Sarasota PC Monitor
Review Chairmans Industry Comments (06/07)
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.
FIOS vs. CABLE SPEED? When originally introduced, FIOS was clearly and impressively ahead of cable in both download and upload Internet speed. Recently, Comcast very significantly increased its Internet speeds to where both are currently pretty much on a par. The current download speeds for both are slightly in excess of 15,000 kbps.
To test your own current Internet speeds, I recommend going to the speed test available at www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ Stay tuned for much more on this topic.
VISTA OR XP?? The appearance of Vista didn't suddenly make XP obsolete. XP remains a mainstream operating system. If you're running a well-tuned, stable copy of XP and it meets your needs, there's no four-alarm reason to drop everything and upgrade to Vista right away. But that's not the same thing as saying we should forget about Vista completely. Sooner or later, Vista will probably be in your future.
All of Microsoft's products have a defined and published "life cycle," and Microsoft will "retire" full support for XP Home and Professional on Apr. 14, 2009. That's just two years from now. XP will continue to work after that date, of course. But you can think of Apr. 14, 2009, as the date when Microsoft's support attentions will turn away from XP. For the next five years thereafter (until 2014), online self-help for XP (e.g., the Knowledge Base) will remain available. Microsoft may, if it chooses, continue to release critical patches and updates.
But one way or another, if you want to continue to work with a Windows operating system, you will have to make friends with Vista. In the meantime, the following is a tip for a free XP add-on that you are guaranteed to love. It will replace your klunky XP start menu with Vista Start Menu, a free clone of the infinitely better used in Vista. It's a vast improvement, you are guaranteed to love it, and it won't cost you a dime........
MAKE XP START MENU VISTA-LIKE. You will love this one if you are using XP! Each time you start programs from the Start menu, you use the interface that has not changed for 10 years. No wonder that it becomes more and more difficult to use it due to the increase in the number of programs. Vista Start Menu is a completely different approach to the interface. It is much easier to find and run the program you need. Everything is visual and extremely easy to use. Your applications are arranged in a table with icons divided into groups, which makes it easier to work with a lot of programs. And one more really important nuance: when you remove programs or install new ones, other icons remain in their places so you do not have to waste time on looking for "drifted icons" as it usually happens in the system. It's free. Capture it now! www.ordinarysoft.com/index.html
MORE FONTS. Newer versions of Windows include more fonts. And some programs will install even more. But if you're working on a special project, you may not have the exact font you want. In that case, you can download a font from the Internet. At Creamundo.com, you'll find plenty of free fonts. When you find one that you like, you can download it for free! You can preview the fonts, so you know what you're getting. Just put in some same text and click Display.
EBAY SOFTWARE. You can find many software titles at very considerable savings on Ebay, but buyer beware! Most stuff is legitimate, but there are illegal copies also to be found there. As with anything on Ebay, check the seller's references before you buy. OPENOFFICE.ORG IS FREE SOFTWARE. As a substitute for office software suites, you may download OpenOffice.org completely free of any license fees. Install it on as many PCs as you like, use it for any purpose - private, educational, government and public administration, commercial, and pass on copies free of charge to family, friends, students, employees, etc. Writer, for the most part, is like Word, and Calc, for the most part, is like Excel.
SPAM TERRIER. The computer security experts at Agnitum Ltd. recently unleashed Spam Terrier, which protects users of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express from spam. The software is free. Spam Terrier features a friendly, easy-to-user interface with convenient, intuitive controls. With built-in heuristics-based anti-spam tools, it collars junk email by training itself. As a user selects what he or she considers spam, Spam Terrier learns to identify behavior patterns of spam, instead of relying on users to block specific keywords and phrases. The more you train Spam Terrier, the better its nose gets for inappropriate email. It remembers spam scores that classify a message as "not spam, probable spam or definite spam. Accuracy increases over time. www.agnitum.com:80/products/spam-terrier/index.php
PRINTERANYWHERE. Want to print a document directly on a buddy's printer, anywhere in the world? If you're both online, you can do it with PrinterAnywhere. The free utility installs on both PCs and you can choose the PrinterAnywhere printer from any application. An encrypted version shoots through the 'Net and prints on your buddy's printer. Turn the idea around and you can share your printer with anyone. It's ideal for sending confidential docs (the file's encrypted when sent) and unlike e-mail, it can't be forwarded. www.printeranywhere.com/
VLC MEDIA PLAYER. If you play a lot of video and use Windows Media Player, you've likely come across a number of files that you can't play-you're told you need to find a codec to handle them. Good luck finding that codec, or discovering one you don't have to pay for. Instead, try VLC Media Player. It plays pretty much every media type you can imagine-and no doubt many you haven't imagined. Not only will it play audio and video formats, but it will also play DVDs, VCDs, and many streaming protocols.
