Review Chairman's Industry Comments (03/08)
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.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ADDRESS BOOK! Here’s a great tip
from member Bob Harris: I learned a computer trick today that’s
really ingenious in its simplicity. As you may know, when/if a worm
virus gets into your computer it heads straight for your email address
book, and sends itself to everyone in there, thus infecting all your
friends and associates. This trick won’t keep the virus from getting
into your computer, but it will stop it from using your address book to
spread further, and it will alert you to the fact that the worm has
gotten into your system.
Here’s what you do: First, open your address book and
click on "new contact," just as you would do if you were adding a new
friend to your list of email addresses. In the window where you would
type your friend’s first name, type in "A". For the screen name or email
address, type " AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA".
Now, here’s what you’ve done and why it works: The
"name" "A" will be placed at the top of your address book as entry#1.
This will be where the worm will start in an effort to send itself to
all your friends. But, when it tries to send itself to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAA,
it will be undeliverable because of the phony email address you entered.
If the first attempt fails (which it will because of the phony address),
the worm goes no further and your friends will not be infected.
Here’s the second great advantage of this method: If an
email cannot be delivered, you will be notified of this in your In Box
almost immediately. Hence, if you ever get an email telling you that an
email addressed to AAAAAAA@AAA.AAAA could not be delivered, you know
right away that you have the worm virus in your system. You can then
take steps to get rid of it! Pretty slick huh? If everybody you know
does this then you need not ever worry about opening mail from friends.
FREE YOUTUBE TO IPHONE CONVERTER v1.3 [4.05M]
[Win98/ME/NT/2k/XP/Vista] [FREE] Want to download videos from YouTube?
This makes it as simple as 1, 2, 3. All you need to do is just to give
the program a link to a YouTube video. In several minutes you’ll have a
video in MP4 format ready to be uploaded to your iPhone.
www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-YouTube-to-iPhone-Converter.htm
SWAPMOUSEBUTTONS. This is a utility program for
quickly switching the mouse button assignment between left-handed and
right-handed modes. Press only F12 (or whatever key you designate) on
the keyboard to switch. It’s useful for families, schools, libraries, or
anywhere left-handed and right-handed people share a computer.
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/mtpsoft/
GLARY UTILITIES. Offers numerous powerful and
easy-to-use system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain, and
protect your PC. It allows you to clean common system junk files, as
well as invalid registry entries and Internet traces.
www.glaryutilities.com/
REALWORLD CURSOR EDITOR. Can create and edit static
and animated Windows cursors. A drag-and-drop based interface allows
users to easily reorder, duplicate, or append frames to animated
cursors. Images in cursors can be modified by drawing tools such as
lines, curves, polygons, rectangles, or ellipses.
http://www.rw-designer.com/cursor-maker
ACALA DVD 3GP RIPPER. A professional DVD tool
program for converting DVD movies to mobile phone suitable movies and
turn a mobile phone into a portable movie center.
http://www.cutedvd.com/
SURE DELETE. Permanently wipe all traces of a file
from your hard drive. If you 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/
PC DE-CRAPIFIER. Clean out system junk and craplets
from your PC. You buy a shiny, brand-new PC. You expect it to be clean,
lean, and mean. Wrong! Buy any new PC, and you’ll find it full of "craplets"
— software installed for no reason other than that the PC maker gets
paid to put it there. These craplets slow down your PC startup and its
general operation. Dell is particularly notorious for filling new PCs
with craplets.
The free PC De-Crapifier removes dozens of craplets
automatically. Using this program is exceedingly simple. Just run it,
and it does its removal work automatically. Don’t expect it to
completely clean your PC, because it only removes a specific set of
craplets and trialware programs, those that are specifically put on new
PCs, such as QuickBooks Trial, Wild Tangent Games, Dell URL Assistant,
and many others.
