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
Dial-a-fix is a collection of 'known fixes' that have been compiled over the past year that really knock out some serious Windows problems, all with one or two clicks. It tackles issues with SSL/Cryptography, Windows Update, Microsoft Installer, and many miscellaneous shell problems. Most of the fixes it uses are found in various Microsoft Knowledgebase articles, and articles written by Microsoft MVPs. When you see a list of DLLs that need to be registered using REGSVR32.EXE, chances are they are already listed in Dial-a-fix. Mouseover a checkbox or button to obtain more information about what will be executed, or what DLLs will be registered.
Most of us are geeks. We work many hours a day nonstop using computers and notebooks and seldomly take breaks in that time. Well, unless we stand up to get another coffee. So, most of us work in an unhealthy environment.
It´s a well know fact that some spammers use automated scripts that scan websites for email addresses and include them in their list of email addresses that will be spammed. Sarven Capadisli compiled a huge list of mechanisms to hide the email address to counter those robots. Most can only be used if you have certain rights on the website for example number seven uses javascript to hide the email address and this is normally not active for site users.
Is it a good idea to look at online marketplaces like ebay to find a (used) notebook ? Is it a good idea to buy a used one or should one go for a new one ? Buying used ones has some advantages over new models: The price will be considerably lower, even if the used one has been purchased just a few months ago. Prices for last generations notebooks drop fast, even more if they have been used already.
CDs don´t last forever. They get scratches for instance and sometimes these make the CD or some sectors become unreadable. Now, what can you do if you desperately need the data on the CD ? The article Recovering Scratched CDs from hardwaresecrets.com tries to answer this question.
Streamer Radio is an all in one internet radio tool that lets you listen to and record audio streams of your favorite internet radio stations. It´s highly configurable and works with shoutcast.com and icecast.org mp3 streams, icecasts ogg vorbis streams and even windows media audio streaming. Works great, is free, what more do you want ?
A good extensive list of freeware alternatives can be found at the neowin forum. The applications are sorted in categories like Cd/DVD Burning, Encryption and Data Security and Instant Messengers. All in all more than two hundred applications in 43 categories. If you are looking for a special freeware tool make sure you take a look at the neowin forum. Worth a visit.
Some weeks ago Sony made the attempt to protect the music from some of the cd´s they distribute by adding a rootkit software which would be installed if the user wanted to play the cd on his personal computer. The technique had its flaws and was only working on windows but it still ment that a rootkit was installed on the pc and other scripts could use this rootkit for malicious purposes. After a large outcry from the web community Sony decided to pull the cd´s from the shelves and offer a tool to uninstall the rootkit. (which you would only get through a long process)
Forcevision is an image viewer and image manipulation tool that is available free for non commercial purposes. It supports 46 different image formats and is able to convert single images or multiple ones in batch mode.
The ExpressPdf website lets you convert word and excel documents as well as websites to pdf online. It´s easy and straightforward. All you need to do is select a document or a website url to convert, provide your email address and the new pdf will be sent to the email address.
When I look at my taskmanager I sometimes see filenames that I don´t know. What is that file gives you the answer to the question. It´s solely based on user submissions, just like wikipedia for instance. Just enter a filename and the following information will be displayed: Name, purpose, description and if its safe or a malicious one. Great if you are not sure why a file is running on your system.
I found an interesting section at interfacelift.com which lets you icon packages for windows and macintosh. You find more than 90 pages each with 10 icon packages for macintosh and 24 pages with 10 icon packages each for microsoft windows. Downloads are free of course and icons look great. The site opens a popup with advertisment as well, if that annoys you use a popup blocker.
A friend of mine asked me to take a look at his computer because it reacted slowly and took ages to boot. He was running windows xp home and shared the computer with his wife and his two lovely girls who unfortunatly decided to install lots of "female" orientated applications like riding games, animated screensavers and the like. After getting rid of 185 spyware entries I told him that he could speed up his pc which had only 256 Mb if he would disable some features of windows xp.
Breaking news from the electronic frontier foundation website which warns users to use a feature called Search Across Computers of the google desktop software. This feature apparently stores copies of documents, such as word, pdf or text, on googles own servers.
Muzip is a freware packer that supports formats like zip, gzip and tar. It´s only 460K in size and offers an explorer like interface. It also offers the possibility to backup files on your harddrive and even schedule them using the windows scheduler.
If you are using linux you might know the symbolic link functionality which allows you to create a (symbolic) link between two directories. A little freeware tool called junction from sysinternals adds this functionality to windows.
This has been around for some days but its still worth an article. Myspace users have the option to hide their comments and friendlist from other users. With an easy workaround it´s possible to view them even though the user did activate the hidding feature.
A study conducted by Professor Martin Gill of the University of Leicester came to the conclusion that second hand computers pose a great risk of fraud and identity theft. They purchased six computers in the course of their study from various second hand channels. Six computers may not seem to justify the results but it can be seen as an indicator. Half of them had not been securely wiped while one had not been wiped at all. Two of the three contained enough information for identity theft.
Most people tend to use passwords that they can rememeber easily. If you take a deeper look many use the same password for most of their password protected activities which is a high security risk. Break one, get access to all.
