Sarasota PC Monitor
Review Chairmans Industry Comments (02/07)
The Computer Buffet
by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor
E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org
BAD HYPERLINK?? Occasionally for reasons beyond our control, a hyperlink provided here will not work. After carefully checking your typing (needs to be 100% accurate), the only suggestion we can offer is that you go to Google and enter the name of the software. If a more current hyperlink is available, this is the best place to look for it.
Please also note: Most of the software mentioned below is freeware. It is gathered through researching usually reliable sources. I do not personally try most references, time being the obvious factor.
NEED A HUMAN? Unfortunately, many companies' customer service departments are lacking. In the drive for profit, they often overlook the customer. One way they can cut profits is to scale back their call centers. Instead, they opt for self-service telephone systems. I like to refer to this as voice jail. You get trapped in menus with no hope of talking to a real person. You may have plenty of questions about something you bought. You may need some help figuring out how something works. Hopefully, though, you won't be needing any help with repairs. Anyway, before you call the customer service number on the back of the box, visit Gethuman. It features a database of companies. For each one, you'll find the secret for getting to a live person. www.gethuman.com/us/
BEWARE AOL'S ACTIVE VIRUS SHIELD. Noted columnist Fred Langa writes, " Speaking strictly for myself, but also speaking as someone who once ran a commercial forum on AOL and thus knew it inside and out - I've never been a fan of AOL's software offerings. Historically, AOL software has been designed for utter novices who have very simple computer setups. AOL's software could be the kiss of death on anything other than utterly-vanilla systems. For years, for example, I knew of no single piece of software that screwed up as many networking setups as did AOL's.
And then there's AOL's marketing, ranging from carpet-bombing the planet with diskettes and CDs, to problems of not honoring user requests to discontinue the service, to last summer's public posting of the search data of 658,000 AOL subscribers, to well, you get the idea. To say I'm not a fan of AOL is a total understatement, and I'm not alone. Earlier this year, for example, PC World Magazine named AOL the #1 Worst Tech Product of All Time!
It's true that AOL Active Virus Shield is not the same as the AOL software itself. But make no mistake, AOL Active Virus Shield is a marketing tool in the classic AOL tradition."
EXTRACTNOW. Why wear out your clicking finger extracting files one by one when you can extract at once? ExtractNow does a fine job of bundling compressed files and extracting their contents in one fell swoop. It has a clean, well-designed and easy-to-use interface. www.extractnow.com
CAPTURE MASTER is a simple but powerful screen capture device. It consist of two parts; one main form and one red border. Everything within the red border will be captured. To move the border push and hold CTRL and drag on the red area of the border. To resize it use the right side, the bottom or the bottom right corner of the border. This program is super small and could not be easier to use. If you have been searching for a nice replacement for the default screen capture tool in Windows, this one is the best of the best. It gives you plenty of options to play around with and has a lot of power for such a small application. http://mutedclef.norge.cc:80/
SPEEDFAN. Unless you have a tool that's monitoring your motherboard, you won't have a clue if your CPU is getting ready to melt down. SpeedFan is a freebie that pays close attention to data collected by your system's BIOS-the temperature and the fan RPM. The tool then displays the info in the system tray. Once you've configured the utility, you'll get an early warning-an alarm or e-mail message telling you to e-mail someone-if things get toasty. SpeedFan supports a lot of popular system boards and monitoring chips. www.almico.com/speedfan.php
TWEAK UI gives you access to a number of settings that are hidden away in Windows. It is part of the oddly named PowerToys utilities that are provided by Microsoft itself (although the company doesn't support them). Tweak UI allows you to change the way
Windows looks and works. For instance, you can change things like the speed at which the mouse wheel scrolls, and whether a specific user should be automatically logged in whenever you start up Windows (a big timesaver if you are the only person to use a PC and you hate having to type your password every time you reboot). The program can also assign commands to keys in Windows Explorer-a big plus if you frequently have to copy lots of files. www.microsoft.com/downloads
WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER. Microsoft, that scrappy little software company from Washington state, has released another version of its Movie Maker software. With version 2, you can create, edit, and share your home movies. You create movies via drag-and-drop commands, and you can edit your footage so that you highlight only the best scenes. Then you can share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD; you can also save your movie back to the videotape in your camera for playback on a TV or on the camera itself. www.microsoft.com/