For a full list, go to
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/removes. Note that when using this
program, it’s a good idea to tell it to first create a restore point,
just in case it removes something that you wanted to keep.
www.pcdecrapifier.com/
WISE DISK CLEANER. Clean up your hard disk by
removing unneeded junk. Your hard disk is littered with junk files you
don’t need, taking up precious hard disk space, and potentially slowing
down your PC’s performance. There are files of all kinds, such as
temporary files that applications should delete when they’re no longer
needed, and various log files, index files, backup files. You’d be
amazed at how much space these junk files take up. The Wise Disk Cleaner
looks for it all, then deletes what you tell it to. You can choose to
have the files permanently deleted, or else first moved to the Recycle
Bin. And you can have the program do the cleanup automatically, or you
can do it manually. You’ll be amazed at how much hard disk space this
program can gain for you. On my laptop, for example, it found 872 MB of
junk. I needed none of it, so automatically got back plenty of hard disk
space. www.wisecleaner.com
MANAGE YOUR CAR. There are many car buffs out there.
You know who you are. You probably enjoy learning more about new models
and the classics. I, on the other hand, am not a car buff. I appreciate
the technology that has gone into developing today’s cars. I can also
appreciate the beauty of a well-designed automobile. But for me, a car
simply serves a purpose: getting from one place to another. But I do
maintain my car. I have the routine maintenance performed and I check
the tires regularly. Since I’m not a fanatic, though, I need a little
help. I turn to ServiceBeacon. Once you sign up, you enter information
about your automobile. The site loads the car’s official maintenance
schedule.
You’ll receive e-mail messages when it is time for
service. The site also lets you know of recalls that require attention.
You can even manage multiple cars.
www.servicebeacon.com
NOTETAB LIGHT improves on Windows’ Notepad in so
many ways, it’s tough to count them. Start with the basics: You can open
multiple files, not just one, as you’re forced to do in Notepad. Each
file runs in its own tab, so switching between them is easy. The program
comes with all kinds of nifty built-in utilities, too, such as a feature
that strips HTML out of a document, a Paste Board that saves text clips
automatically, macros, and plenty of oddball free tools such as a
mortgage-rate calculator.
www.notetab.com/index.php
NAOMI. Designed to protect children from
inappropriate content—pornography, gambling, and so on—this free tool
works as advertised. Naomi monitors all content coming in via the
Internet, from Web browsers, RSS feeds, chat programs, and so on. It
shuts down the browser or other program when it encounters objectionable
content. www.radiance.m6.net/
DISABLE MESSENGER. Don’t use the integrated client?
Dump it for good. Every time you boot Windows, MSN Messenger starts
running in the background. You’re not a fan of this IM client? Too bad.
You don’t have a Passport account or don’t use the instant messenger
integration built into Microsoft Outlook and Exchange? Too bad.
You can save a bit of memory and get a little faster
boot time by not loading this chat client every time Windows starts.
Users of AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, or Yahoo!’s client are also likely
candidates for this tweak. First, click Start, then Run. Then, type this
long string into the field: RunDll32advpack.dll,Launch INFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove—and
be careful to type it exactly right (no spaces) or unpredictable results
may occur. You will need to reboot to complete the settings.
If you run Outlook or Outlook Express, those programs
may try to launch MSN Messenger too. In order to prevent this from
happening in Outlook, for example, go into the program and click on
Tools, Options, then Other. Under this menu you will find a check box
that reads Enable Instant Messaging in Microsoft Outlook, and you should
clear it. Problem fixed!
For Outlook Express, the process is similar: Click on
Tools | Options | General. Here you will need to clear the check box
next to Automatically log onto Windows Messenger to keep it from
starting up. Celebrate by rebooting and no longer having those little
"blue dudes" in the task bar looking at you all the time.
LAUNCHY. Vista’s new Start menu lets you hit the
Windows key, type a few letters until a match to your application of
choice is discovered, and then press for a quick launch. If that sounds
easier than digging through the Start menus and submenus and you don’t
want Vista right now (or you have Vista but want the Classic Start
menu), check out Launchy, open-source software from Josh Karlin. Launchy
stays out of your way (invisible), until you press "- "(or other hotkey
combination you choose). A small, skinnable command-line window appears,
and when you type a few letters, Launchy anticipates your target file
and displays it (and other alternatives).
www.launchy.net/
PARENTALCONTROL BAR. Developed by a nonprofit
organization, ParentalControl Bar is designed to keep children away from
inappropriate Web content. Although the Web site says that it works with
Firefox 1.5+ and Safari 10.4+ as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer, it
is not compatible with Firefox 2.0 (I did not test it on Safari). The
program automatically blocks nudity and explicit sexual material.
