Number 301 - June 2008

The Computer Buffet
by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at:
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. FLASH DRIVE CAUTION. There is something important to remember when you are using your flash drive. When you are finished with whatever you are doing, you cannot just pull it out. Well, you can, but you are risking damaging the data if you do it that way. If you just pull the drive out of the USB port without the proper preparation, you are sort of surprising the computer by its removal. The computer doesn't like surprises.    Before you physically remove the flash drive, open My Computer and see what drive letter the flash drive is using (once you know that, you can close the My Computer window).    Then, look in the System Tray (the lower right corner of your screen). Move your mouse over the icons until you see one that displays the words Safely Remove Hardware. Double click on that icon.    In the new window that appears, you should see some drives listed (and some other things that are plugged into USB ports, such as your printer or mouse or keyboard). Your flash drive probably is listed like USB Mass Storage Device or something similar. There should be a box near the bottom of the window that says Display device components and you will see exactly what drives are connected to your computer.    Click once to highlight the flash drive, then click on the Stop button.    When you see the message appear in the lower right that says you can now safely remove the device, that's when you can actually pull the drive out of the USB port. HAZARD SHIELD. Looking for a free anti-malware tool with a little something extra? Hazard Shield claims to be a fast anti-malware program that can do both manual scans and real-time monitoring for ongoing protection. Hazard Shield definitely completed its scan faster than my normal antispyware program, Webroot Spy Sweeper. Whats more, it found several items that Spy Sweeper appears to have missed. Hazard Shield has a few other nifty features, like the ability to delete those pesky hard-to-remove files that are locked or in use, an uninstaller, and more. Hazard Shield can scan both local network drives. TRUESAFE PERSONAL EDITION. Allows you to back up your data to another computer over the Internet or to local storage (e.g. a USB drive). It's designed for people who don't want to hassle with backup. UPDATESTAR. The program that lets you stay up-to-date with all of your personal software you are using on your computer® Thió waù yoõ makå surå tï alwayó uså thå mosô uð-tï-datå software¬ maximizinç youò everù-daù useò experiencå INFLOW INVENTORY FREE EDITION. Software designed specifically to help small businesses doing wholesale and distribution to handle sales, purchasing, and inventory management. inFlow can help you to: organize customer orders and issue invoices; print pick lists and packing labels; track inventory on hand and movement history; re-order stock from vendors;see reports on sales trend® KIDS WEB MENU. Keeps your kids safe on the Internet. The highly visual, single-click interface enables kids as young as two years of age to navigate the Web without even knowing how to read. A unique camera mode lets kids take pictures while safely exploring the Internet® WORK MANAGER. Your free personal assistant that helps you manage your tasks each day. Order and arrange your tasks alphabetically and by any category so that you can work more efficiently and effectively. UNIVERSAL VIEWER. File names don't always tell the whole story of whats in a file. And you don't want to open a half-dozen huge programs when all you need to know is the basic contents of a file. Vista lets you add a preview pane to its Explorer, but what are XP users to do? Universal Viewer from to the rescue. This free utility lets you peek inside a variety of common file types (graphics, PDF, HTML, and many more) just by right-clicking and choosing the Universal Viewer command. Install the plugin for Microsoft Office (a separate free download), and you can view Word and Excel files as well. Navigation buttons make it easy to skim through all files in a folder. For more features (such as an Explorer-like tree pane for navigation and rudimentary file management features), youll have to shell out $20 for the personal version. FOLDER GUIDE. One of the more annoying aspects of Windows is the time it takes to navigate to frequently used folders. Try the easy and elegant Folder Guide. You can add your favorite folders in its Settings window, or just right-click a folder in Explorer and choose Add to Folder Guide. Once you've set up your list, just right-click in any Explorer window or Open and Save dialog box. Choose your destination from the Folder Guide submenu, and youre instantly redirected to that folder. BURNAWARE FREE EDITION allows you to easily perform the most common disc burning tasks: write to all CD/DVD media types, including Blu-Ray; write audio CDs and DVD video files; create and burn disc images; write multi-session discs, and much more® JR SCREEN RULER. Ever wonder how big that family photo is? Or how big it might be if you cropped out Auntie Jane? No mystery in that when you download JR Screen Ruler from JR Free Tools. Theres nothing to install; just unzip and launch this tiny program to see a resizable ruler you can use to measure anything on screen. You can adjust the size of the ruler itself, rotate it 90 degrees, and set it to display pixels, inches, picas, or centimeters. JR Screen Ruler is a handy gadget for Web designers, product developers, and more® SPAMIHILATOR. Bayesian spam filters are all the rage these days with their ability to calculate the spam probability of mail. One such tool is Spamihilator, which sits quietly in your taskbar tray, intercepting all incoming mail