What's more, it's free! www.videolan.org/
BURNQUICK doesn't replace a full-featured CD or DVD authoring utility, but instead does just what its name says. By integrating with Windows Explorer, the utility lets you right-click files and folders and burn them to CD or DVD drives in a flash, or queue them in a batch for later recording. Burnquick also copies audio CDs and writes MP3 files to audio CDs on the fly so you don't have to convert them to WAV files first. If the data you've selected is larger than the capacity of the recordable drive, Burnquick will let you span multiple discs, too. Shareware; Free trial available; $20 to purchase. www.tritoninteractive.com/main.html
COOLIRIS eliminates the hassle of having to click back and forth between your searches and resulting pages and losing context of what you're searching for. With Cooliris, you can conveniently preview links on any Web site, including Craigslist, eBay, Google, and Google Images. You won't have to open every single page. Just mouse over any link or image thumbnail and you'll be able to preview the underlying Web page or picture without clicking. www.cooliris.com/Site/index.html
SHORPY is a blog dedicated to exploring through pictures what life was like 100 years ago. It is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a subject of one of the photos. While the photos are fascinating, life 100 years ago seems pretty grim. You'll see many photos of children working in factories and mines. www.shorpy.com
MAKE A CUSTOM GOOGLE HOME PAGE. Wouldn't it be great if you could have all of your vital information, news, email, etc all come up on your home page? It is possible - courtesy of Google. You wouldn't believe all that is available. First, you need a Google account. If you already use Gmail for your email service, that account will work. Otherwise, go to www.gmail.com and create a free account. Next, go to www.google.com and sign in if you are not already signed in. Then click on the "Get Started" link to personalize your home page (alternatively, you might see a link for "personalized home page which can also be used).
The first thing to customize is the theme (click on "Select Theme" in the top right), perhaps the sunrise/sunset theme. Then, click on "Add stuff". What stuff is there to add, you ask? Almost anything you can think of, like the weather conditions, the news headlines, your email address, etc. Be prepared to spend some time - there are many little widgets that you can add to this page. And you can move them around to where you like them just by dragging! Once you have it the way you like it, set this to be your home page (under Tools - Options - click on Use Current Page).
SAGE. What's the best way to integrate RSS feeds and the Web? Don't use a separate RSS reader. That's the secret behind Sage, which integrates directly into Firefox (but not Internet Explorer). Using it is simple: Click the Sage icon in your toolbar, and Sage drops down on the left. Whenever you visit a page that has an RSS feed, you click the Discover Feeds button to add the feed. The rest of the Firefox window then becomes your reader. You can organize your folders, search through feeds, import and export feeds lists-pretty much do anything you want. http://sage.mozdev.org/
SEAMONKEY. Back in the day, an Internet suite called Netscape Communicator ruled the Web with its handily integrated browser, e-mail, and HTML authoring tools. Then Internet Explorer took over, and Netscape withered away and became an America Online brand (Find the last version with integrated mail and Web authoring, Netscape 7.2, in our library. Note that Netscape 8.1.2 omits the mail reader and HTML authoring; AOL plans to include them once again in its upcoming Netscape 9.0.) Nevertheless, the Mozilla foundation handed off development of the old Netscape suite to a group of volunteers, who continue to produce updated versions. The latest update uses the same HTML rendering engine as Firefox 2.0, blocks pop-ups, fills in web forms, and remembers passwords. www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
HOT CORNERS. What is Hot Corners all about? Well, it allows you to set specific actions depending on which part of the screen your mouse is touching. Hot Corners is a handy program-launching tool for Windows. It might sound like an odd concept at first, but after you get used to it - it almost becomes second nature. Each corner of the screen can be assigned an action or task to take. You could set your computer into standby. You could display the desktop. There are a lot of actions here you can take. Here is a little more about the program from the developer: "Hot Corners allows you to assign an action to the four corners of your screen that can either launch a program or file of your choice, launch your screensaver, display the desktop, open a Google search, put your computer into Standby mode, and more. Once you have assigned an action to one of the corners, all you have to do is touch it with your mouse and the action will be launched." Give it a shot, and I'll bet if you use it for a while you will not know what you did without it. http://lekremyelsew.googlepages.com/hotcorners
KEY LAUNCH. The quick launch tool provided by the task bar in Windows is outdated and just does not do the job for me anymore. To launch my programs quickly, try Key Launch. It is a free program for Windows that will allow you to quickly type in the first few letters of a program and get it to come right to you. All you have to do is launch it, type in "fir," and it tells me I wanted to launch Firefox. Quick and painless. Here are a few more details about this freeware download: "Key Launch enables you to quickly launch programs and documents from your keyboard by simply typing the first few letters of the name or a pre-defined alias command. By default, the program indexes your desktop, Start menu, and Recent Documents, but you can extend the index and add other folder locations as well. To launch a command, simply press Ctrl+Q (customizable) and type the command into the dialog." Sure there are a couple of other programs out there that do this, but for some reason, Key Launch is just a little better than all the rest. Seems to be quicker to respond and much more customizable. If you need a new way to launch your programs, you should give Key Launch a shot. www.snapfiles.com/get/keylaunch.html
