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Users of pirated Windows Vista will soon discover that their warez installation being rendered useless via a “black screen of death”. Here’s the email obtained by:

“Good afternoon, as of this week, Microsoft has activated a function in Vista called ‘Reduced Functionality.’ This is a specific function in Vista that effectively disables nongenuine copies of Windows. Therefore anyone who has a pirated copy of Vista will experience:

A black screen after one hour of browsing
No start menu or task bar
No desktop

Please communicate this antipiracy initiative from Microsoft to your resellers — note this function has only just been activated in Vista worldwide and therefore any issues with nongenuine versions will start to arise from now onward.”

So, users of pirated Vista out there; it’s time to go legit. Alternatively, you could suck it in and get yourself acquainted with a better operating system

In my work, I have to read PDF files on an almost daily basis. From invoices, to manuals, eBooks and everything in between. Which is why I curse the day Adobe released Adobe Reader 8 to the public. This product, although free, is a classic example of software with a severe case of featuritis. For God’s sake, it’s supposed to be a PDF reader, not some programming IDE!

Everything about Adobe Reader reeks of bloatware stench:

1. The massive 30MB+ download size
2. The bundling of unrelated software
3. The strenuously long loading time to open the simplest of PDF files

After a few days of using Adobe Reader 8, I decided enough was enough. Viewing PDFs (or rather, the stupid Adobe Reader splashscreen) shouldn’t take so much of my time. If Linux has a few dozen PDF readers, surely there are some lightweight free ones for Windows.

One of the first Google search result for free pdf reader was Foxit Reader. Read through the web site and noted that it is in fact free of charge and not bundled with spyware.

There is a paid version which has more goodies such as built in editor and other cool PDF manipulation functions, but I passed because I’m only interested in having a lightweight PDF reader to replace Adobe Reader.

After installing Foxit Reader, I immediately opened one of the bigger PDF files I had on my desktop; an 8.2MB user’s guide for a popular software. To my delight, the document opened almost immediately! I’m sold! Foxit Reader is now officially the PDF Reader of choice for me on Windows.

If you are a Windows user who happen to read lots of PDF files, whether for business or leisure, you just got to use Foxit Reader for all your PDF-reading needs.

Believe me, just by using Foxit Reader you’d be able to free up more time for more productive activities.

Perhaps this move will result in better Linux drivers for ATI graphics cards. It does seem to be a step in the right direction by AMD if it’s really implimented.

I’ve always wanted to check out some of the higher spec’d ATI graphics cards but have always refrained from actually purchasing them due to reading about so many problems getting them to play nice with Linux.

If this news is true, then I’d probably be getting an ATI GPU for my next purchase

When it comes to web statistics, I’ve always been an advocate of the “Only server logs are trustworthy” principle. I still stand firm on this opinion. Recently, I installed Google Analytics here and on ServerBuzz.com. I realized that my life as a webmaster would have been much better if I had installed Google Analytics on my web sites much, much earlier.

Read the rest of Install Google Analytics If You Haven’t Done It Yet »

I’ve accepted a ReviewMe offer to check out Say The Time, a Windows application that claims to help us get organised - the fun and easy way. Features of Say The Time include:

• Audio reading of the current time
• Customizable reminders
• Definable taskbar display modes
• Synchronization with time servers
• Built-in calendar
• Stopwatch and countdown timers
• International time viewer

On the surface, Say The Time looks like a pretty simple application. The objective of my review is to see whether it lives up to its claim of helping users get organized in a fun and easy way.

Read the rest of Review: Say The Time, A Time Management And Synchronization Tool »