Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (07/03)

The Computer Buffet

by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor

E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org

TAKE YOUR TIME AND EAT SLOWLY TO DIGEST YOUR BUFFET. BELARC ADVISOR. Stop whatever else you may be doing now and go to: www.belarc.com/ free_download.html. Belarc advisor will take a few minutes to totally analyze your computer and the software it contains. You will get a readout that you can print and put carefully aside. The result is a record of software serial numbers, exact make and model numbers of your computer's components, and lots more. There will most assuredly be occasions when that information will be of great importance to you.

FREERIP "rips" or records digital audio tracks directly from compact discs, without going through your sound card. It allows you to save the tracks as WAV, Ogg Vorbis or MP3 files. You can also convert existing WAV files on your hard drive to Ogg Vorbis or MP3. FreeRip automatically downloads the album and song titles from an Internet database. www.mgshareware.com/

FREE POWERTOYS FOR WINDOWS XP. This suite of tools adds features to Windows XP. The useful Alt-Tab Replacement displays the icon of the application window you are switching to and a preview of the page, which is helpful when multiple windows of an application are open. Tweak UI gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in Windows XP, including settings for the mouse, Explorer, the Taskbar, and more. The Power Calculator can graph and evaluate functions as well as perform conversions. Other tools let you resize images with a right-click, manage four virtual desktops, switch users without going through the log-on screen, magnify parts of the screen from the Taskbar, and open a command window by pointing to a selected folder. www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

A RANGE OF PC SECURITY TESTS are available free at auditmypc.com. It will tell you whether your firewall is working ok, or if there are leaks in your shield.

CANCER TEST FOR SMOKERS. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center developed a risk assessment tool. The prediction tool can assess a long-term smoker's risk of developing lung cancer in the next 10 years. It factors in a person's age, sex, smoking history, and asbestos exposure. Knowing about lung cancer risk can help clinicians and patients make decisions about health care. It was designed for people between 50 and 75. You have to be a current smoker or someone who quit within the past 20 years. Finally, it's only for the heavy smokers out there - those who smoked 10 to 60 cigarettes a day for 25 or more years. http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/12463.cfm

WINZIP IS STILL THE CHAMP. Winzip recently released the beta version of its most recent upgrade, Version 9.0. You can download it free from their web site. WinZip remains incredibly popular even after six years and eight full versions, aside from the fact that file compression is one of the least glamorous things you can do with a computer. But its sheer usefulness carries it along, keeping it an essential download for people who need to open archives or compress files for fitting on disks or sending over the Internet. WinZip's ease of use also gives it an edge over other compression software.

With heavy competition coming from WinRAR, WinZip shows its desire to hold onto its top spot with the beta for version 9.0. This latest version features fairly strong encryption and different levels of compression. At the maximum setting, you gain the most disk space, but creating the archive takes longer, while less compression runs faster. Visit winzip.com for a more complete rundown on features in the new version and download the king of file compression utilities

SEC COMPLAINTS. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has established a Web site to walk investors through the arduous task of filing a complaint. You have the option of filing online or printing out a form and mailing it.

It also explains what information is necessary to ensure your complaint is given proper attention. The site also directs you to the proper government organization if you have been fired, demoted, suspended, harassed, or discriminated against for reporting a potential shareholder fraud. Best of all, it has an e-mail address to which you can forward spam! www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml

SMART TRANSLATOR installs to your system tray to allow translation with a simple mouse click to/from English and French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Russian. It's a free download.

http://igspot.ig.com.br/lucianosiqueira/smart/index.html

ULTRAWIPE 1.51 Free secure file deletion and cleanup. UltraWipe is a utility that enables complete removal of sensitive data from the hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns while protection your privacy and recovering disk space at the same time. You can quickly select common file types like browser cache, temp files and others - but also add your custom entries as well. The program comes with an "Urgent Wipe" features that enables a "panic button" which will instantly delete a user defined range of files by either pressing the tray icon or a keyboard shortcut. UltraWipe includes a scheduler that you can use to automate the wiping process. In addition to cleaning up the browser's cache, cookies, history, recent document list and custom entries, UltraWipe can also wipe free space, DRAM and much more!

