Google Chrome hanging on startup

By Martin Brinkmann on September 19, 2012 - TAGS: None

For the past two days I have been noticing a issue with Google’s Chrome browser. Whenever I would start the browser, it would hang for a couple of seconds before the tabs of the previous session were loaded. This happened even if I had only one tab open that needed to be restored, so that I was pretty certain it was not caused by tab overload. I also tried switching to load the new tab page only on start up of the browser, which also did not resolve the issue. I’m experiencing hangs not only in Chrome Dev but also in Chrome Canary, which are both installed on a Windows 7 64-bit pro system.

• I have disabled all plugins and extensions to see if the issue was caused by addons but that was not the case either.
• I then tried to launch the browser in Incognito Mode and that too hung on startup for 5-10 seconds before the browser became responsive.
• Next try, a new profile. Starting Chrome with the parameter –user-data-dir=/tmp/test_profile_dir did not resolve the hanging on startup either.

• Clearing the complete browsing history did not have an effect either.
• Verified that known Chrome hang and crash issues where not causing the freezes on startup
• A restart of the PC did not resolve the issue either.

I grew pretty desperate at this point, and decided to uninstall Google Chrome on the PC to start with a clean installation of the browser afterwards in hope that this would resolve the freezes that I was experiencing. I first uninstalled Chrome Dev from my Windows system and all of the data it contained and restarted the computer afterwards. Once I did that I downloaded the installer from Softpedia, ran it, and started Chrome.

Guess what, the browser started without hangs or freezes. To make sure that this was not just a one time thing or so, I decided to open a few tabs before restarting it to see if that was the case. Well, Chrome is starting up fast and without issues now, even after restarts of the PC and some heavy use.

Keep in mind that you may lose data if you uninstall Chrome this way. If you do not want that to happen, configure Chrome to sync settings with a Google Account. This may however have the consequence that the cause for the problem is synced with your new Chrome installation so that you are experiencing it again.

Have you experienced issues with Chrome before in this regard? How did you resolve them?

How to create forms with Google Docs

By Martin Brinkmann on September 19, 2012 - Tags:google docs, Web browser

My Krav Maga trainer recently asked me if there was a way to collect data from hundreds of people online over a set period of time without knowledge of programming and databases and all that good stuff. I knew Google Docs was capable of doing that, and while I never created a form using Google Docs before, I quickly found out how it worked.

The good news is that you can create basic forms without programming or database experience. It works  in the following way. The form that you create is automatically linked to a spreadsheet that Google Docs creates automatically for you. Data that users enter into the form is automatically added to the table which you can save into various formats including Microsoft Excel, Adobe PDF, Open Document ODS or Comma Separated Values CSV.

Creating the form

To create a new form open the Google Docs website and select Create > Form at the top. This opens the basic form generator that you are going to use. First thing that you may want to do is enter an appropriate name and description which people who fill out the form will see when they open it.

A unit always consists of a question title, optional help text that adds further explanation, and the question type. The most basic form is a text question, which only consists of a form field that people can write text in to. Google Docs supports other types of questions, including checkboxes, paragraph text for long answers, multiple choices, or scale or grid type of questions.

You can add new items at the top, or change the theme from plain to one of the other 97 available themes. Themes may change the color scheme and backgrounds of the form.

Once you are done click on the save button if it is displayed to save the final version of the form. If you see saved, it means that Google Docs has auto-saved the form for you so that you do not need to do it manually by yourself.

The link to the form is displayed at the bottom of the page. You can either distribute the link manually, for instance by posting it on your website or a forum, or use the share via Google+ or email options at the top.

The responses are accessible here as well, or from your main Google Drive file listing where the form has automatically been added to.

Here you can save the form into a different format using the File > Download As menu, edit the data right on the screen, edit the form to add or change items, or add charts and other features to the form. People filling out the form do not need a Google account to do so, which is another advantage the product offers.

VSCD Free Video Converter review

By Martin Brinkmann on September 19, 2012 - Tags:Windows software

Programs like VLC Media Player or SMPlayer play nearly all media formats that you throw at them. Video converters come into play if you prefer to use a different program and do not want to install codecs on your system, or want to make the video available on a different device, a smartphone or DVD player for example.

Even if a video is in the correct format, you may prefer to convert the video, for instance to reduce the resolutionto match the native resolution of the device you want to play it in and reduce the size of the file at the same time.

VSCD Free Video Converter is a free program for the Windows operating system that you can use for all of your media converting needs.  The program leaves little to be desired functionality wise. You can use it to convert media into different formats, use device-specific conversions, and even have it burn videos files to DVD to watch it in a DVD player.

You can add video files via drag and drop to the program or use the built-in file browser to pick files or folders this way.  Add folder offers an interesting option as it allows you to add all videos located in a folder – and all subfolders – to the interface at the same time.

Once you have added your videos it is time to select the output that you want to generate. The best option to do that is to click on Formats in the menu where you can select PC, DVD or mobile devices such as iPod, Xbox or mobile devices. PC formats include avi, mpg, mov, mkv, rm and flv which you can select and configure on the same screen.

The program supports conversion profiles of which several are availably by default. You can create your own conversion profile which becomes then available whenever you convert videos using the program.

Profiles let you configure video and audio settings in detail, including video and audio codec that you want to use, resolution, bitrates and other quality settings.

A click on convert files starts the file conversion process which felt speedy when done on a reasonably fast test system. The program will prompt for a blank DVD if you have selected to create a video DVD.

A video editor is built-in which you can use to cut regions from the video. This can be useful to cut scenes that you do not want included in the resulting video file, or ads if you have recorded a TV show. The editor is easy to use but basic, and not comparable to professional video editing tools. Still, it is ideal for cutting out scenes.

