A Look Ahead

As the year draws to a close, it's always interesting to see what the tech gurus are predicting for the future. Here is the 2011 Technology Preview.

New and Improved

Malwarebytes is one of the most trusted and effective tools for removing all kinds of malicious software. Over at the Malwarebytes forums, there's big news today: MBAM 1.5 has been released, and it's faster, smarter, and better than ever. Startup time has been trimmed to just a few seconds and scanning speed improved by as much as 500%. There's also a host of new detection algorithms which allow MBAM to better detect all the frustrating, shifty malware floating around cyberspace.

Users can now manually add files and folders to the Malwarebytes ignore list, too. If you own the pro version, you'll get enhanced command line tools, a smarter, faster "Flash scan" which takes as little as 10 seconds to complete, and one-touch automatic updating.

Bridal Registry

For PC users, there's a part of your Windows software that few know about but is very powerful: the Registry. Pretty much everything that happens with your computer is a setting in the Registry. Want to make Windows better? Here are 50 Registry Hacks. Please be sure to back up your Registry before you do this, as a wrong change can fry your system.

Paperback Writer

Most of you print out your photos and digital x-ray images on an inkjet. Some of you try to do this on crappy copy paper and wonder why it looks so bad. Yes, the paper makes a big difference. Here's how Photo Paper Improves Print Quality.

Speed Demons

When many people are evaluating their browsers, speed is often king. Here's a great Browser Speed Test...you might be surprised (I wasn't) at how poorly IE did!

4 Square

With many dental offices using their phones and mobile devices as part of their practice, many of you are probably familiar with the new 4G networks. But, what exactly is 4G, do you need it, and if so, which one? Here's Everything You Need to Know About 4G.

"How To" You Do

They cover a lot ground every day on Lifehacker, but they get their greatest pleasure from putting together in-depth, step-by-step guides, making complicated tasks easy to do yourself. Here's a look back at their most popular how-to features of 2010.

TV Tunes

With many dental offices electing to use a TV for patient viewing, it's important to choose the right one. If you’re considering buying a television this Holiday season, it can be a big help to know what to look for. Take a look to find out what sets HD televisions apart, learn some of the confusing jargon associated with them, and see a comparison of four of the types of HDTVs commonly sold today.

Keys to My Life

Mastering the keyboard will not only increase your navigation speed but it can also help with wrist fatigue. Here are some lesser known Windows shortcuts to help you become a keyboard ninja.

Blast From the Past

With Windows Vista,most XP screensaver gems were summarily broken. Most of us didn't realize, as we were too busy dealing with Vista's retentive ineptitude, but now that we're onto Windows 7... well, wouldn't it be nice to relive some of those nice Windows XP experiences?

One clever guy on the WinMatrix forums has ported the Windows XP screensavers to work with Vista and 7. Unfortunately, Windows Dancer has been removed for copyright reasons, but the Original Screensavers pack (including Aquarium) is still available! Once you've unzipped it, you should have an EXE called MCE2005Screensavers.exe.

You should then have a directory full of screensaver (.SCR) files. Right click your favorite and Install. It seemed a little buggy, with some screensavers requiring multiple Installs before they finally worked. But as you can see above, the Aquarium definitely works on Windows 7.

Power to the People

The Windows registry is a mysterious place, but if you're comfortable editing it, you have the power to tweak nearly every Windows setting you can imagine. Here are 10 favorite registry tweaks that make life easier.

Get Smart

Ge.tt is a clever, instant file-sharing webapp that makes sharing files simple and fast. You can share a link to your file(s) immediately, without waiting for the upload to complete, and it doesn't use Flash, Java applets, or any other plug-ins.

Ge.tt couldn't be easier to use. You don't even need an account to use it (though you get extra benefits from registering). Visit Ge.tt, click the Select files button, choose one or more files you want to share (or you can simply drag and drop in supported browsers), and that's it. Ge.tt will begin uploading your files and instantly generate a unique URL for you to share.

