Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (08/03)

The Computer Buffet This & That from Here & There

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..

SUPER SPEED BROADBAND. Fast TCP is the name of a new system recently developed that will speed Internet download as much as 6,000 times faster than current technology. It will permit downloading a full movie in just a few seconds. The system is currently under development in Asia and we should hear much more about it in the near future.

CONTACT PLUS PERSONAL is a free personal information and contact manager that keeps track of important contacts, events, notes, to-do lists, calls, meetings, and correspondence. You can create individual or mass-mailed, personalized letters using Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. Other features include custom reports and graphs, mailing label and envelope printing, mass e-mail capabilities, recurring events management, data import functions, filters, drag-and-drop calendars, event alarms, and more.

Version 2.7 adds 43,000 zip codes, and WordPerfect 2000 is now supported for mail merge and quick letters is loaded with features and customizable menus to keep track of all your contacts. You can create multiple databases for different categories of contacts, such as home and business. Each contact has extensive, customizable tabbed menus that contain addresses, phone numbers, and other info. You can also create more personal menus to include, for example, the name of a contact's spouse and children--or anything else you want to keep track of.

Contact Plus integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Word and WordPerfect for quick letter writing. It's also easy to send a letter to multiple contacts at once. Get it at http://contactplus.com.

A SITE FOR SORE EYES. Believe me, your eyes can get sore at www.itools.com. It's the mother of all information sites! There is hardly anything you may be looking for that you won't find here. As just a sampling:

ITools- Quick access to the best Internet tools; Search Tools- Find anything on the Web; Language Tools- Look up words or translate them; Research Tools- Find facts and theories about any subject; Financial Tools- Convert currency; Map ToolsSee a map or get driving directions; Web Tools- Find most anything about any place or anyone (reverse phone number lookups, who is, etc.).

Each of these tools is subdivided into a variety of categories. The net result is a mind-boggling store of information on just about anyone or anything you are looking for. It even out-googles Google!

KILL POP-UP ADS. Pop This! is a free, small, simple, no nonsense popup advertisement disabler for Internet Explorer. The software is completely free, easy to install and easy to use. Stops 99% of all popups, prevents browser window resizing and movement, doesn't interfere with normal web surfing, optional sound notifications, Support for site exclusions http://www.mathies.com/popthis/

FREE NOTEPAD REPLACEMENT. EditPad Lite is a convenient text editor and Notepad replacement. It has all the features a solid text editor needs. You can open as many files at a time as you want, with no arbitrary file size limit. Each file will have its own tab. You can convert between ANSI, ASCII, and Unicode, and work with Unix and Mac files. You can search and replace across all open files. It has unlimited undo and redo and powerful print preview. You will find it at www.jgsoft.com/

A FEW GOOD TIPS FROM KIM KOMANDO:

1. Take the mystery out of windows error messages. Windows is notorious for opaque error messages. What could be worse than an illegal operation message with numbers and references to the "kernel?" Yikes! It's OK, you can figure them out, maybe.

There are at least two programs that will help you interpret these messages. Both WinErr 1.0 and MS Windows Error Messages are free.

They're available at, respectively: http://camtech2000.net/Pages/WinErrs.html and www.gregorybraun.com/

2. Find out what's hiding behind those asterisks. When you enter your passwords on Web sites, you can have Internet Explorer remember them. That makes it easy to return, but you might forget the passwords eventually. What do you do if you need them? There are a couple nifty little programs that can recover passwords. They are Asterisk Key and Revelation. Just show 'em the asterisks and they'll tell you the password. You'll find them at, respectively: www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm and www.snadboy.com/

3. Family info. If you are putting together a family tree or looking for someone or some information, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration gives online access to its databases through the Access to Archival Databases. For example, if you are looking for information about someone (U.S. military or civilian) who may have been a prisoner of the Axis Powers during World War II, you now have the ability to search online for his or her record. Use this site to gain access to a selection of nearly 50 million historic electronic records on a wide range of topics. It not only provides the electronic documents but important contextual information to help you understand the records better. So how do you wade through all of those documents? The AAD provides a glossary of terms and a help section that walks you through the process. www.archives.gov/aad/

4. Prescription drug instructions. With so many drugs available, it's hard to keep track of your prescriptions. Enter the name of a drug you are taking and it will provide information on: what the drug is, how to use it, what to do if you miss a dose, side effects and more. Do you have some pills that are no longer in their original bottle? You can't remember what they're for? Rxlist has an advanced search function that allows you to search for drugs based on the numbers or letters imprinted on the pill. It will also help you identify any interactions between drugs you are currently taking. http://www.rxlist.com

