Samuel's Blog

Windows Update without Internet Explorer

I have grumbled about Windows Update for a long time because, to use it, you need to run Internet Explorer. And now on top of that you have to go through an extra, time-consuming, Windows Genuine Advantage “Feed me your serial number and I’ll tell you if you have a real version of Windows and are able to download updates” procedure, which is very tedious, especially if you want to run Windows Update on a large network.

With that I say hello and hooray to WindizUpdate ( http://windowsupdate.62nds.com ) which doesn’t require Internet Explorer. It uses a Firefox/Netscape/Opera/K-Melon plugin, so you can use pretty much any browser you want and still be able to download & install the updates. WindizUpdate was established in January, and the plugin does not appear in any Virus/Adware/Spyware/Other Malware list, and I have it installed on my computer, so it is safe.

Not only does WindizUpdate have the advantage of being used by better browsers than Microsoft’s Windows Update, it is also faster. Windows Update takes more than double the time that WindizUpdate takes to work out what updates I need and then suggests a heap of superfluous nonsense is needed.

WindizUpdate also doesn’t ask you to install XP Service Pack 2, so if you don’t want Windows to break further than absolutely necessary, then it doesn’t have to.

WindizUpdate also works on Microsoft’s “unsupported” operating systems, NT4, 95, etc

And better yet, it isn’t an Active X control, Hooray!

I know which Windows Update I’ll be using! (And it doesn’t come from Microsoft)

WindizUpdate ( http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/ )

Samuel

Add comment July 30th, 2005 at 10:47pm

Samuel’s Artwork: Samuel In Dolgnwot

Time for another daily installment of Samuel In Dolgnwot.
Here we see another one of those futuristic truck scenes, in this case we have Samuel watching TV. It would appear that there is an opera or something like that on the TV, as the quote from it is “Laaa”

On this particular day, Samuel is unable to search for gold.

The gold game was really a game of chance in which we the teachers walked around handing out cards at random, most of them were blank, although some doubled gold finds, or said we couldn’t search for gold that day, etc.

After this initial round of card giving, we had to decide what to do that day (unless the card had done that for us), the day was split into two halves, and we had three options, we could either search for gold, do our grocery shopping, or visit the assay office (which is where our gold was turned into money). For the most part, people went searching for gold all day, although we did have to do our grocery shopping each week.

After we had decided what to do for the day, a second round of cards were handed out saying how much gold we could find for the whole day, and then the gold exchange rate was chosen out of a hat.

Clicking on the picture will show a larger version, you can also find it on the photo gallery.

Samuel

Add comment July 30th, 2005 at 07:29pm