Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News back in 2005. Martin started his career as a tech support representative at a large German financial corporation which he used to finance his college education in English, Information Technology and History.
He quit college and his job when Ghacks began to attract a large enough readership. He made the decision to become a full time blogger and webmaster, and has not looked back since.
Martin is interested in all things tech. His primary focus is on desktop operating systems, web browsers, Internet services, and privacy related topics.
He published the book The Complete Windows 10 Privacy Guide: Windows 10 Fall Creators Update version in 2017. Martin writes a weekly column for fellow tech site Betanews as well.
You can reach Martin on Facebook or on Twitter. Please use the contact form at the bottom of the page to contact the author directly.
Martin has been quoted or mentioned in many major online and print publications, including Forbes, Lifehacker.com, ComputerWorld, LinkedIn, Reddit, Betanews.com, Bleeping Computer, TechCrunch, PC World, Tom's Hardware, Slashdot, Hacker News, The Register, and more.
Martin's articles on Ghacks
If you are from the United States and have been visiting another country lately or if you are from another country and want to access google.com you might have noticed that you are automatically getting redirected to a country code domain of Google. Users from France for instance are redirected to Google.fr automatically.
The Firefox error AUS: Update XML File Malformed (200) is a general update error message that can not be attributed to one specific error. Generally speaking the error can be related to the offline mode, proxy servers, network connections or https related. This are only a few of the possibilities and I would like to explain what you can do to fix this issue.
Tiny text that can't be changed. Background textures that hurt your eyes. A font color with a low contrast to the background color, e.g. dark blue font on dark background. I guess we all have experienced websites that had a design like this, always thought it was there to hurt the visitor because I could not think of any other reason why someone would do things like that.
There are two types of hard disk formatting possibilities, low and high level formating. High level formatting is the widely known formatting that erases data on the disks while low level formatting nowadays refers to the reinitialization to the factory settings. One of the major differences between both types is that data can successfully be restored after performing a high level formatting of a hard drive.
I really do love Sony. They do have so many innovative ways of ******* off their customers it's unbelievable they are still in business. We have already seen proprietary formats, rootkits on CDs, the soon to be closed online music store that will leave customers who have purchased music there with not playing music if they change hardware or computer. Now there is another story emerging, this one is about Sony notebooks and how they lock out low cost batteries.
The website HDR walls is getting some huge news coverage since yesterday and is having troubles serving all visitors because of cpu and bandwidth limitations. I was pondering quite a bit but thought that I post the link to the website anyway because it will most like cool off pretty soon
If you want to be different than the rest of the iPhone pack you could install Summerboard and one of the themes that make your iPhone stick out from the crowd. It is possible to download themes for Summerboard or even create one yourself, the article will concentrate on premade themes that can be downloaded.
I always asked myself what the main reason for DRM - digital rights media - really is. It - maybe - can be used to stop legit buyers from giving a song to their friends or relatives but it surely does not step the spreading of music at all. Music pirates do get the music before any shop has them in their inventory which in turn means that everyone with a little bit of knowledge about P2P services can get their hands on the music.
For some time now I'm running several maintenance applications once a week to improve the performance, security and privacy of my computer. It usually takes less than two hours to run all of these applications and I would like to explain which programs I'm using, why I'm using them and what the benefit of using them is.
One of the visual effects that were introduced by Microsoft in Windows Vista was the task switching effect that displayed all open programs in a 3D environment with the user being able to browse them. I give you that, it surely looks nice and I know that some users would like to have a similar effect in a previous version of Windows.
It is sometimes quite handy to have a screen magnifier at hand to magnify part of the computer screen. This can be useful for reading small text on websites or for viewing images in greater detail. You might say that such functions, to increase the text size and to zoom into images already exists in those programs and while I have to agree with that it is sometimes faster and easier to use a screen magnifier.
A lot of techniques exist to create unique secure passwords for the websites that you want to join. Most users however prefer the easy way and use one or a few passwords for all of the websites they are a member of and never change the password as well. The same applies to the username which is most of the time the same or a variation of that name.
The common way to create folders in Windows is to right-click the folder that you are in, select New > Folder from the menu and name the folder that appears. Creating several folders that way is a long process, that's where Make New Folder comes into play. The tiny application lets the user create folder names faster by providing a menu bar for as along as you need it.
Windows Vista ships and installs with a lot of programs and features that I do not need. I'm not only talking about games and wallpapers but also about Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer or support for Tablet PCs. These applications and functions are nevertheless installed when you install Windows Vista and there is no way of disabling many of them during the installation.
Sometimes applications add icons to the Windows control panel. Ever wondered how they do it ? Wonder no more because you can now do the same with Your CPL, a small utility compatible with Windows XP, 2000, ME and Windows 98. The package contains two files that have to be moved into the system directory of the Windows installation. In the case of Windows XP it would mean that both files, YourCPL.cpl and YourCPLconfig.txt need to be moved into the system32 directory.
David Ascher has published a Thunderbird 3 Planning mail where he details so called high level points and a rough road map for Thunderbird 3. The main goal is to publish a public milestone build of Thunderbird 3 in 2008, with alpha builds in the first quarter, beta builds without calendering in Q2, beta builds with calendering in Q3 and widely useful builds in Q4, subject to change of course depending on development progress.
The default behavior of Firefox is to show a File Download dialog window when you start to download a file. The user can then choose to save the file or open it directly by choosing an application / the default application. Sometimes however things get messed up and the download window is not showing up anymore.
Ever wanted to know how to tie a Windsor knot, Reuse an old PC as a server or eavesdrop on a bluetooth headset ? If you answered that question with yes you should be heading out to Wonder How To, a website containing thousands of how to videos that explain things visually the easy way.
