Review Chairman's Industry Comments (04/08)
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.
UNCLOG YOUR PRINTER HEADS. If you have begun to
run low on ink or if you don’t use your printer every couple of days,
the heads can clog with slowly drying ink. Run a test print to see if
you notice gaps in the lines or otherwise unacceptable printing. If so,
you can clean the heads in a couple of ways. Your printer’s properties
dialogue box probably lets you activate a head cleaning utility that
cleans the heads by forcing more ink out of them. You can save ink by
doing the job yourself though. Remove the cartridge and clean the
nozzles with a clean cloth and rubbing alcohol.
THE HOUSE OF CARDS features traditional and family card games,
rules, software downloads, and online card games. You can also learn a
bit about playing cards and their history.
www.thehouseofcards.com
BRIDGE IS COOL teaches you how to play mini bridge and regular
bridge. Paul and I learned to play bridge with our parents when we were
first married and had more time on our hands. Since then, we’ve gotten
busy with out children and other things plus our friends don’t know
anything about playing bridge. I hope Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s
foundation will help bridge get back into action again.
www.bridgeiscool.com
AUSLOGICS REGISTRY DEFRAG. This simple, free program shrinks the
size of your Registry, and also makes it more effective by doing a full
Registry defragmentation. Run it, and it will tell you how fragmented
your Registry is. Then tell the program to do its work, and it
defragments the Registry and restarts your PC. It also creates a Restore
Point before doing its work, so that you can restore the Registry if you
run into any problems.
www.auslogics.com/
MICROSOFT LIVE TRANSLATOR SERVICE will translate from English to
one of 11 common languages. It can also translate between some of these
languages. Simply select the language translation you’d like. Then,
enter the text in the original box. You’ll get your translation in
seconds. You can also translate Web pages. To do that, all you need to
do is enter the page’s URL. When you translate a Web page, you can
compare the original with the translation. Simply hold your mouse over a
sentence. The corresponding text is highlighted in the other language.
http://translator.live.com/Default.aspx
ULTRADEFRAG is an Open Source disk defrag- mentation tool that
offers free, fast defragmenting using a kernel based driver. It offers a
simple GUI with a cluster map display, as well as a command-line
interface and scheduling option. The program supports full
defragmentation and space defragmentation (compacting), and allows you
to include/exclude files or folders based on their name or size. Other
features include HTML reports and boot time defragmentation.
http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net:80/
MOVIENIZER is a movie organizer that enables you to keep track of
your personal DVD collection. The program can automatically download
movie details and photos from several online sources, and auto-fill the
description and general information for each title. You can add movies
to the database by using the title or the DVD barcode, or by loading a
local video file.
www.maniactools.com:80/soft/movienizer/index.shtml
FREE AUDIO DUB is audio editing software that lets you delete
unwanted parts from audio files without re-encoding. And “without
re-encoding” means without losing original quality. This is a lossless
conversion, which is very fast. Supports many audio formats: MP3, WAV,
AAC, AC3, M4A, MP2, OGG, and WMA.
www.dvdvideosoft.com:80/products/dvd/Free-Audio-Dub.htm
FREE VIDEO DUB. A video editing program that allows you to delete
unwanted scenes from video files. Free Video Dub is lossless video
editing software that preserves the quality of input video files and
processes them without re-encoding. Supports many MPEG files: MPEG 1,
MPEG 2 and even MPEG 4 AVI, MOV, MP4, M4V, MPG, and FLV files including
DivX and XviD.
http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-Video-Dub.htm
ROBOGURU GUITAR TOOLS. A simple guitar chord finder and guitar
tuner. Emphasis is placed on ease of use. Features you need, and nothing
more. Chord finder database contains 1000+ chords and many variations.
www.roboguru.com/
FEARBY NASA TV. A Vista gadget that will let you view the NASA TV
station in the sidebar or on your desktop in full screen. The source
video is 320 x 240 at 151 Kbps.
http://tinyurl.com/2votq5
BLIP. The Blip application will continuously scan a grid of 64x64
cells. Each cell corresponds to a note, whose starting time is
determined by its column, and whose instrument is determined by its row.
