While on my recent trip I picked up the June 2010 issue of PC Plus; in it they glowingly recommended a product called DriverEasy.  I was on vacation and although PC Plus is the most expensive British tech mag import I was in Paris and splurged, but that’s an aside; back to DriverEasy.  It is a tool that scans, downloads and installs device drivers for your Windows system, all for free.  You can upgrade to the paid version that provides device driver backups and faster downloads.  I took the free …

Setting up a PC for a friend and they needed some sort of backup.  My first thought is always Windows Home Server but this was a single PC and the extra cost couldn’t be justified.  I turned again to Macrium Reflect Free Edition: the user had an older 200 GB Maxtor external USB hard drive that would hold the backup files.  To be fair I first tried Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition and ToDo Backup but neither one did exactly what I wanted: a backup that could be …

Eventually every PC user comes to the point when they try to save something on their PC and there isn’t enough space.  We all react the same way: what’s filled my hard drive?  It seemed for a while gargantuan hard drives with 1 to 2 TB were the norm and we could never fill that space, but now SSDs are the hot item and most of us can only afford something 40 to 120 GB.  Or you store everything on a server and only run the operating system and applications …

Update 16-Mar-10.  Forfiles command line updated to show @file instead of @path; testing and working.
Update 02-Aug-10.  Download location for ForFiles changed since Microsoft CodePlex page has been removed.

I needed a simple and free backup program for a single purpose PC that chugged along day in day out.  It ran Windows XP Professional and had a total used space of 8 GB on a 40 GB hard drive.  For convenience I installed a second 40 GB hard drive that would hold the backup files. Since it was always running the program …

Just finished the February 2010 issue of PC World.  They had an article called “The State Of Windows 7 Satisfaction” about early adopters of Windows 7 and their general feedback about installation and features.  Information was gathered from 615 people at www.technologizer.com.

Something really jumped out at me: 64% rated themselves as Windows experts and 41.3% had to resolve driver issues.  To me any Windows expert would search out, verify and download all drivers for a new operating system before installing it.  That was certainly the case when I installed the …

Blast from the past: originally published August 28th 2001.
After a week of furious mouse and keyboard movement I’ve finished Max Payne. If you have any interest in PC gaming, you’ve heard it mentioned. Amazing visuals wrapped around a compelling story and straight forward action. I tried to contain myself, but this title is a sensational asset to any first person shooter’s library. Let me break it down by gameplay, graphics and environment.
You are Max Payne, tough as nails cop who is pursuing the killers of his family. I don’t want …

I’ve gushed extensively about the wonder that is Windows Home Server.  I recently gave Windows Small Business Server 2008 a spin to check it’s backup handling but it left me wanting: no current Windows platform backup program gets as much done at such a low cost as Windows Home Server.
For the small business backup is key.  You probably have file sharing set up on your local file server and nightly backups of that data, most likely to a removable hard drive or NAS device.  You may even have a dedicated …

To create some buzz for the upcoming Red Alert 3 Electronic Arts has released the original Red Alert for free.
Command & Conquer Red Alert

Can’t favor one system over another, so Dungeon Siege: Legends Of Aranna has occupied my free time for the last three weeks. Some may remember the original title from a few years ago: this is a follow up slash expansion, somewhere right in the middle. Legends Of Aranna follows the same game style: a third person point and click fighting game based on a fantasy genre, like Dungeons and Dragons or Diablo. You work your way through the world, fighting monsters, acquiring new weapons, armor and equipment, adding teammates, trying to finish various …

Rome Total War ( RTW ) is the best game I’ve ever played. There, I said it. I could quantify it by saying I love strategy games and this is the best of that genre, but the first statement holds true. Creative Assembly’s last game Medieval Total War also received a glowing review from yours truly. A combination of turn based strategy and real time strategy bridge genres and make a compelling title.
The time is more or less the rise of the Roman empire. You choose one of three houses and receive missions from …