CLIPBOARD RECORDER improves your productivity by extending the Windows clipboard functionalities. It works alongside the regular Windows Clipboard and records every piece of data (both text and graphics) that you cut or copy. Works seamlessly with Microsoft Office and other applications. Supports a variety of formats. Including RTF text, HTML, CSV, Bitmap, Meta file and Embedded Object. Four easy ways to access the records: popup list, floating list, menu and the main window. Supports transferring clipboard data between computers. Small and highly optimized. Uses negligible resources. www.lw-works.com:80/clipboard-recorder
NOTESBROWSER is a free professional organizer. You can store notes and schedule dates in one integrated, easy to use interface. It is a planning tool and is suitable for both business and personal application. It can store your to-do-lists, your appointments, your bookmarks and project files and even your MP3 playlists. An integrated search function allows you to quickly locate entries. A number of skins are also available to modify the design of the interface to one of your preference. www.notesbrowser.com:80/
VIDEO DVD MAKER is a freeware authoring tool that allows home movie enthusiasts to create DVD disks in three clicks. You can capture video from TV tuners, web cameras, DVs and import most video formats, and burn an output onto a CD/DVD disk. Import from any video file: AVI, DIVX, XVID, MP4, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV, etc. Burn to any type of media: CD R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD DL, etc. www.protectedsoft.com
MEDIA PURVEYOR is an image viewer/editor and media player that manages files with a user friendly keyword search. Quickly find content with only a few mouse clicks. Browse entire folders or search results as thumbnails, view images and play movies in a full screen mode, or launch a slideshow with transition effects.
Offers a professional set of processing and publishing features such as image conversion and resizing, feature rich histogram, thumbnail generation, Lossless JPEG Crop/Rotation/Mirror, contact sheets, metadata or description based file renaming, scanner support (TWAIN) and more.
Purveyor supports over 50 of the major image file formats (JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, GIF, TIFF, Camera RAW and more) as well as audio/video files (including but not limited to WMV, MPEG, Quicktime MOV, AVI, Flash SWF, MP3, WMA). www.mediapurveyor.com:80
COOL PDF READER is the world's smallest PDF viewer/reader to view and print PDF files, and convert PDFs to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS. It is only 655KB to download and doesn't need lengthy installation, just download, unzip, and run.
Features View and Print PDF Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS Extract PDF to TXT Support PDFs of all versions Zoom in/out Rotate page displays slide show PDF document. www.pdf2exe.com/reader .html
TALKING TRANSLATOR PRO is an easy to use 4 in 1 language utility which can translate text between 8 languages, Find meanings of words, Read the contents of files and clipboard. It can also read the translations in its native language with proper accent using the in-built text-to-speech feature. You can easily edit and saves your translations and meanings in multiple formats. Also, text-to-speech engines in 12 languages are provided free. www.abhisoft.net/ttpro/
PHRASEEXPRESS AUTOTEXT. There are many typing automation tools out there, but none of them beat free PhraseExpress for ease of use. Selecting a text phrase for insertion takes just a single mouse click. New phrases are stored via the Windows clipboard in a snap. You can't beat the price, either. Maybe this will be the macro program that wins your heart? The network awareness is quite a hot little feature for those of us who are stuck on home networks. www.phraseexpress.com:80/benefits.htm
UNDELETE PLUS is a free quick and effective way to retrieve accidentally deleted files, files removed from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from a network drive, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down. Undelete Plus works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 operating systems. The program supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5 and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards. www.undelete-plus.com/
FREEZIP. Lacking a stand-alone interface, FreeZip adds a collection of useful archive-management commands to Explorer's context menus. Right-clicking a file or archive and then choosing one of the commands (such as Zip, UnZip here, ListZip, or TestZip) launches a command-line tool that does the specified action. It's not pretty, but it is effective-and of course, free-though occasionally we couldn't get the Zip command to appear for certain file types. The program's author offers optional encryption and stand-alone archive-creation features through patches on the FreeZip Web site. And dial-up users, rejoice: Even with the patches, FreeZip is less than 500KB. http://members. ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/
RESTORATION. We've all done it: accidentally deleted a vital file a few minutes before an urgent deadline-and then couldn't find it in the Recycle Bin. Fortunately, there's no need to panic, yet. Restoration is a free program that can scan your hard drive, floppy diskette or USB thumb drive and find files that have been deleted (Windows doesn't actually destroy files that you delete: it just marks the space they occupy as being available). It can then recover any recently deleted files it finds with a single mouse click.
