Many users laud iTunes for its easy-to-use interface and seamless integration with the iPod, but the digital-music jukebox isn't perfect. One of the chief complaints about the software is its inability to automatically monitor folders for new music. Not that adding new music in the program is difficult--simply open it up, click File, then select Add Folder to Library.
But going through this process each time you add music to a folder on your hard drive can be tedious, especially if you organize your digital media in various locations. Wouldn't it be much simpler if you could monitor exactly the folders you want (and none of the ones you don't) by just opening an app? Even better: let the software do it automatically in the background and you won't even need to lift a finger after the initial setup. This tutorial will help you do just that.
Cost: Free, but a one-time 7.50 Euro registration fee will be required for truly automatic monitoring
Level: Beginner
Time commitment: 5 to 10 minutes to set up folders
System requirements: Windows
Alarm.com's iPhone app lets you see what's going on at home--even when you're not there.
Ever wish you could disarm your alarm system while sitting in your driveway? Or check in on, say, the cat while you're out of town? Alarm.com's new iPhone app lets you do all that and more. It's a freebie for Alarm.com customers.
Designed for homes and businesses alike, Alarm.com's systems (which are sold and installed by various third-party dealers) rely on wireless sensors and GSM/GPRS networks. In other words, they're highly connected.
The eponymous app gives you full control over your system, allowing you to arm or disarm it from just about anywhere. That could come in mighty handy when you're halfway to the airport and realize you forgot to arm the sucker (or just can't remember if you did).
It also provides a wealth of monitoring tools. You can get real-time updates on doors and windows, watch live and recorded video feeds (assuming your system has cameras, natch), and review "event histories." (When did the kids get home from school? When did the maid leave? That kind of thing.).
Talk about a no-brainer. If you're an Alarm.com customer (or thinking about installing an alarm system), this is without a doubt a must-have app. The bigger question: Which is cooler for homeowners, this or the recently announced Benjamin Moore paint color-matching app?
Updated June 5 at 3:48 p.m. Pacific Time: Users can now download the trial of McAfee Family Protection.
Correction: The 30-day trial for McAfee Family Protection is not yet available for users. I will update this post when it does become available.
On the heels of Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton, released earlier this year, security stalwart McAfee is jumping into the family protection game with a new home-oriented protection program. Called McAfee Family Protection, the program will offer many familiar tools to parents in the hopes of fostering conversation while protecting children from harm.
McAfee Family Protection protects children based on multiple levels of technology.
(Credit: McAfee)McAfee Family Protection will offer blocking, monitoring, and parental notifications for most computer-based activities. The program will allow for up to 10 users on three different machines, utilizing several layers of algorithms to monitor behavior. Parents can outright block or merely monitor Web sites, social-networking behavior, and instant messaging including Facebook IM and multiprotocol chat clients, according to Javed Hasan, vice president of McAfee Product Management.
In addition to blanket blocks for subject matter and specific Web site blocks, parents can customize rules so that they can block all of YouTube, or just YouTube videos that have specific tags. Web sites protected by secure protocol, https, can also be blocked. They can also set up roadblocks that prevent specific applications from opening, such as peer-to-peer clients or media players, and parents can receive brief SMS notifications alongside more-detailed e-mail reports.
The program will also be able to restrict computer usage based on cumulative time used or by time of day. It uses a server-based clock, so tampering with the local system-based clock shouldn't affect this feature.
McAfee says that Family Protection uses about 20MB of RAM when idle and can run on systems with as little as 128MB of RAM. A three-computer license for up to 10 users is available for $39.99.
Editor's Note: Article updated on May 8, 2009. Original article published September 8, 2006.
Every family has at least one member whose risky computer behavior is asking for trouble. You know whom we mean: the kid brother who can't resist those dodgy downloads; the spouse who clicks on suspicious pop-up ads and updates without a second glance; or the cousin who returns a borrowed laptop riddled with malicious software. You have two options: become a paranoid misanthrope with motion-sensor alarms rigged to your PC, or take a few minutes to establish these four security precautions. They're not foolproof against the most persistent of malicious software magnets, but these basic tips should give novices some ideas.