http://www.webattack.com/get/ultrawipe.shtml

CDCHECK is a utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs with an emphasis on error detection. With CDCheck you can check your CDs and discover which files are corrupted. By using the program pro-actively, you can insure that your data on CD-ROMs are safe - before it's too late! CDCheck provides the following features: readability verification, binary compare, CRC file creation (and verification), and file recovery. CDCheck is known for its stability, ease of use and good support. http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/

ROOTSWEB.COM is the oldest and largest free online community for genealogists. If you're looking to trace your family history, you'll love the interactive guides and research tools found here. The WorldConnect Project contains more than 250 million ancestor names. The site also has a registry of over a million surnames available. Its list of search engines and databases will be helpful to both novice and expert researchers. There are message boards dedicated to the discussion of family names - even the most obscure!

ANTIVIRUS ALLIANCE. According to Joris Evers of IDG News Services, Microsoft has allied with antivirus vendors Network Associates and Trend Micro to form the Virus Information Alliance, an initiative to keep users better informed about virus threats to Microsoft products. A Web page with the latest information on high-risk viruses affecting Microsoft products has been added to Microsoft's TechNet Web site for IT professionals, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. TechNet is also Microsoft's site for security patches and other information for the IT community.

As part of the alliance, Microsoft, Network Associates and Trend Micro will exchange technical information on newly discovered viruses to quickly tell users about the risk and what to do for protection. The site will refer to the antivirus vendors for extra detail, according to an information page on Microsoft TechNet. Microsoft software, which is installed on the vast majority of PCs in the world and on a large number of servers, has been a target of many viruses and worms, with widespread disruption of e-mail communication and online business as a result.

The TechNet virus information pages will eventually also offer documentation and other online resources that will help users protect themselves, according to Microsoft. The Virus Information Alliance page on TechNet is at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/virus/

CITY GUIDE. If you're looking for something to do, you might want to stop here first. Citysearch.com helps surfers find local businesses and services, anywhere in the United States. Use it to decide where to eat, play, stay, and shop. Type in your city name or ZIP code and start exploring. It lists hotels, restaurants and theaters by location and rating. It's ideal if you are visiting an unknown city or just want to get to know your neighborhood better.

IS IT A HOAX? Mass mailings, even from people you know, are almost always hoaxes. Ignore them, or better yet, take the time to check them. A good source for information on hoaxes is: http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBSearch.html The mailings typically request that the e-mail be forwarded to "everyone you know." That's a sure tip-off that it's a hoax.

JUST A REMINDER. Your antivirus protection is only as good as your most recent virus pattern update. PC-Cillin provides automatic updates usually a few times a week. I have occasionally gotten more than one update a day. Unfortunately, new viruses appear frequently and you need to keep your protection up with them.

LOST YOUR PASSWORD? A free password recovery program may be the answer. It allows you to use the asterisk key to recover your password. It also leaves you with a very upsetting feeling to know how easy it is for some determined person to overcome your password protection. Apparently it's the old story, "You can run but you can't hide." You can find this interesting free utility at http://www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm

WINDOWS XP RIGHT CLICK SPEEDUP. Microsoft has finally confirmed what many XP users have long known; that right clicking an icon consumes a huge amount of CPU resources. This can have consequences on other processes that range from annoying to disastrous. Anyway, the fix is here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819101

Be aware that you can delete unwanted items from the right click menu. This article shows you how:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,543495,00.asp