before it gets to your e-mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla, and pretty much any POP3 application). The product has a Recycle bin from which you can retrieve mails that are filtered by mistake, and a training area to help it learn what not to filter in the future. You can also specify friends never to filter, bad guys to always block, and customize what kind of attachments (if any) to permit. EBU is a tool which will automatically update a whole collection of files for you at once. You simply select the files that you wish to update, enter the text you want replaced, enter the new text that you want in it's place, and all of the files are automatically updated in one go® BULK RENAME is a utility for renaming files and folders with extremely flexible criteria. Process subfolders, add date stamps, add auto numbers, perform search and replace, perform regular expressions, and change timestamps. The software is available in a native 64-bit version for enhanced performance. DISABLE THE VISTA STARTUP SOUNDVista plays a sound as it starts up. You can easily disable the startup sound if you would prefer not to hear it as your system is starting up. To disable the Vista startup sound: Click on the Start Button and type in Sound in the search field. Select Sound from the list of results. Click the Sounds tab. Deselect the Play Windows Startup sound option. Click OK. THE CHEAPEST WAY TO SHIP? Shipping costs can quickly add up. And when it comes to expenses, I run a pretty tight ship. So we check to find the best shipping rate. Comparing costs on different shipping sites can be a lot of work. That's why we use ShipGooder's handy comparison tool. If you can get past ShipGooder's name, you'll find that the site is handy, too. Just enter your ZIP code, destination ZIP and the package weight. You'll get a nifty table showing shipping rates. It's easy to find the lowest rate based on shipping time. Then, click through to the shipper's site for more information¡ 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. 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. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a printer subsystem. This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button¡ DARIK'S BOOT AND NUKE is a self-contained operating system that you boot onto, and then erases the hard drives so it can be properly disposed of. You can install the software to boot from a floppy disk, CD, or USB stick, depending on the computer's boot options. Wiping the disk before disposal ensures that no personal information ends up in the wrong hands, and to remain compliant to any applicable laws® TRACK YOUR FINANCES ONLINE FOR FREE (without Software). Kim Komando Says, In this day and age of investment opportunities available, how do you manage to keep track of everything? Did you know you can track all of your finances online… without software? The caller for this video said he is ready to make a switch to OS X, but is hesitant due to not being sure if there is something he can use to track his finances without being able to use Microsoft Money. If you've watched my show for any length of time, you'll have heard me say many times that the future of software is online. A couple of friends have recommended a website that you can consider for the future of your financial tracking… Mint. Mint's tagline is Refreshing Money Management.    Mint does NOT store your usernames, passwords or account numbers. Mint partners with Yodlee, the leading provider of online banking services to major banks for more than 10 years, to ensure a secure connection to your personal financial information. Mint protects your information using bank-level data security and 128 bit-encryption, verified by Verisign and HackerSafe. Mint is TRUSTe certified to provide industry-leading privacy protection and partners with RSA to provide anti-phishing protection.    Eliminate the need to manage multiple Web sites to get a comprehensive view of your personal finances® Mint.com    Once your accounts are added, Mint.com retrieves new transactions and balances from your bank, credit card and investment accounts automatically, every day. This means you're on top of your money, with no budgeting spreadsheets, expensive desktop software or manual labor required. Mint.com automatically keeps your personal finances up to date for you so you can save more money and focus on living. EXPRESS BURN is a free program for Windows that lets you create and record CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-ray with any PC with a CD/DVD/Blu-ray recorder installed. With Express Burn you can record a CD, DVD, High Definition DVD or Blu-ray disc quickly and easily by dragging the files you want onto the Express Burn icon and clicking ‘Burn.' SWEET HOME 3D is a free interior design application that helps you place your furniture in a house's 2D plan, giving you a 3D preview. SOCIAGAMI allows you to manage your MySpace and Facebook accounts from one beautiful Windows application. Now you don't need to separately log in to each Web site to get your latest messages, comments, and wall posts. FAST DEFRAG PROFESSIONAL. PC speed at a crawl? It may be because your memory is so scattered, your PC is running inefficiently. Fast Defrag Professional defragments your memory to free up RAM. Not only does this speed up your computer, it increases your system's stability. This defragger uses little of your system's valuable resources.	