Also did I mention it was FAST? Chrome is fast at initial startup and fast at loading pages. Chrome has one annoying lack of feature on the Windows version (it is ok on OSX – I have not checked this one on Linux). When you are in full screen mode (which looks great!) you cannot get to the address bar to navigate to a new page!!! This is really annoying.  There is a bug for this issue (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=8022) and no fix is in site. If you are annoyed by this lack of feature please leave your 2 cents on the bug page.

In addition to the extensions you can install themes which allow you to change the look of the Chrome interface.

Chrome is free from Google.  It runs on Windows, OSX and Linux. You can get it at http://www.google.com/chrome

Let me know what browser or plugins you use in the comments!

When you click on a post it takes you to the full post:

The plugin makes the blog much easier to read from iPhones/Android devices. If you want to see the original format you can toggle the view on or off with a switch at the bottom of the page.

As soon as I get the invite I will write up a review. My buddy Hillel has already written up an article about his “Eight Google Wave Annoyances“, but I am not letting that influence my judgment. Now I just have to wait.

I hate waiting.

UPDATE: Ugh -  I just found out it can take a week from the time I am invited until the invite shows up in my inbox.

Did I mention I hate waiting.

Renamer

Renamer lets you add rules and preview the results. When you are happy you just click rename and the files are renamed according to your specifications.

It is a very useful utility I highly recommend.

You can download it from http://www.den4b.com/downloads.php

SpaceMonger

SpaceMonger is a visual tool that lets you see in an instant the sizes of all the directories on your hard disk. The new version is not free but the original SpaceMonger 1.x version is free and it gets the job done.

You can download SpaceMonger version 1.x from http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/v1x.php

“I got this .mkv (or insert other format here) video file and it won’t play on my machine. It says I don’t have the right codec. What do i do?”

First let me address what a codec is. A codec is an algorithm for compress and decompressing videos. If your computer does not have the algorithm it will not be able to decompress the video and you will not be able to watch the file.

So how do you get the codecs you need? The best option is to download a codec pack. A codec pack  is a group of codecs .. you guessed it.. packed together. The one I like to use is the k-lite codec pack.

K-lite codec pack

K-lite comes in three flavors basic, standard and full. The standard and full contain more codecs than the basic. I recommend grabbing the full pack. After you install the pack you will be able to play back the vast majority of videos available. k-lite also has the codecs needed for DVD playback.

In addition to the codecs the pack comes bundled with Media Player Classic (more on that in another post).

You can download the k-lite codec pack from http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm

Filezilla allows you to keep a customized database of FTP sites. The database can store site addresses, login credentials, server type and notes.

Filezilla also has a free open source FTP server available for download.

You can download Filezilla FTP client and server  from the website http://filezilla-project.org/index.php

Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader also has additional software that will let you edit and create PDFs. The professional software is not free but is reasonably priced.

You can download Foxit Reader from http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

WinMerge

Like WinDiff, WinMerge allows you to compare individual files and directories. However, WinMerge also lets you move different sections between the files with one click. This lets you selectively merge the 2 files with the content you want. This feature is very useful when checking different versions of configuration files or code.

Also WinMerge has plugin support for other formats like MS Word and Excel.

Best of all WinMerge is free and Open Source.

You can download Winmerge at http://winmerge.org/downloads/

sample personal font

You download a PDF template file that you need to print out. You then fill in the letters in your handwrting. After you finish filling out the template you need to scan it in and upload the file to the site.

Wait a few moments and the site will return to you a TTF file which you can use on a Windows, Mac, or Linux system.

You can access the free service at http://www.yourfonts.com/

I hate copying files on a Windows system. The system will start coping a file and if I want to copy another file while the first one is going it does so in parallel slowing down the whole process. If a copy process encounters an error  – forget it. The whole copy process dies and you have lost the queue and have no idea where you were up to. SuperCopier 2 fixes these issues in a small easy to use utility.

supercopier

SuperCopier manages you copy list so that additional copy requests are handled in order and not in parallel. This means all of your file copies happen quicker. You can also pause and resume file copy and move processes.

You can download SuperCopier from http://supercopier.sfxteam.org/modules/mydownloads/

Grab the SuperCopier 2 Beta 1.9 (it is about 1/3 of the way down the page). SuperCopier is free Software and runs on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 (Sorry Vista users).

PuTTY Connection Manager lets you manage PuTTY connections in multiple tabs and allows you to maintain a database of PuTTY connections. The database of conenctions can be encrypted. PuTTY connection manager also integrated your existing PuTTY connection database.

You can download PuTTY Connection Manager at http://puttycm.free.fr/#

You need PuTTY installed http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

PuTTY Connection manager also requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0

When all your Icons are the way you want you right click on the “My computer” Icon and select “Save Desktop Icon Layout” and the program saves your desktop layout.