You can share the link before the upload is finished—files will update on the download page in real-time, as they're uploaded, and the user on the other end can start downloading a file while you're still uploading it. In fact, you can also add files to the share after you've shared the link. Any new files you upload will automatically show up on their end without reloading the page.

Up and Coming

Some people avoid any and all update notices—and you can't always blame them, given how many occur on the average computer. Do you avoid update dialog boxes like the plague?

In comes Ninite and the almighty Windows Task Scheduler. Using a creative combination of the two, the update-avoiders will have their mess handled automatically and silently.

To pop open Task Scheduler, head to: Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Task Scheduler

Simply pick the apps always used on your machine at Ninite.com, save the Ninite executable to a location, and schedule a task to run the executable every week.

This will keep you exploit free, for the most part.

Stocking Stuffers

Still not sure what to get the technology-loving person in your life (like me)?? Here's a great Holiday Gift Guide.

More Drops in the Bucket

Dropbox will boost your free account by a full 768MB if you're feeling social. Head on over to www.dropbox.com/free, sign in to your account, and you'll be given four tasks to complete. Each one is worth an additional 128MB and they're all pretty painless:

* Connect Dropbox to your Facebook account
* Connect Dropbox to your Twitter account
* Follow Dropbox on Twitter
* Provide a little feedback to the Dropbox team

The last one is actually pretty important. Dropbox is a fantastic service, and one way to make it even better is to offer up your two cents.

Clean as a Whistle

CCleaner just hit version 3.0 recently, but Piriform has already pushed an incremental update to the popular clean-up app. What's new in CCleaner 3.01? For starters, there's support for Adobe Reader X and Acronis True Image, better cookie detection for users of Firefox 4 beta 7, and improved handling of 7-zip, Chromium-based browsers like SRWare Iron, MMC, Silverlight local storage, and Adobe Reader 9. You also no longer need to reboot after CCleaner finishes cleaning up your Internet Explorer index.dat files.

CCleaner 3.01 isn't all about app support, however. It also starts up and scans faster, and both the uninstall tool and drive wiper have been improved. If you've got CCleaner set to check for updates, just fire it up and follow the prompts. Otherwise, you can download CCleaner 3.01 from the builds page.

It's All in A Name

Coming up with a good domain name these days is akin to finding a parking spot in New-York. Accordingly, tools for finding free domain names abound, and most of them offer some sort of a "brainstorming interface". The idea is to help you come up with a domain name nobody (including yourself) considered before.

Domize is one of the nicer attempts at this sort of thing. At its simplest form, it's a very fast find-as-you-type service for free domain names. As you type each new letter in the name of your domain, Domize quickly checks whether or not that domain name is free for .com, .net, .org, .co, .us and .biz.

But that's just scratching the surface of what Domize can do. Click Options and you can change the TLDs (top-level-domains, such as .at, .me and others), toggle the find-as-you-type functionality, and change the domain registrar used.

When you finally find a domain you like, hovering over the TLD shows a pop-up with price quotes from several different registrars, usually with significant differences in price. This is a beautiful tool.

They Are My Pals

PerioPal Announces a New Release—The Fastest, Most Affordable Periodontal Charting Software Yet

Now Yearly, Unlimited Use at $199.

BEAUMONT, TEXAS—November 26, 2010—PerioPal LLP today introduced a new release that is packed with unique features that allow clinicians to get more out of periodontal charting software. From the way the software is licensed to the efficient way the exam can be performed, PerioPal 9.0 has been built for usability.

PerioPal periodontal charting software is now a yearly subscription service for an unlimited number of users per location. There are no set-up, cancellation, maintenance, or hidden fees. PerioPal offers a free 30 day trial that is 100% functional giving users full access to all the charting features. At the end of the trial period, users activate a yearly subscription.