Feature Overview

• Supported formats: DVD, AVI, MPEG, WMV and ASF, FLV and SWF, MOV, MP4 and M4V, RM and RMVB, 3GP, AMV and more.
• Create custom conversion profiles
• Merge or split video files
• Can burn DVD videos
• Uses video card to accelerate conversions

Closing Words

The program leaves little to be desired when it comes to video conversions on the PC. It could use an update on the supported devices, as devices like Apple’s iPhone, Android or iPad are missing.It is a great program if you are currently looking for a video converter.

The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. (via Addictive Tips)

Backstit.ch: iGoogle like personal startpage

By Martin Brinkmann on September 18, 2012 - TAGS: None

The personal startpage Backstit.ch launched today as a public beta. It basically aims to fill the gap that iGoogle will be leaving once Google retires the service on November 1, 2013. It will compete with established services such as Netvibes or My Yahoo, so lets see what it has to offer right now.

Once you have signed up you can either browse through a walk through of sorts to get started creating your own personal startpage on the Internet, or skip that and use all of the features the service is currently making available. A click on catalog on the left displays the various modules that the service is making available.

The current version concentrates on social networking, news, photos and shopping related modules that you can add to your startpage.

• News: a selection of popular news sites, including New York Times, Yahoo! News or NBC News, as well as tech blogs such as Mashable, TechCrunch or Engadget. You can also add RSS feeds to the startpage or use the search form to find a site you are interested in. Ghack’s found in the search, so all is good in this regard.
• Social: concentrates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, with options to see updates, posts and various other account related or public information posted on those sites.
• Shopping: Groupon, Woot and a handful of other deals related sites are available.
• Photos: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and photos shared on Tumblr can be added to the startpage.

Each module that you add to the startpage comes with configuration options. News for instance can be filtered by categories you are interested in and words that the news need to contain.

You can move around the modules on the screen to suit your own taste. You can also switch to the threads tab where news are sorted by date and time and not source. You will however find that news, photos, shopping and social are not mixed but available independently on the page.

You can click on any item listed on your personal startpage to open it right on the site, but with options to go to the site the article was published on to access all of the contents right on the site.

Backstit.ch is currently a beta product and as such likely not feature complete. It is currently missing features that I’d expect a startpage service to offer, including:

• Import of opml files
• Sharing options
• Custom tabs
• Widgets or gadgets like weather reports, calculator, currency converter
• Internet search

It would also be nice if you could make a page public, for instance to share it with friends or colleagues.

Windows Secrets Newsletter website hacked

By Martin Brinkmann on September 20, 2012 - TAGS: None

Windows Secrets is known by many for its newsletter that gets sound out regularly to free and paid subscribers of the site. At its core, it is a news site that is publishing its stories on its website and the newsletter, with some articles released exclusively to paid subscribers of the service. Articles are written by professionals and experts making this one of the few newsletters around the web that is worth subscribing to.

It recently became known that the Windows Secrets Newsletter website got hacked. The attacker managed to brute force an administrator account to gain access to the site. Using the account, the hacker planted malicious code on the site to get access to the site’s database and information. When subscribers and editors started to receive spam that appeared to come from Windows Secrets, site administrators began an investigation to find out what was going on.

They discovered the hacked administrator account and malicious code on the website, and removed all traces of the code and attack from the site. A full audit of the website, servers and sites on the same network is still undergoing.

Windows Secret users need to know what has been compromised. According to site operators, the following information could have been exposed:

subscriber name, e-mail address, reader number, ZIP code (if applicable), geographic region, and hashed password — all the entries on your profile page.

It seems fairly certain that email addresses have been exposed, considering that users have received spam in the last days.  Payment information are not kept on site, and credit card processing is handled by a third party service exclusively. There is no indication at the time of writing that financial information were compromised in the attack.

It is recommended to change the account password at the earliest convenience on this page to protect the account from third party access. Subscribers who have used the same password on other sites should change it on those sites as well as it is likely that the attacker will try to use the email and password combination to log in on popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google (provided that the brute-forcing of hashed passwords is successful of course). (thanks Ilev)

Opera 7.5 Mini for Android introduces new social Smart Page

By Martin Brinkmann on September 20, 2012 - TAGS: None

If you are not using Google Chrome as your browser on your Android smartphone you may have at least looked at Opera’s offerings for the operating system. According to the statistics on Google Play, the browser has been installed on at least 10 million devices. Opera Mini 7.5 has just been released for Android phones running Android version 1.5 or higher introducing a new Smart Page and other features in the version.

You are probably wondering why Opera is making available two different browser versions, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. The main difference is how pages are rendered using the browser. Opera Mini uses Opera servers to render pages while Opera Mobile renders pages on the smartphone directly. This makes Opera Mini ideal if a smartphone’s hardware is not the fastest as it removes the time it takes before the pages are displayed on the screen.

Back to Opera Mini 7.5. Smart Page is a new social tab in the browser that taps right into popular social networking sites to keep you updated with the latest activities. The browser supports Facebook, Twitter and vKontakte, and once you have signed in on the browser you receive the latest updates right on the page without having to visit the sites directly.

Another addition is the My News section which displays news from a variety of sources based on your browsing habits or your preferences. Opera Mini furthermore displays link suggestions on the start page based “on the region your Android phone is located” in.

The speed dial feature is just a tab away in the browser, and since data gets compressed when you use Opera Mini, you benefit from faster browsing and reduced bandwidth usage, which is especially helpful for people who pay per Megabyte or with a plan that is only providing them with a low amount of free bandwidth per month.

Opera Mini 7.5 is available for download on Google Play.

Here is a video by Opera Software highlighting the new features of Opera Mini’s Smart Page feature.