Some would say keeping your windows up to date is essential in keeping it free of the newest, worst viruses and the like. Others would say that updating your windows is overemphasized, unneeded and a waste of time and with the windows zero day attack is it safe it use windows XP update? do you need to protect your PC?

Microsoft has ways of detecting whether your version of windows is actually store-bought, or pirated. With so many copies of pirated windows on the market, such a move by Microsoft is  required in order to continue cornering the OS market. For instance, when SP 1 (and 2) came out, you had to have an authentic windows serial code in order to download the update. There are of course ways of getting around this, but it deterred much illegal upgrading to the new service packs. Had you have had a pirated copy of windows (and the majority does), then you could have downloaded a copy of windows SP 1/2, but you would have had to completely re-install and possibly format in order to install it.

If you had an original windows serial code that came with the product, you could have just downloaded the packs from the windows update servers.

So yes, having a non-pirated copy of windows is a convenience. However, some would remember a stunning virus that was released not too long ago; MyDoom. It managed to find its ways onto the Microsoft windows update servers. When you got the virus, you would have 30 seconds before the computer shut down. Should you have formatted, just to re-install windows with automatic updates turned on (and they are by default) you would get the virus again abd now there is the windows XP zero day attack that works through windows XP support on your PC.

Not to mention Windows Updates are a large time factor. Some updates (especially the first time you use Windows Update) are colossal, and the download speeds are not always at their greatest.

Now, you ask, what exactly is Windows XP Update? It’s simply Microsoft engineers working hard to fix bugs, problems and backdoors in Windows. What are these problems, you ask? Well, when Microsoft released windows it wasn’t exactly a perfect OS. With every version of Windows, it becomes more and more hi-tech. But there has always been problems with Windows being insecure.

The only way to find that Windows has a certain vulnerability is first for that vulnerability to be exploited. Eg, Microsoft using white hat hackers (the good guys) to breach windows, or for a hacker to break into a version of Windows and it is reported.

For a home desktop, even for a home network, windows updates really are that important. No one wants to get hacked or find their computer full of malware.  Should you use a simple firewall, even the windows in-house firewall, you are protected from ony a few threats.  Windows Updates cannot really help prevent all attacks, but they can prevent hackers, crackers, viruses and the like from entering their network computers from faults in the windows code or browser and at the moment windows update is safe from the new windows XP zero day attack.

So to answer the question – should I use windows update? the answer is yes. You should also download a system scanner to be safe to check your PC for malware and spyware that can get onto your PC without you knowing. Click here to scan your PC now.

Here we are at the final boss sequence. I hear people say this is very hard with Zero all the time, and I can never figure out why. I beat the first two forms without taking any damage, which isn’t exactly anything special. I took some damage in the final part, most from that pesky yellow floating head that I often have trouble dodging. Sigma’s gun toting form on the right side is ridiculously easy though, so long as you remember that Ryuenjin is once again your best friend. I was a little slow with the Sigma head form on the left side though, partly because I can never reliably do damage to him during his debris spitting attack without taking damage myself, so I usually just wait it out in the upper right corner. As for his other attack, Shippuuga is pretty useful while you’re dashing away from the spikes. I also avoided using the “dash cancel” technique during this battle (and the entire playthrough). So yeah. Thus concludes my X4 playthrough with Zero. It was kinda fun to make, and hopefully someone out there struggling with Zero may benefit from it. Thanks for watching! — These videos are not intended to be a speed run or perfect playthrough of the game. It’s mainly just to demonstrate my techniques (which aren’t really anything special) for completing the game with Zero. I mostly made this because I was bored, and because after hearing people talk about how hard this game is with Zero all the time, I figured it’d be convenient to have video demonstrations of how I …

And here we have the fight with the General. My least favorite part of the game, mainly because it’s just so tedious with Zero. This time wasn’t too bad, though. I did fairly well for most of the battle, but I made a some sloppy mistakes at the end. As for getting to the boss, I don’t usually try very hard to avoid damage there because I know there’s a full life refill waiting for me at the end. And I’m lazy. — These videos are not intended to be a speed run or perfect playthrough of the game. It’s mainly just to demonstrate my techniques (which aren’t really anything special) for completing the game with Zero. I mostly made this because I was bored, and because after hearing people talk about how hard this game is with Zero all the time, I figured it’d be convenient to have video demonstrations of how I do things handy. I usually tend to make excessively stupid mistakes as soon as I try to record anything, but I think these turned out decently. This is the original PlayStation (PS1) version of Mega Man X4, running on a PS2 connected to my PC. Record with Windows Movie Maker 2 in Windows XP SP2.

