Review Chairman's Industry Comments (09/03)
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.
Freebie Faves
Revo Uninstaller
Here is my hands-down favorite freebie. On a scale of 1
to 10 it gets a 20! They could charge full tilt for this amazing utility
and I would be their first customer. That it is a freebie is nothing
short of incredible!
After trying one program or another (trial software in
every variety is commonly available for download these days), I spend
lots of time uninstalling software I neither use nor want. As you are
aware, I commonly report the results of these trials here in the
Monitor. There are also some programs that need to be fully uninstalled
before their update can replace them. There is a whole host of stuff
that for one reason or another, I frequently need to get rid of.
On installation, most software applications leave tracks
all over your computer, especially in the sacrosanct registry where most
people fear to tread. Properly getting rid of software apps is a much
harder job than most users are prepared to accomplish. Many uninstaller
utilities are available to do the job The problem is that most do the
job very incompletely regardless of their cost or advertising to the
contrary.
Then along comes this absolutely superb and
unbelievably free and immensely popular utility that not only safely
uninstalls the software of your choice, but finds virtually all
the little pieces it left throughout your computer, especially in the
registry, and gives you a chance to get rid of it all! This is
especially significant when some of those little pieces prevent a new
installation from functioning properly, leaving you wondering why you
are having a problem.
I can’t speak highly enough about this magnificent
gem.. Don’t hesitate to get it. Check it for updates which it does
regularly. You may even enjoy it more than me, but I doubt that’s
possible. Revouninstaller.com
Computer Buffet
HOW OLD ARE YOU? Age is nothing but a number, or so
the expression goes. Believe it or not, there is truth in this
expression. You see, there are things you can do to make yourself feel
and look younger. Other behaviors can cause you to age faster. That’s
the concept behind RealAge. At the RealAge Web site, you can calculate
your age based on your behaviors. All you need do is answer a quick
questionnaire. You may or may not like the results. In that case, it is
time to take action. RealAge has plenty of tips to help you improve your
health—and your life. You’ll find advice for eating better and
exercising right. You’ll also find information on health conditions. Or,
meet up with others on the message boards.
www.realage.com/default.aspx
MONITOR YOUR LAPTOP’S BATTERY. Laptops are
wonderful devices. Being able to carry a computer around is incredibly
convenient. But their usefulness is tempered by one thing, battery life.
Your laptop can only hold a charge for so long. There’s nothing worse
than having it on the road. Your computer will warn you when it’s about
to shut off. But that may not be enough time to save your work.
BatteryBar is an elegant solution. It can monitor the
remaining charge in your battery. It will also read the rate of power
usage. From these factors it can estimate how much time you have
remaining. It can do the same in reverse when the battery is charging.
It will display the time left until the battery is fully charged. These
indicators will help you manage your laptop use.
http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/index.html
WINEXT provides quick access to your programs,
desktop icons and files in a bar that stretches across the top of your
screen. Though you can get most of what it offers via the Windows Start
Menu, it makes getting to things a little faster. By default, the WinExt
bar has a button for changing the program settings, such as deciding
whether it’s always on top and displays a box to directly enter ‘Run’
commands, and other buttons for launching all your IE favorites or
programs listed in the Start menu’s ‘All Programs.’ You’ll also see all
your Quick Launch icons. http://winext.hulubulu.net/
PASSWORDMAKER. PasswordMaker aims to tackle the
Catch-22 of online passwords. To be safe, you should use a strong,
unique password for every online account. But to stand any chance of
remembering your many passwords, you probably re-use passwords at many
sites. This add-on for Firefox gives you the best of both worlds. You
give PasswordMaker a master password (say, the one you likely use
everywhere already), and it runs it through a mathematical algorithm to
create a unique password, which it then fills into the password field.
When you hit the login button, Firefox sends the PasswordMaker-generated
password. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/469
1BY1. Windows Media Player and iTunes are great
programs, but they do a lot more than simply play audio. That results in
heavy disk footprints and—especially with iTunes—slow loading. If you’re
looking to do a 180 and go with the quickest-booting, least
resource-hungry application you can find, that would be 1by1. This audio
player is a mere 115KB download and imposes an only slightly larger
120KB disk footprint. Simplicity personified, 1by1’s interface is the
familiar Explorer-type window with a directory tree and viewing pane.