“The move to an annual subscription approach encourages the use of an improved periodontal system enabling the practice to spread the expense of a new solution across different cost centers – hardware, integration, and training”, says Kimberly Goodson, President. “And with a breakthrough price of $199 per server, we are thrilled to get PerioPal into the hands of even more clinicians who want a comprehensive, yet affordable periodontal charting system. With PerioPal, affordability is not less.”

PerioPal offers new functionality to accurately and efficiently record multiple data entries with a single command -- especially conditions relating to Localized Gingivitis and Early Periodontitis. While PerioPal was built for voice recognition, the latest PerioPal application makes the manual entry of periodontal data better than ever for clinicians who practice assisted hygiene.


With PerioPal, Affordability is Not Less

PerioPal is proven periodontal charting software with two free download versions, the Single PC and the Network Install. Software features include customized voice commands for speed and accuracy, manual entry for assisted hygiene (non-voice option), unlimited users and workstations, evidence-based diagnosis, Universal and FDI Numbering Systems, exportable PDF reports, single pass data capture, auto advance options, easy data modification, stand alone or network ready, integration with dental systems, real time alerts and follow up options, large visual display, patient education, self-directed training materials, and comparative exam analysis.

The new subscription platform reflects an ongoing PerioPal strategy to make a high-quality solution attractive so clinicians can add a wider range of periodontal functionality to a new or existing dental system.

“It’s time to change in our charting notions -- a complete and adequate periodontal evaluation is much more than 6 numbers in a box. By combining a sensible pricing model with a comprehensive recording solution, the limits of traditional periodontal charting methods are now liberated activating the clinician's skills and enhancing overall periodontal performance,” says Goodson.

Pricing and Availability:

The PerioPal annual subscription is priced at $199 per server based on one server per location. An unlimited number of users/workstations can record, report and share PerioPal exams.

PerioPal 9.0 is available at www.periopal.com

Contact:
K. Goodson
PerioPal, President
customerservice@periopal.com
888.900.7725

Eye Fi With My Little Eye

The Eye-Fi Pro X2 boosts write speeds and adds Endless Memory (deleting old images after successful transfers) because, like all Eye-Fi cards, it lets you wirelessly upload photo and video to your PC and as many as 25 photo-sharing sites directly from any digital camera with an SD slo

Best of the Best

You're not sure what technology to buy as a gift this year? PC Mag is here to help based on months of testing. It all boils down to this: A list of the very best products from 2010. Everything from digital cameras, to HDTVs, to ebook readers, to media hubs, and more.

Up in the Air

As fast as Google Docs has been growing, many people are still unwilling to abandon their desktop office software and take to the cloud. Well, Google just made it easier with Cloud Connect, a new Microsoft Office plug-in that connects Word, PowerPoint and Excel to Google Docs. That means anything you do in Office will be saved in the cloud using your Google Docs account.

Cloud Connect actually works where Microsoft's online collaboration software doesn't (yet). For example, Cloud Connect works across different versions of Office, and includes Excel support. Also, anyone who's shared files using Google Docs knows how easy it is compared to setting up SharePoint.

Instead of forcing the switch to Google's own Web apps, Google is letting businesses have their Office and share it too. Sounds like a solid strategy to convince Office users that Google is the way to go for online collaboration, before Microsoft can even finish getting its cloud services off the ground.

Right now, a preview of Cloud Connect is only available via limited signup to Google Apps for Business customers, but it will be available for everyone -- individual users included -- when it launches.

Mail It In

Mailto:// links are still pretty common on the Web, and they can be somewhat bothersome if you use a Web-based email app like Gmail or Hotmail. Wouldn't it be great if you could tell Windows to open your webmail's compose page instead of trying to load a desktop program like Outlook Express or Windows Mail?

There are actually several ways to get Windows to do this, but not many are as simple as GmailDefaultMaker. It's a free program that allows you to choose whether you want mailto:// links to open with Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Mail, or Yahoo! Mail during the installation process.

