Paragon Net Burner v2

Hi Friends,

About thirteen hours ago, Peter informed me about Paragon Net Burner. I did not know it before and it was really strange that I missed a software from Paragon because Paragon is a big name among software vendors and surprisingly I did not notice Paragon Net Burner. Well thank you Peter.

Paragon Net Burner let you share your CD/DVD/BD ROM on a network. This means a system with less resources like no such ROM can have access to it on other computer. This is helpful in office because not every computer has burning ROM. What Paragon says:

"Paragon Net Burner is a unique utility to “share” a CD/DVD/BD burner over the network and remotely make a CD/DVD/BD recordable device available for use by other networked computers. It gives users the ability to record CDs/DVDs/BDs without having a local burner device".

I am just thinking that we can share our drives on a network by simply entering the properties and creating rule to share. Why did they created this software? Can it help us to overcome network problems which may prevent access to drives being shared on network? I have not tested it because I could not have time. So, I do not know it all characteristics and functions. There should be something important behind the creation of Paragon Net Burner and I do not know. They fact is they didn't mention it on their website. Features are:

Easy-to-use even for inexperienced users	User-friendly wizards will help you to mount (or remove) a remote optical drive in only a few clicks. Access the mounted drives no differently than your local devices.
Extremely useful for notebooks without optical drive	Paragon Net Burner is a great solution for notebook users who have no optical drive onboard (subnotebooks, netbooks, ultraportable laptops). Mount a CD/DVD/BD drive located on another machine in your local network and grab, record or master CDs/DVDs/BDs without having these devices locally. Net Burner is must-have for home users who have both subnotebook(s) and PCs – now you can forget about tiresome transferring of files from one PC to another just so you can burn them. With Net Burner, if you take your subnotebook on a business trip, you can burn CD/DVD/BD discs using another PC.
Cost-effective for office network, internet-café etc.	With Paragon Net Burner there is no need to have an expensive HD-DVD/BD drive on every machine in the office, internet-café or any other network. It is enough to have only one device of this type, and share it all over the network.
Ideal for backing up data to a remote CD/DVD/BD	Paragon Net Burner is an excellent addition to the Paragon’s products (such as Hard Disk Manager, Drive Backup etc.) that lets you back up data from your PCs, workstations or servers to a remote CD/DVD/BD.
Compatible with the most of burning software and hardware	Paragon Net Burner supports a wide variety of burning software and hardware. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003/2008/Vista, so you can use Windows' built-in burning software. To get maximum burning features, see our latest burning solution, Paragon Easy CD/DVD Recorder 9.0. If you already use third-party software and are satisfied with it, you can continue using it together with Net Burner.
Great performance in all operations	Net Burner consists of two components: the Server (a full-featured software-only iSCSI Target) and the Client (an iSCSI and ATA-over-Ethernet initiator). Paragon Net Burner Server has a matching "domestic" iSCSI Initiator called Paragon Net Burner Client. This combination provides unbeatable performance compared to the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator and third-party iSCSI targets.

Registration is free and you can access registration form here:

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/net-burner/download.html

More info here:

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/net-burner/index.html

It does not support Windows 7.

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Riding The New Immunet Protect: Is It A Worthy Security Program?

You have probably heard of Immunet for the first time during last year. I last covered that Immunet Protect is a workable and innovative security software that uses cloud community protection, but it is not enough to make a majority of people stick to it, particularly as it has its own buggy problem, limited functionality and questionable effectiveness as all new programs faced.


Immunet recently arrived at its v2 release, where developers gave the security software a major overhaul in every area possible. It is still a freeware, but now there is a Plus version available for those who want Immunet's own in-house traditional antivirus engine. Which is good in a sense that users equipped with the Plus version are protected by Immunet when they are offline. For free users, they will enjoy the cloud community & heuristic-based engine, but no antivirus engine. Immunet is also capable of running alongside any antivirus program even with their own antivirus engine onboard.


I download & tested Immunet Protect to see if it is worth the use. Here are some of the goods about the software:


1. The New GUI Interface

For v2, Immunet uses a more user friendly interface, particularly the main GUI & the '?' description pop-ups. I love Immunet's effort of trying to educate the user on what particular function of the software does, as well as their effort of making navigation easier for users as they add more features to the product. It is also quite attractive in terms of GUI background and color blendings.


