Review Chairman's Industry Comments (09/05)
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
AVG FREE ANTIVIRUS
Back in February I introduced the start of a
beginning series entitled "Freebie Favees" to
offer to you my own favorite workhorse applications that are available
to you without costing you a penny. Now that’s something most of us can
probably relate to. To be included, an application needs to be extremely
useful, work well in my own experience, and of course, be free. I can
think of no better candidate than a free antivirus app. To fit the bill,
I use AVG Free Antivirus with complete satisfaction.
AVG Free Edition is the well-known antivirus
protection tool and is available free of charge to home users for the
life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the
lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection
capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect
their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system
down (low system resource requirements). Highlights include automatic
update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time
protection as files are opened and programs are run, great E-mail
protection (both incoming and outgoing), free Virus Database Updates for
the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of
infected files.
Version 8.5 now includes LinkScanner’s Active
Surf-Shield to check every Web page for threats at the only time that
matters—when you’re about to click on the link. This antivirus program
offers rock-solid protection. AVG Free provides the common necessities,
including a real-time shield to prevent infections, anti-virus and
anti-malware wrapped up in one engine, and a link scanner for Web
surfing with care.
By default, the application is set to search for new
virus definitions daily, but you always can use the scheduling tool to
change this. Should a virus create serious system problems, AVG creates
a rescue disk to scan your computer in MS-DOS mode. Unlike most
antivirus apps which tend to seriously impact on most computer resources
and slow things down, AVG doesn’t tax your system when scanning or when
running in the background and always proved effective for me. The new
interface is much easier to navigate than in previous version, with
tabbed navigation on the left assisting users in drilling down to the
tools you need. Though the free version of this program will suffice for
average folks, those who demand more control might consider AVG
Anti-Virus Professional. www.freeavg.com
Computer Buffet
SEARCH CLOUDLET. The Search Cloudlet add-on for
Firefox helps deal with that task of wading through thousands of search
results to find the one you’re after. It displays a list of tags and
other information pertaining to your results that, when clicked,
automatically refine the displayed results. If you find yourself having
to often refine or customize searches, this free tool could have real
value. www.getcloudlet.com/
A-SQUARED HIJACKFREE. No matter how much
anti-spyware protection you’ve got on your PC, it’s not enough. Spyware
is notorious for being able to slip through the cracks of anti-malware
software, and you’re best off if you have more than one anti-malware
tool on your PC. That’s where this freebie comes in. Use it as a backup
to your main anti-spyware program for extra protection.
www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/
RUNSCANNER does a quick scan of your system for
more than 100 hijack locations and similar potential problems. Depending
on whether you run it in Expert or Beginner mode, it then shows you the
results and has a tool for killing the potential infection (advanced
mode), or else creates log files that you can upload to forums where
people will analyze your logs and let you know if you might have any
problems. www.runscanner.net/
CONSUMER REPORTS’ FREE RECESSION GUIDE. It
features advice you probably won’t find elsewhere. And Consumer Reports
is a name you can trust. You’ll find advice on selling your home in a
buyer’s market. Or, find out if you should accept a buyout package from
your employer. I also recommend that you check out the money blog. It
offers even more financial advice. Plus, you can stay current on news
that will affect your wallet.
www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/resource-center/recession-guide-4-08/recession-guide.htm?loginMethod=auto
TheSAGE’S ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS.
TheSage is a comprehensive dictionary and thesaurus that could become
indispensable to writers of all sorts, including researchers,
journalists, novelists, and students. It’s a powerful dictionary and
thesaurus program that offers many more features than similar programs
I’ve seen. Writers who would appreciate help finding just the right
word, and don’t need to follow particular spelling standards, should
give this free program a try.
www.sequencepublishing.com/
CYBER-D’S AUTO DELETE can automagically delete
files in a specific folder that are older than the specified time. It
checks the file dates by modification time. You can have it run on every
Windows startup to delete old temp files, backups, Web cam snapshots
history, temporary Internet files, etc.
www.lockergnome.com/windows/2009/02/10/cyber-ds-auto-delete-v210/
WINDOWSPAGER. Virtual desktops help you keep open
programs organized by putting each one into a separate space. You can
have your Web browser and e-mail in one desktop, and then switch to
another that holds your word processing windows, for instance.