I never use a few of the keys on my keyboard, the caps lock key for instance or the pause key. Since they are not helpful in any way and can also pose a problem if accidentally pressed I decided to map those keys to another function. I was able to do that with the software Sharp Keys which makes it possible to remap any key.
You sometimes might want to create screenshots from a complete movie in a sequence so to speak. The result would be a screenshot with small thumbnails from the movie showing different scenes of it. The best program in my opinion is Image Grabber which is freely available on the Internet.
A lot of things can be wrong if you setup a new monitor or never bothered to calibrate an old one. The screen could be to bright or dark for instance. I always hated calibrating monitors because it meant that I had to press all those tiny buttons on the monitor to access the functions but it is necessary for the best viewing experience.
The news that European Internet Service Providers did not have to give up names of customers to members of the Music Industry and other organizations in civil cases hit the Internet by storm. Everyone seemed to think that this was a major victory for consumer rights. It probably is in some countries but let me explain how this is easily circumvented, at least in Germany.
The tiny software Vista Drive Icon changes the drive icons in My Computer when running a previous version of Windows - like Windows XP, Windows 2000 and even Windows 95 - to drive icons that resemble those of Windows Vista. They are not the same but look nice and add a new function displaying the free and used space of the drive in a horizontal bar beneath the icon.
Many Internet services offer access to their services only if you are visiting the websites or applications from certain countries. IPs, and sometimes more variables like the system time, are checked when a user wants to access a country restricted service. If the IP is located in an allowed country access is allowed, otherwise it is rejected.
Microsoft released a hotfix a few days ago that is fixing a problem that affected some Windows Vista and Windows XP systems. the knowledge base articles Performance for a WPF-based program that uses the layered windows feature may be less than expected in Windows Vista and Performance is poor in a WPF-based application in which you have enabled layered windows in Windows XP or in Windows Server 2003 are unfortunately offering only a mediocre explanation.
Ink is expensive, I think we can all agree on this fact, yet programs with ink saving technologies are not available widely. Free programs that save ink are even rarer and it is nice to see that a program named Greenprint is now available in a free version which does have reduced functionality and ads.
Qtrax hype has reached a climax yesterday with reviews on many blogs and websites. The funny thing about this is that the client was not officially available yet and either all those reviewers had beta access or were simply using press material issued by Qtrax to review the service. Well, the client is available now but before I look at it I would like to describe Qtrax in a few words.
The only homepage that Firefox is starting with is my own. I used to open Netvibes as well using the simple | separator that makes it possible to open more than one homepage during Firefox startup. But what if someone wanted to open different homepages depending on the weekday ?
I normally do not write about file hoster because most simply offer the same service using a different interface and website address. Drop.io on the other hand is pretty unique because of several features. Users do not have to signup to store (drop) their files at Drop.io and the only limitation is a maximum size of 100 Megabytes per drop.
I would like to introduce an easy way to download lots of pictures from websites that name them sequentially, meaning they simply add a number and maybe some chars to every new picture added. Smugmug for instance uses one directory /photos/ on their website and puts all pictures, or at least links to them in that directory. All pictures look like number-M.jpg which makes it very easy to use a script to download all pictures within a certain range.
If you would use an image host, put up some of your images and set them to private, would you expect them to be still accessible by anyone ? This is apparently the case over at Smugmug where a private setting simply means that the pictures and image galleries are not directly linked from the homepage anymore but can still be accessed by simply entering the url directly in the browser address bar or download manager.
The Windows clipboard can store a single text phrase in its memory, once a new phrase is copied to the clipboard the old one is lost. If you want to copy two different text phrases for instance you need to copy the first, paste it somewhere, copy the second and paste it as well. A tool that would save more than one record at a time would optimize the process considerably.
Quick Tool for the evening. The unfortunates who have to use Internet Explorer might find the following utility handy, it is called Faves Analyser and analyzes the favorites of the Internet Explorer. All favorites are scanned and tested to see if the links are still working.
Just a few days ago I posted an article about How to update Windows with Offline Updates which downloaded selected updates for various Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office directly from Windows update servers.
Many Internet websites have the habit to divide articles in tiny little chapters that sometimes require you to click ten or more times on next to read the full article. If you want to reread a part you have to click back to do so. I once again came by a website that used this technique, it's Information Week and their article Top 60 Little-Known Technology Web Sites. Ghacks is unfortunately not in that list.
Spammers user thousands of computers to send spam mails, why should not thousands of users use the same technique to combat spam effectively ? That's the major idea behind a collaborative spam filter that not only learns from your input but also from the input of other users that use the same product.
Two, seemingly authentic, documents have been leaked to the German Pirate Party on Wednesday containing information about costs and technical information about a Skype trojan that could be used to eavesdrop on Skype communications. The documents contain indications of at least one operation of the Skype Trojan in Germany.
People use dozens of social news and bookmarking websites nowadays. All those sites offer toolbars and buttons for various browsers including Firefox, it's just to much if you want to install all of them. Webmasters are looking for ways to submit their sites and articles to those sites with less effort.
MP3 search engines seem to appear by the dozen every week and about 11 of them disappear after a while either because no one uses them or because they have been sued by a record company. I have seen defenses against this. The first is to search and play only music from "legit" sources like Youtube or Last.fm, the other is to host the mp3 search engine in a country that is outside of the Western jurisdiction.
Seeqpod is a mp3 search engine. You type in a song name, artist or any other information you got and Seeqpod displays results found on other Internet sites. Much like Google does but only for music and with the difference that a player is available on the result page that can play videos and music found that way.