It’s a great little, and I mean little, program.
http://www.mpesch3.de1.cc/
SCREEN2EXE is an excellent full-featured screen
recording program. It allows you to record any action that takes place
on your monitor, with our without audio. Then, you can easily edit the
clip, zooming in to different parts, adding annotations or images,
cutting out sections, and so on. Finally, you’re able to save it as a
standalone executable. www.stepok.com/
UNDELETE PLUS is a quick and effective way to
retrieve accidentally deleted files, files removed from the Recycle Bin,
in a DOS window, from a network drive, or from Windows Explorer. 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.
http://majorgeeks.com/Undelete_Plus_d5301.html
ONLINE TV PLAYER BASIC. Wonder what’s playing on TV
right now in Albania? How about in Indonesia, Italy, Peru—or just about
anywhere else around the world? This great freebie lists hundreds of TV
stations that broadcast online, from Afghanistan to Vietnam, and lets
you watch them for free. Simply run the software, browse the list of TV
stations around the world, double-click one you want to see, and you’ll
be watching. It lets you listen to radio stations around the world as
well. www.onlinetvplayer.com/download/
ICONCOOL EDITOR. Ever thought about messing with the
icons on your Windows desktop or in individual programs? IconCool Editor
can not only edit any Windows XP or Vista icons and create new ones, it
also includes many royalty-free icons to use instead. IconCool Editor
also works with Web graphics. Fans of cascading style sheets will find
this editor highly useful for all the smaller graphical elements that
CSS uses across many Web sites simultaneously.
www.iconcool.com/
NETWORX. If you’re looking to monitor your network
and Internet speed, track overall bandwidth usage, and get several other
very useful utilities, you’d do well to download the free NetWorx. With
easy-to-read graphs and in-depth reporting tools, it’s a great way for
anyone—regardless of technical expertise—to track Internet use.
www.softperfect.com/
PROCESS MONITOR. If you’re a programmer or
troubleshooting technician, you need to peer deep into the inner
workings of all the programs, processes, and threads running on a PC.
You won’t find a better program than Process Monitor. This freebie,
which incorporates features of the now-retired utilities Filemon and
Regmon, offers an enormous number of ways into examining the current
state of a PC and everything running on it.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx
YAMIPOD. Yamipod lets you copy MP3 and AAC audio
files to and from your iPod and PC. This freebie from the creators of
Floola includes playlist support, allowing you to import and export,
Last.fm support, and RSS and podcast support. Like Floola, you can
easily detect and remove duplicate tracks. Like Floola, it includes a
music player, but no equalizer. One annoyance is the arrangement of
files in the interface; album, rather than artist, is listed after the
song title; this is counterintuitive if you’re used to the old iTunes
layouts. It also does not list genre, which might make playlist-building
more difficult. www.yamipod.com/main/modules/downloads/
SHAREPOD. Want to share your media library with your
best friend? iTunes won’t let you transfer your iPod’s contents onto
another PC, so download Sharepod. This lightweight, minimalist program
doesn’t require installation, and it lets you manage your library on
your iPod through Windows Explorer. You can copy music, videos and
playlists from your iPod to your PC and import them into your iTunes
library. Compared to Rockbox and Yamipod, Sharepod has the cleanest and
most intuitive interface. But unlike the other two, it does not have
playback support. www.getsharepod.com/
TEAMVIEWER. TeamViewer is a simple, straightforward
program that allows you to view and control a remote computer via a
numerical ID and password system. TeamViewer is awesome for tech
support, as it allows the technician to make fixes on his or her own. It
can also be configured to require confirmation for any action in the
form of a large icon, meaning a host can demonstrate a fix to the client
easily. www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
CROSSLOOP. The curse of being tech-savvy is that
you’re often called upon to help friends and family members resolve
their computer problems Of course, as you’ve probably learned, trying to
troubleshoot by phone is maddeningly difficult. Until science invents
Star Trek-style transporters so you can beam yourself anywhere in an
instant, you’ll have to rely on the next best thing: remote-control
software. CrossLoop lets you take full control of another PC, just as
though you were sitting in front of it.
www.crossloop.com/
SCREAMER RADIO. This excellent streaming Internet
radio player/recorder is easy to use, works well, and shows every sign
of being a labor of love. Screamer Radio’s interface is simplicity
itself. A small window featuring a menu, a status bar on the bottom, an
information area, and buttons for previous, play, stop, next, record,
volume, and mute are all you get. The program offers a ton of preset
stations which are organized in a presets menu by genre, language,
network and region. www.screamer-radio.com/
TUBEME. How many times have you wanted to save a
YouTube video to your hard disk for future viewing? This free piece of
software does it for you. You’ll be able to save YouTube videos as .flv
files, then watch those videos with any multimedia software that
supports the .flv format. Before downloading the videos, you also get a
full description of them, as well.
