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ClifNotesNewsletter041205
 December 5, 2004 |
Reviews
 cPicture
LE - viewing and working with your digital
photos |
I saw this program reviewed in the
Lockergnome Windows Fanatics
newsletter. I tried it and I don't think I've got any other
digital photo software that's got quite as many great features. Easy
to install, just unzip and run.
Website - Quote from Lockergnome
cPicture LE is for viewing and working with your digital photos. It
offers support for thumbnail browsing, EXIF display, histogram view,
as well as various features to resize, rotate, crop, and more. You
can also remove red-eye effects, create an HTML gallery or picture
index, and batch process images to perform selected operations on
multiple photos at once. The program supports all popular image
formats, and even the ability to view/convert various RAW formats as
well (including Canon CR2), which is not often found in free image
viewers. The interface is easy to use and provides access to the
features with non-technical commands (I want to…) and a modern look.
cPicture LE offers several other handy features like mouseover image
zooms, lossless rotation, image slideshow, command line options,
color profile support, and more. The program comes as a standalone
executable, and does not require
installation. |
 FreeButtons.org - free web
button/menu creator |
This is a good piece of software
just made for a fairly experienced webmaster. If I'd been a
newbie at this I would have had a tough time figuring out how to use
the program. Once you do figure it out, it can give you an amazing
variety of buttons and menus. When you are done you can easily
export it to an html file. The author should really include some
wizards to make it easier to use for the average person.
Website - Quote from the website
It's very simple to work with the program. You just change the
graphic parameters of buttons such as 3D shape, lighting, texture,
material, shadow, deformation. All other actions perform
automatically by the program. Free Buttons creates professional
quality images, generates a javascript that interacts with normal,
mouseover, and click mouse events for rollover effect, and inserts
the menu into your html page in a position you want buttons to
appear. Ability to work with templates allows you to make your menus
even faster. |
 Memtest86 -
A Stand-alone Memory Diagnostic |
Here's a great tool when you think your
system memory (ram) might be going bad. I used the floppy disk
installer tool but there's a CD based installer there also.
Website - Quote from the website
Memtest86 is thorough, stand alone
memory test for x86 architecture computers. BIOS based memory tests
are a quick, cursory check and often miss many of the failures that
are detected by Memtest86. |
NTest - the
Nokia monitor test |
This program will help you adjust your
pc's monitor so that you can see all that you can see. Just download
it and unzip it to a folder, then run the install.exe program.
Website
- Quote from the website
This Windows program will
guide you in setting the parameters, controls and adjustments of the
monitor. It will also guide you on how to measure picture
quality. |
Photosnoop
- find no-no pictures on your pc |
I tried this out and I was amazed. Nope,
I didn't find any bad pictures, but I found lots of pictures that I
had no idea were on my pc. It even looks inside of zips files
and browser caches if you want it to.
Website
- alternate link - Quote from the website
I propose that, instead of trying the impossible job of blocking
content, parents should keep a weather eye on what the family
computer is being used for. Such deterrence is likely to be much
more effective. My program scans disk drives and tries to find rude
pictures. If it finds any, it will let parents know, and show them
the pictures found, and tell them where it was found - giving the
parents the ability (and responsibility) to deal with the
situation. |
RegmagiK -
a registry editor for advanced users (special
offer) |
Earlier this week I received an
"alert" from TightwadTech and I found a
cool new program I could get for free. A free activation code was
offered for a limited time and I tried it out. It's a great program
and it's better than the one I'm using now. It's smaller and easily
installed. For those of you who aren't sure what a registry editor
is, you can read about the Windows registry here.
If any of you want to try out this software, Boris (the author) has
offered everyone who reads my newsletter a chance at a free
activation. Send an email to
Boris and put the word
"xanga_regmagik_2004" into the subject of the
email.
Website - Quote
from the website
RegmagiK is a Windows Registry editor for advanced users. Familiar
regedit.exe user interface with unique enhancements like explorer
shortcuts, fast search, and address bar with autocomplete make it
the tool of choice for system administrators, software developers,
QA and technical support professionals. It was tested on Windows 98,
NT, 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003.
|
 StationRipper -
get songs from 100's of radio stations |
Years ago, I tried a media player call
WinAmp and I found a plugin for it called StreamRipper. Using
StreamRipper I could tune into an internet radio station and record
over 100 songs a night. I'd go through them the next day and keep
the ones I liked. Now with StationRipper the interface for
recording the songs has been made a bit easier to use. I haven't
used the "chat" option in StationRipper but it sounds pretty cool.
Naturally, the songs you take can only be for personal use and
should never be offered on a file sharing network.
Website - Quote from the
website (some of the features here are not available on the free
version)
Record Shoutcast Audio and Video streams.