The color of the cell controls the volume of the note (red component),
its pan (green component), and its pitch (blue component).
www.nicolasfournel.com/blip.htm
FLIGHTAWARE is your one-stop spot to check the status of flights
from all major carriers. It will help you decide when to leave for the
airport. You can check by flight number or by airport. That’s handy if
you don’t know your guests’ flight numbers!
www.flightaware.com
XNVIEW. When it comes to photo editing, it doesn’t get any better
than free, particularly if the software has a reasonable amount of
editing tools. And that’s what this program has. You’ll be able to
resize, crop, correct red eye, flip, rotate, and perform a wide variety
of image adjustments, including for brightness, contrast, and gamma. It
will also convert your pictures among many different image formats. It’s
not a powerful photo tool like The Gimp, but for most work, it’ll do
just fine. And you can’t argue with free.
www.xnview.com/
PING TEST EASY. A handy, powerful visual ping & IP scan utility
with an intuitive and graphical interface that lets you easily watch the
states of network and test the connection speeds of various locations.
http://tinyurl.com/32w6c6
MUMBLE. A voice chat application for groups, it has low latency,
super voice quality, and features an in-game overlay. While it can be
used for any kind of activity, it is primarily intended for gaming.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mumble/
BETTER GMAIL. A compilation of the best Greasemonkey enhancements for
the new Gmail interface, compiled into one extension. Compatible only
with the new Gmail interface.
http://tinyurl.com/yo3r2j
WALLCOOLER PERSONAL VPN. Makes remote working easier than ever:
access remote files, applications, or network resources from anywhere.
All Windows based applications are supported, no need to use special
applications or synchronize files.
www.vedivi.com/
TINY SPELL. One big omission of WordPad is spell checking, but
not all is lost. The free tinySpell spell checker works with any word
processor, alerting you to misspelled words as you type, or stepping
through all words that you copy to the clipboard.
http://tinyspell.m6.net/
SNARFER. Feed readers offer news junkies a great way to quickly
sift through a great deal of information published online. Snarfer joins
the growing ranks of free standalone readers that make it easy to
subscribe to feeds from online news sites, blogs, and other Web info
sources and read them within one simple interface.
www.snarfware.com/
TODDLER TRAP. If your child, cat, hamster, or goldfish
occasionally taps on your keyboard, lock it down with the free
ToddlerTrap utility. Note: This program is donationware. It is free to
try, but the author accepts and encourages donations towards further
development.
www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/#ToddlerTrap
FORECASTFOX. This longtime Firefox favorite adds a highly
configurable toolbar showing local weather conditions and forecasts from
Accuweather.com or other weather sites. Mouse over the toolbar for more
detailed information, or click the toolbar to visit the site.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/100
DRIVERMAX helps you back up all the drivers installed on your
Windows computer. When needed you will be able to reinstall all your
drivers or just the ones you choose in a single step that takes less
than a minute; a very handy tool especially after reinstalling Windows
or when the hardware driver CDs which came with your computer are no
longer available.
www.innovative-sol.com:80/drivermax/index.htm
PET OWNERS will enjoy many excellent articles about the health,
diet, and habits of their pets located at
www.purina.com
PREVENT UNWANTED STARTUPS. It seems that every program you
install wants to become a member of your startups, whether you want them
to or not. Soon, your list of startups has you running all sorts of
unwanted items that eat up your memory and slow down your computer’s
performance. You can prevent this scenario by installing the free
startup monitor located at
www.mlin.net/startupmonitor.shtml
It is easy to install, virtually invisible, and notifies you when any
app tries to insert itself among your startups. You can then elect to
accept or deny it permission.
WWW.YOUSENDIT.COM is the free site from which you can send
oversized messages that your ISP would not allow you to email because of
its size. You can always help the situation (although not essential)
speed-wise by zipping your message first, providing a smaller message in
the first place.
WAVOSAUR. Wavosaur is a free digital audio editing software which
allows you to perform various operations with audio data such as visual
editing, creating, recording, and playing audio files, applying VST
audio effects,adding loop points, mastering your tracks.
MP3 music and Windows event sounds simply can’t get along on the same
PC-unless you have Wavosaur, a free sound editor that includes a batch
operation to lower the volume of all the wave files in a folder by 6dB.
Doesn’t sound like much at first. You may have to run your event waves
through it a couple of times. (Do make backups in case you overdo it.)