http://ashimonovits.brinkster.net/TubeMe.html
INFRARECORDER PORTABLE. It’s not often I run into a
program that changes my habits. InfraRecorder is one of them. It does a
bang-up job of recording data CDs and DVDs of all types, and using the
Manage Tracks function allows me to rip audio CDs to my hard drive in
wave or Ogg format. There’s a downloadable MP3 module that will allow
you to rip to that format. I’m so pleased with InfraRecorder that I have
yet to install either Nero Ultra Edition or Roxio Creator on my newly
refurbished main work system. I may eventually do that, as InfraRecorder
doesn’t burn DVD or any other kind of movies, but for now I’m enjoying
its light 7MB footprint. http://infrarecorder.org/
TOTALLY FREE BURNER. No sooner had I decided to rely
on InfraRecorder Portable for my disc burning needs, when this little
beauty of a program popped into my life.Totally Free Burner handles all
the image and data chores that the equally free InfraRecorder Portable
does, but in addition will burn audio CDs and video CDs as well. All
that’s missing is the ability to burn a DVD movie.
www.dandans.com/TotallyFreeBurner.htm
LAPTOP ALARM. Stop, that’s my laptop...and it’s
ringing! This nifty little utility lets you set an alarm that goes off
if anyone unplugs your power cord or a USB mouse. It’s a perfect
application for laptop users who often frequent public Wi-Fi spots.
http://laptop-alarm.en.softonic.com/
ROHOS MINI DRIVE . Protect sensitive data on your
USB drive by partitioning it with this helpful freeware utility. A
partition manager keeps your information encrypted, and a portable file
manager helps you navigate that encrypted partition in case your PC
doesn’t recognize it. www.rohos.com
HOTKEYZ. You waste plenty of time every day hunting
through menus with your mouse, not to mention performing mouse-driven
tasks such as launching programs, rebooting or shutting down your PC,
turning your volume up and down, and more. HotKeyz gives you a simple
way to stop wasting that time. With it, you can perform countless tasks
right from your keyboard, by using keyboard shortcuts.
www.skynergy.com/hotkeyz.html
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. With the ability to capture any
kind of window in any application, Screenshot Capture is the last word
in screen grabbing. It possesses all the features found in commercial
screen grab application such as SnagIt, and it’s totally free—though the
host asks for a donation. www.donationcoder.com/
CUSTOM DESKTOP LOGO. Custom Desktop Logo puts a
graphic of your choice anywhere on your desktop. This logo is always on
top of the screen if you want (though it doesn’t interfere with anything
below it), and you can click that logo to quickly jump to a pre-set
folder of your choice. This is useful as it allows businesses to brand
their computers, while also allowing quick navigation between important
folders that may be on different network drives.
http://customdesktoplogo.wikidot.com/
KANTARIS MEDIA PLAYER can play almost anything you
can throw at it - AVI, MPEG, MGEG-AVC, WMV, MOV, MKV, quicktime,
matroska, divx, xvid, H264, MP3, WMA, OGG files and more. It can also
play DVD’s and audio cd’s. The player also displays some of the most
beautiful music visualizations ever seen. All this is completely free.
It is based on code from Videolan client (VLC) and Bass audio library.
The graphical user interface is similar to that of Windows Media Player.
http://majorgeeks.com/Kantaris_Media_Player_d5719.html
PHOTOLOGY. If you’re looking for a way to sift
through an enormous image library for specific photos, this application
might be just the ticket. Among Photology’s powerful tools is the
capability to search by color simply by using a mouse-over tool to
select different gradations. www.photology.com
PASSWORD DRAGON. Organizing log-in information is a
painless process with this easy-to-use password manager. Novices will
especially appreciate Password Dragon’s straightforward user interface
for accessing the password generator.
www.passworddragon.com
THE FIREFOX UNIVERSAL UPLOADER, AKA FIREUPLOADER,
offers the ability to upload or download files to and from a range of
popular online services through one interface. The interface, which
opens in a Firefox browser tab, looks much like that of FTP clients. It
displays files on your PC on the left, files on the selected online
service on the right, and status or information in a panel on the
bottom.
The utility is pre-configured to connect to 13 different
services, including Box.net, Flickr, Picasa, Youtube, Facebook, Google
Docs, and others.
You select the service from a pull-down menu, give
FireUploader your login and password for that service, and can then
transfer files to and from the service with the FireUploader interface.