WindowsPager provides four such virtual desktops; just unzip the
download and double-click the program inside the "exe" folder. If you
want an easy tool for using virtual desktops, and you don’t feel like
paying a more polished commercial tool, WindowsPager will take care of
you. http://windowspager.sourceforge.net/
FILE REPLICATOR. File Replicator is a nifty,
sparse, little utility that can be of great use to anyone who has a lot
of duplicate copies of the same file scattered hither and yon across
their hard drive. Using File Replicator, you can pick one version of
this file (ideally, the latest) and set the program scurrying through
your hard disk, finding all other copies of the file. It can then
replace them all with your chosen version. The program can be useful in
corporate environments to make sure that all copies of an important
document—for example, HR policies or vacation schedules—are up-to-date.
www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=15975.0
TKEXE KALENDAR enables the creation of photo
calendars of any size. Customization is very easy: Position the elements
by dragging them with the mouse and change the settings of any element
by double-clicking it.
* 20 images can be added to a month.
* You can rotate the images and add special effects
to them.
* Weeks can start on Sunday or Monday, and you can
add your personal events.
* Each calendar page can be customized separately,
but the settings can be applied for all months.
* Create calendars in English, German, Italian,
Spanish, Czech, Hungarian, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, or French.
* Select national holidays from 10 countries.
www.lockergnome.com/windows/2009/02/16/tkexe-kalendar-v1096/
AMAZON PRICE WATCH. This IE/Firefox plug-in
monitors a particular item and alerts you when the price for that item
falls below the threshold amount you set. Some retailers offer postsale
price protection guarantees if a product’s price drops within a fixed
number of days after you purchase it; Price Protectr will alert you if
the price of an item you recently bought at any of up to 150 online
retailers drops below what you paid for it.
www.nukeprice.com/download.html
USBDEVIEW. If you want to identify a USB device
on your system, use Nirsoft’s handy utility USBDeview. This freebie
provides names, serial numbers, USB ports, and other useful information
for keeping track of all your connected gadgets.
www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html
MAGICAL JELLY BEAN KEYFINDER. Magical Jelly
Bean’s Keyfinder quickly and efficiently finds the product keys for
installed programs, then lets you print them for safekeeping. It’s
compatible with all versions of Windows and can dig up the keys for your
operating system, Office apps, and various other programs.
www.magicaljellybean.com/
ZIPSCAN. There’s more than one way to find a lost
file, and ZipScan employs an army of strategies to find it. ZipScan not
only searches by text strings, date and size, it also can search (and
extract) ZIP, CAB, RAR, ACE, InstallShield CAB, JAR, TAR, GZIP and
OpenOffice files, including password protected, nested and
self-extracting archives. www.zipscan.co.uk/
VIDEOINSPECTOR is a tool designed to provide you
with as much information as possible about your video files. With
VideoInspector you’ll know why your video files have no sound or refuse
to play correctly. VideoInspector will help you with installing the
required codecs (coder/decoder software) for optimal performance.
VideoInspector can also inspect your system to find which codecs are
available, and it can also process multiple video files and export their
results in HTML or plain text files.
http://majorgeeks.com/VideoInspector_d4249.html ‘ JUMPMAN’. This
free 2D platform game stands out from the crowd with its Atari 2600
aesthetic, near infinite replayability, and the incorporation of an
intriguing minor twist: the ability to rotate the screen. Consistently
surprising and entertaining, this is one of the best free platformers
for 2009.
www.download.com/Tabrio/3000-2349_4-10888915.html
A-SQUARED FREE. A-Squared Free 4 is one of the
better free malware removers, but it’s not flawless. However, for a
standalone antimalware program that lacks a built-in scheduler and
antivirus features, A-Squared Free 4 is a secure choice.
www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/
TWEETREE. Twitter has been taking over the social
media world as we know it and it shows no signs of stopping. It’s
addictive, quick, simple, and powerful. What’s not to like? Well, while
it’s very easy to go on and on about how Twitter is one of the best
communication tools ever created, it’s important to realize that it’s
not perfect. As simplistic as the core idea is, there’s definitely more
that can be done, and until Twitter implements certain features,
third-party developers will continue to create their own solutions. One
of the most difficult things about using Twitter as an observer is
understanding what’s going on, but Tweetree makes Twitter streams more
understandable.