I took damage in a few places where I really shouldn’t have in this one (including once during the boss fight), but otherwise it went fairly well. — These videos are not intended to be a speed run or perfect playthrough of the game. It’s mainly just to demonstrate my techniques (which aren’t really anything special) for completing the game with Zero. I mostly made this because I was bored, and because after hearing people talk about how hard this game is with Zero all the time, I figured it’d be convenient to have video demonstrations of how I do things handy. I usually tend to make excessively stupid mistakes as soon as I try to record anything, but I think these turned out decently. This is the original PlayStation (PS1) version of Mega Man X4, running on a PS2 connected to my PC. Record with Windows Movie Maker 2 in Windows XP SP2.

No particularly notable mistakes during the stage itself, although I was a little slow in a couple places. I made the inexcusable mistake of taking damage once during the boss fight, though. blarg. — These videos are not intended to be a speed run or perfect playthrough of the game. It’s mainly just to demonstrate my techniques (which aren’t really anything special) for completing the game with Zero. I mostly made this because I was bored, and because after hearing people talk about how hard this game is with Zero all the time, I figured it’d be convenient to have video demonstrations of how I do things handy. I usually tend to make excessively stupid mistakes as soon as I try to record anything, but I think these turned out decently. This is the original PlayStation (PS1) version of Mega Man X4, running on a PS2 connected to my PC. Record with Windows Movie Maker 2 in Windows XP SP2.

Part three PC Tools Spyware Doctor with Antivirus 2010 7.0 vs Zero Day Malware

Many little browser apps have surfaced even as our world has been flooded by news and information. These browser tools can be called browsing assistants or search assistants. Their one point agenda – help us find more web content.

Glydo also does just that. This Firefox addon automatically detects what we are browsing and then it brings us related web content.

Glydo sources these contents from the web, RSS Feeds, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, Amazon and a host of other sites and displays it like a headline ticker in the status bar.

Add-ons like SimilarWeb and Xmarks are helpful for discovering similar websites. Browsing tools like Headup and Glue have a narrower focus. Combined or alone these browser tools not only make our browsing richer but also faster as they take the onus of giving us new and relevant web content within a click. Glydo does the same job in a slightly different avatar.

Glydo Defined

Glydo, in their own words is as an associative content discovery service. It discovers web content relevant to what you are interested in right now and delivers that in the form of recommendations. To achieve all this, Glydo uses semantic and contextual discovery technology to analyze the webpage currently being read. Based on that, Glydo sources relevant information from the other sources.

Installing Glydo as a Firefox Plugin

Glydo gets installed on the status bar of Firefox. The new content is displayed in an unobtrusive way and you can go forward or back through the headlines using the arrow buttons. Glydo gives you a few more buttons to push give you pop-ups with the related content listings.

And what would any tool be without the omnipresent Share button. There is no dearth of ways to share a liked page.

The only other button is for the settings which let you customize three options.

Gliding with Glydo

Let’s take Glydo around the block a few times and discover for ourselves what else is there to read and share.

Glydo gives the best results in web pages with a single post or article. Quite obviously, the pages where you have many abstracts of articles which leave more to read will give you widely differing results. That may not be all relevant, so take Glydo to the page with the entire post and the quality of results changes.

Here I am on a webpage page with a product review of an Android phone. Glydo gathers the related items quickly and displays it as a linked headline. I can scroll through them using the arrow buttons. I can also push the individual pop-up buttons and browse to the related stories I want to read. The pop-up displays the headline, the news source, the time or date of the story and the share icon. Auto-notifications keep up abreast of the stories.

The related web content was ‘related’ and not off the mark. In some of my test runs, the tweets appear to be dated so offhand I think that they are ordered according to significance rather than real time.

Does Glydo make for zero-effort browsing?

Yes, it does because I don’t have to go hunting for related content. The only grouse I have with the add-on is that it limits the stories to a maximum of four (as far as I could see). A limited number of new sources is okay for casual browsing but when it comes to more in depth browsing (for research), a few more links would definitely add up.

Perhaps, the later versions can incorporate a feature that would let us set the number we want for each web content type. More real time results from Twitter would be another point on the wish list.

Glydo does not take up much of browser estate. Confined to the status bar, it brings up the new web sources quite swiftly. Relevancy might differ from page to page, but on the whole the semantic technology holds up.

Which addon have you picked for discovering new webpages? Will you give Glydo an inch of space? Let us know.

Glydo ver. 0.9.20 can also be installed from Mozilla’s Addon Gallery.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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