PHOTOBIE is a free image editing software with multiplayer support. It includes many embedded filters and supports many Photoshop filter (.8bf) plug-ins. Photobie featured with advanced screen capture tools; It also supports photo framing, and image directory browsing; It can create/edit high quality gif animation with/without transparency. A compact flash player is also included.
Photobie can generate true color icon. Photobie is full feature packed, which enables you to create eye-catching images and animations. Photo frame feature allows you create and apply frame to your photo easily. Image directory browser feature allows you to open as many image directories and browse them in a simple fast way, and it also provides batch resize/rotate tools. Photobie integrates most useful features just to allow you to finish daily photo editing work within one environment. Version 3.2 optimizes GIF animation and adds a mask layer feature. www.photobie.com/
WEBAROO is a free software application that gives you the power to store, browse and search web content on the go. Webaroo's advanced technology enables you to search web content offline on your Windows laptop/desktop, Windows Mobile PDA/Smartphone, portable storage devices, and U3 devices. With Webaroo you can: store your web content (web packs and web sites), search or browse the content that you've stored offline, sync your content (optional) to a Windows mobile device to access the latest web content on the go. Webaroo is fast, free, and always on. It offers download of over 100 web packs, like Wikipedia, News, Sports, Celebrities. You can also download your browser bookmarks, favorites or almost any website to access on the go. Webaroo is available in English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish languages and can be also downloaded from the developer's Web site. www.webaroo.com/
EVOLUTION. So far, no single program beats Microsoft Outlook's combination of e-mail features, calendaring, and contacts. But one program, Novell's free, open-source Evolution, comes close. Though mostly enjoyed by Linux users as part of the Gnome window manager included with many distributions, Novell and some kind-hearted Evolution fans have created a Windows version as well. Though not an Outlook clone, Evolution offers the same general PIM landscape, including mail, contact, calendar, note, and task modules. Features include must-haves like rule-based filtering and spam detection, HTML-format messages, and PGP signing and encryption, and the ability to share calendars with others via the Web. http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/ DITTO is an extension to the Windows Clipboard. You copy something to the Clipboard and Ditto takes what you copied and stores it in a database to retrieve at a later time. Using Ditto is easy: Run Ditto; Copy things to the clipboard, e.g. using Ctrl-C with text selected in a text editor; Open Ditto by clicking its icon in the system tray or by pressing its Hot Key which defaults to Ctrl + ' - i.e. hold down Ctrl and press the back-quote (tilde ~) key; Double click or press enter on the item to paste it to the previous window. http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/
When you have a good clipboard tool installed and running, you never have to worry about losing anything that you copy, cut or paste in Windows. Ditto is now my favorite. http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/
MAILWASHER FREE. Have you ever wished that you could return spam to its sender and fool them into thinking that your e-mail address is not valid? MailWasher lets you do just that. You can also choose to delete a message on the e-mail server, without downloading it. MailWasher retrieves information about all e-mail messages on the server. To check e-mail, you don't open your e-mail client. Instead, you start MailWasher, and it tells you what messages are waiting for you on the mail server. In the check boxes, you select whether to Delete or Bounce messages, then click the Process Mail button. If you have checked nothing, the e-mail is downloaded to your e-mail client as normal. www.mailwasher.net/
THUNDERBIRD PORTABLE. This free customized version of the Thunderbird mail program lets you take your mail settings and mailboxes with you. Maintaining a single e-mail message repository whether online or off, at home or at large, requires a portable e-mail application. Like Firefox Portable, Thunderbird Portable lets you take your e-mail program with you on a USB drive wherever you go?just plug into a Windows PC. http://portableapps.com/
SPAMBAYES. Free anti-spam tool uses Bayesian logic to separate good mail from bad in Outlook or other POP3 or IMAP programs. This absolutely free, open-source spam filter works with Outlook or any other e-mail client software that uses the POP3 or IMAP protocols. Like many commercial anti-spam utilities, SpamBayes uses Bayesian statistics, rather than lists of keywords, to sort the good mail from the bad, resulting in high rates of spam detection, and very low numbers of false positives, good messages mistaken for spam. http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/contact.html
DROPLOAD is a place for you to drop your files off and have them picked up by someone else at a later time.
