the number of test runs. While running the website speed test, the app factors in all images, stylesheets, and Javascript. It runs in all popular browsers. (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/webwait-measure-website-loading-time/">Directory mention)

href="http://whichloadsfaster.com/">Which Loads Faster?

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load02.jpg" alt="free website speed checker" width="580" height="286" />

Pit one site against the other and see which one comes out on top. You can benchmark the faster website and use it optimize the speed of your own website. The choice of two modes allows you to control the loading simultaneously in case one site interferes with the other. It could be quite a fun tool too as the ‘epic test’ between Apple and Adobe shows that Apple has bit of an edge. (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/whatloadsfaster-compare-website-loading-speed/">Directory mention)

href="http://www.webpagetest.org/">Web Page Test

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load03.jpg" alt="free website speed checker" width="580" height="336" />

WebPagetest.org was developed by AOL and then Open Sourced. This web app gives you a long list of server locations to try out the tests on. Another dropdown enables you to set a specific browser (IE9 too). Advanced Settings are for further fine-tuning the test by setting parameters like the number of test runs, connection type, including scripts etc. You can also use a visual tool to compare multiple URLs together.  (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/webpagetest-test-load-speed-of-website/">Directory mention)

href="http://loads.in/">Load.in

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load04.jpg" alt="free website speed checker" width="580" height="310" />

This website speed tool is definitely one of the coolest around in terms of visual appeal. Loads.in gives you more than 50 server locations around the world to try out loading speeds on. The first run retrieves the loading speed for a random location. The next ones can be set by country and browser type. As the test completes, you also get snapshots of the webpage at various points on a timeline. The loading time also displays the individual loading times of each site element in a waterfall chart. The data can also be downloaded as a HAR file. (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/loadsin-test-how-fast-a-website-loads/">Directory mention)

href="http://www.slowcop.com/">Slowcop

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load05.jpg" alt="website for checking download speed" width="580" height="275" />

This page loading speed tester gives you an instant speed report that also scores your site from 0 to 100. The report displays data like the total number of elements, page size, download time, and the score. With this as a denominator, you can instantly compare it against a competitor site and see the performance. (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/slowcop-website-speed-report/">Directory mention)

href="http://www.pingbrigade.com/">Ping Brigade

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load06.jpg" alt="website for checking download speed" width="580" height="360" />

Test your website on three scales – ping, page load, and web server latency. The test is quite fast and a colored map gives you clickable server locations in America and the world to test with different servers. (See href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/pingbrigade-how-fast-does-your-site-load/">Directory mention)

href="http://tools.pingdom.com/">Pingdom

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load07.jpg" alt="website for checking download speed" width="580" height="338" />

Test your page load speeds The Full Page Test gives you a detailed visual report on the load time of each element (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes). Objects included in javascript are ignored. You can sort through the results with the tools available on the menu bar and diagnose any bottlenecks if any.

href="http://browsermob.com/free-website-performance-test">BrowserMob

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load08.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="276" />

The free website performance test gives a neat visual display of loading times with reference to a few locations around the world. The number of objects on the page are also broken down in a nice colorful pie-chart. Use the waterfall chart to analyze each individual element in more detail.

href="http://www.webslug.info/">WebSlug

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load09.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="350" />

WebSlug’s site timer gives you a comparative estimate of two websites. With just the URL you can benchmark one site against another. The simple site is pretty limited in scope but can be used as a ‘battle tool’ between two websites.

href="http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/">PageSpeed

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Page-Load10.jpg" alt="website speed test" width="580" height="255" />

Page Speed is an open-source project from Google that’s available as an online app and also as a Chrome extension. Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page, and then generates suggestions to make that page faster. The suggestions are graded as low, medium, and high priority. Using this valuable tool you can see the suggestions on each object on the webpage. In an improvement, PageSpeed also tweaks the suggestions for faster mobile browsing.