2. Enhanced Protection Features for free


The cloud community scanning feature (codename SPERO) is one of Immunet's core features and for v2, they enhanced its functionality. Although users will require to log in (or create an Immunet account if they log in for the first time) to use the feature, the benefits are rewarding. Users can now invite friends to join their cloud network as well as being provided with a visual map as to who is protecting the users through cloud community detection. Community stats are also updated in real-time more frequently than before. 

To compliment SPERO, Immunet formally introduces another scan engine codename ETHOS, a heuristic-based engine. Unlike SPERO, ETHOS runs regardless of whether the user is connected to a network or not. Of course, it works at best with network connection on, but now, users can rest assure that Immunet is protecting them to a certain degree when they are offline.


3. 24/7 Tech Support


Immunet Protect is being given so much tech support attention for a freeware; both free & Pro version users can enjoy full-time support service when they ran into a problem. Although i have no idea whether it works as advertised, it is definitely one good incentive to use the software.


There is also some area about the software that needs improvement:


1. Buggy GUI


Although i praise the beautiful & easy to navigate GUI previously, there's no deny that it is slightly buggy. Running the main GUI will result in a delay and a momentary white patch before the GUI loads completely. Similarly, other sub-GUI also has the same bug.


2. The Adware-like upgrade prompt 

Sometimes, when running the main GUI, you will notice an upgrade prompt popping out from the right side of the GUI. Although i am not objecting Immunet trying to get users to upgrade to the Plus version, i think there should be other better ways to do that; it makes me feel as though i'm using a security software that came bundled with malware or spyware or similar. It is also notoriously difficult to close the prompt, as the close button does not always show on the prompt.


3. Ask.com toolbar is bundled with the installation package

While this is not necessarily a bad thing, the problem comes with the user. Some users will get turn off by the Ask.com toolbar (considered an adware by some) that is installed. While there is an option for users to not install it during setup, how many amateur and novice users will take notice of that? As far as i'm concerned, the ask.com thingy has led to some negative PR on sites like download.com. I also had no idea why would Immunet affiliate themselves with something like that...




Immunet is up on my PC for nearly 4 days already and as far as i know, it is a pretty decent security software, having use minimal PC resources and even beating the likes of Panda Cloud Antivirus in terms of pure startup speed. With further bug fix and improvement, Immunet Protect rocks as a freeware security tool. Despite that, it will take Immunet a long time to build up a densely populated cloud community, which seriously degrades its effectiveness and for this reason, I don't think it is the right moment to recommend it to friends and families yet.


Download Immunet Protect HERE.


Visit the Official Website to learn more.

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Understanding PC: Will Increasing PC Speed By Increasing FileSystem Cache Pay Off?

I recently helped a friend clear up his PC problem when he reported lags and glitchy performance with his Windows XP. A brief questioning of the situation revealed that he had done a filesystem cache tweak which leads to his PC performance degrading.

There is a common belief that by increasing the FileSystem Cache of Windows, users can experience a boost in PC performance, since Windows will tend to use the maximum available RAM to power applications, resulting in more responsive scenarios. In fact, I am going to show you how to do it here:

1. Click Start, type in “cmd” and you will see the command prompt icon.
2. Right Click the cmd icon and choose “Run as Administrator“
3. Now in the command prompt windows type in the following command.

fsutil behavior set memoryusage 2

4. Now restart windows 7.

If you want to review your actions, using the following query in cmd will show you the value.

fsutil behavior query memoryusage

There are many websites that claim that any users can perform this command to increase PC performance. Do not believe this, for some of them did not properly explain the logic behind FileSystem Cache or conduct a benchmarking...which is misleading, i must say. If unsuspecting users do this on a PC without the proper requirements, it will not have any effects and if worse, will result in an even worse performance than before!

By nature, increasing FileSystem Cache size means that your PC will attempt to maximize RAM usage, usually with a benchmark for example, it will prevent RAM usage from falling below single digit level and make applications run at the maximum possible performance. Your PC can also handle more concurrent operations, since the page pool limits are being raised. This tweak is popular with servers, since they are the ones that have to handle multiple file operations.