Recipients you specify are sent an email with instructions on how to download the file. Files are removed from the system after 7 days, regardless if they have been picked up or not. You can upload any type of file, mp3, movies, pdfs, etc up to 100MB each! Recipients can be anyone with an email address. www.dropload.com/
QUNU. No matter how smart you may think you are, there are going to be times when you need help figuring something out that relates to technology. You can't ever be too good to take advice from others - that's just ridiculous. In a time of need, a reasonable person will admit that their knowledge is lax, and will seek out help from various sources. If your connections aren't the best, then finding the right people/person to talk to could be a problem. The issue isn't only finding someone that can help, but finding someone that can help as soon as possible. Qunu will help you out with that. http://qunu.com/
REVOO. When you're in the very first steps of the buying process, it's important to do your research and look for reviews from people who have purchased and used what you intend to buy. After all, you definitely don't want to get stuck with a lame product. The problem with many review Web sites is that they accept reviews from almost anyone. If you just want to go off on some product that you've never used, then you can do so because there's no real editorial control over who's actually used something and who hasn't. This standard system may be easy to implement, but it's definitely not the best way to receive and publish accurate reviews. In an effort to fix this, Reevoo is attempting to make reviews more legitimate.
On Reevoo, you'll find reviews for products ranging from technology devices all the way to washers and dryers. The difference with this service, however, is that they work closely with online retailers. For example, when a user purchases an item from a retailer that supports Reevoo, they'll be e-mailed a questionnaire that is used to get their feedback on what they think of the product. When the reviews are approved, they'll then be posted for everyone else to see. It doesn't matter if the review is good or bad because it's coming from an actual user, and that makes a difference. www.reevoo.com/
XENTIENT THUMBNAILS is a simply and effective utility that replaces your generic image file icons with thumbnails icons of the actual image. After installing the software, your images can be much easier recognized by simply looking at the icon. It works in List and Details view of Windows Explorer, as well as desktop icons. This program supports all popular image formats you know and love including JPG, JPE, JPEG, JP2, J2K, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIF, TIFF, and others. So do not worry about your favorite image format not getting converted over. Of course the icon previews are a little on the ugly side - but if you dig this program you want it for functionality, not good looks. http://xentient.com:80/products/thumbnails/
MEDSTORY.COM is a great place to search for info in the health and medicine category. This is a site that's well worth bookmarking. Think of it as the Google for all manner of health related information.
ADVICE FOR EBAY USERS. The name of the site is Deadbeat eBay Sellers and Bidders. The main strength of eBay is the honesty and reputation of its sellers and buyers. Through a feedback system, users can see just how honest and reputable a prospective buyer is, or the quality of products that someone is selling. But eBay is also a refuge for those looking to make an easy buck. According to this Webmaster, it is a haven for deadbeats, slackers, misers, and con-men. I wouldn't go that far, but I do agree that there are some folks there who must have a hard time sleeping at night with what they charge for shipping. This site highlights some of those folks so others can be warned about them before they encounter them on the site.