Webmasters need a bevy of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/webmaster-tools/">tools to work on optimization of their websites. Along with the online apps, there are quite a few extensions and offline tools as well. Tina’s post shows you – href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/run-speed-test-website/">How To Run A Speed Test On Your Website with FireBug and YSlow. If you are looking for a portable app, take a look at href="http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=24963.0">Speed Monitor. Which tools would you recommend to speedup websites and blogs?

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All of us have read a fair share of ‘how do I crack a password’ questions. It’s safe to say that most of them are for nefarious purposes rather than an inquisitive one. Well, they are the script kiddies, so it makes me real scared of the tribe that goes by the collective names of – hackers, crackers, or black hats.

Breaching passwords is as common a sport as wild hunting used to be once. So, do you stay on the secure side and put careful thought into your passwords? CXO has an interesting infographic on password strengths.

Today, every well designed website and web app has a password strength indicator. These are basically scripts and plugins that follow basic rules of strong passwords. Then again, if you really like to pit your passwords against the black hats, try out these five password strength tools that tell you if your password is strong enough.

How Secure Is My Password

There are very few really engaging password strength testing tools, and this is one of them. It does tell you the strength but also something beyond that. For instance, a regular word like “enter” is among the 500 most common passwords used. My own email password (I ain’t telling what it is) would take a desktop PC 2 billion years to crack. Though this feedback may not always correct, you are welcome to take a shot. (See Directory mention)

The Password Meter

This password strength tester is one of the more popular tools out there. It gives you a detailed breakdown of your password and puts a password through their customized measuring scale. Each element of your password string gets a point and they are totaled up to assess the strength of the password. You can use the scoring system to construct very strong, nearly unbreakable passwords. (See Directory mention)

Test Your Password

This is a dual purpose tool – it helps you to generate random passwords when you give it the parameters; and then you can test the password for its strength. You can put in additional characters of your choice. Use it to quickly see why eight character passwords are always advised over lesser numbered ones.

Strength Test

This password web tool considers the probability of letters landing close to each other when rating passwords strong or weak. Ideally, passwords should be random. The meter shows this by using a term called ‘entropy’, an estimate based on letter pair combinations in the English language.

Microsoft Safety And Security Center

Microsoft has its own little password checking tool tucked away on their site. More than the tool, the sub-site is an important resource for learning all about the rules of security. The password strength tool is pretty much similar to the others in its colored rating.

These web apps and testing tools show that it takes just a few seconds to test your password strength and ensure security for a lifetime. Carefully thinking of a good password takes slightly more time. You can put more thought into it with the help of these two posts –

How To Create A Good Password That You Will Not Forget
How To Create Strong Passwords That You Can Remember Easily

Do you put the right characters into your passwords? Review your passwords and let us know if you go to great lengths with them.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/serverback.png" alt="portable php web server" />Whether you’re a blogger or a web designer, upgrading and improving the website is a never-ending job. Whether you want to tweak the template or test some changes before activating them live, it’s nice to have a local system set up where you can view “live changes” before they ever go live on the Internet.

There are lots of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/kompozer-free-web-design-software-whip-web-pages/">WYSIWYG applications that let you create a static HTML page and then preview what it’ll look like before you actually upload the new pages to your web host. However, if you have a PHP-based website like a WordPress blog, things aren’t quite that simple. You need a web server that can handle PHP and MySQL at the very least.

id="more-67727"> /> Here at MUO, we’ve covered a number of ways to install your own local web server like Dave’s review of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-web-server-software-apache-alternatives/">Linux web server software, as well as his review of href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-windows-web-server-pc-xampp/">XAMPP for Windows. These are great if you intend on using the same computer for all of your development work, but if you travel a lot, wouldn’t it be nice to have a portal PHP web server installed on your thumb drive or portable hard drive where you can test changes anywhere, even if there’s no Internet access? One of the easiest portable solutions for this is href="http://www.server2go-web.de/index.html">Server2Go.

Bring A Working Web Server Anywhere

Compared to the configuration work it takes to set up a working web server, the ease with which you can install and run Server2Go on a portable drive is unbelievable. This is a perfect solution for me, because I want to make some design changes to my blog template without the risk of taking down my entire site. So, in order to accomplish this feat, I decided to test drive Server2Go.

