Tag Archives: software

Chrome’s Coolest Feature: File Upload Progress Indicator

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
11

Google Chrome 4.0 went live a couple of weeks ago, and it has a feature that’s been missing in most mainstream browsers ever since the Web was invented: a progress bar that actually shows, well, the progress of uploads. It’s really frustrating to be uploading a large file to a website or as an attachment to an email or forum post and not know whether or not it’s taking this long because it’s just slow or because it’s really stuck.

Chrome 4.0 now shows the status of file uploads as a percentage, making it very clear just how quickly (or not) your uploads are progressing – and it’s something that all browsers should add ASAP. Many social websites rely heavily on uploads of photos, videos, music, and other files and are forced to implement nasty workarounds (such as using Flash upload forms) to present a more user-friendly upload system.

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Windows 7 Recovery Disk and Repair Disc Download

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
590

Download our recovery and repair disk for Microsoft Windows 7 (also available for Windows 8, Vista, XP or Server editions) that can be used to access system restore tools.

It comes with our exclusive Automated Repair feature, option to access System Restore, tools to backup and recover your most important files, a built-in antivirus scanner and a command-line for advanced recovery options.

Download recovery disk for Windows 7

Looking for recovery disks for other Windows versions?

Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows 7

Our recovery disk supports x86 and x64 platforms and all Microsoft Windows 7 editions, including 32-bit and 64-bit editions: Ultimate, Enterprise, Professional, Home Premium, Home Basic and Starter.

Easy Recovery Essentials (or EasyRE), is a 55 to 135 MiB ISO image ready to be downloaded.

You can burn this ISO image to any CDs, DVDs or USB drives and boot from it to recover or repair your broken computer. We provided instructions on how to do this below, see Burn to CD, DVD or USB.

With the Easy Recovery Essentials you can (see list of features here):

  • Automatically find and fix errors using Automated Repair
  • Recover your PC from infections using its built-in antivirus
  • Restore your PC to a working state
  • Access and backup your most important data (like documents, pictures, music, videos and so on)

Easy Recovery Essentials comes with powerful tools that computer technicians or IT experts can use straight away:

  • Fully-featured visual partition editor
  • Scriptable command line
  • Advanced recovery options
  • Web browser

You can read more about EasyRE for computer repair professionals here.

What is a recovery and repair disk

Windows 7 LogoMajor PC manufacturers no longer give customers a real Windows 7 installation DVD along with their purchase of a computer.

A Windows 7 installation DVD can be used to recover your PC, not just install a Windows 7 copy. The DVD has a “recovery center” that gives you options to Automated Recovery (attempts to fix automatically any errors found), System Restore (restores your computer to the last working state) or you can access a command-line for advanced recovery options.

Instead, customers are expected to create a recovery media themselves – on a CD, DVD or USB drive.

Your computer’s hard drive might have a recovery partition added by the manufacturer, but what happens when your PC or Windows isn’t working or you’ve lost the disks you had?

If you can’t boot into Windows or your PC isn’t working, only a bootable recovery and repair CD/DVD/USB can save you.

Download recovery disk for Windows 7

Easy Recovery Essentials, our recovery and repair disk, uses a non-destructive repair process that can recover your PC without formatting your hard drive or reinstalling Windows.

It comes with our powerful Automated Repair feature, an antivirus scanner built-in, the ability to access System Restore, tools to browse the Internet (a web browser) and back-up your most important files (documents, videos, pictures, music and so on), memory diagnostics and a command-line tools for advanced options.

Some of its features include (see list of features here):

  • One-click Windows repair
  • System Restore
  • Web browser
  • File backup
  • Antivirus scanner
  • Partition editor

Update: Please note that this disk is no longer free, due to licensing restrictions imposed upon us.

