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
I barely finished the article about the first USB devices with an build in Iris scanner when the next developer announced a system to secure data on USB devices called Flash Padlock. It is basically a a USB stick with one or two Gigabytes of space that is protected by a pin that has to be entered on the device itself to be able to access the data on the stick.
I don't like the Windows Vista sidebar that much and think that most applications - also called widgets and gadgets - are pretty much useless. The Windows Vista sidebar styler is a great software for those who use the sidebar and would like to have more options to customize the look and feel of it.
I decided to uninstall the old CCleaner version that I had installed on my system and replace it with the first CCleaner 2.0 beta version which was released just a few days ago. The new CCleaner version was rebuild from scratch in C++ adding Windows Vista, 64-bit and portable support to this excellent software.
I found this story at the Donation Coder blog and thought that I would pass it on because it is really worth to mention. A software author who submitted his softwares to various download sites before took a closer look at some of them only to find out that some download sites gave awards to every software in their catalog.
XdN Tweaker is not one of those usual tweaking softwares that give you access to change hundreds of Windows settings in one tiny menu. This one is different. It concentrates on only a handful of tweaks that are not so common and supports Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 2003 both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and needs the .net framework 2.0 as well.
I'm one of those guys who likes to have a neatly categorized mp3 collection with a distinct folder structure ( band name / album ) and properly named and tagged songs. I absolutely hate it if songs are not properly named or are missing tags because it messes up my iPod as well.
Have you asked yourself what you would do if you were in a situation like the castaway Robinson Crusoe, the famous protagonist of Daniel Dafoe's novel ? What would be your first task, find water, food or shelter ? How would you fight of wild animals, make fire or create tools ?
My biggest complaint that I have when using Open Office is the speed of the application. It loads terribly slow for instance and it only topped by the time GIMP needs to startup. Way to slow to edit a document quickly in my opinion. The guys at Zolved found a way to speed up Open Office by editing a few settings in the software's settings.
If you ask ten webmasters about the best Adsense unit that is offered at the moment, the best color scheme for that unit and best location you would get ten different answers. There is no absolute truth, no way to setup Adsense that will earn you the most. It depends on so many factors that it is difficulty to give general tips.
Everyone is able to access data on normal usb sticks unless the data on the stick is encrypted with softwares like True Crypt for instance. Software based encryptions however require that the software to decrypt the data is actually installed on the system. It would not be possible to decrypt the data. The user also needs to know the password to decrypt the data, if the password is lost the data is lost unless a weak password was chosen during the encryption process.
Many Firefox extensions that you install can be configured by accessing the Tools > Add-ons menu and clicking on the Options button of the extension that you want to configure. This is not an elegant way if you have to change options frequently. That is probably the same thought that James R. Skinner had who developed the Firefox extension 'Options Menu'.
Don't worry about the game title. Punishment is definitely not a punishment because it is really a unique experience. One of those games that does not look good but makes it up with incredible gameplay. Another one of those games that prove that graphics mean crap if the gameplay rocks.
It seems to become common for electronic companies that produces items with batteries to recall batteries with a manufacturing defect that could lead to mobile phone explosions under certain circumstances. I was concerned that my new phone, the Nokia N73 Music Edition, was one of the phones that could have a defective battery but I was lucky this time.
I recently read an article about Firefox tweaks that would speed up page loading time by changing several settings in the about:config dialog. I knew those tweaks but decided to take a look if my settings were different from the ones mentioned in the article.
I found out - to my big surprise - that I was running Firefox with the default settings and not the tweaked settings. I had the feeling that Firefox was running slower than before after the latest update but I was not able to determine the cause, until now that is.
Roman commented on my article about removing fonts to increase system startup speed yesterday mentioning the free software Font Frenzy which could remove all non system fonts with the click of a button. This is way more elegant than the suggested manual way that I came up with yesterday which is why I would like to write about Feed Frenzy today.
A friend of mine was asking me why the boot process of his Windows XP operating system would take this long. I took a quick look at his system and found out that he had more than 700 fonts installed on his system. A in depth analysis by pc spy using a virtual xp system and Microsoft Bootvis confirmed that 1000 fonts would delay system boot time by 30 seconds compared to 5.33 seconds if only 100 fonts are installed on the system.
I regularly work with a lot of applications in Windows Vista at once which should not be a problem because I have enough RAM and a fast enough CPU to handle all of those applications with each. It happens that I experience a strange behavior which can be only be attributed to the number of applications and windows that are opened simultaneously.
Last year I was describing a way to get into the website Experts-Exchange.com by disguising yourself as the Googlebot. Apparently a similar story makes its way around the Internet these days with a more detailed approach detailing the steps that you have to partake to be identified as Googlebot.
Microsoft released a total of nine security patches yesterday fixing six critical and three important vulnerabilities on its August Patchday. Those updates were available on both my Windows XP and Windows Vista system and Microsoft in Windows Update but can also be downloaded as single updates from the Microsoft website.