After some program/screen resize/kid/pesky co-worker messes up your desktop you click “Restore Desktop Icon Layout” and everything is back the way you had it.

You can download Icon Restore from http://users.rcn.com/taylotr/icon_restore.html

Gimpshop is open source and has additional plug-ins and resources on line. It also runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not everyone loves gimpshop but I would highly recommend trying it before paying for another program – Hey – it is free!

You can download gimpshop from http://www.gimpshop.com/

7-zip can handle the following formats:

• Packing / unpacking: 7Z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

7-zip also has it’s own format .7z which has a higher compression ratio than .zip. It is however limited in that you need 7-zip to open it.

You can download 7-zip from http://www.7-zip.org/

HexTool also has an advanced mode (click on the maximize window icon) which reveals even more features – such as operations, IP address conversion and ASCII character translation. It is a neat tool if you have to work in Decimal and Hex.

HexTool is free and open source. You can download HexTool from http://harkin.org/hextool/

The people at http://portableapps.com have taken some essential utilities and made them portable. This means you can run them from a removable device (Like a disk on key) or on a system where you do not have permissions to run an installation.

There is also a cool portable launcher that can organize and launch you portable applications from one neat place. It is bundled in the Portable Apps Suite which gives all the tools most people would typically need in one place.

There are also portable versions of Firefox, Putty, and many more applications and utilities.

Dark Room works from keyboard shortcuts. Dark Room is not completely original. It is a clone of the Mac White Room. It is still cool and a useful way of actually getting some work done. Dark Room runs on Windows XP/2000/2003 and requires the .Net Framework 2.0

You can download Dark Room from http://they.misled.us/dark-room

Also If you hover over the clock a pop with todays Day/Date info appears.

Lclock is skinable. Lclock also features alarms (which I have not yet tested). It also has a small memory footprint (356 K on my system)

You can download Lclock from http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=157465

Ok – I have updated the blog!

I have updated the WordPress to the latest version – Which was really easy. If you are thinking of starting a blog I highly recommend WordPress ( http://wordpress.org/)

Also I have added a new post which you can see below! (http://blog.billauer.com/?p=48)

Hopefully I will continue to update the site more frequently!

-Ari

You start Launchy by pressing alt + space to get to the pop-up window. You then enter a few letters of the application you want to use and Launchy will find it. It is easier and quicker than navigating the Start Menu.  And it is all done via the keyboard. There are also plug-ins  and skins to extend Launchy’s functionality.

 You can download Launchy from  http://www.launchy.net/

It is a great Freeware program. The UI is pretty straight forward. The only downside is that it takes a REALLY LONG time to convert the AVI file to a DVD.

You can download the program from: http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareAvi2Dvd.html

Of course you still need a license for the guest operating system. Now you can use Virtual PC to create images and VMWare Player to run them.

More info at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

You can download it at http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ 

I don’t know about you – But I hate the Caps Lock key. I never use it and occasionally I mistake it for the shift key. I always wanted it to be something else or at least not be there. I have found (thanks to Hillel) that there are alternatives.

Thanks to Josh for the Caps Lock photo.

There is this tip which will disable Caps Lock or let you remap it to other keys. This site give you registry entries to change the Caps Lock key.
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/disable_caps_lock/

There is this more friendly utilty that will let you remap the CapsLock and other keys. It is an open source full keyboard utility.
http://www.qliner.com/hotkeys/

This site gives you all the info you need to remap any key into any other key.
http://www.usnetizen.com/fix_capslock.html

Sysinternals has a utility that will turns the Caps Lock key into a Contol key.
http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/ctrl2cap.html

If you WANT the Caps Lock key but would like to know when it is on there is this utility which will give you an on screen alert when you press the Caps Lock key.
http://www.dkpcode.com/html/downloads.html#DKOSD On screen caps lock display.

You can download unlocker from: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

The Database is encrypted. You can also store the database on the network so multiple people can have access to it. KeePass can create multiple databases (for exapmle – one for personal and one for work). KeePass is extremely flexible and a great password manager.
http://keepass.sourceforge.net/

NetSetMan – The Network Settings Manager is one answer. NetSetMan is a free utility that allows you to set IP information, DNS server, Workgroup and other configuration details with 2 clicks. You can set profiles and switch between them easily.

You can accomplish a lot of the same functionality by writing batch scripts using the netsh command. This option is relativly comlex and not as user friendly as NetSetMan.
You can download NetSetMan from http://www.netsetman.com/

PocketMod is a free online application that creates a CUSTOMIZED single piece of paper – that when folded makes a nifty little pocket sized PAA (Personal Analog Assistant).

PocketMod: http://www.pocketmod.com/

creating PDF files has never been so easy or affordable (read free!). Best of all it is open source!