Of all the dumb stuff you can find in Windows-and there’s a lot of
competition-the dumbest is to have only one volume control for every
sound that pours out of a PC. For example: It goes without saying that
the music of AC/DC is best listened to at decibel levels known to induce
psychosis in neighborhood dogs. So, after a heavy session of AC/DC mp3s,
you return to work until-Whoa! What the heck was that? That was an
ordinary beep indicating some error-only played at a volume so high at
first you think you’re being shot at.
MP3 music and Windows event sounds simply can’t get along on the same
PC-unless you have Wavosaur, a free sound editor that includes a batch
operation to lower the volume of all the wave files in a folder by 6dB.
Doesn’t sound like much at first. You may have to run your event waves
through it a couple of times. (Do make backups in case you overdo it.)
Wavosaur is so simple to use and works so quickly, in minutes you’ll
have a respectably decorous set of sounds you could take to a Zamfir
concert. And did I mention that Wavosaur edits, processes, and records
sounds, .wav files, and MP3 files? Wavosaur has all you need to edit
audio, produce music loops, analyze, record, and batch-convert.
www.wavosaur.com/
SCREENSHOT CAPTOR. Ever felt unfairly limited by Windows’
built-in screenshot taker, the ubiquitous PrintScreen button? Screenshot
Captor takes control of this key and allows you to exert fine control
over the screenshot process.
www.donationcoder.com/
HTTP-TUNNEL CLIENT. Allows you to use Internet applications
safely despite restrictive firewalls and/or monitoring. Use all your
favorite applications like Morpheus, ICQ, MSN, Kaazor, FTP clients, PC
Anywhere, Imesh, BitTorrent, Putty, WoW, and more.
www.http-tunnel.com/html/
VISTA SHORTCUT OVERLAY REMOVER. This little bit of freeware, aka FxVisor,
lets you either remove or enable the Explorer shortcut overlay arrow
that is added to all shortcuts. It is a response to no native way to
remove the shortcut overlay arrow or even to customize it in Windows
Vista.
www.frameworkx.com/Frameworkx/solution.aspx?id=632
FLOCK FOR WINDOWS. The social browser builds on Flock’s previous
version, which was reknowned for great blogging, media, and RSS. You can
now monitor your friends from Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube.
www.flock.com/
JTVMAKER MP3 SLIDESHOW GENERATOR. An MP3 slideshow and album
generator for photo sharing, it can turn a group of selected photos,
MP3s, and lyric files into JavaScript slideshows, applet slideshows,
thumb nailed gallery pages, or stand-alone slideshow applications.
http://slideplay.blogspot.com/
SOFTWARE THEORIES NATURAL WORD. Allows users to command Microsoft
Word with their own words. Make Word do what you want it to do without
memorizing cryptic menus, toolbars, or command syntax.
www.softwaretheories.com/NaturalWord/index.html
URLSNOOPER. Frustrated with online video sites like YouTube that
apparently don’t let you download videos to your PC? Be frustrated no
more. This very clever freebie lets you download videos from any site to
your PC so you can later watch them without having to go online.
www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/urlsnooper/index.html
PROCESS EXPLORER. Do you really know what’s running right now on
your PC? In all likelihood the answer is no. Dozens of processes or
services may run in the background without your being aware of it. And
though it can show you what’s running, Windows’ Task Manager is a poor
tool for diggng deeper than that.
Process Explorer (a free download) provides exceptionally detailed
information about every process and service, as well as identifying any
applications associated with them. In Task Manager, you have no idea
what each process and service do. But because Process Explorer often
shows applications associated with each process and service, you’ll be
able to tell whether shutting them down is safe. The tool can also
uncover clues indicating that a service or process may be spyware or
malware.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
COMODO FIREWALL PRO. The firewall built into Windows XP includes
no outbound protection. And the Vista firewall, though it provides some
outbound protection, is remarkably user-hostile. Just try to configure
the outbound firewall—it’s nearly impossible. Enter Comodo Firewall Pro,
a top-rated free firewall that’s easy to use and configure. This tool
automatically protects your inbound connections; and for outbound
connections, it notifies you every time a program attempts to make a
connection. You can then approve the connection, if you recognize the
program, or else forbid it.
An overview screen shows all of your current Internet traffic and
maintains a history of defense and threats. The firewall is
network-friendly, too: If you’re on a home network when you first run
it, the program will automatically recognizes this fact and ask you
whether you want all of the other PCs on the network to be trusted.
www.comodo.com/index.html
RECUVA. Un-delete files with this small, fast, and efficient
program. Chances are, if you’ve accidentally erased a file, or something
malicious like a worm of virus has done it for you, Recuva will find it.