5. Practical origami. Here's a free way to create a paper case for your CDs. Enter in the details: artist, title and song titles. It creates a .pdf that you can print and ultimately fold into a CD case. There's an advanced case that allows you to include graphics and more tracks. Upload your mix CD labels and add it to the database. It's fun to compare your mix CDs with others. www.papercdcase.com/index.php

6. Drivershq. Just about every component hooked up to your computer has a driver. These drivers help your computer talk to your monitor, printer--even your mouse! If something is not working properly, perhaps an updated driver is the fix. Drivers HQ searches your computer and let's you know if there's an updated driver available. If there is a newer driver available, go to the manufacturer's Web site and download it. It could potentially speed up your PC! There's also a pay version that automatically downloads the newer driver for you. Remember the golden rule: You don't want to update drivers just for the heck of it. If it's working, ignore the new driver. http://Drivershq.com

WEATHER WATCHER is a desktop weather station that resides in the system tray and automatically updates the weather at a specified interval of time. Weather Watcher allows you to receive weather updates from almost any city in the world. It gives you the current forecast, including the temperature, a "feels-like" temperature, dew point, humidity, wind, visibility, pressure, and the UV index value. It can also give you a 10-day forecast that includes the general conditions, temperature highs and lows, and expected UV penetration. The weather measurements can be displayed in metric or English units. www.singerscreations.com

INCREDIMAIL XE . Free IncrediMail enables you to tailor your e-mail experience to fit your mood and personality. You can be notified by animated characters such as an opening mailbox, a jack-in-the-box, or a butler saying, "You have mail, sir." Choose the stationery on which you would like to type your message, and add sound, emoticons, 3D text, or animated graphics to get your point across. You can be notified of incoming mail even if the program is closed. Other features include the ability to add your voice or handwritten signature to messages and to preview attached media files. www.incredimail.com

ONE-STOP DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE. Ready to buy a new camera--or get more out of the one you already own? We lab-test the latest cameras, preview upcoming models, and pick the services and software you need to go from pixels to prints. Get the lowdown at: http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=807809

WEBWASHER CLASSIC. This free program filters unwanted ads, crushes cookies, and prevents companies from profiling your surfing habits. You can eliminate pop-up windows, banner ads, and the new, larger "skyscrapers" and "rectangles" that increase the time it takes to view Web pages. You're even protected from Web bugs, invisible graphics hidden in documents that trigger the sending of messages to third parties. The cookie filter lets you classify cookies as good, bad, or neutral so that you can keep the ones you need (such as for home shopping). The included SecretMaker software sends phantom data in place of personal information and surfing habits. www.webwasher.com

LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS. Here's a handy web site that will take any text in English and translate it into the language of your choosing. Alternately, enter text in any language and it will give you the English translation. http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/

AUTOSIZE YOUR WINDOW. There are some programs that insist on opening in a small window, forcing you to maximize its window each and every time you open it. What a pain! Here's a small freeware program to the rescue. Download and install Autosizer at www.southbaypc.com/AutoSizer/. Open the program you want to correct, maximize its window, open autosizer and select "open maximized," and that's the way it will open in the future every time. A simple, free little gem that solves a perennial nuisance!

H9K TIMER. With 16 free customizable clocks, you are sure to find the one that winds you up. Some even have alarm features, and best of all they are all free at www.h9k.com

WINDOWS XP UPDATES. Windows XP has a nice feature to automatically download Windows updates but you must configure it to do so. To do this, click on Start|Control Panel|Performance and Maintenance|System. Then, in the System properties dialog, click the Automatic Updates tab, click on "Download the update automatically and notify me when they are ready to be installed" and Apply.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE NEWS. Here are 2 sites that will give you fron pages in most foreign languages.

www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

and www.wildgrape.net/

ATLANTIS NOVA, FREE WORD PROCESSOR. If you don't know MS Word like the back of your hand, then you'd almost never realize you're not using it when running Atlantis Nova. Its features are too numerous to mention. Immediately noticeable differences include the hot calculator, which performs mathematical calculations, and getting the document statistics with one click. The learning curve for using Atlantis Nova is small for anyone who has used MS Word. This may be the solution for those with zero or small budgets. www.rssol.com/en/

CHANGING CASE IN WORD. If you want a quick switch on the fly to change between uppercase, lowercase, and title case in Microsoft Word, there's no need to retype. Just highlight the words you want to change, hold down the shift key, and tap the F3 key until you get the desired result. Or, with the words highlighted, click on Format and "Change Case". Then choose from one of several options

