Review Chairman's Industry Comments (08/09)
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.
BOOST VISTA COMPATIBILITY. Before throwing your
computer against a wall because a particular piece of legacy software is
not working in Vista, try running compatibility mode. Right-click on the
program’s EXE file and choose Properties. Then click the Compatibility
tab, check the box that says Run this program in compatibility mode
for:, and select the operating system that worked best with the
software.
EXPANDED SHORTCUT MENU. You can add useful
options to the right-click menu on any file or folder. By holding down
Shift as you right-click an item, you can add any file to the Start menu
or Quick Launch toolbar, copy the entire path of the file or folder to
the clipboard, or open a command prompt window.
BYPASS THE VISTA LOG-ON SCREEN. You don’t have to
be confronted by that eyesore of a log-on screen every time you boot up
the system. Make Vista log in automatically by typing netplwiz into the
Start menu search box. That will bring up the Advanced User Accounts
Control where you can uncheck the box that reads: Users must enter a
username and password to use this computer
INCREASE MS OFFICE 2007 FILE COMPATIBILITY. If
you’re alone in using Office 2007, save files in the older Office file
formats so others can open them. You can set this by default: in Word,
for example, go to the Office button, select Word Options | Save, and
then in Save Files in this Format select Word 97-2003 document (*.doc).
Rich Text Format (*.rtf) will work even outside of Word.
MAKE INTERNET EXPLORER TINY TEXT BIGGER. If the
text on a Web page is too small, hold down the Ctrl key while scrolling
up with the mouse wheel (that is, away from you), or select View | Text
Size from the menu and choose a larger size.
ALPHABETIZE YOUR BROWSER FAVORITES. Can’t spot
what you want from the Favorites menu? To alphabetize your favorites,
pull down the menu, right-click any item, and choose "Sort by name" from
the pop-up menu that appears.
AUDIO PLAYLIST MAKER helps you manage your entire
music collection by creating playlists. With Audio Playlist Maker you
can save all the playlists to one folder and then just select albums
from there.
www.download.com/Audio-Playlist-Maker/3000-2141_4-10560351.html?tag=lst-0-3
RAINLENDAR LITE. Compared to many calendar
programs, Finlander Kimmo "Rainy" Pekkola’s Rainlendar stands out.
Typically, and by default when first installed, this wonderfully
customizable free desktop calendar takes up only a few square inches of
the desktop, with a small, transparent calendar stacked on top of a pair
of boxes. One is labeled Events, the other, To Do. Hundreds of skins are
available to dramatically change its appearance. You can even mix
different skins when configuring the look of your Rainlendar components.
The look of individual events can also be modified with colors.
Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application
that is easy to use and doesn’t take much space on your desktop. The
application is platform independent so you can run it both on Windows
and on Linux. The appearance can be customized with skins and you can
even mix different skins together. It is possible to use Rainlendar with
other calendar applications too. Rainlendar uses the standard iCalendar
format to store its events and tasks so you can easily transfer them
between applications. You can also subscribe to online calendars and see
your Outlook appointments directly in Rainlendar.
You can also have a separate list for your long term
tasks. The task list can be arranged several ways so that you can keep
it better organized. You can also set a due date for the tasks to make
sure you’ll remember to do them on time.
You’ll also get an alarm when an event or task is due
so that you don’t miss it. The alarm can be defined to be set off any
duration before the actual event so you have time to prepare for it.
www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php
PING TEST EASY is a handy, powerful, visual ping
& IP scan utility for a system administrator to check network
connections. Its Intuitive and graphical interface lets you easily
monitor the state of the network and test the connection speeds of
various locations. It can save IP addresses and host names; its
intuitive interface shows the route, hosts, packet loss percentage, and
min/max/average response times.
www.download.com/Ping-Test-Easy/3000-2085_4-10523393.html?tag=lst-0-9
TOP FIVE TIPS FOR NEW VISTA CUSTOMERS:
1. Disable the sidebar. It’s nice if you want your
computer to slow down so much that it takes forever to start up. I found
that there was really no use for it and that it had really pointless
gadgets. I mean… come on! A clock? There’s already one in the bottom
left corner.
2.Upgrade to at least 2 GB of RAM. If you can’t
afford it or you don’t want to, then disable Aero and set the display
theme to Vista Basic. It will speed up your computer so much.
3. Customize the size of the desktop icon text. To do
this, right click on the desktop and go to personalize. Click the adjust
font size (DPI) at the left. Click custom and drag the ruler to change
the size. This makes reading the icon text easier.