Download Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows 7

Our recovery disk supports x86 and x64 platforms and all Microsoft Windows 7 editions:

  • Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit editions)
  • Windows 7 Enterprise (32-bit and 64-bit editions)
  • Windows 7 Professional (32-bit and 64-bit editions)
  • Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit and 64-bit editions)
  • Windows 7 Home Basic (32-bit and 64-bit editions)
  • Windows 7 Starter (32-bit edition) (Starter is available only in 32-bit)

It works with any Windows 7 that has Service Packs installed:

  • Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

The disk is in ISO image format that you can burn to any CDs, DVDs or USB sticks and then use it as a bootable recovery CD/DVD/USB. We provided step-by-step instructions how to burn the ISO image below.

It’s a 120 MiB download file.

You cannot use a recovery or repair disk to install or reinstall Windows 7.

Burn to CD, DVD or USB

NeoSmart Technologies has published a guide on how to burn an ISO image to CD or DVD. This ISO image can be burnt to any CDs or DVDs and even USB drives.

You can burn the ISO with your favorite burning program. We published step-by-step instructions and guides on how to do this:

If you prefer to have a recovery USB instead, follow our guide on how to make a EasyRE recovery USB drive here.

Compatible with PC manufacturers

Our recovery and repair disk works with any desktop computers, workstations, laptops, notebooks, ultrabooks, netbooks or servers computers from all major PC manufacturers, Dell, Asus, IBM and more.

It works with older or no longer on the market PC brands, such as Gateway Computers or eMachines PCs.

Dell, HP

Dell recovery disk

This disk is compatible with Dell PCs and its manufactured series:

  • Adamo
  • Inspiron
  • Studio
  • Vostro
  • XPS
  • Latitude

Do you have a Dell computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Dell.

HP recovery disk

Easy Recovery Essentials works with your HP computer, including any of these series and models:

  • ENVY
  • EliteBook
  • Essential Home
  • Pavilion
  • x2 models

Do you have a HP computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for HP.

Asus, Acer

Asus recovery disk

It works with any Asus computer model that runs any of the following Windows versions:

  • Windows 8
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Server 2003, Server 2008 and Server 2012

Do you have an Asus computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Asus.

Acer recovery disk

Acer users can download our disk. It’s compatible with all Acer models:

  • Desktops models: Aspire M and T, Aspire X and Predator G
  • Notebooks models: Aspire R, Aspire V3 and Aspire E
  • Netbooks and ultra-thin computer models: Aspire S7, Aspire S5, Aspire S3, Aspire P, Aspire M, Aspire V7, Aspire V5
  • Netbooks models: Aspire One

Do you have an Acer computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Acer.

Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung

Lenovo

Lenovo computers are supported by our disk, including any of the following series:

  • Laptops models: ThinkPad and IdeaPad
  • Desktops models: Thinkcentre and Ideacentre

Essentials series for laptops and desktop PCs are also supported.

Do you have a Lenovo computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Lenovo.

Toshiba

The disk is compatible with any Toshiba computer model: Satellite, Qosmio, Portege, Tecra, Kira family series and All-in-One desktop series.

Do you have a Toshiba computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Toshiba.

Samsung

Samsung users can download our disk. It is compatible with any Samsung laptops or desktops:

  • ATIV Book, Gaming and Business PC series for laptops
  • ATIV One for All-in-One desktops

IBM, Compaq, Gateway, eMachines

IBM

Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer division in 2005. You can download Easy Recovery Essentials if you own a IBM computer.

It is compatible with IBM desktops and laptops models, like the ThinkPad series.

Compaq

The Compaq company was acquired by HP in 2002.

It is compatible with Compaq notebooks and desktops, including the Compaq Presario series.

Gateway and eMachines

Gateway Computers was acquired by Acer in 2007. If you happen to have a Gateway computer, you can download our disk. It is compatible with its manufactured series:

  • Series SX, DX and One ZX for desktop systems
  • NE and NV series for notebooks
  • LT series for netbooks

Do you have a Gateway computer running Windows 7? Read our recovery and restore guide for Gateway.

eMachines computers were available on sale until 2004 when Gateway Computers (above) brought the company. Gateway was acquired in 2007, but the eMachines brand was used until 2012.

If you own a computer from eMachines, you can download our disk as it is compatible with eMachines PCs.