Keeping track of conversations and figuring out
what’s being linked to are hurdles that we regularly deal with, however,
Tweetree helps to resolve these problems by including everything on one
page. When replies are written, you’ll see the tweet that prompted the
reply, and when something is linked to (like a video or picture), you’ll
see it in the activity stream and/or get more information about it. Less
clicking, more content. http://tweetree.com/
SIMPLE WEBPAGE CAPTURE. Site designers, people
having trouble with a Web page, or just about anyone may have a need to
take a screen shot of a Web page. But with many Web pages being large
and rather long, taking a screenshot of a whole page is a big task.
Simple Webpage Capture makes it easy. With one click of a button, the
program will auto scroll the page, combining the screenshots into one
perfect picture.
http://majorgeeks.com/Simple_Webpage_Capture_d6130.html
MANUALLY UPDATE LINKS IN WORD 2002. Word lets you
create active links within a document to objects such as graphics, Excel
worksheets, etc. With active links, any changes to the linked objects
are reflected within your document. You can even configure Word to
automatically update the links for you. By turning on the Update
automatic links at Open option, Word will automatically update any
information within your document that is linked to other objects.
However, there may also be times when you need to manually update links.
To manually update links in Word 2002:
1. Within your document, click the Edit menu and
click the Links option.
2. Select the link you want to update.
3. Click the Update Now option.
DISABLE USER ACCOUNT CONTROL IN VISTA USING THE
REGISTRY. Vista uses a feature called User Account Control or UAC to
limit the privileges of regular user accounts. UAC ensures that all user
accounts that are not part of the local administrators group run with no
administrative privileges. This feature is enabled by default. However,
in some situations you may want to disable it and there are multiple
ways that you can accomplish this. One method is by using Registry. To
disable UAC through the Registry:
1. Click Start and click Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK.
3.Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL
_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \
System
4. In the details pane, locate and double click
EnableLUA.
5. Set the value to 0.
6. Click OK.
7. Close the Registry Editor.
8. Restart the computer.
GADWIN PRINTSCREEN. This tiny utility gives your
PrtSc key a little more oomph. Gadwin PrintScreen lets you send a
captured screen directly to the printer, copy it to the Windows
clipboard, save it as an image file, send it via e-mail (if you have a
Microsoft Outlook profile set up), or perform any combination of these
tasks. www.gadwin.com/
VISUAL TOOLTIP. Visual Tooltip displays
thumbnails of a program window when you mouse over its tab on the
Windows taskbar. You’ll find a number of options, including one to
create a separate dock for the thumbnails and optional shortcuts. Visual
Tooltip’s visual cues look nice, and may help with selecting the right
window if you have many different programs open.
www.chrisnsoft.com/visual-tooltip/
OPTIMIZE YOUR HARD DRIVE USAGE. It never seems
like our hard drives have enough space. Music, videos and photos can
fill a lot of space quickly. Programs and downloaded files will fill up
more than you think. Managing your hard drive space can be difficult.
Removing unused programs and files helps. But it’s hard to tell which
files and folders are space hogs. Disk Usage Analyzer to the rescue!
This program can analyze your entire hard drive. You’ll see how much
space each file, folder and application is using. Or you can analyze
every folder individually. www.extensoft.com
STELLARIUM. Whether you’re a long-time, hard-core
astronomy buff, or are just a part-time stargazer, you’ll find something
in this astronomy program for you. It displays whatever celestial
objects you want, including stars, planets, nebula, and constellations.
Click any object to get details about it. Overall, this is a beautiful
and visually arresting program. www.stellarium.org/
MUSAIC BOX. Musaic Box isn’t so much a game as a
learning experience/classical music recruitment poster of the first
order. The lush graphics invoke an idealized musical environment with a
bevy of instruments and musically related objects scattered about. if
you’re a classical music fan who wants to spend some downtime in
engaging fashion, or you want to instill musical interest into a
youthful family member you should take a look at Musaic Box. You can
play an hour for free.
www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/4166/musaic-box/index.html
DEALING WITH A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. We all would
like to believe that we would stay calm in an emergency. But even if you
did, would you know what to do? Sure, you know to apply pressure to stop
bleeding. You know not to move someone who could have a spinal injury.
But, there are many types of medical emergencies. Not all will come to
mind immediately. So, I recommend that you visit the Mayo Clinic’s site.
It will tell you how to deal with a range of medical emergencies. You’ll
definitely find this site useful. Parents may even want to commit it to
memory!