And if it hasn’t been overwritten, this program will recover it for you.
We did say delete. Despite the name, and the company?s description of it
as a “file recovery” utility, it’s not a recovery program in the
accepted sense because it only works with an intact file system. If
you’ve reformatted your drive, or there are physical errors, you’ll need
something else.
But if you just want a good un-delete program with a small disk
footprint, then Recuva is what you’re looking for. It works on both FAT
and NTFS file systems so you can undelete files on virtually any Windows
PC ever made, and the interface is the very model of restrained style
and efficiency. www.recuva.com/
ANDROSA FILEPROTECTOR. Looking for a simple, powerful way to
protect files on your PC from prying eyes? Then you’ll want this
program. It lets you encrypt and password protect any file on your hard
disk so that only those with the proper password will be able to read
them. It uses powerful encryption algorithms, including AES 256 bit/192
bit/128 bit; TripleDES 192 bit; and DES 64 bit. Passwords can be up to
32 characters in length.
www.androsasoft.net/
HYPLET. The same reasons for having a business or ID card in real
life also apply online, and Hyplet will enable you to create free online
versions of these cards. Whether you want to develop an ID card or a
flyer that announces something new that you’ve created, Hyplet provides
you with the templates and tools that you’ll need. Just find a template
that you like, move things around and customize the information on it in
any way that you want, and then publish it on your social networking
profiles, e-mail signatures, and so on. The number of ways in which each
of us can be contacted seems to be growing each day, so it definitely
makes sense to organize all of this information in a simple and digital
way that can easily be shared.
www.hyplet.com
KEYSCRAMBLER PERSONAL. A free plug-in for your Web browser that
protects your username and password from keyloggers. It defeats
keyloggers by encrypting your keystrokes at the keyboard driver level,
deep within the operating system. When the encrypted keystrokes reach
your browser, KeyScrambler then decrypts them so you see exactly the
keys you’ve typed. Keyloggers can only record the encrypted keys, which
are completely indecipherable.
www.qfxsoftware.com/learn_more.htm SWITCH V1.31. An audio file
converter that can convert mp3, wav, wma, and more to the format of your
choice. It’s very easy to use — just add the files you want to convert
to the list, select the format you want to use, and then click the
convert button.
www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html
PIXRESIZER. A photo-resizing program for quickly generating
screen-friendly versions of your images with dramatically reduced file
sizes. The reduced files are saved in a different directory so your
original pictures are not changed.
http://bluefive.pair.com/downloads.htm
EASY VIDEO DOWNLOADER. With Easy Video Downloader’s simple user
interface, you’ll be able to download videos from YouTube or Google
Video and save them as AVI (High Quality for PC) or MPEG4 (for iPod, PSP).
www.videodownloader.fdrlab.com/
AUTO TASKKILLER. Designed to be a simple tool for killing all
background processes that you don’t want running when you play games.
This should have a positive influence on your FPS
http://ryzza007.googlepages.com/autotaskkiller
MYUNINSTALLER. Do you waver over Windows’ uninstaller, wondering
whether you’d get more use out of a program or out of the space it takes
up? This installation utility gives you more data, helping you make an
informed decision. It tells you the product name and company, its
location, the version number, whether the program is obsolete, and more
of points that help you decide whether to uninstall. It lets you save a
list of installed applications as a text file or HTML file so you can
keep a record of what’s on your system
http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=315
DOWNLOAD ACCELERATOR PLUS. Accelerate and more effectively manage
your downloads. This program manages every aspect of the downloading
process, including letting you do multiple downloads simultaneously,
turning individual download sessions on and off, as well as accelerating
your downloads. The acceleration happens two ways: by downloading from
the fastest servers, and by establishing multiple connections to
servers. It also can resume downloads if you lose a connection for some
reason. There’s plenty more here as well, including a feature that lets
you limit the amount of bandwidth for your downloads. Also useful is
that it integrates with your browser. So initiate a download as you do
normally, by clicking a link, this program springs into action.
