Follow along as we disassemble Sony's popular hand-held gaming system--the PlayStation Portable.

By: Anthony Sullivan

You know the feeling. You're sitting there minding your own business, going about your computing day when... BAM! You're computer goes wonky and you know something isn't right. Maybe it reboots, maybe you start getting errors, or maybe files just start to disappear. One thing's for sure: you've got a virus.

Or, maybe you don't know what this is like. Perhaps you only know what it's like for your computer to casually tell you that it has thwarted yet another attempt to infiltrate your system by some nefarious evil-doing snippet of code.

If either of these scenarios has happened to you, you already know how important virus protection is. But how do you choose the right anti-virus protection? There are tons of options out there.

Today, take a peek at Kaspersky Anti-Virus and decide for yourself if this is the option for you.

You can download your own trial copy of Kaspersky Anti Virus from the TechRepublic Software Library.

After installing Kaspersky you are asked it activate the software. Since we are just checking it out and haven't bought a copy yet we'll want to activate a trial.

By: Anthony Sullivan

Few things are more infuriating to a developer or IT person than finding out a production server is down and has been for hours or days without you knowing it. But as annoying as that is, it really never occurred to me to run a monitor to check it until recently, when my Web server was down for a couple of days. Now I'm on the hunt for a good monitor to keep me aware of my server status. Which brings me to TheOne. No, not Neo. TheOne Server Monitor.

You can download your own copy of TheOne Server Monitor from the TechRepublic Software Library.

By: Anthony Sullivan

The World Series of Video Games kicked off in Wuhan, China in May, and this month brought the the action to the USA. The first stop was Louisville, Kentucky, at the 6th annual MillionManLan put on by Lanwar, Inc. TechRepublic was there and caught all of the action.

From the geeks to the tournaments, we saw it all. The following is a brief glimpse into what makes this such a great event.

By Anthony Sullivan

For many users, the default Windows user interface is a tad boring and just doesn't cut it. They want to personalize and customize it to make it their own.

Objectbar, a product from StarDock, is a tool for doing just that. Let's see if this product delivers on its promises.

You can download ObjectBar from the TechRepublic Software Library.

After you've installed the application, you will be presented with this screen. ObjectBar comes with three themes by default. Choose one and select Load.

By: Anthony Sullivan

Continuing our series of content pieces covering Google's varied suite of tools and software, we review Google Calendar this month.

In February, Google announced Google Apps Premium, a new way to use many of the services Google has offered for a while plus a couple of new ones. Google Calendar is included with Google Apps Premium and is, by my reckoning, a pretty slick Web service. Let's take a look.

As you can see again, I'm starting from the familiar Google search page. It has changed a bit since my last look, with the addition of a menu bar at the top.

With all of the news services out there clamoring for your readership, all of the must-read blogs that your friends will chastise you for missing, and tons of vital information spread unevenly across the Internet, it's no wonder that we need a technology like RSS to help us catalog all this information in one manageable place.

Now our challenge is to wade through all of the readers out there that claim to be the best at this seemingly mundane task and decide which one is the Right Tool for the Job. Today we'll look at Omea Reader, which can be downloaded directly from TechRepublic's Software Library.

By Anthony Sullivan

I'm not sure what possesses a person to take a perfectly good computer and begin chopping, hacking, and otherwise affixing away at it in order to make it look like something other than a computer.

Occasionally it turns out ok though. Here are a few examples.

The first mod we've got takes all the guts of a computer and puts it in a completely clear case.

Add a few cathode neons and this thing looks like it might be called home to the mothership anytime now.

Picture by asche45

By Anthony Sullivan

As an amateur photographer I am always looking for new tools to help automate and accelerate my post processing. So I was very excited to get an opportunity to take a critical look at a product like the Faststone Image Viewer.

When you take as many photos as I do it's important to have a tool that can help you organize your photos and make it easy to find shots quickly later.

You can download Faststone Image Viewer from the TechRepublic software library.

In this How do I we take a look at an old feature and how to use it within the Office 2007 interface.