When you download Server2Go and extract the files, you’ll see that the directories are set up like a regular web server with “htdocs” being the public directory where your web pages will go.  No installation required.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67728" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server1.jpg" alt="portable php web server" width="462" height="415" />

style="text-align: left;">All you have to do is copy those files and directories to your portable drive. Now, if your only goal is to test your website that’s written in either straight HTML or PHP, you’re done. Just copy your site to htdocs and you can view it by launching the web server (running Server2Go.exe) and then going to http://127.0.0.1:4001/ – the default localhost IP configured in pms_config.ini.

This is pretty slick because you will have a fresh web server to test any website that you want at any time and anywhere. But what if you want to load up a complete PHP site with a back end SQL database?

Server2Go was originally made to run off of a read-only CD, so the default setup will not save MySQL database changes. If you want to configure the server to keep all of your settings, you need to edit pms_config.ini so that LocalMirror=0, OverwriteLocalMirror=0, and DeleteDatabaseFiles=0.

Do this edit before you move on or you’ll lose all of your configurations. When you’re done, open up phpMyAdmin by going to http://127.0.0.1:4001/phpmyadmin/ and log in as root without any password.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server2.jpg" alt="" width="412" height="380" />

Now, set up your database. This needs to be the database name that you use for your regular website. In the case of a WordPress blog, you’ll make it whatever you configured in wp-config.php on your live blog.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server41.jpg" alt="local host web server" width="444" height="427" />

Also create a new user with the same user id that you use on your live WordPress blog. You do this in phpMyAdmin by clicking on the SQL tab and typing:

“CREATE USER ‘my_id’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘your_password’; /> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO ‘my_id’@’localhost’ /> WITH GRANT OPTION; /> CREATE USER ‘my_id’@’%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘your_password’; /> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO ‘my_id’@’%’ /> WITH GRANT OPTION;

Now that your database is ready to go, move a fresh copy of WordPress to your new portable web server by copying all of the WordPress files to the htdocs directory.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server5.jpg" alt="local host web server" width="450" height="432" />

Remember to edit wp-config-sample.php with the database and user information, and rename the file to wp-config.php. Run “http://127.0.0.1:4001/wp-admin/install.php” and you should see the following screen.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67733" style="border: 1px solid black;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server6.jpg" alt="local host web server" width="545" height="382" />

You now have a working local installation of WordPress! The next step is to just export your database and import it into your local WordPress installation. We’ve covered lots of backup procedures at MUO, but one of my favorites was Dean’s on the href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-easily-automate-backing-up-your-wordpress-blog/">database backup plugin. I won’t go into the details here, but I highly recommend that plugin to transfer over your entire database.

Keep in mind that even though the database backup will move over all posts and comments, the theme and formatting will not carry over. To do this, you need to copy your entire wp-content directory from your online blog to the fresh install of your local one. Enable the required plug-ins and configure the theme to match your online setup. Once you’re done, you have an exact local replica of your entire online website or blog.

Here’s a local copy of my own blog running on Server2Go.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/server10.jpg" alt="portable php web server" width="546" height="504" />

Now I can tweak the template and other aspects of my blog – including testing new plug-ins and widgets – before they ever go live on the actual online website. After taking my website down a few times just by playing around with a new widget, this feels a whole lot safer.

Give Server2Go a shot on your own portable thumb drive or hard drive and let us know how it goes. What other ideas do you have for making use of such a portable and fast to set up web server? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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class="align-left" style="border: 0px none; margin-left: 20px; margin-top: 5px; float: right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/browserling-title.jpg" alt="web page testing tool for multiple browsers" width="200" height="70" />Anyone who runs a website knows what a pain it is to test cross browser compatibility. It is the bane of many web developers – each browser has its own little quirks that you need to design around. Over the last few years, many free multi browser screenshot utilities have popped up such as class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/browsershots/">Browsershots or Adobe class="vt-p" href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/check-your-website-design-in-different-browsers-with-adobe-browserlab/">Browserlabs.