You can download it from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

One of the things that sets TCE apart is the fact that in game play has no cross hairs (unless your weapon has a scope) – You have to use the sight on the gun you are using. You also only have one life in Objective mode. This means no Rambo style game play.

Game play requires you to use your head and communicate with your team. It is an awesome and addictive game. TCE .49 is due out right after Duke Nukem Forever eventually. The .49 release will add (among other improvements) CTF, and new weapons to the game. Team Terminator, the TCE development team, has released very little accurate information regarding the .49 release.

Both Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and True Combat Elite are free (as in beer) games.

You can download both TCE and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory from the True Combat Elite Home page. There are Windows and Linux versions of both games

http://www.truecombat.com/intro.php

The world of MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is filled with graphically intense games like the World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies. Enter the Kingdom of Loathing (KoL). KoL is a MMORPG that has great game play and low end graphics. How low end you ask – Stick figures low. Do not be fooled by the low end graphics – This game is entertaining, complex and incredibly creative.

There are six classes of player each with different abilities. Two examples are the Seal Clubber and the Accordion Thief
Seal Clubber: Seal Clubbers hail from the frigid Northlands, because one character class always hails from the frigid Northlands. They rely on their Muscle to survive.
Accordion Thief: The scourge of mariachis and polka bands, the Accordion Thieves have plied their malign craft since time out of mind. Their Moxie serves them well in both their adventures and their interactions with “the ladies.”

The game is a delight of pun and humor. It is a free and it is funny. You can play at

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

To create a new character go to:

http://www2.kingdomofloathing.com/createplayer.php

Visual Task Tips has a few limitations.

1. Not all programs show a preview image.

2. Visual Task Tips does not work if you use the Windows classic style. This is supposed to be addressed in the next release.

3. Grouped tasks do not show preview images (in order for this to work you need to un-group tasks).

You can download it at http://www.visualtasktips.com/

Answers.com is a free web based knowledge retrieval system. It is not search. It Far Far superior to simple web searching. Web Searching always give you a page that contains the search terms – Answers gives you, well, Answers. For example – lets say you wanted to know about Bluetooth and what it does. With search you would put “bluetooth” into google and get 212,000,0000 results. Many of them selling bluetooth devices. Granted – you could probably find what you were looking for in the first ten results – but it is still a pain to get a basic understanding of a concept (Search – Sort – Read) With Answers you get the information you were looking for in one step. You enter the topic “bluetooth” and you get the following page:

It has a definition, examples, pictures, the wikipedia entry and more.

Now with the Windows client – things got even better! – Answers.com has truly provided information at the user’s fingertips.

The windows client gives you answers in any program in a small window on your screen. You can alt+click (press the alt key while clicking on a word) and you are greeted with a pop-up with the most relevant information for the word you clicked on. If you need more information you can click on the more button at the top. This opens a browser window with ALL the relevant information for the topic you selected.

This latest release of the answers client is very impressive. It is a fastest way to get relevant information I have ever seen. It truly solves the problem of information overload and delivers concise and informative answers.

You can use answers on line at http://www.answers.com

You can download the windows client at http://www.answers.com/main/product_info.jsp

Free Download Manager lets you schedule your downloads – Which is useful at the office when I can download large files at night or over the weekend when no one cares if I hog the bandwidth. It also let you sort your downloads based on rules into different directories. You can also chooses your network bandwidth settings. Over all a very neat free utility.

You can download Free Download Manager at:

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/download.htm

Restoration can scan your hard drive for deleted files and presents you with a list of files to restore.

Restoration does not need to be installed – It is just an EXE. This means you can run it from a flash drive. It is a cool utility to have on your PC for the day when you accidentally delete that power point presentation.

NOTES:

• It is best to restore your file to another drive as not to overwrite the original data or other things you need to restore
• You file most likely will not have it’s original name. It will normally have the same extension. So if you looking for a word file – filter your search with doc. You can see where the file was deleted from.
• There is no guarantee this will work – but it sure as hell beats losing the file.

You can download Restoration at:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

They are

• Tab Mix Plus
• AdBlock
• IE Tab

Tab Mix Plus – This adds control over the tabs. Tab Mix adds a great feature – “Undo Close Tab”. This lets you re-open a tab you closed by mistake

You can download Tab Mix Plus at:
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1122&application=firefox

AdBlock – This extension lets you block ads from various web sites. It removes the annoying noise that surrounds actual content. AdBlock makes surfing nice again. You can download adblock at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&application=firefox

IE Tab- This is a great extension for when you HAVE to use IE. This lets you open an IE browser as a tab in firefox. You can also manage a list of sites that will always open in IE. A must have for those nasty Active X sites. You can download IETab at:

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1419&application=firefox

You can open the thumb nail window by clicking on the foXpose icon in the status bar or by pressing F8 (which is of course customizable). This is a great way to manage tabs in Firefox and I highly recommend it.

