I’ve been given a copy of RoboForm Pro to try out, installing it and its accompanying Firefox add-on. But as I now try it on my computer, I can’t help but wonder, how secure is this program? The official FAQ claims that saved passwords are encrypted with strong algorithms like AES, but it’s honestly worryingly quiet about what steps are taken to protect your passwords from Siber Systems (the makers of RoboForm).

How do I know that they aren’t secretly pulling my passwords through their own software? I know encryption like AES is supposed to protect the data from anyone, including …read more

A team of engineers headed by Josef Mair at the Technical University of Munich, Germany have developed fastening technology called Metaklett. Inspired by the hook-and-loop concept of Velcro, each square meter of Metaklett can support up to 35 tons under temperatures of until 800 degrees centigrade, reports the NewScientist. Like Velcro, Metaklett is reusable, in the sense that two of these 0.2 millimeter thick metal strips can be pulled apart without tools and refastened later on.
Personally, the potential of Metaklett is endless. Velcro itself has numerous applications, mainly multiple attachment-detachment requirements like bag covers or handles, the strap loop of …read more

Coinciding with the release of Windows 7 release candidate 1 (today for MSDN and Technet subscribers and on the 5th for the laymen), NVIDIA has released drivers for the OS. The package comes in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors The tech-heads over at Anandtech declare version 185.81 “much more polished” than 185.71, released for the first beta version of Windows 7.
Why is this development important? Well, anyone wanting to run their NVIDIA graphics cards properly on Windows 7 will obviously need this. Which cards are supported? Let’s take a look at the release notes (a more detailed version is available here):
This …read more

Email undo is a great feature. But it needs to be available on-the-go as well. And, Gmail still lacks one feature I’d like to see on email clients in general.
As explained by User Experience Designer Michael Leggett, Gmail holds your message for five seconds, and I agree: that’s enough time for your sensible self to kick in, and immediately pull back messages written from the hip. And don’t you hate accidentally sending confident info to the wrong person? That’s something that I’ve done at least twice, unfortunately.
But it isn’t clear if this new features is available on mobile platforms. At …read more

Finally, Android G1 owners can now edit their Google Doc spreadsheets on their mobile browser, reports TechCrunch. Jonathan Rochelle, the senior product manager Google Spreadhseets, proudly showed off his team’s latest creation.

PhotoRec’s mission is simple, but crucial to any careless or absent-minded computer user. Through its dos-like interface, PhotoRec allows users to recover deleted photos from any sort of drive, whether the hard disk, an SD, or a thumbdrive.
It took me a while to recover photos from a 4GB SD card (about two hours). Luckily, I accidentally lost photos of an event the previous night, and a friend telling me about PhotoRec was like mana falling from heaven. I was able to recover said pictures, and even images I took months ago!
That being said, users who aren’t used to a dos …read more

That HP w2228h seemed a bit lonely—especially after the XPS M1330 fiasco—so I decided to kit together a budget gaming PC. Those 1680 x 1050 of LCD-driven goodness seemed more suited for entertainment after all. Taking a few cues from extremetech.com, modifying the setup according to parts availability, I now write with this with my new speedy machine.
Here’s what I installed after Windows and the hardware drivers (in this particular order):

Firefox
Flash Player Plugin (for Firefox)
AVG Free Edition
iTunes (comes with QuickTime)
Picasa
Yahoo Messenger
Skype
µTorrent
FileZilla
VLC
Totally Free Burner
Adobe Reader

Now I’m off to install productivity applications. Perhaps later on I’ll finally progress to the games. Have …read more

Well, if you have no qualms about piracy that is. Hacknmod.com recently linked to a compilation of scanned coding books, and their post has already been picked up by the big blogs. Real appealing for those who live online, since:
These books have everything you’ll ever need to become a master hacker using PHP, Linux/Unix, Java, Perl, MySQL, and Python to name a few.
Which begs the question: how tempting is it download the books (found here)? And how soon will the copyright owners go after the website, now that the cat’s out of the bag?

Cool Tool recently reviewed the Ty-Rap Zip Ties, which are designed to keep the cables in any computing/home entertainment environment neat. You neatly bunch cables together, then use zip ties to make sure the cables remain neat and together. The verdict? “…expensive, but worth it.”