Actually testing your website, clicking on links and testing interactions, is only possible by loading a “real” browser either on a bank of test machines or virtual machines. There have been some services out there that provide access to these browsers, for a fee. A new service named Browserling brings a limited service to users for free.

id="more-59627"> /> class="vt-p" href="http://www.browserling.com/">Browserling is a new web service built upon the class="vt-p" href="http://stackvm.com/">StackVM framework which allows virtual instances of operations systems to run right in your browser. Within this framework, they allow users to launch a number of browsers to test out their websites right in your browser. As of this writing they have support for Internet Explorer 5.5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, Firefox 3.5, Chrome 7, Opera 10.6 and Safari 5.0.

Launching a test browser instance is simple. Type in the URL, select the browser you wish to launch, and hit “Go”

After a moment your website will launch in your browser:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/browserling-launch.png" alt="web page testing tool for multiple browsers" width="550" height="299" />

Right now, you can test out as many sites as you want and it is free. There is a 1 minute and 30 seconds limit that you can use without registering, and if you do register you get 5 minute sessions (for free). You can use it more than once – but your session will start ‘fresh.’ They are working on paid plans that will extend this time and shorten your wait time, but pricing has not yet been announced.

When your website is in your browser it is actually what is showing up on the remote screen. You have access to all of the browser options like you would with a VM – giving you the choice of disabling features or interacting with the browser much more than you would in a simple screenshot.

If there are too many users on the service, you might be queued to use the next instance. Their “holding page” has awesome drawings and is animated to boot:

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/browserling-queue.png" alt="web page testing tool for multiple browsers" width="300" height="324" />

At the core of Browserling is an up and coming technology from the guys at StackVM. Basically, they are aiming to be able to create VMs on-demand and bring them right into your browser. This allows them to create services such as Browserling, making it easy for anyone to access this technology without having to worry about IP addresses or VNC clients.

The service works mainly as described. However, since each browser is actually running in an Amazon Cloud Computing instance, there is a good possibility that the service may become overloaded if too many people are using it. In that case, you can check out this video which demonstrates the service:

width="560" height="340"> name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nsCWiBMcJlk?fs=1&hl=en_US"> name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nsCWiBMcJlk?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340">

Considering that the service was just released to the public, and is in early beta, it is very promising technology. I did come across some issues where it would stop loading or I would see other websites pop up – these are signs of the early beta and the developers are working to fix all of the issues that have been revealed during this early stage. One thing I did notice was that occasionally past-user’s sites ended up in my windows – so do not post anything “confidential” such as sites you wish to keep private or usernames, passwords, or other personally identifiable information.

I spoke with class="vt-p" href="http://substack.net/">James Halliday, who is one of the creators of Browserling along with class="vt-p" href="http://catonmat.net/">Peteris Krumins, about Browserling and class="vt-p" href="http://stackvm.com/">StackVM. They are creating technologies that allow you to display and interact with desktops in your browser. James said that they “see a lot of promise in the intersection between webapps and server virtualization”, so I expect to see a lot of neat products coming out of this technology in the coming months.

Check out class="vt-p" href="http://browserling.com/">Browserling and tell us what you think! />
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Chip Figures Board Applications are very broad. Basic support IEEE1149.1 standard DSP chips, and circuit board formed a boundary scan chain, to support boundary scan testing.

In the DSP circuit board in such a class IC They are non-boundary scan devices in the circuit board edge Connector And formed by the DSP chip boundary scan chain between. This part of the device functional test difficult. First, the DSP board with an independent timing, we can not separate the external interface by using the traditional method of input test vectors to test; Second, boundary-scan test can only be connected with the DSP chip interconnection pin test short-circuit fault can be detected, but difficult to functional tests.