Disk for Windows 8, Vista, XP or Server editions

Easy Recovery Essentials is compatible with other Windows versions, not just 7.

Windows 8

Read more about our recovery disk for Windows 8. It supports Windows 8 and its update, Windows 8.1.

Download for Windows 8.

Windows Vista

Read more about our recovery disk for Windows Vista. Easy Recovery Essentials supports all Windows Vista editions, from Vista Starter to Vista Ultimate, and the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Download for Windows Vista.

Windows XP and Server 2003, 2008 and 2012

Windows XP is supported by Easy Recovery Essentials. This includes Service Packs of XP too: SP1, SP2, SP3.

Easy Recovery Essentials supports all Windows Server editions, such as Server 2003, Server 2008 and Server 2012 and the updated versions: Server 2003 R2, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012 R2.

Support

Easy Recovery Essentials supports all Service Packs (SP) of your Windows:

  • Windows XP SP1, XP SP2, XP SP3
  • Windows Vista SP1, Vista SP2
  • Windows 7 SP1, 7 SP2
  • Windows 8, 8.1
  • Windows Server 2003 R2, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012 R2

Download Easy Recovery Essentials from here.

Please don’t ask for help below, it’ll get real cluttered real soon!

Open a support thread at https://neosmart.net/forums/ and we’ll help you resolve your problem ASAP.

Make Old Java Applications Fully Snow Leopard Compatible

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
31

If you have a bunch of old Java applications lying around in your Mac’s /Applications folder, chances are, you’ll come across this message box when you attempt to run them on Snow Leopard:

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

Personally, I try my best to avoid legacy Mac OS apps and haven’t found the need to install Rosetta on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as of yet. Whether you have need of Rosetta for your other applications or not, there’s no reason you should be running your Java-based applications through the Rosetta environment — they’ll run just fine on native Intel Java on OS X… with just a little bit of a prod in the right direction.

Java applications are CPU agnostic (hence the “write once, run everywhere” Java motto). The Java applets you download and use can theoretically be run on any PC machine that supports Java; be it Intel, PPC, ARM, SPARC, or more. The native Java virtual machine will translate the “Java bytecode” into the equivalent machine assembly that your PC uses and understands, and therefore, Java code written for legacy Mac OS should run just fine on Snow Leopard

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Windows 7 Discontinues Ultimate Extras

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
31

Users attempting to upgrade from Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition to Windows 7 Build 7100 (the unofficial RC1 release leak), are greeted with the following "compatibility warning" dialog:

Windows 7 has discontinued Vista's "Ultimate Extras"

Windows Vista Ultimate Edition’s "Ultimate Extras" have been a constant source of derision and anger from Vista users ever since its release 3 years ago. If the blog posts are to be believed, millions of users purchased Windows Vista Ultimate Edition in the hope that the added-value "Ultimate Extras" package – which was left un-described and of unknown worth at the time – would turn out to be a good investment.

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On the matter of Firefox and memory leaks…

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
24

Recently our original article/rant on Firefox’s legendary memory abuse has seen an increase in comments and views; and I had intended to post the following comment in light of the article’s rebirth and the ensuing discussions in the comments.

The reply turned out to be longer than I’d originally intended, so here it is as its own post.

I’ll try to be as objective as possible in this reply:

The most important thing for frustrated end users to keep in mind is that Mozilla/Firefox cannot be held responsible for cases where incorrectly written plugins and/or extensions cause Firefox to abuse system memory – that’s the trade-off between empowering developers and keeping the code squeaky clean.

Most of the cases reported are indeed caused by one or more extensions or plugins gone awry, doing something they shouldn’t be doing, or something they don’t know how to do properly. Some of the most popular plugins for Firefox are notorious for their memory leaks; but few users realize just how dangerous they can be, and that the Firefox devs cannot really do anything about it.

At the same time, there can be no doubt that Firefox has some memory leaks in the codebase itself. They’re clearly not easily reproducible and they don’t happen very readily nor often enough because the developers have clearly spared no effort in their attempts to address this problem for once and for all. But they’re there, nevertheless.

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Does it GTK/QT/Win32 Really Matter for Chrome?