Parents can choose whether to block violence, strong language, chat
rooms and message boards, and "potentially harmful activities" (that
term is not defined). ParentalControl Bar also tracks user activity
while in Child Mode, allowing parents to keep tabs on their children’s
online activities.
http://parentalcontrolbar.org/
COMMAND BURNER. Burning files to a CD or DVD
shouldn’t be difficult. And it isn’t with Cortex IT’s free program. This
one dialog box solution lets you select the file or folder you want on
the disc, then just click Burn. Command Burner has its problems. You
can’t drag a file or folder to the program. And the only way to burn
more than one file is to burn the contents of a folder. And this is not
a tool for burning music or movies. But if the job is data-oriented and
simple, Command Burner is far easier than Nero, Easy Media Creator, or
Windows’ own burning tools.
www.cortexit.com/
ACTUALDOC STANDARD. Windows’ Recent Documents menu
is a great idea, badly executed. Microsoft still hasn’t figured out that
this list should be filtered by file type, or that you might appreciate
some privacy. Luckily, Flexigensoft figured it out and offers a better
Recent Documents called ActualDoc. The free program offers two ways to
find a recently-used file. You can right-click the systray icon for
lists by category—Documents, Internet Documents, Drawings and Images,
and so on. Or you can double-click that icon for the full-fledged
program, where you can narrow the selection still further by date and
file type (such as Word documents and text files).
www.flexigensoft.com/
INSTANT MEMORY CLEANER. Front-end for Microsoft’s
command line ClearMem (XP) and FreeMem (Vista), which force pages out of
physical memory and reduce the size of running processes’ working sets
to a minimum. Real-time free memory indicator included.
www.vasileios.gr/freesoft/inst_mem_clean.htm
PRIMOPDF. A free tool for high-quality PDF creation,
comprising a user-friendly interface that enables printing to PDF from
virtually any Windows application. Additionally, PrimoPDF provides the
ability to optimize PDF output for screen, print, ebook, and prepress,
secure PDF files with 40- or 128-bit encryption, and add document
information (e.g. title, author, subject, keywords) to converted PDF
files. www.primopdf.com/
KEEPTUBE . A tool to download/batch download,
manage, and play video from YouTube. By using the unique tool, you can
download multiple videos concurrently, create your favorite playlists,
and loop play videos.
www.keeptube.runtimechecker.com/
MSD ORGANIZER FREEWARE. A complete, powerful and
easy to use personal and professional information manager with calendar,
alarms, tasks, contacts, personal diary, property, budget, health and
music. It also provides the following tools: backup and restore, word
processor, image viewer, calculator and financial calculator.
www.msdsoft.com/eng/download.htm
3D RAD . Create interactive 3D worlds and games by
visually placing objects in virtual space. Make realistic virtual
vehicles by visually combining bodies, joints, and wheels with working
suspensions. Compile and sell your projects royalty free. Enjoy advanced
physics simulation, control forces and torques interactively, tune
frictions, and other physics parameters.
www.3drad.com/
RENAME MASTER. Anyone with a digital camera has felt
the need to rename a whole bunch of files at once. Windows can do this
chore easily, but not well. The result is a bunch of files with the same
name, differentiated only by a number in parenthesis. That’s where
Rename Master comes in. This freebie by Jackass JoeJoe’s Freeware
Utilities (hey, folks, I pick the software, not the names) offers a
cornucopia of mass renaming options. You can add text at specific points
in the names, replace text, remove unwanted strings, and even pick how
you want the file names capitalized. You also have considerable control
over how the counter distinguishes one file from another.