A thumbnail view option makes it easier to identify
pictures on your PC, but there’s no accompanying option for viewing
files on a site. That said, you can select an online picture and click
the tab for the Information Panel on the bottom to see a thumbnail,
along with the picture’s height and width in pixels.
To transfer files you can drag-and-drop between panels,
select a file and click and upload or download button, or drag-and-drop
from Explorer into the panel that displays online files. You’ll see
transfer status in a panel on the bottom. In my tests, images I uploaded
to Picasa showed up on the site immediately.
If you tend to upload many files to a number of
different services, the Firefox Universal Uploader could save you time.
It works well for image-oriented sites such as Picasa, but for others
like Google Docs you might find the site’s own interface easier to use.
Note: The download link takes you to the Mozilla add-on
page, where you can automatically install the file into your browser.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4724
APPLICATION MONITOR. Application Monitor is a
simple, bare-bones program that provides a useful function—it constantly
checks to see if an application is running, and if it is not, will start
it up again. Just add the applications you want to be sure are always
running (this requires finding the .exe, which requires having some idea
where things are on your computer), set a timer for how often the
program should check, and let it run. If the application is not running
at the time Application Monitor checks it, it will restart it, with
whatever command-line arguments you specify.
www.jockersoft.com/english/appmonitor_index.php
ANTIFREEZE. While system freezes are much less
common now than they once were, they still happen. Sometimes you get the
infamous Blue Screen Of Death, other times, your system just sits there,
unresponsive. What to do? Well, you could try AntiFreeze, a program of
last resort by Resplendence Software Projects. Given the circumstances
under which it will be invoked, the program wisely promises that it is
not guaranteed to work, but it does give you a second chance.
www.resplendence.com/antifreeze
VISTUMBLER. Here’s an excellent, free tool for
finding nearby wireless access points, and giving you a great deal of
information about each. Tell the program to scan for nearby wireless
networks, and it gives you a comprehensive report, including the name,
signal strength, kind of encryption, Mac Address, channel the network is
using, manufacturer, and more.
http://vistumbler.sourceforge.net/
GOOGLE SKETCHUP. This free 3D modeling program from
Google lets you create models of decks, houses, buildings, your own home
woodworking projects, and much more. It comes with a full set of
sophisticated modeling and design tools, and it includes very good
advice for getting started. You can do more than just print your models.
You’ll be able to actually place them in Google Earth. And if you want
to share them with others, or if you want to be able to use models that
others have created, you can post them to the 3D Warehouse.
http://sketchup.google.com/
CREATE DESKTOP ICON TO RESTART YOUR COMPUTER IN VISTA.
Here is a helpful little tip that you can use to quickly restart your
Vista machine. Normally you would click start, click Shut Down and then
select Restart. Alternatively, you can create a shortcut on your
desktop. When you want to restart your computer, all you have to do is
double click the icon you created. To create the shortcut, right click
your desktop, point to New, and click Shortcut. Type in the following:
shutdown -r -t 0. Click Next. Type in a name for the shortcut and click
Finish. Next time you need to restart, just double click the desktop
shortcut.
PHRASEEXPRESS. Tired of typing the same words,
signatures, phrases, and even paragraphs over and over? What you need is
a program that automatically inserts text when you type an abbreviation
or hit a hotkey. PhraseExpress is one such program, and it works in any
program (word processor, e-mail client, blog tool, etc.).
www.phraseexpress.com/
BELARC ADVISOR. If you’re looking for an exquisitely
detailed audit of your hardware, this is the download you need. It
starts with the basics, such as the computer manufacturer, installed
RAM, hard-disk size, and processor type and speed. But it also shows you
the motherboard maker, hard-disk manufacturer, chassis serial number, PC
service tag, bus type and speed, multimedia devices...the list goes on.
www.belarc.com/index.html
ARMORSURF BASIC. After a little tinkering with
ArmorSurf, I’ve got to tell you, I’m digging it—maybe a little too much.
It’s a secure Web browser. It’s a Flash video downloader. It’s a
straight-up devious little program. The best way to sum up its features
is to talk about a day spent looking busy without doing any actual work.
