Computer Spot dot Net

Are you tired of shelling out money again and again for software applications? I bet many people are, since software can be expensive. So, never doubt the idea that the Internet has it all, because it does. The Internet even has free software programs you can download.

However, the real problem is looking for them. Here are some tips to get the free software you need.

Think open-source

Many computer experts and techie communities are developing open source programs for the benefit of all without spending a single dime on them. Open-source programs were made as a response to the sky-rocketing prices of most software programs.

Read the rest of this entry →

Don’t know how about you guys who will read this post, but personally I was always irritated by the fact that I couldn’t download videos from YouTube and other video sites.

I just couldn’t understand why these brainy guys sitting in their software developing offices didn’t even think that some people would like to have their favorite videos on their machines, but not on the Internet!

All right, it’s okay when I’m connected to the net and can download the video and watch it (thought waiting is not comfy as well).

But when you can’t access the Internet for some reasons but still want to watch the video? As for me I often have such problems with my provider (I know I’d better change it) and do appreciate video saved on my PC. That’s why saving video from such sources as YouTube would be just great thing to have.

Recently, I was surfing the net and was again stunned by what Google answered to ‘save youtube video’ search phrase.

Oodles of sites like ‘enter the link and download’ and only one site that satisfied me. All these sites were all the same: you watch the video, then add a new window, enter their address and enter the video’s link.

Too much to do, yep? But one of the Google search results really was the highlight of the day. That was http://savetubevideo.com/, with a free program called Save Tube Video.

I decided to download this free program and install it. After the installation has been completed (it took about 2-3 minutes), I relaunched the browser and saw two new buttons: ‘Save Video’ and ‘Show Status’.

After that I went to YouTube and clicked on the first video I saw. When the browser began playing the video I just clicked on the ‘Save Video’ button and the program asked me to specify the path to video download folder and video format (two most popular formats are available: avi and flv, I used flv).

After that the video in browser has been played as usual, and its ‘hard copy’ was being saved to the chosen folder.

When I clicked on the ‘Show Status’ button I saw the video download status. After the installation had been completed, there appeared three options: ‘Play’, ‘Delete’ and ‘Open’.

Clicking on the ‘Play’ button started video playback. ‘Delete’ button allows you to delete file, and the ‘Open’ one – to open a folder with the video file.

It’s also worth saying that the software works well with Internet Explorer, it didn’t even slow it down and the site says that Save Tube Video will work with Mozilla Firefox as well.

As for other options: if your connection with the Internet has been lost and the download broken up, you may resume your download at any time (which is especially important to me).

Oh, and the program allows you to download two or more videos at the same time which is very convenient. I would recommend this program to everyone who likes videos and wants to watch them offline and just to any web surfer as it doesn’t take much place and may come in handy one day?.

In computing, ISCSI is a shortening for Internet Small Computer System Interface.

Basically it’s an Internet Protocol based storage networking standard which deals with linking data storage facility.

StarWind Software, a leading software development company, manufactures and provides storage virtualization due to its iSCSI SAN software.

The primary task of this software is to convert any Windows server into a dependable and high quality SAN. The company was founded in 2003. It has been popular in over 100 countries and is used by a large number of customers.

The software solutions are of exceptional quality and they satisfy a number of IT demands successfully. Having a worldwide partners and resellers chain helps the company to work with many leading companies.

The company has already got a brilliant customers profile: Dell, Microsoft, NASA, Toyota, Avis and many more. The fact that the company has its own real-time customer support is among company’s biggest pluses.

Some distinctive features of the software are described below. The software uses TCP/IP allowing two hosts to negotiate SCSI commands using the same IP network. Due to the latter, a Storage Area Network (SAN) is created.

ISCSI requires no additional cabling. System administrators may use the software to allow server computers to access disk volumes. Mainly it has two objectives i.e. storage consolidation and disaster recovery.

Talking about its other products, we couldn’t fail to mention StarWind (iSCSI Target Software), StarPort (iSCSI software initiator) and some free products like StarWind Free, StarPort Free and StarWind V2V Converter.

The latter allows converting VMware files to Microsoft Hyper-V format and vice versa. StarPort allows establishing connections to ISCSI target & AoE device.

There is some downloadable software that can be found at www.starwindsoftware.com.