I recommend that you bookmark the site after reading
it. That way, you can always refer to it quickly. After all, you never
know when an emergency will strike. www.mayoclinic.com
CREATE UNBELIEVABLE PANORAMAS. Used to be, you
needed a special camera for panoramic shots. These days, that simply
isn’t the case. Many newer digital cameras have a panorama mode. You
take a couple photos of your subject. Then, you stitch them together in
the camera. But why limit yourself? Maybe you want to create a panorama
from several images. And maybe you want to stitch photos both
horizontally and vertically. In that case, I recommend Microsoft’s Image
Composite Editor. This free program truly is amazing. You can combine as
many pictures of your subject as you want. The photos can be stitched
together vertically and horizontally. But the really cool part is the
image resolution. The full resolution is maintained on all of the shots.
That means you can make ginormous prints! Your panorama can be saved in
a variety of formats, including JPEG and TIFF. www.blender3d.org
IRFANVIEW. It’s this simple: If you ever use
graphics for almost any reason, you need this program. It’s small, it’s
fast, it’s free, and it does its work better than any competitor.
IrfanView’s main task is to view graphics files, and it does a superb
job of it. It can also display thumbnails, show your files as
slideshows, and play multimedia files. The program also includes a
surprising number of graphics editing tools, including adding effects
and cropping. www.irfanview.com
COMPULSORY REGISTRATION GOT YOU DOWN? It is
increasingly common for Web sites to require registration. Many times,
there are good reasons. Sometimes, though, registration is annoying. For
example, many news sites want you to register to read entire stories.
That’s true even on free sections of the site. Some of these sites will
then begin sending unwanted e-mail. Who needs more e-mail in their
inbox? Not me! BugMeNot can help. It will provide you with registration
information for a site. All you need do is enter a site’s address.
You’ll get a list of account names and passwords. That is, provided a
user has submitted the information to BugMeNot. You can access the site
without receiving unwanted e-mail. www.bugmenot.com
DETECT KEYLOGGERS RED-HANDED. This is a small
keylogger detector. It aims to detect any keylogger without requiring
constant updates and definition files. Keyloggers typically record
keystrokes, log the information and send the log off to the thief. This
program monitors your hard drive for newly saved keystroke logs. It
provides a list of these logs along with their location on your
computer. It also reveals which program saved each log. Of course, many
other programs create logs. So look for unfamiliar programs.
KL-Detector is small. The program itself takes only
about 100 KB of space and requires no installation process. So it’s
extremely portable. It could easily fit onto a CD along with other handy
utilities. You can even put it on a thumb drive and take it along to
check other computers that you use.
www.dewasoft.com/privacy/kldetector.htm
BE ALERTED TO PRICE DROPS. The convenience of
online shopping just can’t be beaten. You can avoid crowded shopping
centers. Parking and long lines are never a problem. Of course, you’ll
often find better prices online, too. That’s because Web sites don’t
have the overhead associated with retail locations. But these days, low
prices aren’t enough. We need to find the lowest prices possible.
Fortunately, the Internet makes comparison shopping easy. You can check
an item’s price on numerous sites in a matter of minutes. There’s no
driving all over town or making endless phone calls. To make online
shopping even easier, try Price!pinx. All you need do is install a
bookmark in your browser. Then, when you’re on a site’s product page,
highlight the price. Next, click the Price!pinx bookmark. Price!pinx
does all the work for you. You’ll receive a notification if the price
drops! Price!pinx can also help you with low-price guarantees. It’s
great for cash-strapped families! www.pricepinx.com
CONVERT VIDEOS
FOR AN IPOD. iPods are great music players. But they can do much
more. The iPod classic, nano and touch can all play video. This makes
them great portable media devices. Apple wants you to purchase video
from the iTunes store. But you can put video from your computer on an
iPod. Of course, it has to be in the correct file format. iPods only
support certain kinds of videos. Chances are some of your video files
won’t work. You’ll need to convert the video into the proper format. But
video conversion software can be complicated. That’s why iPodME is so
cool. The program converts many formats into iPod compatible video. And
that’s all it does. This makes using it incredibly easy. SIMPLY add a
file and click Convert. Cost: Free. Link:
nodadev.wordpress.com
GREENBROWSER is one of a surprisingly large set of browsers which
aren’t called "Internet Explorer", "Firefox," or "Opera." Occupying a
very thin slice of market share, many are simple Mozilla clones or
partially-complete proofs-of-concept. Remarkably, GreenBrowser seems to
be a complete, well-supported browser with a lot of useful features.