You can filter the results if you know the name of the file you are looking for, which is much easier than wading through the list of the hundreds of deleted files it usually finds (including temporary files, cached Web files, etc).
Restoration doesn't need to be installed to work. Just keep the program on a floppy or an optical disc and pop it into the drive and run it when you need it (This approach also prevents your accidentally overwriting the deleted file). Although the program has not been updated since 2004, it still worked well in my informal tests and it recovered several files that I had deleted without problems. www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
PC INSPECTOR FILE RECOVERY. Missing some files? Depending on how your machine lost them, recovering them may be hard. This data recovery program retrieves lost files and finds partitions automatically, even when the boot sector of your PC has become damaged or erased. And even when a file's header entry is no longer available, this utility can recover the file. The program lets you save recovered files on network drives. It recovers files with the original time and date stamp, too. www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm
WEBSHOT. We all like taking screen shots for various reasons. You might have just finished a Web design of your own or you might just want to send a photo of a Web page to a friend. Maybe you are running a review Web site - and you need a photo of the place you just talked about. No matter which one of these scenarios you fall into, WebShot has you covered. So what is WebShot all about? Here is how the author of the program describes it:
"WebShot is a program that allows you to take screenshots and thumbnails of Web pages or whole Web sites. It comes with a command line interface for advanced users. The following image formats are supported: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP." In the latest release (1.26), a few things have been added: clrcache to delete all of IE cache on close, waitmeta for maximum meta refresh wait time, automatic naming of output images, and more. This is one of the neatest Web site screen capture tools I have seen in a long time. If nothing else, it makes for something fun to play with on a boring weekend afternoon. www.websitescreenshots.com/
ADVANCED WINDOWSCARE V2.10 PERSONAL. Advanced WindowsCare v2.10 Personal is a free comprehensive PC care utility that takes an one-click approach to help protect, repair and optimize your computer. It provides an all-in-one and super convenient solution for PC maintenance and protection. This fantastic program is available free of charge. Compared with its nearest competitor, Advanced WindowsCare v2.10 Personal provides the more essential and practical formula for Windows maintenance. www.iobit.com/dvancedWindowsCare Personal/index.html
SURE DELETE. When you delete a file, it isn't really gone. Windows just marks the space it occupied as available-and anyone with a recovery utility could probably retrieve such a file, so personal data could get into the wrong hands. The author of Sure Delete says that this free program deletes the file and then wipes and removes the remaining data. The author has stopped updating and supporting the program, but it appeared to work fine in my informal tests. The program has three deletion methods: a quick wipe (which overwrites the file 4 times, a Department of Defense method (which overwrites the file 7 times with random data), and a Super Secure mode (which overwrites it an impressive 24 times). www.wizard-industries.com/index.php
ZAMZAR. Without a doubt, there's going to be a time when you'll need to convert at least one file from one format into another, and while that may sound relatively easy, finding the correct software to properly execute the task can be a challenge. You may have found yourself having to download various software titles in order to help with conversion, and in the end, this just leads to a mess of bloated software that you shouldn't even really need in the first place. When tasks such as this one can be taken care of online, it makes the entire process easier. Zamzar seeks to rectify the matter by offering free online file conversion. www.zamzar.com:80/
POP PEEPER is an email notifier that runs in your Windows task bar and alerts you when you have new email on your POP3, IMAP (with IDLE support), Hotmail\MSN\LiveMail, Yahoo!, Mail.com, MyWay, Excite, Lycos.com, RediffMail, Juno, and NetZero accounts. IMAP supports allows you to access AOL, AIM, Netscape and other services. Send mail directly from POP Peeper and use the address book to email your frequently used contacts. Some of the primary features include: HTML email support, address book, password protection, and the ability to send emails directly from POP Peeper. Several options are available that will decrease or eliminate the risks of reading your email (viruses, javascript, Web bugs, etc). POP Peeper can be run from a portable device and can be password protected. www.poppeeper.com:80/
RAMBOOSTER is a free utility that optimizes how your computer uses its memory, working to keep as much free as possible. It can also try to free up a specified amount if you have a program that needs more RAM than is available. It's simple to use, and it seems to do a good job. The author does not provide any support beyond the rather meager help file that comes with the program, though, so you're on your own if you have problems. http://www.sci.fi/~borg/rambooster/index.htm
INTEL ACTIVE MONITOR. Need to find out if your PC is getting hot under the collar? If you have an Intel motherboard, try the company's free Active Monitor. In addition to watching the temperature, the utility keeps track of power supply voltage and fan speed. www.intel.com/design/motherbd/active.htm
G-ZAPPER helps you stay anonymous while searching Google by blocking and deleting the Google search cookie.