4. Group the icons. This way you can put the most
used icons in the middle of the screen or anywhere else you want them. I
have my desktop organized into three sections. Two across the top and
one down the right side. The first group is hard drive links, and my
recycle bin, and anti-spyware/firewall. The second group is basically
all my most used programs: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, yadda, yadda, yadda.
My third group is links to file folders that contain documents. There is
a link for My Documents, Pictures, and Music, and also my Web site,
Projects, and School Work.
5. Disable pointless start up programs. Do this by
either going into the startup folder in the all programs folder or run "msconfig."
This opens the System Configuration Utility. Go to the startup tab and
disable anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. Especially do this
after installing HP software on your computer — it typically comes with
a lot of bloatware.
QUICKTIME ALTERNATIVE. QuickTime is a common
format, but QuickTime’s player is huge. Avoid that space hog by watching
your QuickTime files in QuickTime Alternative. This free codec works in
a number of browsers, too. With QuickTime Alternative, you can watch
QuickTime files over Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera.
http://free-codecs.com/
REAL ALTERNATIVE. Many audio and video files are
offered only in Real Networks’ formats. If you like the files, but you
don’t like being tied to Real, you may prefer Real Alternative. This
player plays RealAudio (.ra and .rpm) and Realmedia (.rm, .ram, .rmvb, .rpx)
files just like RealPlayer and RealOne Player do—but without the hassles
of dealing with Real. It offers limited support for Real’s .smi and .smil
formats. Real Alternative’s RealMedia browser plug-in supports Internet
Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm
QUICK STARTUP 2.3. As you’re probably well aware,
lots of Windows applications take the opportunity to load themselves
when you start your PC, whether you want them to or not. Quick Startup
shows you all those programs gumming up the works, then allows you to
disable the ones you don’t really need to launch at startup.
http://www.glarysoft.com/TweakNow
REGCLEANER STANDARD 3.0.1. A bloated Windows
Registry file can cause slow boot-up times and sluggish performance, but
manually monkeying with your PC’s Registry can wreak havoc on your
system. TweakNow RegCleaner Standard quickly scans your Registry to find
and delete obsolete entries left behind by programs you’ve
uninstalled—and just to be on the safe side, it creates a backup of your
Registry file before it changes anything.
http://www.tweaknow.com/
FREE REGISTRY DEFRAG 2.35. Another quick way to
give your system a performance boost is to close up the gaps in your
Registry file caused by scattered data. That’s where Free Registry
Defrag comes in. It compacts and optimizes your Registry (though it
doesn’t remove invalid entries), and it even runs on Windows Vista.
http://www.registry-clean.net/
CPU-Z can tell you everything about your PC’s
core components, from basic specs like processor name and RAM amount to
overclocking essentials such as clock multiplier and voltage settings.
If you want to find out what’s going on under the hood of your machine,
CPU-Z is essential.
http://www.cpuid.com/
SPEEDFAN. SpeedFan is still one of the best ways
to monitor the temperature of components you’ve overclocked (like your
processor); it can also control your fan speeds throughout the interior
of your case. If your hard drive includes Self-Monitoring Analysis and
Reporting Technology (SMART), SpeedFan may be able to read your drive’s
temperature, and on select hardware, this utility can even change the
front-side-bus speed. www.almico.com/
BELARC ADVISOR. Belarc Advisor offers PC users
the convenience of a full-system scan and a handy hardware and software
diagnostic report. It identifies the components in your PC—CPU,
motherboard, RAM, hard drives, etc.—and detects weaknesses in your
system’s security. Advisor can also tell if you have Windows
vulnerabilities that require running a patch, whether your antivirus
software is up to date, and which Microsoft hotfixes your system is
missing. It will then create an HTML file of its report so you can
easily view it in your Web browser.
http://www.belarc.com/
PROCESS EXPLORER. It might have the least-sexy
name of any software ever created, but if you’re a hardcore system
mucker frustrated with the limitations of Windows’ Task Manager, Process
Explorer is the utility for you. Its improvements over Task Manager
include displaying icons that are associated with processes and listing
any DLL that a process has loaded. It works with every version of
Windows, from Windows 95 up to (and including) Vista—even the 64-bit
version.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx
RAM IDLE LE. Give your PC a speed boost by making
it allocate available system memory more efficiently. RAM Idle can
automatically balance available RAM with the needs of the programs
you’re running; it also allows you to manually earmark a certain amount
of memory for a particular application. If you can’t add more RAM to
your system, RAM Idle is a no-cost answer to memory bottlenecks.