www.joejoesoft.com/
PURETEXT. When you paste text into almost any
Windows program, you get both text and formatting. But more often than
not, all you really want is text. Steve Miller’s PureText gives you that
option. Once you have this little freebie running in the background, you
can strip all formatting out of the clipboard’s text and insert it into
your current application by simply pressing a user-defined hotkey. Stick
with the default, -V, because it’s close to the -V standard for regular
pasting.
www.stevemiller.net/puretext/
INSTANT MEMORY CLEANER. Front-end for Microsoft’s
command line ClearMem (XP) and FreeMem (Vista), which force pages out of
physical memory and reduce the size of running processes’ working sets
to a minimum. Real-time free memory indicator included.
www.vasileios.gr/freesoft/inst_mem_clean.htm
CODECINSTALLER. Can’t figure out why some videos
won’t play on your PC? This free utility checks your system and tells
you which codecs (programs needed to view videos) are missing. Then it
suggests safe, reliable download sources.
www.jockersoft.com/english/codecinstaller.php
DECT CORDLESS PHONES. The latest cordless phones use
some new technologies to improve reception and decrease interference;
reviewers say you should consider these if you have a house full of
electronics. The most notable new models use a newly-approved bandwidth
that’s reserved solely for voice communications – that means you won’t
get interference from a Wi-Fi network, microwave oven or cordless
video-game controllers. These phones use technology called DECT (Digital
Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) along with a bandwidth of 1.9 GHz.
In reviews, DECT phones, including the Uniden DECT 1080-2 (*est. $100) ,
really do avoid interference. These phones were initially more expensive
than others, but prices are dropping. Some basic DECT phones, like the
GE 27907GE1 with answering machine (*est. $65) , aren’t much more
expensive than other types of cordless phones.
PETSIDE.COM. This site contains the obligatory pet
videos and pictures, but there’s also some useful information here.
Important news and tips are featured, and you’ll also be able to use
their interactive PetVet tool to help diagnose any medical conditions
that your pet may have. The content on breeds will help to further
educate animal lovers about the animals that they know and love, and by
spending just a small amount of time at PetSide.com, you’ll probably
want to pamper your pet even more.
SG TCP OPTIMIZER. No matter how fast your broadband
connection is, it’s not fast enough. There’s nothing you can do to get
your ISP to juice up the bandwidth, but you can do something to make the
most out of what you’ve got. This free program will tweak various
connection settings to help you get a faster, smoother connection. At
first glance, the program is daunting, because of the amount of
technical detail you appear to need to know in order to use it, such as
Latency, Largest MTU, and so on. Your best bet is to click the Optimal
settings button at the bottom of the screen, and then click Apply
changes. That way, the program decides on its own the best settings and
applies them. Unless you’re very experienced, you probably don’t want to
muck around with the settings yourself.
www.speedguide.net/
GOM PLAYER might very well be the most hassle-free
and full-featured freeware media player available. The player boasts
several unique features—including support for a wide range of video file
formats and built-in video and audio codecs that permit you to play
video files encoded in the most popular formats without having to
download additional files—as well as a codec finder that points you to
download sites for the few encoding formats the program doesn’t natively
support.
www.gomplayer.com/main.html
TMPGENC FREE VERSION. High-end video junkies will
appreciate the geeky tweaks you can make with TMPGEnc to fine tune your
video files, but folks who want to do a casual video conversion might
find the user interface somewhat intimidating. The program lets you
convert AVI video files into the correct MPEG format used by either PAL
or NTSC Video CDs or DVDs. You can then burn the file to a disc, and
watch it on a regular DVD or VCD player. For 30 days after installation,
you can also use the program to edit down MPEG2 files with an editing
interface that’s built into the product.
www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html
FIREFTP. A free, secure, cross-platform FTP
client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to
FTP servers. Version 0.94.2 adds the ability to keep directories in sync
and greatly improved drag-and-drop support.
http://fireftp.mozdev.org/
REVO UNINSTALLER. An innovative freeware uninstall
utility much faster than Windows’ Add/Remove applet. With its advanced,
fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller scans before and after you uninstall an
application. After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can
remove additional unnecessary files, folders, and registry keys that are
usually left over on your computer.