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
8

128px-GoogleChromeLogo.pngA recent article on OSNews highlights the changes expected to come in Google’s Chrome 2.0 for Windows and the progress being made on the Linux and OS X fronts for Google’s new browser.

In the article, Ben Goodger, lead Chrome UI developer, states

[Google avoids] cross platform UI toolkits because while they may offer what superficially appears to be a quick path to native looking UI on a variety of target platforms, once you go a bit deeper it turns out to be a bit more problematic.” [… Your applications end up] speaking with a foreign accent.

But there’s something we’re not getting here. Obviously given enough brilliant programmers and a good team lead to keep the different codebases in sync, going with native APIs is the better approach. But the reasons Goodger is offering aren’t very convincing.

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ToolTipFixer 2.0 Released!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
8

NeoSmart Technologies first released ToolTipFixer to great acclaim last June, over a year ago now. Since then, the downloads have kept on pouring in – along with a number of suggestions that we’ve taken to heart and hopefully implemented in a way that will please our users.

You can now download ToolTipFixer 2.0 which has a number of changes and improvements based on the feedback we’ve received during the past year. First, for those of you that aren’t familiar with ToolTipFixer, it’s a nifty “patch” for a very frustrating bug in Windows which winds up rendering tooltips behind the taskbar, leaving them unreadable and generally annoying the user to no end:

ToolTipFixer sits silently and invisibly in the background, intercepting this problem and fixing it as it happens – letting you read those tooltips and use your PC the way you should be able to.

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Windows Isn’t For Gamers Anymore

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
15

For the past decade-and-a-half, “Windows” has been synonymous with “PC Gaming” – after all, no other PC platform has managed to satiate the undying hunger gamers are quite famous for. But now it seems that Windows is on the verge of losing its distinction as the gaming platform of choice – with nothing but Microsoft’s own machinations to blame.

Despite PC users’ widely-varying taste and preference in operating systems and platforms, gamers need Windows. In fact, one of the biggest reason people around the globe tend to dual-boot is their undying love for gaming and the fact that no other OS out there can boast the wide range of gaming titles and genres available for their platform like Windows can. The traditional choice faced by most non-Windows users has been to either install and dual-boot Windows or bite the built and buy a gaming console – ask us, we would know.

But this is all about to change, thanks to Microsoft’s reckless abandon for one of its few truly-loyal userbases.

When Microsoft first began its frenzied Vista marketing campaign in 2006, one of the points it focused on most and repeated over and over again was just how big of a gaming revolution Windows Vista was. Gaming was a large part of the Vista WOW campaign, but it has since failed to disappoint. But this isn’t an article about Vista, it’s about how Windows is poised to lose its gaming advantage if Microsoft doesn’t get its act together sometime soon.

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Firefox 3 is Still a Memory Hog

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
506

One of the biggest “improvements” that Mozilla claims has made its way into Firefox 3 is improved memory usage, in particular, the vanquishing of memory leaks:

Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.

We’re sorry to have to break it to you, but if you thought it was too good to be true you were right. Firefox still uses a lot of memory – way too much memory for a web browser.

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Want UAC-Free iReboot? You got it: iReboot 1.1 released!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
61

Back in August of 2007, NeoSmart Technologies released iReboot 1.0 – a tiny application that sits quietly and unobtrusively in the taskbar and is used to select which OS you’d like to reboot into.

iReboot isn’t by any means a major application, but it’s gathered a pretty strong following over the months, mostly by people interested in boosting productivity (or increasing laziness) to the max. But there was one flaw in iReboot that made all the hard work we put into making it as unobtrusive and minimalistic as possible almost meaningless: if you had UAC enabled, iReboot will not run automatically at startup, no matter what you do.

This behavior comes as a result of the architecture that Microsoft used to secure Windows Vista, which doesn’t allow for applications requiring admin approval to run at startup. It doesn’t matter what your application does or if you absolutely trust it beyond the shadow of the doubt, Windows Vista simply won’t let an application that runs in elevated privileges mode to launch at startup – end of story.

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