This paper, boundary-scan test technology with the combination of traditional testing methods for functional testing of these devices provides a new choice. A test method

In IEEE1149.1 standard, providing four mandatory instructions: bypass instruction (BYPASS), sampling instructions (SAMPLE), pre-installed command (PRELOAD), interconnect test instruction (EXTEST). Interconnect testing according to the sampling instructions and directives of the working principle of the use of boundary scan cells can capture and drive pin signals. Using this feature of boundary-scan device can be achieved with a DSP chip on the circuit board as shown in Figure 1 Central African boundary-scan devices send a signal acquisition and incentive vector to the boundary-scan test technology with the combination of traditional testing methods to realize testing of such devices.

This kind of testing can be divided into two situations:

A) as shown in Figure 2, solid line, non-boundary scan input device connected with the edge connector, output and DSP chips. Fault diagnosis using the software, the digital I / O modules produce a stable excitation vector, excitation vector through the edge connector anyone to the non-boundary scan devices, the response vector generated by the boundary-scan devices connected to it (DSP chip) to get through boundary-scan access to the serial output for the response vector and display. According to the working characteristics of the device under test can be analyzed theoretically expected response vector, the vector response obtained compared with the expected response vector, if the comparison results to differ, indicating possible functional device failure.

B) as shown in Figure 2, dotted line, non-boundary scan devices connected to the input and DSP chip, the output is connected with the edge connector. Use of boundary scan test software, test stimulus vectors were related to pin serial shift (with non-boundary scan devices connected to the pin) of the boundary-scan unit, and drive to the pin, the test stimulus into the device under test, the response vector generated by the edge connector from the digital I / O modules to acquire, read by the observation of fault diagnosis software. According to the working characteristics of the device under test can be analyzed theoretically expected response vector, the vector response obtained compared with the expected response vector, if the comparison results to differ, indicating possible functional device failure.

2 Test system components Hardware test system shown in Figure 3. VXI-1394 VXI system uses an external control; zero-slot module for the IEEE1394 serial communication protocol conversion for the VXI protocols; digital I / O module type is DIOM-64, each module has 64 I / O channels, three digital I / O modules provide a total of 192 test channels used to provide incentives to the circuit board under test signal and the output signal acquisition circuit board; adapter board for testing equipment and measured the signal between the matching and to the board under test provide Power supply ; JTAG interface controller signals generated by computer algorithms and standard JTAG signals between the transmission and conversion.

Software consists of software ScanWorks boundary-scan test system, fault diagnosis software TestVee, collection procedures and test response vector output incentive program. ScanWorks for the establishment and implementation of the boundary-scan test, the main features include scan chain test, interconnect test, memory test; TestVee used to control the digital I / O module working status; response vector collection procedures and test incentive program under the output is Development of measuring the actual situation in the circuit.

3 Test validation 3.1 circuit board circuit analysis

Tested plate boundary scan chain is composed of six ADSP-21060, JTAG boundary scan test interface to meet the conditions, but the pin signal definitions and ScanWorks JTAG interface adapter system of different definitions, you must re-configure the connection before the test . The device under test SN54LS245 (D33) in the tested panel of the connections shown in Figure 4. D33 of the control pin 19 (OE) by other non-boundary scan device control, where do ground handling; control pin 1 (DIR) connected to the D36A (54LS244) of 14 feet, D36A control pin connected to the edge connector on, so take advantage of digital I / O modules through the control of its working state, to achieve the working status of the D33′s control.

3.2 response vector collection procedures and testing procedures for the development of export incentives

System provided by ScanWorks Macro language programming. Macro language by a compiler and a parser component, access to source code and the compiler generates an executable program and the output parser to obtain an executable program and perform. To DSP chip BSDL (Boundary Scan Description Language) file based on the response vector acquisition program input pin (INPUT) scanning unit programming, using the SAMPLE command for data collection; test stimulus output procedure output pin (OUT -PUT) scanning unit programming, using the EXTEST instruction to achieve excitation output. SN54LS245 data communication direction control for simultaneous testing of two connections, so DAT0-DAT7 separate response vector collection and testing of incentive program to send programming. To note, six DSP shared data bus, must be 6 DSP’s DAT0-DAT7 pin to do the same operation, so as not to conflict with the bus signal.