http://www.tweaknow.com/
PDF SPEEDUP. PDF files are a great way to send
documents to anyone on the Internet, but Adobe has created a bit of a
monster with its browser-crashing Acrobat Reader software. PDF SpeedUp
eliminates some of the annoying bottlenecks that can stop your Web
browsing dead in its tracks, letting you decide which Acrobat plug-ins
should be enabled and allowing you to switch off the relentless updater
function. You can even stop Acrobat Reader altogether from integrating
with your browser.
http://www.acropdf.com/
DESKTOP SIDEBAR. One of Windows Vista’s coolest
features is Sidebar, to which you can affix mini-apps (or Gadgets, in
Microsoft-speak) such as a clock, an RSS-feed reader, or stock tickers.
If you’re still using Windows XP (or Windows 2000), you can download
Desktop Sidebar and enjoy many of the same features offered by the Vista
version. Always visible on your desktop, this utility can display task
lists, weather forecasts, a calendar, and even a shortcut to Skype’s
Internet phone service.
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/
SCREENHUNTER 5 FREE. Wisdom-Soft ScreenHunter is
a free screen-capture tool for you to easily take screenshots.
ScreenHunter can capture a full screen, an active window, the client
window, or a rectangular area. It automatically saves captures in BMP or
JPEG format, so you don’t have to stop each time you capture, and you
can capture as many as you like. It also can save captures to the
Clipboard to be copied to other programs, such as Motion Studio and
Word. ScreenHunter has a selectable hot-key capture (F1 to F10) and
delayed capture, and uses virtually no system resources on standby.
ScreenHunter freeware version has no expiration date and can be
distributed free of charge. This version contains unspecified
enhancements and bug fixes.
http://www.wisdom-soft.com/
TRUECRYPT. TrueCrypt lets you create a virtual
encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk. You can
encrypt an entire hard drive partition or a removable storage device
such as a USB flash drive. This latest version adds a pre-boot
authentication system that requires users to enter a password before the
system loads up. www.truecrypt.org/
VUNET FININSTANT FILE FINDER. Don’t wait forever.
Unlike Microsoft Windows’ search tool, Vunet Find won’t keep doing
unnecessary resweeps of all your drives each time when finding a single
file, instead it does a single sweep collecting a special index. This
software won’t consume much hard disk space, memory nor your nerves.
This software comes under GPL license, and therefore offers no warranty
of any kind.
http://www.vunet.org/software/story-6.html
RECOVER FILES is an award winning program that
can undelete / recover deleted files after they have been deleted.
Recover Files is a professional file recovery software that allows it’s
user to recover accidentally deleted files. Even files removed from the
Recycle Bin, network drive, compact flash card, portable devices, in a
DOS window, or from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down.
Recover Files is a small, fast, useful, practical and powerful. It has a
clean, simple interface. Recover Files will work with Windows 95, 98,
Me, NT, 2000, XP, Vista operating systems. It can be used to recover
deleted files from all NTFS and FAT partitions. 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. Recover Files quickly and effectively restores
all those files that you may have deleted by mistake.
http://www.undeleteunerase.com/
CCLEANER is a system optimization and privacy
tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run
faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It cleans: Internet
Explorer (Temporary files, URL history, cookies, Autocomplete form
history, index.dat); Firefox (Temporary files, URL history, cookies,
download history); Windows (Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary
files, and Log files); Registry cleaner (Advanced features to remove
unused and old entries, including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls,
ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files,
Application Paths, Icons, and Invalid Shortcuts. It comes with a
comprehensive backup feature.) Added system tray icon, added minimize to
system tray option, and optimized file deletion routines. Version
2.05.555 updated Index.dat cleaning in Vista, file scanning performance
increase on NTFS drives, and improved exception handling methods.
www.ccleaner.com/
DOUBLEKILLER searches for duplicate files by
comparing any combination of name, size, modification date, and content.
You can exclude files or limit the scan to files matching masks like
*.MP3, files in a particular file size range or files with certain
attributes, like hidden or system files.
When the scan is finished a list containing all
duplicates found is displayed and you can manually or automatically
select the files to be removed. The result list can be sorted and
exported to a textfile readable by both humans and spreadsheet
applications. DoubleKiller is a stand-alone executable that does not
need to be installed, just extracted and run, and does not alter the
system in any way without the user’s intervention.
UBCD4WIN. If you want a Swiss Army knife of
system utilities that you can burn to a bootable CD, UBCD4Win is loaded
with everything, from Internet security apps like Spybot Search and
Destroy to file utilities and Registry programs to disk tools like
MbrFix. As you might expect, the download file is very, very large (over
200MB), and the package sometimes shows up as a false positive in
antivirus software—but for a no-cost bonanza of useful software, these
are minor issues.