Once the install has completed, you'll never notice GmailDefaultMaker at work -- there's no taskbar or system tray icon. It's still doing its job, however, but like a lot of handy little programs it just works and stays out of the way.

No, this won't let you email files from your desktop with a right-click. Affixa may be the answer if you're looking for a more full-featured solution.

All Togther Now

Ever wanted an easier way to access all of Windows' built-in management tools and settings screens? All-In-One Tray might be just what you've been searching for. It's a small, simple app that provides three-click access to nearly any option or built-in utility Windows has to offer.

Everything from ncpa.cpl (network connections) to ipconfig /flushdns is within easy reach. AIO Tray also lets you configure four custom user paths -- which you can point at specific applications or use in tandem with an app like NirCmd to perform just about any action you can imagine with minimal fuss. It's an incredibly handy little app, and worked nicely on both Windows 7 32- and 64-bit test systems.

Bigger Isn't Better

Google Gmail accounts usually have limited storage space. That amount of space does eventually fill up – especially if you have people sending you huge PowerPoint presentations, videos of their baby's first steps, or hilarious kitten photos in full resolution (because they have no idea what "resolution" means, much less how to reduce it).

What I find perplexing is that Google never included an option to sort or filter messages by size. I have no doubt that this is a business decision, because implementing such a feature would be trivial for the Gmail team.

This is where Find Big Mail comes into play. While Google does not provide a way to filter by size, it does provide IMAP access. Find Big Mail accesses your Gmail account via IMAP, and it catalogs all of your messages by size. It creates three labels – one for messages larger than 2MB, one for messages larger than 500KB, and the last is for messages larger than 100KB.

Once it completed scanning my account, I simply clicked the label that said FindBigMail > 2mb, selected all messages, and clicked Delete. I then went to the trash folder and emptied that.

Find Big Mail's free option scans only a third of your total mailbox, but it was enough for me. For $5 it will scan your whole Gmail account. You don't have to provide it with your password – only authorize it via Google's own access control. Once it's done, you can revoke its access from your Google account page. I highly recommend it!

Drop in the Bucket

Find some files, drag them onto a button, click to copy the URL. That's how simple Windroplr makes file sharing, through its free Windows app, free online storage, and easy setup and sharing—just like Droplr on Mac.

Windroplr uses Twitter for its authentication, and requires .NET 4.0. Beyond those small hurdles, though, Windroplr runs really small and works in tight fashion. Click the system tray app to show a small square on your desktop. Drag one or more files onto the square—multiple files will automatically be ZIP compressed. Your Windroplr icon fills up in the tray, and when it's ready, a balloon pops up, which you can click to copy the very short URL for sharing.

What's in a Name?

If you plan to have a website for your practice (and if you don't, we REALLY need to talk!), then you need to choose an appropriate domain name. While some webmasters will charge you hundreds of dollars each year to do this, be aware that there are some great services out there that can do it for under $20. Here are The Five Best Domain Name Registrars.

Out With the Old...

Many dental offices will follow my advice and replace their computers every 3-4 years. What do you do with the old computers? Here's 11 Uses for an Old PC.

Keeping Tabs on the Competition

Well, it looks like the tablet PC wars are starting to heat up, with one of the first serious challengers to the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, hitting the market recently. Here's a comprehensive review of this Android-based tablet that has some really nice features.

Thnk You for Being a Friend

Did you know that according to Facebook, there's no way to import/export all of your friend's private emails? did you know that it's actually very easy to do by using Yahoo? Here's how.

Blog Love

As you all know (since you're reading this!), I'm a huge fan of blogs and blogging. Some are definitely better than others, however. Here are PC Mag's To 50 Blogs (and, no I didn't make the list).

Adding Machine

While the modern browser has come a long way, there are still many features that are needed to complete your experience. Here are the Top 10 Must-Have Browser Extensions.