ACCELERATE YOUR BROWSING FOR FREE. There are dozens of products that claim to speed up your surfing but most have little effect. NaviScope is different - it actually works! Not only does it speed up your surfing it also offers optional ad, pop-up, cookie and JavaScript blocking, an extensive set of diagnostic tools and more bells and whistles than you can imagine. The only beef is that the tool bar is very obtrusive so once you set up NaviScope, you should select the option to turn off the toolbar. If you need it, you can always bring it up again though the quick launch icon. http://www.naviscope.com/

GET RID OF THE ERROR-REPORTING MESSAGE that allows you to tell Microsoft every time something crashes in Windows XP. Want to get rid of that message? Here's how:

WASHEE! {FREE WINDOWS DRY CLEANER} Take your data to the dry cleaners and use Washee to get out all the stains and annoyances under the guise of cookies, history, Recycle Bin, folders, auto-complete entries, and temp files. Get rid of the stains leftover from Internet surfing, which leaves traces of information on the PC. If you have a special detergent you wish to create and use that doesn't come with the program, you can do it in the Custom Cleaner machine. The cleaner can start on at Windows

startup or live in the system tray. Washee is available to start automatically on browser exit, Windows start, and Windows shutdown. To do it manually, select the options and then push the Wash Now button.

http://www.washee.com/washee/products.asp

SCRUBXP ScrubXP is a free, one-click cleanup tool that runs in your system tray. As soon as you click it, it will delete and clean the following items: IE History, IE Temporary Files, IE Cookies, Recent Documents List, Recycle Bin, Auto-complete Entries (and Turns it Off). It also cleans the Recent File Lists for Run, Common Dialogs, Recent Documents, Search Assistant, Typed URLs, Paint, Find Computer, Printer Ports, Find Files, Media Player, Previous Tasks, and Real Player. The program runs automatically when you start your computer, and additional cleanups can be performed by double-clicking the tray icon. There is no configuration; the program cleans all of the above every time it is run. http://www.mywebattack.com/gnomeapp.php?id=106333

FOR SOME VERY GOOD FREE TOOLS AND UTILITIES, pay a visit to http://www.maxpatch.com/resource5.html

You are bound to find a number of things here that will make your trip there well worth while..

GREAT ROAD TRIPS For a detailed collection of great road trips you can take in this country, go to www.roadtripusa.com/ They include mapped routes, points of interest, unusual things to see along the way, and lots more.

FREEWARE GALORE! www.maxpatch.com/edpick.html/ Here's a site devoted to a super collection of freeware in different categories. Lots of it is better than what you might pay for if you could find it. Others are unique and not found at any cost. Here's an example of some of the graphic freeware apps you will find at this location:

Graphics Tools XnView - This is a favorite all around graphics editor. It's especially suited to editing jpeg images. It's small, efficient, and fast. Even if you have PSP or Photoshop you'll find XnView a handy and powerful addition to your graphics tools.

IrfanView - The most popular freeware graphics editor on the Internet. Irfanview is my choice for manipulating gif images. It's small, fast, and incredibly powerful. Another "must-have" editor.

20/20 - This one is adware, but it's not spyware. 20/20 sticks to the ads that are contained in the initial download and doesn't update to new ones while you're online. The ads are annoying, but not impossible to ignore (I certainly never notice them). 20/20 has some specific features that make it a very good tool for creating seamless background (web tile) images. It's a very feature rich editor, but not nearly so "user friendly" as XnView and IrfanView. If you need a great tool for web tiles or backgrounds in email stationery, this is an editor you should have.

THE GIMP - The Gimp is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. This site contains information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing Gimp. In all honesty, I don't know a great deal about this one, but I'm a strong supporter of the concept behind Open Source software. The Gimp still has a few bugs, and is sometimes unstable, as I write this (October, 2002), but I've no doubt that it will be an increasingly useful editor as it's development continues.