3.3 Test verification 1) boundary-scan chain test Link test is normal for other boundary-scan test basis, so the link must be boundary-scan test. Connected properly tested board JTAG port, BSDL file associated with ScanWorks into the establishment of the boundary scan chain, and perform link test operation. Tested, the link works properly.

2) functional tests Determine the working state according to D33, as long as all “0″ and all “1″ There is enough excitation signal detection device A and B communication.

A) verification of one kind of love

style="border: 0px none;margin-left:20px;float:right;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/bigfoot1.jpg" alt="free online simulation games" />When it comes to href="http://makeuseof.com/tags/simulator">simulations, I’m very picky. I remember when I first played Microsoft Flight Simulator, I was so disappointed because the graphics were horrid and the plane was nearly impossible to fly. On the flip side, a few years later I played A-10 Tank Killer and was obsessed with it for months. When it comes to simulations, there are three things that I always look for to gauge quality – landscape graphics, realistic controls and of course the overall atmosphere.

As I was searching for software to review, I went through about five free online simulation games before stumbling upon the one that I’d like to share with you today called href="http://wiki.rigsofrods.com/pages/Portal">Rigs of Rods.

id="more-51695"> /> Now, at MakeUseOf we’ve covered some cool simulations, like href="http://makeuseof.com/tag/feel-the-need-the-need-for-speed-with-google-earths-flight-simulator/">Google Earth Flight Simulator and href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/nemexia-free-online-space-simulation-game/">Nemexia. However, Rigs of Rods isn’t your typical simulation software. It’s not only about cruising through an interesting landscape or test-driving various exotic cars (although that’s available too). The cool thing about Rigs of Rods is that it focuses representing realistic physics.

Rigs of Rods Takes Physics Into Account

The fact that the creators of this free online simulation game took actual physics into account for every little detail is remarkable. According to the website, the makers planned vehicle behavior based on “weight distribution, construction, and/or suspension.” The way planes or boats handle depends upon the physical dimensions, structure and the environment. When you first install the program, make sure to include the “content stream” with the vehicles that you want. Just keep in mind that some of them take a lot of space, and downloading the module can take a very long time during installation.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods1.jpg" alt="free online simulation games"/>

When you first launch the game, you can choose from different landscapes. In every case you will start out standing in front of a vehicle garage. If you’re more interested in a plane or boat, make sure to walk around and check to see whether there are any in the vicinity.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods4.jpg" alt="car driving simulation program" />

When you walk through the garage door, you enter the vehicle menu screen. This is where you can pick from a very wide range of vehicles, including sports cars, trucks, buses, and all-terrain vehicles. For my first vehicles, I chose a huge city bus.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods5.jpg" alt="car driving simulation program"/>

The view when you are inside a vehicle is 3rd person, but you have the dashboard at the base of your window, so you can see current speed, RPMs and more. Driving these vehicles definitely has a lot of realism. Hit the curb and the whole bus bounces just as it would in real life. Drive on a slope that’s too steep, and the whole thing will roll right over.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods6.jpg" alt="truck driving games simulation"/>

Changing landscapes, I decided to cruise for a bit. I chose a nice, large mountainous region and then selected the coolest looking sports car I could find. I have to say, the sound effects are awesome – every time you hit the gas you’ll hear the engine rev. The only problem I found was that the steering was super touchy and I could barely keep the car on the road.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods8.jpg" alt="truck driving games simulation"/>

Switching to a huge 2 ton pick-up truck with double rear tires was a whole different story. Steering wasn’t quite as difficult, and this thing really has some power. Another cool touch to the simulation is that if your vehicle has large exhaust pipes, you’re going to actually see the smoke every time you hit the gas hard.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods9.jpg" alt="truck driving games simulation"/>

And if you have a bit too much fun peeling out and strike a dip in the road, you may end up exactly like I did.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods10.jpg" alt="free simulation games"/>

I wanted to see if handling and behavior changed significantly between vehicles, and sure enough when I chose this monster (literally a monster truck), I found that the vehicle acted exactly as you’d expect a truck like this to behave. It bounced over small hills, climbed slowly up one side and raced down the other. The great thing about the monster truck is that when you flip over, all you have to do is hit the gas hard and it’ll spin and bounce upright again!

