Keep Programs Patched with Secunia PSI

One of the annoyances of PC ownership is keeping all of those 3rd party applications up-to-date.  Outdated applications can lead to incompatibilities, less functionality and security vulnerabilities. Windows keeps some Microsoft programs updated via "Windows Update" but, unlike Linux, there is no way to add program libraries to the automatic updater on a Windows machine. Until Microsoft develops a better way to integrate updates into the operating system, users are stuck relying on each individual application to check for updated versions of itself, or worse, periodically manually checking for program updates.  


However, there is an alternative.  Personal Software Inspector (PSI) from Secunia is a free download for Windows that keeps track of the applications running on your machine and alerts you if patches are required.  PSI runs in the system tray and lets you know (via tray notification) if something has changed on your system.
  

PSI sports a high-level dashboard showing the overall state of your system with historical graphs dating back several weeks:

Also included are detailed views on all applications detected that PSI is able to keep track of:

...and browser plug-ins:

Secunia PSI also knows where the updates for unpatched programs are located, and places a link to the update page under the detected application in the "insecure" tab:

Personally, I like to set PSI to launch at Windows startup, and also to un-tick the box that says "Show only "Easy-to-Patch" programs" in order to see as much data about my unpatched apps as possible, and to make sure that I'm notified of any change to my computer in near real-time:

I've been running Secunia PSI on my PC's for nearly a year, and have been very pleased.  It is fairly unobtrusive, and has allowed me to keep my apps updated much more quickly and without as much forethought as would be required without it.

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.

Extending Your Home Internet Streaming Network with a PlayOn Media Server on Windows Home Server

Lately I've been trying out some alternative entertainment options.  I've canceled my satellite television and have installed an antenna on my rooftop.  I also built a Windows Media Center PC to act as a DVR/Internet TV box.  Everything has been working great...on the one TV that connects directly to my Media Center PC.   But what about the other two TV's in my house?  Sure, I'm saving $70 a month by not having satellite, but my return on investment time line gets much longer if I build a Home Theater PC (HTPC) for each set.  

A cheaper alternative for getting Internet TV delivered to a television set is to use a set-top box that you may already be using on that set: your game console.  I happen to have an Xbox 360 attached to my downstairs TV, and have been serving up videos from my home server since the beginning of the summer.  The integration between Windows Home Server and the 360 works great, but I'm limited to video files that exist on the server.  I cannot play Hulu through the 360 or Netflix without an Xbox live gold membership.  As you can probably tell by my canceling of satellite - I'm not crazy about recurring payments so I don't like the idea of a gold membership.  However, I did run across an alternative method for a one-time $40 price-tag: PlayOn. 

PlayOn, from MediaMall technologies uses a PC with a web browser and Windows Media Player 11 to stream internet video like Hulu and Netflix to uPnP compliant devices such as game consoles or PC's.  By installing PlayOn on my Windows Home Server,  I'm able to view Hulu, Netflix and YouTube directly on my Xbox 360.  PlayOn is also compatible with PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and (via the free Playit plugin), Windows 7 Media Center.

My experience with the tool has been somewhat mixed.  I originally could not get Netflix to work on the 360 at all, and received an error message each time I tried to play a stream.  After some e-mails with PlayOn support, I was eventually able to get it to work by starting PlayOn in "application mode" instead of as a service.  I was told by PlayOn that "A small percentage of PC's block PlayOn for unknown reasons and there is not much else we can do to resolve it."  Since then, however, a few reboots of the server seems to have fixed the issue and Netflix will stream when PlayOn is running as a service.  However, a Netflix stream always fails on the first try after the Xbox boots.  Subsequent tries work much better.  However, when traffic volumes are heavy Netflix through PlayOn either gets quite jittery or buffers frequently.  I don't have the same experience when streaming Netflix directly through the browser.

I've had almost identical Netflix jitter/buffer issues when running PlayOn through the Playit plug-in for Windows Media Center.

The Wii, however, was a different story altogether.   Both Hulu and Netflix were unbearably jittery.  This is probably due to the Wii being a wireless-only device, while my Xbox and HTPC are hard wired 100MB.  It could get better, however, as the Wii is currently listed "in beta" for the PlayOn tool.  

It's probably worth noting once again that the Netflix jitter/buffer issues on the Xbox and Media Center are intermittent, which is why I chalk it up to bandwidth contention on the Internet.

I do think that for $40, the flexibility that PlayOn gives me on my different TVs will pay off in the long run.  I'm also interested in eventually extending the capabilities of my PlayOn media server by experimenting with some of the plugins that are also available. If you've tried any, let me know how they work.

Got an idea for a topic? E-mail me at toptoad@techonadime.net.