Update: Thanks to everyone who filled the survey! We have collected enough information now to be able to tell we have a very educated audience composed in good part of technology enthusiasts and IT professionals. A majority of you plan to spend money on computer hardware and CE equipment in the coming months and plan to make those purchases online. Wait, we knew that already :). The Asus Eee netbook giveaway winner will be contacted and announced within the next 7 days. Watch out for that email. Thanks again! - About once a year we ask our readers to help us filling a short survey which will help us targeting our audience better. The best part, we will randomly giveaway an Asus Eee PC 904HA netbook among those who fill the questionnaire. We use the gathered information to create a profile of TechSpot’s audience, so we can keep offering relevant technology-related advertising on the site. Our business model relies on advertising, so we’ve seen our ups and downs over the last...

Although I’ve been running Windows 7 betas on and off periodically since the release of build 7000, it wasn’t until I used the x64 RC more extensively as my primary OS that I realized Java wouldn’t load in Firefox. Intriguingly, however, it appeared to be working just fine in both IE and Safari. I can’t say for sure how widespread the issue is, coming straight XP, however, my girlfriend’s laptop running Vista Ultimate x64 also faced the issue. There were no manifestations of an actual error, in fact, Java applets were as blank as could be, and trying to interact with the Java console in Firefox caused the text to gray out with absolutely no result. All the while, Java’s plugin was listed in the browser’s add-ons, just as one would expect it to be. My initial instinct sent me hunting through Firefox’s options to ensure that Java was enabled – which it was. I checked the Java control panel in Windows for any potential discrepancies, of which I found none....

It seems as though nearly everyone has at least two email addresses these days, and it’s not uncommon to have upwards of four that are used on a regular basis for separate purposes. You may or may not have heard of Gmail’s multiple inboxes feature and how useful it is, so if you’d like to take advantage of this awesome way to manage your email, read on. The multiple inbox feature can be enabled to access third party email accounts (hotmail, your ISP email, etc.) alongside your Gmail account and can even be used to display certain sections or labels within your Gmail account simultaneously, e.g. by creating a search filter for a labeled or starred email. Though at first glance this may seem daunting, it’s not that bad to configure and will give you the advantage of never ever having to check 2+ separate email accounts again. Step 1: Login to your Gmail account and enable the “Multiple Inboxes” feature under the settings > labs tab. Once you do that, an additional...

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you had to rename dozens or even hundreds of files, performing each and every file name edit manually, you can certainly understand the need for an utility like the Bulk Rename Utility. While it might be a bit overwhelming at first sight, the 5-15 minute learning curve is well worth the time and energy you’ll undoubtedly save. The Bulk Rename Utility allows you to perform a plethora of bulk file name modifications, all of which leave the files’ extension untouched unless you deploy an edit using the “Extension” section. You can easily add, remove and substitute letters, numbers, date and timestamps and it can all be done in more than a single way in some situations, ultimately leaving the process very open to the user. You are provided with a preview of all potential and pending changes so you can tinker with and tweak your settings accordingly, though if you make an error it’s easily reversible by tapping CTRL+Z. As...

If you’ve decided to give Windows 7 a whirl and have recently installed the open now closed beta, you’ll have noticed that upon installation you are notified of the fact that you’re lacking proper antivirus software. This is nothing new and actually has been a “feature” of Windows ever since XP’s SP2 got released and the Security Center came to exist. It’s nothing new either to have a majority of antivirus suites to become incompatible with brand new operating systems - and Windows 7 is no exception, especially more so in its current beta form. Upon a bit of investigation you probably made your way to the Windows 7 security provider page at Microsoft’s site and perhaps were let down by the fact that the three “officially” supported AVs are all paid software or that your preferred suite isn’t listed (AVG is listed but not the free version). So, we’ve decided to install and test a variety of the more popular options out there so you don’t...