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods11.jpg" alt="free simulation games" />

Exploring the simulation a bit further, I changed landscapes to an island and came across this beauty just parked in the middle of a runway. So what did I do?

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rod11.jpg" alt="free simulation games" />

I got in and flew it of course! You may find that the airplane controls take a little getting used to. It took three crashes, two of which the wings actually disintegrated in the air, until I realized that I had to ease off the throttle once I was in the air. You can switch between external and internal views by pressing “C”.

style="text-align: center;"> class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/rods12.jpg" alt="free online simulation games"/>

I have to say that exploring the virtual landscapes with these vehicles is a real blast. Seeing how objects interact and how the vehicles respond to different things is really fun – I could see easily burning several hours some Saturday afternoon playing around with this simulation – and I bet you could too!

Have you ever tried Rigs of Rods? What did you think? Do you know of any other cool, high quality simulator apps? Share your opinion and insight in the comments section below. />
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MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS AND WINDOWS-DEFENDER The new Microsoft Av Scanner Freeware “Microsoft Security Essentials” has been tested with 42 viruses, trojans, worms etc. and compared with the old “Windows Defender”. The new security Tool can remove spyware and found viruses before downloading. It’s really better that Windows-Defender (created 2007, for Windows Vista), but it hasn’t found ten threads. I think it’s not the best, but one of the best Free AV Scanner. It’s really a pity that it doesn’t find fake viruses (joke/hoax) like other scanner. But it’s quite good to remove bad software and trojans! DOWNLOAD FREE AV SCANNER FROM MICROSOFT: www.microsoft.com Video by mischaccc Music by Counter Strike Main Music

Geekbench score : 901 (detail info : browse.geekbench.ca ) including sleep func. also 10.5.4 i installed Leopard on 8Gb SSD just enjoy cf. eeepc still has small lacks because of VERY SLOW ssd. for improvement, change SSD to HDD but i don’t care above that.

Asus EEE PC 900 Vista Vs XP Vs Linux – Boot & Shutdown Test This is the video you have all been requesting, a benchmark between all three systems. After the 3D mark 2003 tests, I was considering a way of benchmarking Linux as well. I did a ray tracing test and a few others but they were not very watchable or YouTube friendly. The test most of you have requested is a straight forward boot test between Linux, XP and Vista. My conclusion is that Linux is still the fastest but not by much. XP works perfectly and very close to Linux and the fact that Vista runs as well as it does at all it great. XP and Linux are very much on par for those of you mulling over which system to buy. The performance difference is negligible when you consider the superior device support XP has over Linux. Anyway, I think all three systems have their merits and detractions so please comment away on your thoughts. Please comment away on your thoughts. Earthling10@hotmail.com Thanks for watching.

Part 1 of a 50 minute tutorial showing you how to use HP Quick Test Professional to test a web based application. Follow the tutorial as a set of automated tests are built for a recruiment portal website, the tests run, and results analysed.

Asus EEE PC 900 Vista Vs XP Vs Linux – Boot & Shutdown Test This is the video you have all been requesting, a benchmark between all three systems. After the 3D mark 2003 tests, I was considering a way of benchmarking Linux as well. I did a ray tracing test and a few others but they were not very watchable or YouTube friendly. The test most of you have requested is a straight forward boot test between Linux, XP and Vista. My conclusion is that Linux is still the fastest but not by much. XP works perfectly and very close to Linux and the fact that Vista runs as well as it does at all it great. XP and Linux are very much on par for those of you mulling over which system to buy. The performance difference is negligible when you consider the superior device support XP has over Linux. Anyway, I think all three systems have their merits and detractions so please comment away on your thoughts. Please comment away on your thoughts. Earthling10@hotmail.com Thanks for watching.