At the crack of dawn, I secretly install ArmorSurf. Inside the program,
I surf without fear: ArmorSurf stashes my history, cookies, and
autocomplete info from prying eyes. www.armorsurf.com/
ACCELMAN. Accelman is a powerful file manager
replacement. In general operation, it is similar to most other programs
in its class, but it extends the general metaphor beyond the two-pane
system. You can open multiple panes, called Managers, which allows for
tremendous power. Another nice feature is bookmarking—you can select a
file and add it to a quick access toolbar, and then assign an action to
that mark—for example, open the file, or open an explorer window in that
directory. www.flexigensoft.com/accelman
TIPCAM. While it doesn’t diverge too much from the
basics, TipCam is a fine specimen of free screen-recording apps. Its
best tricks let you record remote PCs using a VNC server, annotate while
you record, and zoom in on the mouse position as it travels around the
screen. You can also upload finished screencasts to YouTube or send a
link privately through e-mail. www.utipu.com/
WISE DISK CLEANER FREE. A reliable freeware
application, Wise Disk Cleaner Free may surprise you with its quick
scanning pace and its wizard to guide you through the process of naming
and taming space-sucking files. As you would with any system cleaner,
take care when fixing problems. Luckily, the app wisely lets you delete
files to the Recycle Bin in case you do something imprudent.
www.wisecleaner.com
GOOGLE CALENDAR SYNC. If you find yourself
hand-copying your Microsoft Outlook calendar items to your Google
Calendar and back again, Google’s free syncing app is a must-have
addition to your system tray. The interval between each sync is up to
you, and so is the decision to make the app sync one way or
bidirectionally. The verdict: works like a charm.
www.google.com/googlecalendar/new.html
PC WIZARD. This utility can tell you everything you
ever wanted to know about your PC’s configuration and performance. PC
Wizard is a dense, capable program that may be better suited for
experienced PC users. It can help pinpoint problems with your PC, but it
expects you to fix them yourself. www.cpuid.com/
FINANCIAL FATE was once a $70 program, but now
vendor Financial Modeling Solutions offers it for free. When you start
Financial Fate, it lists the data you’ll need to enter. The program
takes into account a phenomenal amount of detail, all the way from
income and IRAs to child support and college to retirement and long-term
care. Locating all this data and typing it in can take a considerable
amount of time, but it’s necessary:
Every smidgen of data alters your ending net worth. Once
the data is entered, you can easily tweak the numbers to run "what-if"
scenarios. With Financial Fate crunching the numbers, you get an idea of
how every decision affects the amount of your estate or (in a chilling
scenario) the year you go bankrupt. The software accommodates a huge
number of potential decisions, such as buying a new car, opening an HSA,
or retiring early. Detailed reports show you how your money situation
changes through the decades.
The software itself cautions that you will need your own
tax advisor—but Financial Fate made the dizzyingly complex puzzle of
personal finance much clearer to me. The old saw about giving up a daily
latte makes a lot more sense when you see that little indulgence costing
you thousands of dollars over time.
This is a free program, and as such, it’s not without
its limitations. You’re limited to 5 saved scenarios, and you can import
files only the first time you start the program. And unless you really
enjoy data entry, you’re not going to have 5 saved scenarios, because
there’s no "save as" function. If you want to save one scenario with
sending your kids to private colleges and one with sending them to state
schools, you’ll have to enter the whole kit and caboodle into each
scenario. Reports aren’t printable. Future paid versions of the program
may be more generous with these features.
All in all, Financial Fate is a powerful and easy-to-use
(if initially time-consuming) tool. It offers an immense number of
features and details, and all without costing a dime. There’s no time
like the present to start planning your future.
www.financialfate.com/
EXECUTOR. If the Windows Start Menu leaves you
wanting more, take a look at the Executor program launcher. Normally
hidden away out of sight, the utility pops up a small window in which
you can type the name of a program to start it, a URL to bring it up in
your browser, a system command to shut down the system, or other highly
customizable tasks. www.executor.dk/
CREATE ADVANCED PANORAMIC IMAGES. Some subjects are
just too big to for a photograph. We’ve all run into this problem. You
want to capture something cool. But it just won’t fit into a single
frame. Some digital cameras have stitch functions. This lets you create
panoramic images. But usually the image quality isn’t great. And you can
only stitch horizontally, one frame wide. What if you want to shoot a
wider subject?
Microsoft Research has come up with a better way. It’s
called Image Composite Editor. You take as many pictures of a single
subject as you want. Take photos up and down, left and right. The Image
Composite Editor will stitch all the photos together. All the photos
will remain at full resolution. And the advanced panorama can be saved
in a number of formats. These include TIFF, JPEG, PNG and more. You can
also save to Microsoft’s multi-resolution formats, HD View and Deep
Zoom. This is a free Windows only program. And it will work with 32- and
64-bit. http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/ice.html
versions.
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Copyright 2009. This article is from the March 2009 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
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