www.revouninstaller.com/
PARTED MAGIC LIVECD. Optimized at approximately
30MB, the Parted Magic LiveCD OS employs core programs of GParted and
Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other
useful programs (e.g. Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, and
ddrescue) and an excellent set of documentation to benefit the user.
http://partedmagic.com/
MINIMINDER. Serves up a slick, daily countdown for
all the upcoming events you wish to track. You can set yearly,
quarterly, monthly or daily events, events such as the 4th Thursday of
the month, events in increments such as every 28 days, and you can set
alarms to popup at specific times throughout the day.
www.vellosoft.com/miniminder/index.html
TINSELTOWN. A Firefox Christmas theme with holiday
imagery including Christmas lights, snow, reindeer, presents, and more.
This theme is made even better with great Christmas icons from Watiworks
and a semi-transparent URL bar. Get in the holiday spirit.
www.twistermc.com/blog/tinseltown
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.
www.videolan.org/
SLICKRUN. Simplify your life with this command-line
utility and its Magic Words. Most of the time, you just want your PC to
do things faster. But sometimes, you may like to dig into the PC with
the sort of stuff you find at the command prompt. SlickRun helps with
both scenarios. This floating command-line utility appears above your
PC’s system tray clock, showing the date and time. (Yes, you can move it
wherever you like.)
Click it, and it turns into a tiny command line where
you can type in "regedit" or "%temp%" or any of those other things you
might like to check out. Right-click it, however, and it offers you a
number of MagicWords—shortcuts to various actions, such as launching
programs, opening URLs or windows, or switching to standby mode.
You can create your own MagicWords easily. SlickRun’s
MagicWord-adding window has just a few fields, and each one explains it
use when clicked. For instance, I input the path for my screenshot
folder in "Filename or URL" and clicked the other fields to see if I
needed to add anything in "Startup Path, ""Parameters," and so forth. It
seemed I didn’t, so I clicked "Test this MagicWord" and watched SlickRun
perform its new trick. Being able to do so much from one program—without
hunting through other lists or icons—makes everything go faster. With a
little bit of imagination, SlickRun can save you lots of time and
trouble. www.bayden.com/Other/
CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL. Automatically store (and
spell-check) Clipboard data with this full-featured Clipboard
enhancement utility. Clipboard’s short-term memory is awful, and its
long-term memory is non-existent. Slip a little virtual ginseng into
Clipboard with Clipboard Help+Spell. This powerful program automatically
stores every item you select and Control-C. It marks every entry with
the date and lets you sort the entries into groups. The Quick Filter
function searches for entries containing the words you specify.
As the name says, Clipboard Help+Spell also checks your
entries for spelling errors. This program is bursting with other useful
functions, such as the ability to type Clipboard text directly into
Clipboard Help+Spell and a button to paste the text to the last open
window of any program, when possible. Clipboard Help+Spell is easy to
configure to the way you work, making it an excellent companion on any
PC.
Note: This program is donationware. It is free to try,
but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further
development.
www.donationcoder.com/
KEYTWEAK. Are you and your keyboard experiencing a
communication breakdown? You need KeyTweak, a free keyboard-remapping
tool that arranges the keys as they make most sense for you. The program
modifies Windows Scancode Map Registry settings. Note: To use KeyTweak
in Vista, you have to be logged in as an Administrator.
http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/
FREECOMMANDER. Navigating a modern computer’s
directory tree is a daunting task, and the standard Windows file
explorer is barely up to the task. FreeCommander offers a powerful, and
free, replacement program. The main window is split into two panes, each
of which shows a directory view. This makes it very easy to copy or move
files. Further, FreeCommander provides directory comparison and
synchronization functions, as well as the ability to customize columns
in the ‘detail’ view. Other features include the ability to specify the
font used for different parts of the view, as well as coloring specific
file types—if you want all your Excel files to be bright green, they can
be. www.freecommander.com/ :
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Copyright 2008. This article is from the February 2008 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
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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
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See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor,
go to the Newsletter Section.