UBCD4Win is a bootable "live" CD which contains
software that allows you to repair/restore/diagnostic almost any
computer problem. All software included in UBCD4Win are freeware
utilities for Windows. UBCD4Win is based on Bart’s PE. Bart’s PE builds
a Windows "pre-install" environment CD, basically Windows booted from
CD. With network support, the ability to modify NTFS volumes, recover
deleted files, create new NTFS volumes, and scan hard drives for
viruses. This project includes almost everything you need to repair your
system problems. Version 3.12 may include unspecified updates,
enhancements, and bug fixes. Note: AVG Antivirus may trigger a false
positive trojan alert on this program.
www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm
ADVANCED WINDOWSCARE PERSONAL. Slow down, freeze,
crash and security threats are over. Advanced WindowsCare Personal is a
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. All
work will be done with 1 click and 1 minute. This fantastic program is
available free of charge. Compared with its nearest competitor, Advanced
WindowsCare Personal provides the more essential and practical formula
for Windows: Removing Spyware and Adware, Preventing Security Threats,
Privacy Protection, Fixing Registry Errors, Temporary Files Cleanup,
Startup Cleanup, Repairing Windows, Speeding up System and 1-click
Mechanism. www.iobit.com/
ADVANCED DISK CLEANER. All kinds of junk files
accumulate on your hard drive over the years, but who has time to fish
around and delete them? Advanced Disk Cleaner makes such pruning easy.
Click a search button, look at the list of garbage files, and then click
the Clean button to delete them. The program also has an editing utility
to get rid of unnecessary apps lingering in your Windows Registry.
Every day the programs on your computer create
temporary and garbage files and leave them behind on your hard disk.
These files build up over time, taking up valuable hard disk space and
slowing your system down. Advanced Disk Cleaner is a free program, which
makes it easy to quickly find and wipe away all the garbage files on
your computer. It scans your disks quickly and then displays the garbage
files so you can decide which of them you want removed. The program
accurately detects and identifies only the garbage files.
In the options dialog you can add or modify the
folders and file types to clean, as well as the ones you want to be
excluded from the search. You can also choose between several methods of
deleting files or moving to a special folder or simple deletion. After
using Advanced Disk Cleaner you will have more disk space at your
disposal so you can install more programs, have more MP3 music files.
www.innovative-sol.com/
AUSLOGICS DISK DEFRAG. For those who don’t know,
defragging your hard drive—joining fragmented data pieces back
together—can lead to improved disk performance. For those who do know,
defragging can take hours and hours to perform on older, highly
fragmented drives. Auslogics’ Disk Defrag utility helps speed things up
by defragging faster than other, similar apps; it also outputs a summary
in HTML format that lets you know which files and folders were defragged
and how they were altered.
www.auslogics.com/en/
PROCESS LASSO is a unique new technology intended
to automatically adjust the allocation of CPU cycles so that system
responsiveness is improved during high loads. It does this by
temporarily lowering the priorities of processes that are consuming too
many CPU cycles, thereby giving other processes a chance to run if they
are in need. No longer will a single process bring your system to a
stall.
www.bitsum.com/prolasso.php
MEDIACODER is a free Open Source universal
audio/video batch converter that puts together lots of excellent
audio/video codecs and tools from the Open Source community into an
all-in-one solution, capable of coding among different audio/video
formats. With many extra features and expandable architecture,
MediaCoder is more than a GUI of a bunch of command line tools.
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net:80/
PING TEST EASY is a handy, powerful, visual ping
& IP scan utility for a system administrator to check network
connections. Its intuitive and graphical interface lets you easily
monitor the state of the network and test the connection speeds of
various locations. It can save IP addresses and host names; its
intuitive interface shows the route, hosts, packet loss percentage, and
min/max/average response times.
www.download.com/Ping-Test-Easy/3000-2085_4-10523393.html?tag=lst-0-9
CLIPX. If you’re looking to power up the Windows
clipboard, then you’ll want to download this freebie. It takes an
anemic, underpowered tool, and turns it into something exceptionally
useful. ClipX keeps your last 25 clips ready for you to use. When you
want to use one, press Ctrl-Shift-V, select your clip from the list, and
pop it in where you want it to go. ClipX takes up very little RAM, so
won’t add to any system overhead. And it’s exceptionally easy to use as
well. It stores graphics as well as text. Also worthwhile are a variety
of free plug-ins available from the program’s Web site. My favorite is
the ClipX Stickies Plugin, which lets you keep a list of permanent
clips, such as boilerplate text or corporate logos, so they’re always
ready for you.
http://bluemars.org/clipx/
DTIDATA NTFS PARTITION RECOVERY TOOL. You say you
booted your notebook and faced "Boot Failure: System Halted" and no
matter what partition recovery program you try doesn’t help? Stay calm.