GreenBrowser is free, so there’s no harm in checking it out. Whether its
plethora of tab-handling and navigation features are enough to make it
replace your current browser is something only you can find out. If you
do a lot of multitasking in your browser, it is at least worth a quick
look. www.morequick.com/indexen.htm
DISABLE AUTORUN SCRIPT. Many security experts
recommend turning off the Autorun feature to stop a common malware
tactic of infecting a removable drive, such as a USB drive, so that it
will automatically attempt to spread malware when the infected USB drive
is connected to a new PC. This script automates the steps suggested by
PC World’s Nick Brown, and further recommended by US-CERT, to disable
Autorun on a Windows XP computer.
www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,76805/description.html?tk=nl_ddxdwn
RESTORE AUTORUN SCRIPT. Disabling the Windows XP
Autorun feature using our downloadable custom script can help protect
you from worms and other malware. But if you’ve run into any problems
from doing so, you can reverse the changes by downloading and
double-clicking this restoration script.
www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,76806/description.html?tk=nl_ddxdwn
TWEAKXPLORER. Speaking of tweaking Windows, this
XP-only download lets you go to town on Windows Explorer, creating
backgrounds for folders or IE, disabling thumbnail caching, resizing
thumbnails, and customizing pictures. The standalone app can also run
off any portable device.
www.download.com/TweakXPlorer/3000-2072_4-10854640.html
FREE GAMES GALORE! Here’s enough free games to
keep you occupied for the next 200 years.
www.pogo.com/home/home.do
DEVAULT V2009. deVault is for backing up,
organizing, categorizing, compressing, encrypting, and sharing your
important files. It’s got built-in 256-bit Blowfish encryption,
compression, e-mail, instant search, item to Web page links, and a fully
customizable interface.
http://majorgeeks.com/deVault_d5721.html
MID-SENTENCE BULLETS IN WORD. Have you ever tried
to add a bullet to the middle of a sentence? Sounds easy enough but
clicking the bullet button on the Formatting toolbar is not the way to
go. Instead, you need to insert a special character as follows: 1. Place
the cursor mid-sentence where you want the bullet located. 2. From the
Insert menu, click Symbol. The Symbol dialog box will appear. 3. Select
the character you want to insert as a bullet. 4. Click Insert and then
click Close.
GHOSTERY. Ghostery, a free add-on for the Firefox
Web browser, searches Web sites you visit for Web bugs capable of
quietly tracking your visits and alerts you to their presence. If you’re
at all interested in knowing how you’re tracked on the Web, then you’ll
like this little sleuth.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/147852
TECHSMITH’S JING. This free program makes screen
captures a snap. You can record videos or still shots. It really is so
much easier than Print Screen! Jing sits on your desktop until you’re
ready to use it. All you need to do is click Capture and drag your mouse
over the screen. Use Jing’s comment feature to make notes on your screen
captures. Jing even gives you Web storage for your captures. That makes
sharing easy! www.jingproject.com/
FREE TRIM ACTION FOR PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS. The free
trim tool for Photoshop Elements quickly removes excess blank image area
from around an image. This can be either a solid color or transparent
background area. The Trim Action is compatible with Photoshop Elements 6
and Photoshop Elements 7. It has not been tested with earlier versions.
The Action is free for your own use, but you may not distribute it. You
may share the action by referring others to this page.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pselements/ss/sf_trimaction_2.htm
FREE ONLINE WORD PROCESSING SOFTWARE: WRITELY.
Millions of people don’t need Microsoft Word. As good as it is, MS Word
is prohibitively expensive. If you only do an occasional business letter
or resume, then take a good look at Google’s "Writely" online word
processor. This web service lets you store docs online, too, which is
ideal for document people who need to work from multiple places.
Anyone who is in the market for word processing
software should take a look at Writely. Some may be uncomfortable
relying on web-based software. However, with collaboration tools and
online storage, Writely will appeal to Word users who work on multiple
computers or who collaborate with others. Further, Writely’s
responsiveness is impressive. Writely works as fast as a program
installed on the desktop. Even if you don’t intend to make the switch,
get a glimpse of the future of software!
www.writely.com/ :
Return to Herb
Goldstein's Index
Return to
Columnist's Index
Copyright 2009. This article is from the May 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
computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and
our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication
the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For
further information about our group, email:
admin@spcug.org/ Web:
http://www.spcug.org/
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
members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor,
go to the Newsletter Section.