The IT project solutions that can be implemented with these software solutions include Server Virtualization, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery etc.

As software, developed for global usage, the products successfully support Exchange Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, SQL database, Oracle database.

When it comes to the industries the StarWind software can be used in, it becomes clear that the software will function perfectly well in any industry, including health, education, government, financial services etc.

Repairing damaged partitions on is a risky business. Even if you use the best toolkit and are absolutely sure in what you are doing, you are still risking your files shall something go wrong.

Changes made to the damaged partition are irreversible; it is just too easy to overwrite an important system structure that holds vital information about your disk, files and data. Bottom line: it’s good to backup before performing data recovery. But is this really the best way to do it?

There is a different approach to do data recovery that is even safer. No need to backup and restore during the recovery. Read the rest of this entry →

The first Linux systems were completed in 1992 by combining system utilities and libraries from the GNU project which is another operating system we’ll address next.

Predominantly known for its use in servers, Linux is used as an operating system for a wider variety of computer hardware than any other operating system including desktop computers, super computers, mainframes, and embedded devices such as cell phones.

Linux is packaged for different uses in Linux distributions which contain the kernel along with a variety of other software packaged tailored to its intended use. Read the rest of this entry →

The UNIX operating system was developed in the 60’s and 70’s by a group of AT & T employees at Bell Labs.  Unix is used by both servers and workstations and is the basis for a wide variety of other operating systems.

The operating system under UNIX consists of many of the utilities listed above along with the master control program which is called the “kernel”.

The kernel helps start and stop programs, handle the file system, take care of other common high level tasks that most programs share and schedule access to hardware to avoid conflicts if two programs try to access the same resource or device simultaneously.

Besides the main kernel, UNIX systems also had micro-kernels which tried to reverse the growing size of kernels and return to a system in which most tasks were completed by smaller utilities. Read the rest of this entry →

In 1984, Apple Computer introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer.  The first version was the Macintosh 128K model which came bundled with the Mac OS operating system then known as the “System Software”.

The Mac is often credited with popularizing the graphical user interface (GUI).

The Mac OS has been pre-installed on almost every Macintosh computer ever sold.  The operating system is also sold separately from the computer just as with Microsoft Windows.

The original Mac OS was heavily based on the Lisa OS previously released by Apple for the Lisa computer in 1983.  It also used concepts from other operating systems previewed by Apple executives.

In 1984, Apple partnered with Microsoft in an agreement that would have Microsoft creating versions of Word and Excel for the Mac OS. Read the rest of this entry →

Back in the late 1970’s, two enterprising young computer programmers named Paul Allen and Bill Gates developed an adaptation for the BASIC computer language that would help run newly created personal computer just coming on the technology market.

As with any technology, their original creation changed and grew.

The two friends decided they had the product and the capability to become successful, so they formed a company now known as Microsoft.

Over the years, Microsoft has grown to a giant in the computer industry with successes never before seen by a “from scratch” endeavor.

Microsoft was responsible for the development of not only several computer languages like COBOL and PASCAL, but also for the development of the earliest operating system MS-DOS.

In partnership with IBM, who was just introducing the personal computer to the individual consumer, all of the IBM computers used MS-DOS on their systems.  The year was 1981.

Windows 3.1 was the first product to fully utilize graphical user interface for ease of controlling what the computer would do. Read the rest of this entry →

As a user, you normally interact with the operating system through a set of commands. For example, the DOS operating system contains commands such as COPY and RENAME for copying files and changing the names of files, respectively.

The commands are accepted and executed by a part of the operating system called the command processor or command line interpreter.

Graphical user interfaces allow you to enter commands by pointing and clicking at objects that appear on the screen.

But that really doesn’t address the various ways that operating systems make your computer work easier and more efficiently.

Their specific capacities are what make them help your computer operate as a user-friendly device.  Let’s look specifically at what an operating system does. Read the rest of this entry →

The earliest of computers didn’t have an operating system.  By the early 1960’s, commercial computer vendors were supplying quite extensive tools for streamlining the development, scheduling and execution of jobs on batch processing systems.

Through the 1960’s, several concepts were developed which drove the development of operating systems.

The IBM System 360 produced a family of mainframe computer that served consumers with differing capacities and prices.

A single operating system was planned for these computers rather than developing generic programs for every individual model. Read the rest of this entry →