Grab a copy of the free DTIData NTFS Recovery Repair tool. It lets you
repair the boot sector and make the drive bootable again.
www.dtidata.com/free_data_recovery_software/
WEFI enables reliable connection to Wi-Fi
wherever wireless networks are available. WeFi users can move between
open Wi-Fi networks automatically, monitor friends’ online status and
location, know the proximity of neighboring WeFi users who allow it, and
chat with them. WeFi hotspot directory will help you find a wireless
network to connect to anywhere around the world.
www.wefi.com:80/
IE7 KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS. Not everyone uses
keyboard shortcuts. However, for those that do, you know how much faster
it can be to maneuver your way around various Windows. Take for example,
Windows Explorer. Knowing and using a few useful keyboard shortcuts for
common tasks is faster than using a mouse.
Although the keyboard shortcuts may be difficult to
remember at first, once you’ve used them a few times, you will see how
much faster it is than a mouse. Until you get to that point, it is often
helpful to write a few useful ones down and have them right next to your
computer for reference. Here are a few useful keyboard shortcuts
available for Windows Explorer:
-Alt+Up - Go up a folder
-Alt+Right - Go forward
-Alt+Left- Go back
-Alt+Enter - Properties of the selected file
-F11 - Put explorer into Fullscreen mode
DEXPOT. With multiple workspaces comes the
ability to organize the desktop environment freely, either by task, by
application type, by priority, or any other way you care to slice it.
It’s particularly handy for keeping a handful of apps out of sight and
out of mind, without having to shut them down. For instance, I like to
keep my messaging and communications apps in a separate workspace from
my document creation apps as a way of staying focused while I work.
http://www.dexpot.de/index.php?lang=en
WINMAIL OPENER. A small and simple utility that
allows you to view and extract contents of TNEF-encoded messages
(infamous winmail.dat). Winmail Opener can decode and show RTF message
text and all embedded attachments, has full drag-and-drop support, and
supports command line mode for batch decoding.
www.eolsoft.com/freeware/winmail_opener
NO-NSFW (FIREFOX EXTENSION). A people-powered
Not-Safe-For-Work content warning system. When you hover on an external
link, the plugin gets the rating (NSFW, SFW or unrated) for that link.
This is displayed on the bottom-right of the screen as a small,
unintrusive warning. http://nonsfw.com/
GOOGLE SKY. When I look up into the sky, I have
no idea what I’m looking at. I’ve never owned a telescope, and I’m just
not into astronomy as much as much as some people are. Outer space is
truly amazing, and I’m not saying that I don’t have any interest in it,
but I have to admit that I don’t know very much about the specific
constellations and so on. For someone like me, it helps to be able to
discover and learn about what’s going on above my head easily, and
Google Sky enables me to navigate the universe at my own pace.
Many of us are familiar with Google Maps, and Google
Sky uses the same interface, so as crazy as it may sound, you’ll feel
comfortable navigating the far reaches of the universe. I’ve always been
intimidated by tools like this, but Google Sky even made me feel like I
knew what I was doing. Even with the supplemental content that is
provided, I can’t help but feel like Google could have done a better job
with this, but at least it’s accessible.
www.google.com/sky/
ENSO MAP ANYWHERE. With the Enso Map Anywhere
time-saver you can select an address in a Word document, e-mail or any
other file that allows for inserting images, type ‘map’ into the Enso
Launcher (installed separately), and add a handy Google Map image to
your file. Enso Map Anywhere is an add-in for the exceptionally useful
(and also free) Enso Launcher which makes using Windows faster and more
natural overall. Map Anywhere adds a map image in seconds, though it
sadly doesn’t add a link to the full, navigable Google Map. You can
select and search with any text that Google could map, such as the name
of a restaurant or intersection, and Map Anywhere will add the full
address (and phone number if it’s a business) along with the map image.
If you try to add a map to a file that doesn’t allow for images, such as
Notepad or an online text-only input field, Map Anywhere will add the
full address and a note that reads "[Cannot display images here]."
www.humanized.com/ :
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Copyright 2008. This article is from the September 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.