Step 1: Create multiple user accounts
A no-brainer, perhaps, but creating multiple user accounts is one of the surest ways of restricting a guest's risky activities without breathing down their neck while you supervise each mouse click. Families can generate an account for each member, an especially proactive move if there have been problems in the past. Enact it thus and you, the uber-administrator, can limit others' capabilities to install programs and make systemwide changes, a move that could prevent your errant relations from executing tainted programs. To sweeten the deal, each account-holder's capability to customize their own desktop could help mow down weedy sibling rivalry. Consider adding a password-protected log-in to help maintain privacy.
User accounts make it easy to restrict guest privileges.
Make sure the "password at login" feature is enabled, so everyone who accesses the computer will be required to provide their username and password. The nuisance of compelling returning users to log in after each idle period is easily outweighed by the security benefits of maintaining multiple accounts. Besides, you can always adjust your idle-time settings to minimize the frequency of logging in anew. Here's another tip--setting up an unpassword-protected guest account on a laptop means your friends can borrow it to easily get online or use core Office functions, while the password protection on your account acts as a deterrent.
... Read moreThis handy pair of executables adds muscle to the monitor's power-off function. WinFlog's small multitabbed interface offers four easily invoked functions. WinFlogTurnOff's executable needs no interface as the application simply and immediately turns off the monitor.
Operating WinFlog is very easy, especially for XP users. The program's primary tab lists two options to add a Turn Off Monitor option to the My Computer Icon right-click menu and to the desktop right-click menu. The functions are just as easily removed from the menus using single-click buttons on the same tab. The program's second tab uses a similar set of buttons to add Turn Off Aero and Turn On Aero options to the My Computer icon's right-click menu. Only Vista users will benefit from this option.
Both freeware executables offer useful monitor control functions for any level user.
This robust freeware displays system activity with more detail than many expensive programs. System Explorer's tight multitabbed interface logically arranges and displays more information than most experienced users would need. The program could use a Help manual, but at least there's expert user knowledge online.
Operating System Explorer is primarily a point-and-click affair. The application loads all the information it collects when you start it. Fourteen tabs logically spread the information into manageable portions. With a click, users can monitor tasks, processes, performance, history, windows, connections, and opened files. Each tab includes detailed information about the items included. Many details listed are easily investigated with right-click access to find information online at Web sites such as Google and ProcessLibrary. Such investigation is limited by the depth of information available at the Web sites.
In addition to the monitoring tools, System Explorer offers single-click access to numerous Windows tools. Disk defragmenter, computer, group policy, services, and task management aren't part of the application, but are made much easier to reach.
If Comcast's October 1 start date for their bandwidth cap has you rushing to fire up your torrent client, take a listen to today's CNET's Real Deal podcast. CNET TV Editor Tom Merritt, Webware Editor Rafe Needleman, and I discuss what the bandwidth cap means (hint: it's not a hat), why it's happening now, and what you can do to keep track of your data usage.
If you're interested in the programs we talk about, they can be found in this blog post from last month.
Comcast has thrown down the bandwidth gauntlet. Starting in October, Comcast broadband users will be restricted to 250GB worth of downloads per month. When asked whether the cable company was planning on offering a bandwidth meter to customers, a Comcast representative stated that it hopes to, eventually, but until then Google would be a nice place to find one.
So, I've come up with a list of free bandwidth monitoring software for Windows and Mac that should tide you over until Verizon brings some Fios action to your hood.
BitMeter offers a Web interface for tracking your traffic through a browser.
(Credit: CNET Networks)First off, let's look at BitMeter. When running, it lives in your Windows Taskbar, so the features are accessible only through the context menu. Halfway down the lengthy list is the knockout punch: ISP Restrictions. This lets you set a limit that can be based on downloads only, or total traffic. It also offers notification based on the percentage of your quota that has been downloaded, and the start date of the quota.