Everton from connectedinternet.co.uk compiled a list of ten firefox extensions that don´t get glamorised that much. The list includes some extensions that I never heard before, like the Colorful Tabs Extension. Make sure you head over to his site and take a look at the compilation.
The c-64 was my first computer. I had an atari 2600 before and it seemed like a quantum leep at that time. The C-64 had many classic games that I enjoyed playing: Archon, Boulder Dash and Pirates for instance. You know have the chance to play some of the alltime classics of that era in your browser. The website c64s.com is the Eldorado for everyone who wants to play that classic games again or take a look at games of a time long forgotten.
I´am cautious when I read another article that claims to speed up your windows operating system by simply tweaking some settings in the registry. I learned the hard way that your os sometimes becomes unstable and you will have to restore it or do a fresh install. The article "Make your windows fast as never before" is one of those articles that makes this claim.
Sometimes you delete something and realize later that you still need the file(s) that you´ve deleted before. Its easy to recover them if they are still in your trashbin, but you need special tools to recover files that have been deleted permanently under windows.
Lets assume your system has been hacked. What steps would you undertake after the hacking attempt ? The article written at techtarget.com tries to answer the question and presents a checklist of things to do after being someone hacked into your system. Its more of a checklist for corporate networks than for individual computers but it would not hurt to take a look and probably get some new ideas that you did not think about.
The free ftp software Smart Ftp 2.0 has been released and is available for download at the developers website. Changes include a new graphical user interface with tabs, a new local and remote browser and support for 64 bit windows operating systems. If you are looking for a free ftp program give it a try, it might be exactly what you are looking for.
Phishing, which is a construct of the words Password and Fishing, becomes more and more common on the internet. Many people recieve daily mails from sites like ebay and paypal but also from financial sites like citibank that look authentic and direct you to a website that looks like a copy of the original site. They "phish" your login data or credit card information from that fake website.
Searchenginewatch published a rather large article about protecting your search privacy today. They provide a step-by-step guide how your search privacy gets exposed from your desktop to the sites you visit. They divided the article into six chapters beginning with Search Privacy On Your Own Computer and ending with a conclusion that gives you valuable tips on how to protect your search privacy.
When I tried to switch for the first time from windows to linux I felt left alone. The web was not what it now uses to be, tutorials and help documents were scarce and one had to have a friend who could help or try the trial and error way to get linux installed and configured. Linux is becoming more user friendly and lots of tutorials and help sites pop up that help beginners and guide them through the basic installation and configuration process.
I posted yesterday an article about tracing an hacker, today I give you one about tracing an email. The first thing you have to do is to enable email headers. The site shows you how to do so using gmail, yahoo and msn. All software products should support this feature as well. Email Headers show you additional information about the email, for example a ip is shown.
This is a nice beginners tutorial that tells you how to trace people who try to break into your computer. It covers lots of explanations to questions like "How do these people find their victim?" and "What the phrases TCP/UDP actually mean".
If this topic did not catch your attention at once then none will. Dr. Charles Gerba from the university of Arizona found out in a study that measured normal bacterial levels inside offices across America that the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat.
Many of you told me that I should create a new list of websites that are running webproxies. Today I finally had the time to compile this new list, hope everyone is satisfied with the result.
Maybe it´s a good start to explain why someone would need a webproxy ( or a proxy ). Some countries, for example china, iran and germany, ban certain websites and you can´t view them using your normal internet connection. A proxy on the other hand could be able to display the website correctly and you recieve all the information you want to access.
Freeware: I always try to use freeware or open source software whenever its possible. 100-downloads.com lists 100 of the best on their page listed neatly in categories like audio, imaging and security. They list lots of freeware tools that I´am using and some that I did not know about and will definatly try out.
It´s always a good idea to backup your hard drive(s) every now and then to prevent data loss. The guys, eh Gina, over at lifehacker wrote a nice article. It only describes the procedure for windows computers, all you need is an external hard drive, a ftp server and the freeware tool Syncback.
I´am like most of you using windows xp as my primary operating system. I always pondered if I should make a complete change to linux, make a dual boot system or stay with windows. Every decision would have advantages but also disadvantages.
I´ve been using firefox for a long time and can recommend it to anyone who is still using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Besides being more secure firefox users have the ability to install extensions, little addons that add to the functionality of the browser. I collected ten nice extensions that are worth a try if you are using firefox. All work with the latest build 1.5 and versions before, of course.
Fix my XP is a site that has lots of windows tips that are especially useful for beginners. Tips that explain how to remove unused dlls from memory, fine tune your lcd display or how to open large folders faster can be found on the site. Take a look, you might be suprised what you find.
Folder Size is a nice little freeware application that adds a new column to the details view of your windows explorer displaying the size of every folder that exists in the current directory. Its mighty helpful if you want to clean your hard drive. It shows exactly which folders contain the biggest files and its always a good idea to start cleaning there.
There are several methods to reset and recover your windows administrators password. The fastest method is to use a freeware tool like Offline NT Password & Registry Editor or the linux live distribution Austrumi.
I was not sure how to name the article appropriately. You can convert any image on your computer into a text image at text-image.com. The result looks great, just take a look at the sample image that I reduced in size. The normal size looks much clearer and brighter.