PIXIA - The original Japanese Edition was created and developed by the author, Isao Maruoka, but has been aggressively raised by its fans, which makes this software quite unique and different from other tools. Pixia is a painting tool made exclusively for full color graphics. Maximum graphic size: 10240 x 10240 dots (Note: this depends on RAM capacity.) Number of Layers: As many as available RAM will permit. This is an excellent tool for graphics designers.

2-PiC - This software enables you to add two pictures together, mixing them into a single image. Admittedly, this software has a narrow application, but the images it creates are nice enough to make it a useful addition to your graphics toolbox.

The developer's website is gone as I write this but the software is still available from Simtel. Simtel's links seem to change regularly so if this link goes bad, please notify me (use the link to our site feedback form near the top of this page) so I can go find an up-to-date link for it.

DCEnhancer - MediaChance has some excellent shareware, but they also have a few freeware tools available for download. The DCEnhancer is one of them, and it's a terrific tool for use with digital images. This software "turns up the light" in images. A photo that was taken under poor lighting conditions can be turned into a brighter, clearer image. Even photos that look "OK" can be greatly improved with the DCEnhancer. It's not fancy software with a lot of features, but it's a very useful tool and well worth having. Another freeware from MediaChance, called "CleanSkinFX" can do terrific things with close-up shots.

iMAGE - Here's the description of this software in the the authors own words: "i.Mage is a simple graphics editor inspired by the late great Deluxe Paint II for Amiga and PC's. This program is a result of my frustration with mainstream editors like Photoshop and Corel Photopaint's ability to do simple tasks in a timely manner. To start such an application can take 30 seconds or more... for what? Just cropping a screenshot? Well there has to be a better way I thought. So I started coding and here's the fruits of my labor, not finished by any means but it is starting to be really useful to me for a variety of tasks. " The executable install for this software is just under 700k in size, making it a small application, but there's nothing small about the features. For example, if you need a great replacement for Microsoft Paint this software will fill the bill beautifully. The paint feature offers a sensitivity adjustment and gives you superlative control of individual pixels, and that's just one feature offered in this Open Source gem. If this isn't enough to attract you to the site, then how about several other freeware applications, like a lightweight email client, a small FTP client, a great little text editor, and several other useful utilities. Scroll down the page to see them all.

ULTIMATE PAINT - A full-featured 32-bit Windows graphics program for image creation, viewing and manipulation (scroll down this page to get to the freeware version).

JETAUDIO is free, integrated multimedia software that is composed of a single compact rack. Not only does it play various music/video files but it also has other features such as CD burning, recording, conversion to other file formats, and so on.

In addition to these features, you can create your own Internet broadcasting by using JetCast, which is provided to you along with JetAudio.

Play all major file formats and discs: WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, MPG, AVI, WMV, MIDI, RM, VideoCD, AudioCD, and much more. Convert from/to audio files. Record analog audio to various file formats. It features Internet broadcasting by using JetCast; visualization plug-ins, including Sound2Vision; tag Editing for MP3, OGG, WMA, and more; various sound effects including Wide, Reverb, and X-Bass; multi-channel sound output; speed control of audio playback; crossfading for smooth transition between two songs; a skinnable user interface; synchronized lyrics display (karaoke) for MIDI and MP3 files; subtitles for digital video playback; an alarm and timer function; a 20-band equalizer and spectrum display; and convenient album management and a playlist. www.jetaudio.com

GSEARCH. gSearch is a free, small search tool, which places a "G" icon on the desktop. Hover the mouse over the "G" to start searching the Internet using Google. It can view or erase the history. Place gSearch anywhere on the screen, change the color scheme, modify the size, enter a number for the number of results you want, select the number of seconds for the search bar to be minimized, and pick the letter if you prefer something other than "G," like your own initial. Modify the preferences by double- clicking on the "G," which includes the option to run the program at startup. http://homepage.mac.com/av11d/gSearch/

MAIDENNAME.NET. According to member, Stel Barnett, "MaidenName.net" is a free, searchable website for women whose names have changed. When a woman marries and adopts her husband's surname, her previous identity is lost. MaidenName.net is an ideal way to locate female childhood friends, thrice married former school chums, lost loves, sorority sisters, alumnae, etc. Men are also welcome to include their information. There is also a "MS.ing Persons From Your Past" page that allows viewers to post information on the site.