TWITTEROO. A Windows Desktop client that allows you to monitor your Twitter account and update your status without logging into the site. AV VIDEO KARAOKE MAKER. A stand-alone karaoke-mastering tool for home karaoke enthusiasts. It offers the ability to create a new or open a previously saved karaoke project by importing sound and lyrics, video or static backgrounds from different formats; synchronizing lyrics and sound; previewing the current karaoke project; and exporting the karaoke project to different video formats. TEXTBEAST FREE CLIPBOARD+ More than a clipboard; it's a text manager that's perfect for the busy professional or anyone who doesn't want to waste time typing the same things over and over again. With textBEAST, you can copy, store, organize and paste text with ease. It features a clean, uncluttered interface and powerful organizational capabilities. TURN ON WINDOWS XP CLEARTYPE. With Windows XP, ClearType delivers improved font display quality over traditional forms of font smoothing or anti-aliasing. ClearType improves readability on color LCD displays with a digital interface, such as those in laptops and high-quality flat panel displays. Readability on CRT screens can also be somewhat improved. Use this online tuner to turn on and tune your Windows XP ClearType settings. If you experience problems download the Windows XP PowerToy version of the tuner. Please note that the online tuner does not currently work with Windows Vista. FLASHGET. If you are a download junkie who always has something in the queue to leech off the Web, you need a download manager to help handle everything. FlashGet is a free and extremely popular download manager that can help you organize and queue up HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, and other types of downloads, working in the background and letting you pause and resume downloads. It can even tell your computer to shut itself down when the downloading is done. Works on any browser. FFDSHOW. Dodge the hassle of juggling multiple video formats by turning to this versatile plug-in, which supports most video players and provides all the video codecs you are likely to need. AUTORUNS. To find out what programs are loading on your PC at startup, you can run the Windows-resident system configuration utility called MSCONFIG. But there's another free utility called Autoruns that does the job better. MSCONFIG entries tend to be rather cryptic, for example, but Autoruns includes a line of description for each entry in plain English. Autoruns also lets you Hide Signed Microsoft Entries, which allows you to quickly narrow your focus to third-party programs. Disabling or deleting entries requires just one click (so you'll need to be careful!). This function really saved my sanity when my system was breached by a scrap of regenerative malware.    Autoruns is one of the Sysinternals utilities developed by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. Somebody at Microsoft must have admired their work, because Microsoft bought the company last year and now touts these utilities from its own web site. AUSLOGICS REGISTRY DEFRAG. Cleaning your Registry with a tool such as Eusing Free Registry Cleaner will go a long way toward speeding up your PC—but it won't go all the way. Even when you clean out the Registry, it may still be bloated. That's because over time, the Registry becomes defragmented, particularly when you add and remove Registry entries. This free, simple tool defragments the Registry, and gains you a bit of hard disk space. More important, though, is that it speeds up your PC's access to the Registry by compacting it—and that means a speedier PC. The program is free, it's simple to use, and it speeds up your PC?what else could you ask for? JETSTART. Stop spending too much time nosing around the Windows Start menu in order to launch a program. JetStart lets you quickly find and launch any program on your PC, much faster than using the Start menu. It lets you launch programs in several different ways, including by replacing your Start menu, by typing in letters, and by using a simple toolbar.    Hover your mouse over the Start menu - but don't click it - and you'll get the JetStart alternative menu, a stripped-down version of the Start menu, with only programs you want included. There are several other ways to start programs as well. Launch the JetStart application, and you'll be able to start programs by typing in text, or browsing to them in alphabetical order. And there's also a nifty toolbar that lets you launch applications as well. Note that in Windows Vista, JetStart won't replace the Start menu, but can launch applications in its normal other ways. TRUESAFE allows you to back up your data to another computer over the Internet or to local storage (e.g. a USB drive). TrueSafe backs up your computer files, providing you with protection against loss, corruption, and accidental deletion. It's designed for people who don't want to hassle with backups — it is easy to use and runs automatically in the background. EAV ANTIVIRUS SUITE can detect and eliminate spyware, Trojans, key loggers, adware programs, browser hijackers, cookies, spy bots, trackware, and other malware, even new and unknown ones, on your PC. EAV Antivirus Suite will scan all running processes, local files in real time automatically once you run the software. Once spyware or other malware appears, even if it hides in other programs, EAV Antivirus Suite will display a signal for warning and will eliminate it consequently. Meanwhile, this software will clear all spyware-system-linked files as well as relative registry files. EAV Antivirus Suite can recover all damages with Internet Explorer caused by JavaScript and ActiveX viruses. And it can also help you to fulfill anti-hacker Windows settings. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VIRUSES, WORMS, AND TROJANS. The world of computing has always had pranksters developing rogue software programs with ill intent, but these days, the intent is becoming more menacing.    Technically speaking, viruses, worms, and Trojans are different transmission methods to deliver a malicious payload, usually to compromise your computer. Knowing the differences can help you understand how to protect yourself from them all.    