Did you know that Google stores a unique identifier in a cookie on your PC, which allows it to track the keywords you search for? G-Zapper helps you protect your identity and this valuable attention to data by allowing you to view your Google ID, see how long your searches have been tracked, and block the Google search cookie. www.dummysoftware.com/gzapper.html
KEEPING COOL. Global warming and its impact on the environment is a hot topic in the news at the moment. As a software company, we are aware of the fact that the energy required to run the computers belonging to 660 million users worldwide, runs into millions of kilowatt hours each day. It is estimated that more than 30 billion kilowatt hours of energy are wasted each year because many people forget to shut down their computer when leaving the office.
The CO2 emissions from all those computers are huge, especially as the emissions from just 15 computers are equivalent in energy terms to the gas consumption used by one car!
Here's something that every computer user worldwide can do from their desktop, right now, to reduce the output of CO2 from their computer and it's totally free. LocalCooling.com is a brand new project from the labs at Uniblue Systems. The new downloadable application will automatically optimize the power settings on a PC by using a more efficient and effective power save mode. An easy-to-use interface allows users to change their default power settings, meaning savings on electricity bills for the users, and therefore a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gas that results from powering a computer.
The LocalCooling.com Web site updates the results in real time for power savings, and translates this into meaningful environmental terms, such as how many trees and barrels of oil have been saved since the LocalCooling.com community started. As word spreads and more people download the application, the Web site will display the rapid increases in the savings made globally. Members can set up individual, team, and company accounts showing the savings for one, two, or a whole office network of PCs. There is a fun aspect to LocalCooling.com as users can compete with each other in the "Top 100? League Tables of the biggest savers worldwide. www.localcooling.com/
AM-DEADLINK detects dead links and duplicates in your Browser Bookmarks. Bookmarks (or Favorites) are one of the best features of Web browsers. They make it a snap to return to a favorite site on the Internet. Unfortunately, the Web is always changing.
A site you visited yesterday may not be there tomorrow. So it's easy to end up with a list of dead sites. Or, you might also end up with duplicate sites. If a Bookmark has become unavailable you can verify it in the internal preview and delete it from your Browser. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks. AM-Deadlink works with Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox. AM-DeadLink is Freeware! www.aignes.com/deadlink.htm
PROTECT YOUR PRIVATE DATA. Do you have personal data stored on your computer that you want to keep private? Perhaps you have a folder that stores all of your tax returns, or a folder that holds a record of all of your passwords to the various websites you visit. Maybe you have a list of Christmas presents to be purchased, and you don't want your kids to see it. Whatever the reason, you have a folder that you don't want anyone else to access. Here is how to protect it in Windows XP.
Find the folder (but don't open it). Right-click on the folder and choose Properties. In the new window that opens, click on the "Sharing" tab. You will see a check box that says "Make this folder private". Check that box, and click "Apply".
If you don't already use a password to log on to Windows XP, you will have to create one in order to privatize this folder. Choose a password that is not easily guessed - a random mix of numbers and letters is best, and the longer the better. Of course, you want to make sure that YOU can remember it. You will also now need to log on to Windows with this password.