http://www.speedbit.com/
CUTEPDF WRITER is the free version of commercial PDF creation
software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a “printer subsystem” and
enables virtually any Windows application to create professional-quality
PDF documents. Create PDF documents on the fly — for Free! Portable
Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and
reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms
around the world. CutePDF Writer (formerly CutePDF Printer) is the free
version of commercial PDF creation software. Since CutePDF Writer
installs itself as a “printer subsystem,” it enables virtually any
Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional
quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!
www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
ASTERISK LOGGER. If you’re the type of person who frequently
forgets passwords, you’ll welcome Asterisk Logger. It automatically
remembers passwords you type into boxes, when the password is hidden by
a series of asterisks. A number of programs—including Outlook Express
and CuteFTP—hide passwords in this way, and so the program will remember
those passwords. If in the future you forget your password, just run
this program, and it reveals it to you.
www.nirsoft.net/utils/astlog.html
MAIL PASSVIEW. If you find yourself forgetting user names and
passwords from your email software, you need Mail PassView. For each of
your accounts on each different piece of email software, it will record
your user name and password. That way, if you ever forget them, they’re
always within easy reach.
www.nirsoft.net/utils/mailpv.html
PRODUKEY solves a problem that bedevils may users: how to find
your product key for Microsoft products, including Windows and Microsoft
Office applications. Why will you need your product key? If for some
reason you need to reinstall Windows, Office, or other Microsoft
applications, and you can’t find the original key on a CD, you’ll be out
of luck. You won’t be able to re-install.
www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html
OPT OUT OF JUNK MAIL. Most of us receive more spam than
legitimate e-mail. So, it’s no surprise that we want a solution to the
problem. But what about your physical mail? How much of it is unwanted
marketing material? If you receive too much junk mail, visit the Direct
Marketing Association. You can remove your name from direct marketing
lists. DMA members are required to honor your request. However, the
mailings may take up to 90 days to stop. There are two ways to remove
your name from mailing lists. You can complete an online form. You have
to enter a credit card number to verify your identity. Or, print and
mail a form. This way is slower, plus you must pay a $1 processing fee.
But you don’t need to disclose a credit card number.
www.dmachoice.org:443/MPS/mps_consumer_description.php
CLEANING CDS, DVDS. Holding the CD from the edges, spray
isopropyl alcohol from about 15cm away to achieve a fine mist over the
CD. Then, using a soft lint-free white cloth (i.e. not a rough paper
towel!), wipe from the center outwards ONLY and continue around the CD
until it is complete. This will clean it and keep it in tip-top
condition, but there may still be slight surface scratches which are
impossible to remove.
COPERNIC DESKTOP SEARCH brings a search engine right to your PC
and allows you to instantly search files, e-mails, and e-mail
attachments stored anywhere on your PC hard drive. The application
executes subsecond searching of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
files, Acrobat PDFs, all popular music, picture, and video formats,
contacts, the browser history, and favorites. Version 2.2 build improves
clear index and reindex all features.
www.copernic.com
EASY SEARCHING WITH SPUTTR. Think about how better off you would
be if you could group a collection of resources to search through on one
page so that you can do the work usually required by multiple browser
windows or tabs in just one. Sputtr provides this functionality in a
clean and usable way. When you arrive at the site, you’ll notice a
number of icons that represent services that can be searched through.
There’s a lot to choose from there, but the personalization comes into
play when you customize the page to better fit your needs. You can
delete the services that you don’t want, add the ones that you do want,
and rearrange the order of them. Before you know it, your searches will
be much more productive than they were before.
www.sputtr.com/
UNPLUG is an extension that lets you save video and audio which
is embedded on a Web page - it’s a video download tool. UnPlug scans Web
pages and tells you where media players are getting their data, and
displays it as a simple hyperlink: in most cases, you can then follow
the simple download link to save the media file. UnPlug works for lots
of sites including youtube.com, ifilm.com, current.tv, revver.com,
peekvid.com, video.google.com, mobuzztv.com, and more. Unlike many other
extensions, UnPlug scans the page, and if it doesn’t know there the data
comes from it can guess - correctly most of the time.
www.compunach.co.nr
M8 FREE MULTI CLIPBOARD. If you ever wished you could copy more than a
single clip from one document before pasting to another, M8 is for you.
With M8 you can copy up to 25 times, and unlike other multi clipboards,
M8 shows you a preview of each clip before you paste it.
http://m8software.com/index.htm :
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Copyright 2008. This article is from the April 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.