WINDOWS XP USERS should visit http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/tips_fixes.htm for a valuable collection of tips and fixes that pertain to XP. You may find something here that will save your bacon some day.

EUDORA FILTERS. If you use Eudora as your email program of choice, take a look at the great tutorial on using Eudora filters, claimed to catch 99% of your spam, at www.cecilw.com/eudora/filters.htm .

WINDOWS POWERPRO for Windows 95/98/NT/2000 allows you to run commands and configure your systems as you wish, with a launch bar, menu, and tray icon facility. This application provides added capabilities with tool bars, tray icons, hot keys, mouse actions, menus, timer, and scheduler; and, it allows the user to close, minimize, maximize, roll-up to caption, tray minimize, and position. Send keystrokes to programs and run commands when windows first open. This program offers virtual desktops, clipboard extender, keyboard macros, and shutdown features. Show all folder files in a menu and use sounds, wallpaper, and screensaver activation and randomization. Windows PowerPro is a free download at http://www.windowspowerpro.com/

PC INSPECTOR FILE RECOVERY. Accidentally delete a file. Here's a freeware app that will recover it for you. PC Inspector is a data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2248-10118664.html

MODEMHELP.NET Lockergnome's Meryl (lockergnome.com) offers an excellent tip about this web site that has a wealth of info to savvy users concerning modems. She says, "This is a darn good resource for anything and everything modem. Though I believe Web sites should have no more than five to seven navigation buttons, the tabs at the top of the page work well in providing an idea of what is behind each. Some may be hard to read, however. The home page lists the six top- visited areas for a good starting point. Back in the old days when I had a slow modem, I used to enter init strings to configure the modem, and always had to look them up in the manual. The Quick Init Reference is color-coded, or go to the Init & Driver Database to look up a modem to get its init strings and links to more information. The Screenshots tab is particularly useful, since it shows network-related screenshots for the various operating systems. Talk with others in the forums or get a laugh in Tech Humor. Click on the ISDN button on the far right to go to the ISDN Modem Help page."

PROCESS EXPLORER. Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work. http://sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

FONTPAGE . FontPage lets you examine and compare all of the fonts on your system. You can view any typeface in bold, italic, underline and 3-D. You can also print out a specimen page for any font, or print a list of them.

FontPage has its own character table with copy and print options, a window with two displays to compare fonts and it has an extra window to preview uninstalled fonts. Lots of features, slick interface, and more. This version includes a "Fonts at large" window (to show fonts in a large window), Slide Show function (to show fonts automatically with a user- defined interval), new slider in the Compare window, option to remove the font name from the compare strings, support for Visual Styles (for Windows XP), a brand new FontPage Help File (documentation, tips and troubleshooting) and a lot of smaller improvements. www.freewareweb.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?ID=207

36GB ON A DVD! In development now and available in 2004 is a new DVD format that will accept up to 36 GB of data on a single DVD disk. Current DVD and CD technology uses a red light laser to burn disks. The new technology uses a blue light laser.

Blue has a shorter wavelength than red, hence more data can be burned to a disk. The result will certainly be helpful for making backups, among other storage needs.

As for currently available drives, PC World's Steve Bass offers some advice: "You probably remember the agony of choosing the best CD-RW drive. You can start again with DVD. We've taken some of the aggravation out of it with our expert buying guide. "How to Buy a DVD-Rewritable Drive" tells you about write once and rewritable drives, and has a chart with speed and format specs. It's here:" www.pcworld.com/reviews/bguide/0,guid,28,page,1,tk,sbx,00.asp :

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Copyright 2003. This article is from the July 2003 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/

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