PaulSpoerry.com

Windows Automatic Update keeps your OS running the latest patches, but what about all that other software you have on your machine? It’s a tedious and manual process to ensure that you have the latest software patches available installed on your machine.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector can handle this for you though… and trust me, it’ll find crap you didn’t even think to look for. I keep my box pretty darn clean and it found left over bits of Flash, program updates, etc. The Secunia PSI is an invaluable tool for you to use when assessing the security patch state of software installed on your system. It constantly monitors (if you want it to) your system for insecure software installations, notifies you when an insecure application is installed, and even provides you with detailed instructions for updating the application when available.

I didn’t have an exorbitant amount of out of date things, but I was surprised by the number of items PSI did find out my system… namely out of date Flash files which it considered a security risk.

Installing PSI is pretty straight forward as is running the application. On start up you can chose if you want Simple Overview (for the casual user) or Advanced Overview which provides in depth information on what it finds. I picked advanced and was pleased with the volume of information PSI shows.

When PSI finds an out of date or potentially flawed application you will be provided with detailed information indicating why it has been flagged.

Best of all the application is free! Snag your copy today from Secunia.com

The new software update allows gamers to buy new musical tracks, released weekly, without having to use the Xbox Live front end. The store is no more and no less than a full-fledged music service for Rock Band; you can browse available songs by artist, by song title, and later, by album. Many of the tracks are shown with album art, the name of the CD they’ve been taken from, as well as detailed information about how difficult each song is to play on each of the game’s four instruments. A preview function is also available, allowing gamers to hear each song before they pay the dollar or two to download the tracks for use in the game.Couple of important points… if you didn’t catch it this means you can do all of this within the game, AND you can preview the song before you buy it. That’s something I always thought was lacking from RB.

This is a new way to get at a demographic that doesn’t seem to see the worth of paying for music: add the same song they’re willing to download for free into Rock Band or Guitar Hero and see people pay $2 and up for the track. Put a set of three songs by new bands together one week for a lower price, and gamers looking for new content will try them out, allowing you to spread the word about new artists. Gamers are a prime market for music and this is a way to get them more involved in new bands.

It seems like somebody finally gets it. Music sales are in sharp decline because for years now the cost to MAKE music has dropped substantially, people are tired of being raped on the cost of music and would rather just steal it. Here’s a cool idea, provide the music in a way the consumer can interact with it! Kudos… I can’t wait to download more tunes.