A website like Wikipedia that offers every user the ability to edit most of the articles is definitely being manipulated by organizations, companies and individuals that try to push their agenda on this new battlefield. It is however not that easy to determine if an article has been altered by someone on behalf of an organization.
RaimaRadio is a free software that lets you record music played by online radio stations. Several other programs such as XMPlay or Streamripper offer the same functionality and you might be wondering why I'm reviewing just another Internet Radio streamripper. The answer could not be simpler, RaimaRadio offers several unique features that make it worth a review.
Free DVD is a small freeware that is able to remove certain protections and other unwanted features of Video_TS folders on your hard drive. The software can remove the Region Code, Region Code Enhancements, Macrovision and so called UOPS (user operation prohibitions) protections.
DVDFab HD Decrypter is a free DVD and HD ripper that is able to copy the contents of a movie onto your hard drive even if that movie is copy protected. It can remove DVD copy protections such as CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS and even manages to remove AACS from Blue-Ray and HD-DVD disks which means that it should be possible to copy most DVDs and HD DVDs that you have to your hard disk without running into copy protection problems.
I just read an interesting article at Arstechnica by Ken Fisher who was commenting on the termination of Google's commercial Video service. The termination takes effect in just two days which would not be a big problem if the users who bought or rented videos from the service would still be able to play their purchased videos after that date.
I love to play flashgames when I'm on breaks or have some time at hand. The best thing in my opinion is that they are most of the time short enough to entertain you for a few minutes and that they can even motivate non-gamers to give it a try.. or two.
The Summer Olympics 2008 in China will probably be the biggest sport event in 2008 next to the Euro 2008. Many people from all over the world have the opportunity to watch the Summer Olympics live because they have access to television channels who broadcast the event.
Firefox's build in spell checker is a great asset for everyone who is working with Firefox. It does not matter if you update your blog, are a regular in a forum or like to write reviews on travel sites - the spell checker is a tool that you do not want to miss. New words can be added to the Firefox spell checker by right-clicking the word and choosing Add to Dictionary from the menu.
Not many Windows users now what the Custom Notifications are or where one could take a look at the elements hidden there. Microsoft describes Custom Notifications as the way in Windows to display active and urgent notifications. These icons show if you have new mail for instance.
One Click Installer is a Firefox extension and Wordpress plugin combination for Wordpress blog owners replacing the need to upload themes and plugins by ftp with a one click installation in Firefox. The extension will take any link pointing to a plugin or theme and upload it to the right folder of your Wordpress installation without the need to do that manually.
I have been looking for a rss reader for quite some time that would display the latest feeds in a news ticker style known from television news channels such as CNN. I quickly found an interesting Czech freeware that would display all my rss feeds in a news ticker either at the top or at the bottom of my screen.
Microsoft Port Reporter is a handy application that can be installed as a service in Microsoft Windows to log port usage data. The application logs port activity on Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 server systems. A preciser description would be that it logs which ports are used, which process is using the ports, which modules are loaded by the process, if the process is a service and which user account is running the process.
The Windows taskbar is not only useful for showing which programs and folders are currently active on your system but can also he customized to store permanent shortcuts to applications and folders as well as links to Internet websites. I would like to show you how to configure your taskbar to add your favorite websites as well as links to your most commonly used applications and folders to it.
A colleague was asking me if I knew of a problem that he experienced after he setup his new computer. He was using the Internet Explorer 7 and witnessed that some of his favorites would apparently lose the url field after a while. The favorites were still there, the description was there but the url was gone and just a blank field remained.
A Tale of Two Kingdoms is a graphic adventure for Windows PCs and Linux that reminds me a lot of old classic Sierra adventures such as Kings Quest or Leisure Suit Larry. […]
Firefox remembers what you write which can lead to some troubles if you misspelled a domain name, login name or other information in the past. The auto complete feature displays all possible results which means that the misspelled names are always shown as well which can lead to some confusion - especially when only one letter is missing or wrong.
Many private torrent websites have a user limit in place which makes it impossible for new users to sign up unless an old user gets kicked out of the system, deletes his account or the admins raise the user limit. It is a tedious task to visit those sites daily to make sure that you can sign up eventually.
Toolbars are a plague; Every other software, especially free software asks the user if he wants to install a toolbar on his system. This is most of the time not that useful and clutters only the browser window. Some toolbars do not offer an uninstallation routine at all which means that it is problematic to remove them completely from your system.
A copier machine is basically a scanner and printer in one device. The clever folks that coded iCopy thought that it would be equally nice to use two machines - that is a printer and a scanner - to emulate a copier. You can use iCopy to scan a document with your scanner and print it afterwards on your copier, all in one task and hassle free.
I always take my notebook with me when I go on holidays with my family or friends to make sure that I can update and administrate my websites during that time. I also like to take a few of my DVDs with me to be able to watch them when there is nothing else to do, nothing beats watching a DVD on a rainy day in my opinion.
Nalu is practically three devices in one with a very intuitive interface. It is a mobile phone, a media player and a text messaging device. While this does not sound unlike the iPhone or any other smartphone currently available it becomes unique when you realize that it has a double hinged case that provides access to the three different interfaces.
