Ari’s Blog

Here are some more of the Firefox extensions that I would call “Must Have’s”

They are

• Tab Mix Plus
• AdBlock
• IE Tab

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Firefox’s power lies in the ability to add or change functionality with extensions.
A really cool extension is Viamatic foXpose. This is a great addition for users who work with multiple tabs. foxpose lets you see all your open windows as thumbnails in one window.

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In my line of work I end up installing a huge amount of crap software on my PC. I try out different utilities. I install programs to reproduce problems. I try to uninstall these programs but often I forget. Sometimes there is no uninstaller, and sometime programs don’t completely uninstall. This leads to PC clutter. This clutter uses disks space, can cause slower boot time, and slower performance in general.

My solution is virtual PC’s. I use VMWare’s Player to run virtual machines. VMware Player is a free utility that emulates a PC on your PC. VMWare allows you to run a virtual computer (Down to the boot and BIOS) as software under your existing Operating System.

VMWare Player runs on Windows and Linux. You could have Windows running in a virtual machine that is running on Linux. You could have Windows running on a virtual machine that is running on Windows. (more…)

I work with a lot of open windows. I can have several instances of Word open, Firefox, as well as a few Putty sessions and a Virtual PC or two. Using Alt-Tab to switch between them has been a pain. I often end up at the wrong Word document or wrong session in Putty. There is a better way – TaskSwitchXP. This is a sweet little utility that replaces the alt-tab of windows with a nice easy to see task switching window. If you work with many open windows this is a must.

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Firewalls are a must for todays users. They can mean the difference between a user’s sanity and insanity. Leaving a computer with out a firewall is equivalent to leaving your front door wide open with a neon sign reading “Have lots of cash – no dog” at night in Newark. Not a good idea.

Unfortunately free firewalls are disappearing rapidly.

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I use Firefox. If you do not – you should. It is far superior to IE or any other browser that I have seen to date. What makes Firefox so powerful are the extensions. Extensions are the plug-ins that add or change features within Firefox.

Here are a few of the extensions I use and highly recommend:

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This is a problem that all computer users face – How do you keep your file from peeking eyes? This problem is worse on a laptop where the chances of theft or lose are much greater than a desktop machine. Ask yourselves – If you lost your laptop – How important was the data on that laptop – Perhaps you had Credit Card information? Confidential client documents? Maybe secret computer code? This stuff needs to be safe.

So how do you do that? One word – Encryption

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Let me start by saying that most people do not need this utility. There are those of us who work on sensitive material and that material needs to be safe. The most important part is keeping the files on your computer is a safe place. Another important part of keeping your files safe is properly deleting them.

Most people figure that putting a file in the recycle bin and emptying it is enough – But it is not. Files can be recovered fairly easily if that is all that has been done. The proper way to delete a file is to overwrite the disk space where the file was with random junk – Enter Eraser!

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Desktop Search has become critical in my disorganized life. I used to use Google Desktop Search (GDS) which I loved. But then my friends showed me Copernic. Copernic is a much more efficient search utility.

Lets say I know I am looking for an E-mail with information about the Linux dd command. In GDS I would enter Linux DD in the search field than click on search, then filter to E-mail, then filter by sender. All the filtering occurs after the search! It is idiotic! With Copernic you can filter you search BEFORE you search. You choose E-mail and then you can choose text and sender info and then you get results. This really minimizes information overload that is common with GDS and Google in general.

I have switched to Copernic and I am not looking back.

You can get copernic from:
http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/index.html
If you must try GDS it is available at http://desktop.google.com/

Another nifty Utility is Ditto (Thanks Melvyn). Ditto is an open source clipboard utility. It records your last X clipboard entries and lets you switch between them.

You can get to the ditto utility with the Control+` key combo (Which is completely customizable) or by clicking on the system tray icon.

Ditto can be found at http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/