MaximumPC 2004 10

OCTOBER 2004 MA XIMUMPC 3

RSS Bandit

App Rocket

AM-DeadLink

You know the drill: You

come across an awe-

some Flash-based web site

with badgers bouncing up and

down, and you bookmark it. And you

keep doing this for every fun site you

stumble upon until eventually it takes

10 minutes to scroll through the whole

lot of ‘em. Then one day you try to

launch the badger site to show a friend,

and the link is dead. You click another

link and it’s dead as well. AM-DeadLink

solves this problem by detecting dead

links and duplicates in any browser,

including Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, and

Internet Explorer.

Operation is simple. Just select your

browser from a drop-down menu and

hit the “check” button. All links are

pinged and a status message is dis-

played next to each bookmark. Once

dead links are detected, it takes a mere

two clicks to eradicate them from your

bookmarks folder, allowing you to keep

things nice and tidy. A split-pane view

allows you to visit bookmarked sites

within the application, so you can also

weed out sites that are working but no

longer of interest to you. On top of all

that, DeadLink will make a backup file of

your bookmarks, for safe keeping.

Free, http://www.aignes.com

Once you open DeadLink and select

your browser, it will look for the

bookmark.htm file in the default

location. (Warning: For Firefox , the

utility defaults to the wrong location,

so you’ll actually have to browse to

C:/Documents and Settings/Username/

Application data, etc. in the utility’s

dialog box—and you’ll have to be

able to view hidden files to see this

directory.)

Once you’ve found your bookmark file,

DeadLink will display its contents.

Next hit the green checkmark button

to begin the validation process.

Once the utility has pinged all your

bookmarks, it presents you with an

easy-to-read display of which links

work, and which don’t.

Autopatcher XP

Not a day goes by, it seems,

without some new virus or

bug or wormhole threatening

the integrity of Internet Explorer

or Windows XP, so we rely on Windows

Update to save us from possible doom.

But what do you do with a fresh install

of XP, prior to all the essential updates?

Do you really want to go online without

any of the security patches installed? Are

you mad? Luckily, there’s Autopatcher

XP. It combines all the available fixes and

updates into an ISO file that you can run

prior to connecting your PC to

the Internet. Thus you’re able

to perform a complete install

offline so your PC is up-to-date

and protected before you ven-

ture onto the web.

The only requirement for

running this utility is that you

have Service Pack 1 installed,

so the best way to proceed

is to download both SP1 and

Autopatcher and burn both to

CD, so you can update any

PC with just one disc. When running, it

works just like Windows Update, mean-

ing it looks at your PC’s Registry and

presents a list of

fixes that should be

installed. Once you

select the ones you

want, simply run it and

doggone it if your new

XP install isn’t up to

date before you even

hit the Information

Super Highway’s

onramp. Free, http://www.

autopatcher.com

Upon initialization, Autopatcher

scans your Registry just like Windows

Update does to determine what fixes

your PC needs.

The program then presents you with

a hierarchical list of recommended

updates so you can choose which

fixes to install.

Now when you go online your PC is sound as a pound!

the integrity of

Autopatcher XP

bug or wormhole threatening bug or wormhole threatening

some Flash-based web site

with badgers bouncing up and

AM-DeadLink

with badgers bouncing up and with badgers bouncing up and

Inactive bookmarks begone

Get WinXP updates offline