PRINTFOLDER is a free, fast and efficient utility that lets you print a list of files in any folder and subfolders. List the contents of a folder by name only or include date, size, time, and additional attributes of the folder contents as well. The printing option integrates into the Windows Explorer right-click menu, providing quick access to printing the contents of any folder. This is a great way to keep track of photos, music libraries or movies. http://no-nonsense-software.com/
IZARC is a full featured archiving tool that you can use to open and create compressed files in many different formats. It offers many advanced features, including repairing of broken archives, searching within archives, password protecting, emailing of archives and much more. The program provides an Explorer style interface with integrated file browser, favorites, customizable toolbar and color coded file listings. IZArc can also be used to create self-extracting or disk-spanning archives and more. IZArc supports most popular archive formats, including 7-ZIP, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, DEB, GZ, HA, JAR, LHA, LZH, PAK, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR,TGZ, TZ, ZIP and ZOO. You also get Windows explorer integration, favorites, customizable toolbars, and it can create a self-extracting file as well.
Sure it tries to give you everything and the kitchen sink, but the question is - does it deliver? When the price tag says free and you get all of this and more, it is really hard to argue that point. It is well worth checking out if you do not already have a favorite zipping program of your own. www.izarc.org/
STARTUP CONTROL PANEL. Programs that automatically start up with Windows can be annoying, especially when they hog system memory and bog down your PC. Startup Control Panel is free and allows you to decide which programs get to start up with Windows and which don't. It's available as a Control Panel applet or as a stand-alone program, and it's simple to use. Just right-click on any unwanted startup program in the list, and then select Disable. If you later decide you want the program to run, reenable it or select Run Now, and it will launch. www. mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml
DISKCHECKUP measures the performance and 'health' of your S.M.A.R.T. enabled hard disk drive. It compares current hard disk attributes to values determined by the manufacturer of the HDD. It can track changes to the attributes over time and make a extrapolated 'prediction' as to the failure date of the HDD. It can be command line driven and can be configured to send alerts by email. Free for personal use. www.passmark.com/products/ diskcheckup.htm
SEND TO NOTEPAD is a free simple tool that sits in your task bar. You can use it to paste the copied text automatically to notepad. It is very useful when you are browsing the net. Just double click the icon in task bar, it opens the notepad with copied text in it. If you do a lot of cutting and pasting - this freeware program is right for you. www.softplatz.com/Soft/Utilities/Synchronization/Send-To-Notepad.html
CPU-Z. Not sure of your motherboard's brand? Try this free program, which is easy to install and set up. In addition to informing you about your motherboard's model, BIOS, and chip set, the tool can report on the various specs of your CPU and memory. www.cpuid.com
CACHEMAN. Your PC uses a number of memory caches, where data that is likely to be needed next is kept at the ready. Cacheman aims to help you optimize these caches, make the most efficient use of them, and control how big they are. For the hard-drive cache, for instance, you can choose which type of system it is (a file server or one that runs applications), and the program tries to manage that cache appropriately for the fastest access. The program is fully functional, but the developer asks for a $10 registration fee if you like it, or if you are a commercial user. www.outertech.com/
LINKSCANNER LITE automatically inspects search results for exploits, hacked sites, fraud/phishing scams & other online threats. Includes on-demand scanning of any URL you choose. Timely, accurate Web site safety analysis. Free for personal use! www.explabs.com
FREE FONTS. Can't find just the font you really want to do the job? Here's a collection of more than 10,000 of them that are yours free. Check out their site and see if you can find exactly what will satisfy your needs. http://betterfonts.com/
KIDROCKET is a free Web browser designed for kids to safely surf the Internet's top children-related Web sites.
Each human-edited, hand-picked site offers many fun, educational, and interactive activities for children and parents alike. Password-protected lockdown mode and parental admin area, new GUI, interactive math flashcards, art section, games, and Internet filter. Children will find it safe to learn, play games, and have fun with KidRocket. www.kidrocket.org/
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Copyright 2007. This article is from the February 2007 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.
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