A computer virus is much like a human virus, in that it needs the help of a human to spread. The most common way to get infected by a virus is to manually run a program that has the malicious code attached to it. All viruses are avoidable because the user has to double-click or run the infected file in order to get infected. The best way to avoid computer viruses is to avoid running any program or file attachment that you are not 100% sure about. In addition, keeping your anti-virus program up-to-date will generally stop you from running an infected file before it has a chance to attack your computer.    The problem with relying on your anti-virus program to protect you all the time is that the bad guys have the upper hand. Anti-virus program vendors can create protection against a new virus only AFTER it has been released in the wild and in most cases started to infect users.    Before the Internet connected us all together, the most common way to get infected by a virus was to run a program on a floppy disk that came from an infected computer, which meant virus spread was slow and anti-virus companies had the time to create and distribute updates. Today, a new virus can spread across the world in a matter of hours if humans can be tricked into opening or running a file they get via e-mail, instant messaging or from a rogue website. One of the key indicators that a file may be dangerous is if it has the .EXE extension, which means that it is an executable file. You should never open or run an EXE file that you receive via e-mail, instant messaging or from a website unless you are absolutely sure of its validity.    A computer worm, unlike a virus, doesn't need a human in order to spread. A worm is capable of worming its way from computer to computer through a network without the assistance or knowledge of the infected party. The Internet is the world's largest computer network, so any one user is capable of spreading a worm to every other user on the entire network, which is why this method is so insidious.    One of the keys to defending yourself against worms is to install a firewall. If you are on a high-speed (always on) Internet connection and you don't have a firewall in place, the thousands of worms traversing the Internet every minute are capable of infecting you just because you are physically connected to the Internet.    Broadband routers (which are considered hardware firewalls) are a must have on today's Internet because they provide a single point of protection for all the computers in your home or at your business. Software firewalls should be considered a second layer of protection to be used in conjunction with a hardware firewall.    Trojans are programs that hide themselves inside of other programs and jump out once the carrier program has been run. Users that like to download and install lots of free programs that they find on the Internet or on file sharing networks are at the highest risk of being infected by a Trojan.    Unfortunately, the vast majority of today's attempts to infect you use a blended threat approach, which means a virus and a worm or Trojan are usually coded together in the same attack, so don't let your guard down! SECUNIA PERSONAL SOFTWARE INSPECTOR. Allows you to scan, detect, check, and secure the applications installed on your computer; Get an assessment of the applications installed on your computer are they insecure, end-of-life, or patched. EZYPAGE BASIC EDITION. A true what you see is what you get HTML page(s) designer tool that allows you to create up to 600 pages all at the same time, simply by dragging and dropping each object onto the page layout using a number of scale measurements. All pages can be exported to HTML, PDF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, and to e-mail format. OTS CD SCRATCH 1200. A virtual turntable CD player. Play two songs from the same CD at the same time - one forward and one in reverse. Scratch a CD track back and forth like a record, or listen to your favorite CD automatically mixed between the turntables. ; SUBJECT BUILDER FOR VBULLETIN FORUMS. DESA powerful BBCode editor with intuitive, easy-to-use interface and multi-lingual support, which allows you to create your own topics, subjects, and signatures with effects for vBulletin forums.CRIP MIRO was formerly known as Democracy Player. Video is the most interesting thing on the web these days, but it's easy to get stuck on YouTube looking for the diamonds among the lip-synching teenagers and inebriated video camera abusers. The Participatory Culture Foundation offers this free video feed aggregator-cum-personal video recorder as part of its larger goal of jumpstarting a grassroots Internet TV model. Democracy player lets you browse and subscribe to video channels, including Seed Magazine's science clips, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, music video channels, and Democracy Now. You can also search the major video web sites without leaving the player. Just like your Tivo box, Democracy Player expires and deletes older videos automatically to keep your hard disk from filling up. ATLANTIS NOVA is a free Microsoft Word competitor that adheres to the 10/90 theory of software design: It provides the 10 percent of the word processing features that most people need to get 90 percent of their work done. And it's small enough684 KB installedto fit on a thumb drive.    There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer. When asked to define great he said, I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger! He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.    Copyright 2008. This article is from the May 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.
Number 301 - June 2008