FOTO TIME FOTOALBUM. Foto Time FotoAlbum is a free digital photo organizer that allows you to organize your photos into albums, sort them, and filter them by date, text keywords, and more. You can also import pictures directly from your digital camera or a scanner, or you can create a FotoAlbum CD (ISO image or ready-to-burn folder). FotoAlbum displays a handy timeline on top of the interface, which allows you to quickly jump to pictures taken in a certain year. You can add comments and keywords to each image, view them as a slideshow, or create a screensaver. Additional features include easy e- mailing and resizing of pictures, support for external editors, and more. The software also integrates smoothly with the FotoAlbum online photo storage service, which allows you to create an online Web album for family and friends to visit. This feature requires a yearly fee, but is not needed nor required to use the functionality of the software.

www.mywebattack.com/gnomeapp.php?id=106580

SOME USEFUL POSTAL TOOLS.

AIRLINE SEAT ROOM. Different airplanes have different seat setups where some have more room than others. To discover the seats that may be more comfortable to you, go to seatguru.com .

EUDORA Version: 5.2.1. Qualcomm's free popular e-mail client manages multiple e-mail accounts and handles just about any attachment you're likely to receive. A robust search feature lets you find messages archived a long time ago. You can use a word processor when you're composing messages, so you can check spelling, format text, and choose a font. This version features group file sharing, support for Palm devices, and a flame detector that rates the contents of your mail on a scale of zero to three chili peppers. Eudora.com

VIRTUAL GUMSHOE.COM As the name suggests, here's a site that gives you entr?e to tracking down people and organizations and getting the lowdown on their backgrounds through governmental records and a multitude of other sources.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE . Ready to buy a new camera--or get more out of the one you already own? We lab-test the latest cameras, preview upcoming models, and pick the services and software you need to go from pixels to prints. Read PCWorld.com's "One-Stop Digital Photography Guide" at: www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,110655,tk,prx,00.asp

CLIPBOARD BUDDY monitors your clipboard and automatically saves any text or image that you copy. You can review the items, preview images, and delete or save them as needed - or clear the entire clipboard file. Clicking on an entry, will automatically send it back to the clipboard, so you can use it in any other application. Clipboard Buddy hides along the side of your screen, where it can be easily accessed. The program can hold up to 20 items. www.mywebattack.com/gnomeapp.php?id=106615

ACTIVE@ KILLDISK - Hard Drive Eraser is free, powerful and compact DOS software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.

If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or DELETE standard operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted data (see data recovery tools here) and use against owner's will. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.

Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever.

This is security software for unrecoverable data elimination for any computer capable of booting in DOS mode from floppy drive.

It uses access to the drive's data on a physical level via BIOS bypassing logical drive structure organization, thus it does not matter operating systems and file systems located on the machine. www.killdisk.com

CELL PHONE USERS should visit www.myrateplan.com . It will give you the lowdown on cell phone charges and lots of other related info that will make you a more informed and wiser cell phone user.

PUT SOME POWER IN THOSE WINDOWS. Kim Komando reminds us all that Microsoft's programmers have long offered PowerToys free to customers. Kim says, "These are little programs that add functionality to Windows. Microsoft doesn't back them officially, but I've found that they work well. You can find the original PowerToys for the various Windows versions here:

www.komando.com/bestshareware.asp

Two new PowerToy programs are available for Windows XP users. One allows you to use any video, including a home movie, as a screen saver. Now, that's pretty cool. The other turns the wallpaper (the picture on your desktop) into a slideshow. The PowerToys Fun Pack is here:" www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/experiences/downloads/create.asp

OPERA 7.20 WINDOWS BETA is available. It's a very early release and it may take several weeks from this beta to the next one. Highlights: Lots of bugfixes, some small feature enhancements here and there and speed optimizations, both in download and javascript performance. Bidi support requires feedback from external testers. In general, the first beta is supposed to address core issues, such as stability and performance, and there are lots of bugfixes and improvements to the core of the browser. www.opera.com

STGTHUMB is a free product designed to allow you to make high-quality thumbnails from your images quickly. You can choose to select individual files or entire directories. The size of the thumbnail images can be customized, and you can also automatically add a prefix or suffix to the newly-created files. In addition, STGThumb allows you rotate the resulting images or to apply several filters like blur, sharpen, emboss, and others. You can also create thumbnails from animated GIFs, in which case the program will use the first frame of the animation for the thumbnail image. STGThumb outputs to JPEG format and can convert from AVI, GIF, JPG, TIF, PNG, BMP, PCX, WMF, EMF, ICO, and CUR. Includes a built-in image viewer. mywebattack.com

Check olut this site for lots of other interesting free software.