The motto of this site should be caveat emptor. But the main message is: Look at the feedback of anyone you are looking at doing business with on eBay. It can be worth spending a little time being forewarned about users. www.angelfire.com/zine/aguirre73/hallofshame.html
EXTRACTNOW is a free simple utility that allows you to extract multiple archives quickly and easily. ExtractNow is not a complete archival solution. It's main purpose it to allow the user to extract multiple archives easily. 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. ExtractNow has a clean, well-designed and easy-to-use interface. To extract files, simply drag and drop them into the main program window, or right-click the files while in Windows Explorer. ExtractNow supports the two most popular compression formats, ZIP and RAR, as well as a handful of other formats. Simple but not simplistic, this is a powerful and reliable program that will be of use to anyone who manages many compressed files. www.extractnow.com
SURE DELETE. Permanently wipe all traces of a file from your hard drive. If delete a file, it isn't really gone because Windows just marks the space they occupied as being available. And anyone with a program such as Restoration could probably recover them, meaning that personal data could get into the wrong hands. The author of Sure Delete says that this free program deletes the file, then wipes and removes the data left over. The author has stopped updating or supporting the program, but it appeared to work fine in my informal tests. I was unable to recover several test files that I deleted with it. 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/
RANISH PARTITION MANAGER is a powerful hard disk partitioning tool. It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems, such as Linux, Windows 98/XP, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD on a single disk. Partition Manager can create, copy, and resize primary and extended partitions. It includes command line interface and simulation mode that works with large files so you can safely experiment before working on the real hard drive partition tables. www.ranish.com/part/
CATHY is a free disk cataloging tool that you can use to index files stored on removable media (CD-ROMs, LS120, Iomega Zip and Jaz disks, or even diskettes) and create searchable catalogs that can be used without having to insert the CD. Searching capabilities are based on file name, date and size, and special support for mp3 file searches. Additional features include filtering options and duplicate search. The program is easy to use and allows searching across multiple catalogs in a matter of seconds. Standalone, no install needed. www.mtg.sk/rva/
FREE MEMORY DIAGNOSTIC TOOL FROM MICROSOFT. Check the health of your system's memory. If your system crashes often and you're getting blue screens loaded with error messages, your problem may be bad system memory. Use this diagnostic tool for a quick checkup. http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
WORRIED ABOUT ID THEFT? These days, we hear a lot about identity theft. So it's no surprise that many of us are worried about falling victim. There's only so much you can do to protect yourself. The rest is up to the companies and retailers that have your data. I don't need to mention the careless mistakes they've made. Since you don't have total control over your data, be vigilant. For example, checking your credit report regularly can help you find out if thieves are using your information. Credit monitoring services can be expensive. But each year, you can get one free copy of your credit report from each of the three major reporting agencies. www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp
MOBYSAURUS THESAURUS is a comprehensive, feature-rich, easy-to-use English thesaurus for Windows. In addition to numerous built-in powerful features (usually seen only in commercial products), it offers some major unique benefits that no other thesaurus product (software or otherwise) does, including a huge database of 2.5 million synonyms, Find Synonymous Headwords and Suggest Headwords, that make this free thesaurus software the right tool for you to find the right words at the right time. www.mobysaurus.com/
WINAMP FULL. There are lots of MP3 players available, but this popular program is one of the best beloved. Winamp saves playlits and equalizer settings, and the special skins and dozens of color schemes keep it looking good. In addition to playing CDs and most other digital audio formats (.wav, MID, MOD), Winamp lets you browse SHOUTcast Radio and TV station. It also offers AOL video content and AOL Radio featuring XM. You get 50 free MP3s from eMusic, too. www.winamp.com/
TASKBAR SHUFFLE. The program lets you rearrange the order of applications on your Windows Taskbar. Drag an item to another spot on the Taskbar and drop it. You can use it to keep items in the exact order you want. Way cool. www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm
CAR CENTRAL. Few things are as annoying as waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. And no matter when you go, you're guaranteed a line. But there is a solution. You can do common things like renew your registration online. You can also download forms and find out about regulations. DMV.org is your one-stop spot for all your Department of Motor Vehicles needs. No matter what state you live in, you'll find the forms and information you need. But there's more to DMV.org than just forms. You'll find information on safety recalls and driver's education classes. There are also tips on buying a car and more.
MEMJET. A new inkjet technology called Memjet could allow printer manufacturers to launch $200 letter-size-document printers capable of outputting 60 pages per minute with office quality color. Memjet, which could be in place as early as next year, also could facilitate speeds of 30 ppm for photo-quality prints and 90 ppm for draft-mode output. The technology's maximum resolution is 1600 by 1600
FREE ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE. Save time, get organized, and build your small or home-based business with Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007. Download it for free today (U.S. only version). www.ideawins.com/ :
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Copyright 2007. This article is from the June 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/
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