With the logic above in mind, we can conclude that:

1. Increasing FileSystem Cache size is best performed on a PC with large amount of RAM onboard, with a mimimum of 2GB on Windows XP & Windows 7 and an additional 0.5 GB on Windows Vista. Most importantly, a majority of these RAM must be free from application use, otherwise applying the tweak will result in negative effect.

2. The success of FileSystem Cache tweak is heavily influenced by memory amount, therefore 64-bit OS can take advantage of this tweak rather than 32-bit OS. The reason is that the maximum RAM that can be used by 32-bit OS is 3.5 GB, while 64-bit OS can use 4GB-8GB and beyond.

3. Since this tweak is originally for servers that operates at something like 8GB & beyond, i highly doubt that a normal PC system below 8GB RAM could actually see a difference by applying the tweak.


I know i will need someone's in-depth research and benchmark to support my conclusions, so i dig around and found this excellent analysis by Eric aka TweakHound.

In his research, you will notice that the conclusions i've made regarding the FileSystem Cache tweaks are proven. With benchmarking, research & consultation from expert, Eric concluded at the end of the test, that on normal PC, the tweak is USELESS.

My final advice to majority of users out there is, don't waste your time applying this tweak. As I stated before, this tweak works best with 64-bit OS that runs on high amounts of RAM and also the hardware befitting those of server computers, but trust me, even if your computer fit these requirements, the performance improvement is not enough to produce a positive impact.

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Smarter Startup Management With Soluto

You probably has heard of many ways of managing Windows startup items, from the built-in msconfig command to third party startup managing applications. I've seen quite a lot of software like these, but unfortunately, none of them are quite as informative, interactive and innovative as Soluto, a startup management software which bills itself as an 'anti-frustration' software.

As we all know, a computer that is slow during startup causes lots of frustration. Soluto aims to solve that problem but they took a pretty innovative route to addressing such problem. They uses their own technology, such as their patent-pending low level driver technology that scans a PC for application that is slowing down computer, as well as PC Genome, a technology that leverages the new cloud computing technique, whereby they have a knowledgebase located in the cloud that gathers data and generates statistics from users using Soluto, so that other users can edit share their information regarding applications that startup during boot and what they do to it.

Which is pretty cool, isn't it? Imagine people sharing their ideas around regarding startup items! There's even a video on their official website that demo on what Soluto can do! You can watch the video on Vimeo.

What i really like about this software is also its modern, interactive GUI that takes into account, the users who are novice to computer knowledge. There are many interactive tools and prompts that guides user on understanding and how to best use Soluto to their advantages. We need more of these forms of utilities nowadays, instead of the geeky, complicating GUI that only advanced users care about learning!

Boot Performance Information that shows up everytime after your desktop finished booting into operational mode (It can be toggled off).

The Soluto History Page, where you can view your computer's startup performances

The Application Editing Page, where you edit and submit application information and boot advice to PC Genome for community's references.

I had Soluto running on my PC now, and it does its job well without slowing down my PC (although it may suck bits of your RAM off at times). It is only in beta stage, but quite stable to use and i'll recommend it around wherever there's people who need it.

Visit Soluto Official Website here.

Download Soluto HERE.

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X-Setup Pro 9.2.100 For Free

X-Setup Pro 9.2.100 should be considered as final release. It will not work on Windows 7 but will work on  Win9x/NT/200x/XP/Vista. The support for obsolete OSs is pretty good but I do not think if somebody is still using  any of Win9x/NT/200x. It is available as installer and portable versions (USB n U3).

Well, Major Geek said:

X-Setup Pro is the ultimate in system configuration or tweaking as some people would say. It covers all types of options and has many useful features - for more information please read the rest of this section or browse to http://www.x-setup.net/

X-Setup Pro is not yet another Windows Hacker; it is the ultimate tool for black belt system tuning and tweaking, running on Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, ME, XP and 2003 Server.

From simple boot options up to server settings and hardware settings, internet settings or Office options, X-Setup Pro allows you to change nearly 1800 (!!) settings with some simple button clicks. This makes X-Setup Pro the most complete hacker/tweaking utility ever available!