SYSTEM RESTORE-AN XP LIFE SAVER! Well, lo and behold something happened that screwed up your computer royally. Perhaps you installed or uninstalled some software or delved into some other procedure and things aren't working the way they did before. With Windows XP you can do something about it with its System Restore feature.

System Restore is a "magical time machine" utility in XP that will allow you to roll your system back to a point in time when things were working normally. On its own, XP automatically creates and records a restore point once a day. However, you can additionally create a restore point yourself before or after making some significant change. All you need do is to go to Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore where you can create your own restore point. Nothing could be easier! In fact, if you make frequent changes, right-click on the System Restore icon (it's right where you selected to enter System Restore) and select Send To> Desktop. The System Restore icon will obligingly appear on your desktop where you can click it at any time to enter the function.

System Restore creates a backup of your windows registry and system files at every restore point that either XP or you create. Guaranteed that at one time or another you will wish your computer were working the way it did yesterday or a few hours ago. Sytem Restore can make your wish come true!

East-Tec Eraser..

The best of the best!

In our ongoing series, "Privacy Restored," I've introduced you to some pretty impressive products that will permanently erase files you want to delete. We recently came upon a product, however, that runs rings around anything we've seen in the past. East-Tec Eraser will not only permanently get rid of files and folders well beyond any means of recovery, it will erase your wandering on the web and a whole lot more.

I have been using this superb application for more than a month now and I can tell you it does everything it claims. It works in all Windows versions and it is fast and incredibly efficient. Here's what it claims to do and it lives completely up to those claims:

East-Tec Eraser 2003 ("Eraser" in short) is an advanced security application for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP designed to help you completely eliminate sensitive data from your computer and protect your computer and Internet privacy. It introduces a new meaning for the verb TO ERASE. Erasing a file now means wiping its contents beyond recovery, scrambling its name and dates and finally removing it from disk. When you want to get rid of sensitive files or folders beyond recovery, add them to the Eraser list of doomed files and ask Eraser to do the job. Eraser offers tight integration with the Windows shell, so you can drag files and folders from Explorer and drop them in Eraser, or you can erase them directly from Explorer by selecting Erase beyond recovery from the context menu.

Eraser is also able to completely destroy any data from previously deleted files that might still be accessible on your disk, in the Recycle Bin or in unused disk areas. Eraser can also remove sensitive information stored without your knowledge or approval (evidence of your computer activities, texts and pictures from sites visited on the Internet, the contents of deleted e-mail messages, etc.)

The extensive erasing capabilities of Eraser make sure that not even a trace remains after erasing data. Eraser has a lot of erasing (wipe) methods, differing in speed and security. The fastest ones offer normal security and can stop software recovery tools. The slower ones match and exceed the specifications of the U.S. Department of Defense and can stop even the most sophisticated hardware recovery tools. If you are not satisfied with the existing wipe methods, you can even define your own wipe methods. Advanced features like verifying each wipe pass and each disk operation allow Eraser to intercept any failures and inform you if data is not successfully erased.

With Eraser you can also erase entire folder structures (folders with all their subfolders and files) and even entire drives. Features like the possibility of collecting multiple file specifications (e.g. *.tmp) turn Eraser into a clean-up utility. The command line parameters allow you to use Eraser from BAT files or from scheduling software such as SystemAgent. Additional features include password protection, optional confirmation, logging support, and more.

Eraser has a very intuitive interface and it is very easy to use. Offers tight integration with the Windows shell (drag and drop and integration via the Explorer context menu).

You can completely control the various features of Eraser so as to customize it to meet your own personal needs and desires. The East-Tec web site provides exemplary help and support for all its products. You can go there to download a free trial copy of Eraser. If you are serious about wanting the best product for the job, here it is! Try it and find out for yourself. www.east-tec.com

SPELLING ERRORS. For those of you who have pointed out the occasional spelling error in the Monitor and asked if I use a spell checker, I offer the following:

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue,
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word,
And weight four it two say,
Weather eye am wrong oar write,
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid,
It nose bee fore two long,
And eye can put the error rite.
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it,
I am shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect awl the weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew. :

Return to Herb Goldstein's Index

Return to Columnist's Index

Copyright 2003. This article is from the August 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/

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.