It's more than a one-hit wonder, offering a live graph of upload and download usage, a usage calculator that can work based on transfer time or file size, and hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly statistics. This data can also be exported and saved. However, BitMeter lacks polish in the interface. The main screen is a live usage graph. All features are hidden in the context menu, so it's not going to win any design contests soon.
BitMeter's ISP Restrictions window.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Despite the promising name, I found Bandwidth Monitor Lite to be a disappointment as far as monthly quotas were concerned. Similar to BitMeter in layout, although the look of its graph is slicker, the actual tools that the Lite version offered were slim. You can track the amount of data downloaded and set a day of the month to start counting, but there was no way to set the quota or configure an alert.
The persistent emphasis on themes and skins was irritating, since the features that they were meant to put on display were less than stellar. The upgrade version does offer a lot more, but paying for a bandwidth tracker strikes me as a bit insulting, since we're already throwing cash at Comcast that we might not have had we known there would be a post-contract download cap.
Two other promising tools that I looked at were Axence NetTools and FreeMeter. Axence was the more advanced one by far, with a well-organized and professional-looking layout, but neither has bandwidth-monitoring capabilities that Comcast users will be looking for. Axence does have a "bandwidth monitor," but it can only check on user-specified connections, not overall up/down traffic.
For Macs users, iStat Menus and MenuMeters both sounded promising. Neither offer the robust bandwidth management tools that this Comcast problem is calling for, though.
I did that find a little-known app called SurplusMeter does precisely what we need it to do. Like BitMeter for Windows, it gives users the ability to set a bandwidth limit, a start day of the month, and the connection type--PPP Modem or Network Card, for example.
SurplusMeter offers Mac users a clean and simple traffic tracker.
(Credit: CNET Networks)SurplusMeter also calculates a daily allowance, and reconfigures that depending on how much you've actually used for the month. It lacks the not-quite-fancy graphs that I encountered in its PC counterparts, but SurplusMeter also lacked something they had: an alarm or notification that would tell you when you were approaching your limit.
Fortunately, the interface is dead simple. All the options are presented in an uncluttered layout--you'll get exactly what you need from this app with a minimum of hassle. Handy progress bars give a slight visual flair to the days left in the month, the download megabyte count, and the total downloaded and uploaded.
Clearly, there's no killer app for either operating system, but there's at least one for each out there that most users should be able to get by on. It's an imperfect stop-gap to a problem that has the potential for wide-ranging consequences far beyond mere file sharing.
Imagine Regmon on steroids, and you'll have a glimpse of this home-run hitting process watchdog. Process Monitor's simple spreadsheet-like interface displays processes through a user-created filter. The interface lacks simple single-click column sorting, however, columns are easily shown or hidden.
Process Monitor displays an extensive amount of information that will appeal mainly to advanced users. Context-clicking a process offers a pop-up menu of options to display additional information or affect the process. The pop-up is also available as the toolbar Event menu. Other pull-down menus manipulate the great amount of information to highlight trends. A button bar offers single-click icons for the most used commands. Three commonly used filters appear on the bar to show Registry Activity, File System Activity, or Process and Thread Activity. This app should appeal to intermediate users and above.
When Power Downloader is hard at work in the Powerlair he often has several programs running simultaneously. Though he has plenty of RAM in his super system, Power likes to keep track of memory usage to see what's taking up the most space. It also helps to have memory tracking apps when he needs to diagnose system slow downs.
Use the preferences to choose which trackers you would like displayed
(Credit: CNET Networks)To keep track of how much memory is being used by his mission-critical apps, Power Downloader uses FreeMeter. With this free program on his computer, Power can track disk space usage, memory usage, disk transfer rates, and more all from a constantly updating interface. He can customize FreeMeter to show him only the usage statistics he wants to see and can designate which drives to track. To see how his computer is performing at a glance, Power also can display icons in his system tray showing memory and CPU usage. In the event of a system slow down, Power can check FreeMeter to see if an unexpected amount of memory is being used making it possible for him to zero in on potential problems and hidden resource hogs.
In Power Downloader's line of work tracking down Internet criminals, his computer must always be running at peak performance. With FreeMeter on his hard drive, Power can easily track several components of his computer's performance for free.