You can download it at: http://viamatic.com/index.php/firefox�

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.

VMware Player is great – but it has one major limitation – You can not create a new image with it. You can download ready made images of Linux systems to run – but you are out of luck as far as windows goes. So how do we get a windows virtual PC? There are 2 ways I know of how to do this for free. One is to use Qemu. Qemu is a cool software but not very user friendly. If you would like to use QEMU – there is an in depth article here -
http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/10/26/vmware-player-windows-xp.html

The second way is to use Microsoft Virtual PC. Virtual PC is commercial software BUT there is a fully functional 45 day Eval that you can use to create a windows image. Once you create your image you can import it into VMWare Player and use it as long as you like for free.

You can download MS Virtual PC from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

Of course to install windows you will need a windows license.

Now once you have your Image setup – It is critical you make a copy of it. This will allow you to use the image as a virtual playground. When it gets messed up you just erase the Virtual Machine you are using and copy over the original image from your backup.

Of course there are other uses for Virtual Machines. Some use it for QA work, others for secure browsing. I like it as an isolated sand box.

Remember – Next time you download some neat looking software Install on a Virtual Machine before you try it on your real environment.

There is also the power toy from MS that is similar. TaskSwitchXP blows it out of the water. It is completely customizable. You can choose the font, the colors, what keys launch the program and even the transparency level of the window.
There is one thing I found annoying. It puts an icon in your tray BUT like everything else in this program – It is customizable. You can turn it off with in the TaskSwitchXP Configuration tool. So overall a very cool app.
It is free and Open Source.

You can get it at: http://www.ntwind.com/taskswitchxp/

Note: There may be a possible crash with MS Virtual PC. See http://www.ntwind.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=131�

The MS power toy can be downloaded at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

TO UN-INSTALL THE MS POWER TOY :

Do this if the add/remove programs and a reboot don’t work.

Go to C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations directory. Just run that, choose “Remove,” then reboot, and you should be good-to-go!

Unfortunately free firewalls are disappearing rapidly.

There used to be at least three good free firewalls – Tiny personal firewall, Sygate firewall, and Zone Alarm. Now of those three only Zone Alarm remains free. There is also the built in Windows Firewall. The built in firewall is better than nothing but it is not as good as Zone Alarm.

The free version of Zone Alarm has some drawbacks. For example you can not open specific ports. The firewall controls access based on applications. This is fine for most home users but can be VERY annoying to more advanced users. If you need this level of functionality you have got to go commercial.

You can download Zone Alarm from: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

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

* Spellbound – This is a great for the spellingly challenged among us. This plug in checks spelling in a text box. Just right click on the text box and choose check spelling. You can get it at: http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/

* Greasemonkey – The most powerful plugin I have ever seen. It allows the user to define the way a page looks and behaves. You can add or remove functions or content to any web page. For example you can add a delete button to Gmail. Remove adds from blogs. Whatever you want. There are hundreds of scripts available for greasemonkey. You can get Greasemonkey and scripts at http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/

* Platypus – Is a visual way to create Greasemonkey scripts. You can change font sizes for pages, remove content, move content around on pages -All with a few clicks. No code. No mess.
You can get Platypus at: http://platypus.mozdev.org/

And of course it is all open source and free.

So how do you do that? One word – Encryption

One way to go about keeping all eyes off your data is to use an encrypted volume. This is a virtual disk that is encrypted. Any file that is stored in this partition is encrypted on the fly.

There is a neat open source utility called TrueCrypt that can create and manage encrypted volumes. You can create a volume as a file on your disk or create an Encrypted partition on the disk itself.

It supports AES, Blowfish, TripleDes and lots of other encryption schemes. I use an encrypted volume to store all my sensitive work related stuff. If my laptop falls into the wrong hands they may have the hardware but the information is encrypted.

Please note – That encryption can be broken – BUT – it would take a tremendous amount of time and resources.

You can download TrueCrypt at:

http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php

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!

Eraser is an unobtrusive utility that adds the ability to truly erase a file. You can right click and erase an individual file or erase the whole recycle bin. Eraser also runs scheduled tasks that allow it to securely erase all the “empty” space on your hard disk. At work this runs once a week on certain computers and ensures no sensitive data is left on the disk.

IT EVEN HAS A SECURE MOVE! This lets you move a file from one place on the disk to another. After the move is complete eraser will securely wipe the original file location.

Eraser can be downloaded at http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/

The next important step is protecting the data on your disk from snooping eyes. More on that later….

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/

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/

You can download it from http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Trillian Basic can be downlaoded from there website at http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/downloads/

The criteria for being put on the list are:
1) free
2) easy to use
3) Small footprint. No Bloat.

If you have any utilites you think are cool – please E-mail me (ari @ billauer.com) with the info.