Because these settings change often and fast, X-Setup Pro uses XML-based plugins - they are very small (3-6 kB) so updating them is easy too. X-Setup Pro can download updated or new plug-ins directly from the X-Setup Pro web site. Best of all, you can always view the source for any plug-in! And with the also available information on our website you can even create your own plugins or wizards and use them in X-Setup Pro.

With this release, you'll also get the new X-Setup Pro Restore Log. No matter how many changes you have made (either by using a plugin or a wizard) the Restore Log can all restore them to their original values with two simple mouse clicks. This feature works completely independently from the "Windows XP Restore Points" and can therefore be used on any Windows system X-Setup Pro supports (from Windows 95 up to Windows Server 2003). No other tweaking software offers you this!

In case you wish to lockdown a different user on the same computer, Registry Loading will be your best friend. Simply select “Load user registry” from within X-Setup Pro and you can apply all tweaks and settings X-Setup Pro supports to a different user without fearing to lock you out yourself. Securing or locking-down your computer for colleagues or your kids has never been easier!

With the BartPE Enabler Tool, you can use X-Setup Pro on a bootable CD-ROM created by the freely available BartPE system. This means, you can put X-Setup Pro on a CD, boot this CD on any computer and tweak the settings without even installing X-Setup Pro. This can also be a huge help for repairing a misbehaving system.

Network administrator will love X-Setup Pro Recording. Simply turn recording on, change the settings you want and it generates a *.REG file on the fly that can be deployed to thousands of computers without installing X-Setup Pro.

Although it offers lots of features, X-Setup Pro is extremely easy to use. It has an Explorer-like look and the famous back and next buttons you already know from your Internet browser. Plus, X-Setup Pro offers wizards that assist you when changing the configuration - there has never been an easier way to hack your Windows!

Get Free:

The license is shown publically on X-Setup Pro website. This means it is open invitation for all to get it legally. The license is XSA092-11TA9R-8K12YT. You can get some more info at http://www.x-setup.net/.

Download all three version from the following web addresses. Use the license mentioned above to register the X-Setup Pro 9.2.100.

Regular Installer 

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4083.html

Portable for USB
http://majorgeeks.com/X-Setup_Pro_Portable_for_USB_d5565.html

X-Setup Pro Portable for U3 9.2.100
http://majorgeeks.com/X-Setup_Pro_Portable_for_U3_d5564.html

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New AV Comparatives Results Out: My Take On The Antivirus Vendors

I am still busy with academic stuffs when i thought i should de-stress myself with a blog post. AV Comparatives has just released their Retrospective/Proactive Test for May 2010 and i thought I would share it around. 

The test result gave me a surprise: Of all the antivirus vendors, Trustport Antivirus 2010 is actually the overall winner, dethroning the usual past winners Avira & G DATA from the top spot. Panda Antivirus did well too (Panda Cloud Antivirus also uses the same engine, albeit in the cloud), but unfortunately it has too much false positive. Bitdefender & the other antivirus using the Bitdefender engine ( G DATA, F-Secure) also did well, too; previously the Bitdefender engine failed to impress on AV Comparatives.


Amongst the freeware, Microsoft Security Essential did the best, with Avira a close second. However, the real disappointment lays with Avast! v5; I thought that Avast! is a pretty solid freeware antivirus but this time, even the weaker AVG outperforms it in proactive detection.


All in all, this result has its own weakness and is thus, suitable only for general reference as to how an antivirus may perform in real-life. For example, i was let down by AV Comparatives' decision to use NOD32 Antivirus v4 when the 4.2 version has already been long released. If you read through the report, you will also realized that some of the antivirus (example, F-Secure) are not tested with its maximum detection potential, meaning to say that their final result are not as accurate as it might be. AV Comparatives' tests are also not as large-scale as the VB100 tests as you can see, some similarly popular antivirus vendors are not even been tested (like Sunbelt Vipre, Rising Antivirus, Agnitum Outpost & Sophos).
 
If you are interested in comparing the current proactive test results with past tests, you can visit AV Comparatives' test reports archive. 

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