Records up to 300
streams at one time.
Buy the music you are ripping
Keeps track
of the songs you've already recorded, only keeping the songs you
don't already have.
Lets you easily find stations to record, via
the StationRipperTM Portal, Shoutcast, or other web sites. Or
you can drag and drop from iTunes radio to start recording.
Keeps
a list of the music and stations you've recorded, allowing easy
playback and re-recording of stations.
Listen to any station
being recorded with a single mouse click.
Ignore songs under a
certain size.
Auto-record whatever was being recorded the last
time you ran StationRipperTM.
Chat with other users, sharing what
stations you are listening
to. | |
Tips
  A Virus From The
Dead - here's a tough sucker to get rid
of |
A few months ago, I infected myself by
installing some supposed good anti-spyware. It was bad though. Very
nasty and it taught me a new trick or two for removing viruses,
spyware, and trojans. You see, what happens is that there are
actually two or more "bad" files running and every time you remove
one, it's evil buddies start it back up again. If you try to remove
the autorun entries in the registry, they detect it and put it back
in. The solution was to track all the bad guys down, then boot into
safe mode to remove the files and the autorun settings. I used to
call these bad guys "The Evil Twins", but I found out later that
it's commonly called Lazarus. If you've got a virus, spyware, or
trojan problem, let me know and I'll try to help you through it. You
can reach me here.
Website
- Quote from the website
This new virus is nicked named Lazarus, since it comes back from
the dead. Since files are still on the computer that area related to
the virus, this helps actually resurrect the virus from the dead.
How people will delete this virus altogether is the question at
hand. |
 EMusic -
Spybot S&D finds a new problem? |
I updated my Spybot S&D on Friday
December 3rd, 2004 and ran a scan. It found a new problem on my
machine. It found EMusic.ico in C:Program_FilesEmusic folder. So
what is it? I looked in the folder and it only had the single ico
file that Spybot detected. " That's strange", I thought. An
ico file is just an icon and isn't dangerous. I did a search
in Google. I typed in "spyware emusic" and the first hit was
Spybot S&D Home page. They added Emusic
just two days ago. It turns out that this was a harmless icon file
that was added to my system when I re-installed Windows with the HP
operating system disks. In other words "FALSE
ALARM". It was probably just part of an ad campaign from
HP. It's been on my PC for years and I never knew it. Even if I had
found a full blown copy of Emusic, it turns out that Emusic isn't
really such a bad guy. They just hang around with the wrong crowd
and they don't always ask you if you want to install them. Thank you
Mr. Spybot for keeping me on my toes. I would rather deal with false
alarms than the real thing. It's very important to keep your
defender programs updated and scan with them on a regular
basis.
UPDATES
2004-12-01
Adware
+ DealHelper
Dialer
+ Axis
Hijacker
+ CoolWWWSearch.BadZoneMap +
CoolWWWSearch.AboutBlank (2) + ShopAtHome + WOW Access + Crackspider
+ MyTotalSearchBar + Flashtrack Flashenhancer +
CleverIEHooker.Jeired
Keylogger
+ Plog 1.1
Malware
+
AV Devil + Nirsoft + Web CPR-TopMoxie
Spyware
+
emusic + eZula Hot Text + n-Case (2) + SplashSpot +
VX2.Favoriteman + HuntBar + Serial Thief + ProAgent 1.21 + WildMedia
+ AdRoarPlugin + CallingHome.biz
Trojan
+ C2 Media Ltd +
W32.Bagle.AV + Windows AdTools + Hammer Binder Update + E-Gold +
Comload + Klorin + Tequila Bandita 1.2 (2) + KStealth + Password
Devil + FTP Center 1.3 + Spyblocs +
BTV |
 IE Fix
- try this when your browser messes up |
Is Internet Explorer acting funny?
Here's a good start at fixing it. If you try this program and IE is
still not acting right you can always go into your Control Panel and
repair IE. All you have to do is open Add/Remove Programs and
choose Microsoft Internet Explorer. Once you've got it selected,
click the add/remove button and use the "Repair" option.
Website -
Quote from MikesWhatsNews 03, 12, 2004
Internet Explorer Fix
General purpose fix for
Internet Explorer [Win 98/ME/2000/XP]
Internet Explorer Fix - is
a general purpose repair utility for Internet
Explorer which
repairs Internet Explorer by registering it's core DLL files
and
through the INF file. Additionally if it detects Windows 2000/XP as
the
Operating System, it runs SFC to restore missing or corrupt
Windows system
files.
o Registers the core
modules of Internet Explorer.
o Refreshes
Internet Explorer using IE.INF method.
(Optional)
o For Windows 2000/XP: Initiates
"SFC /Scannow". (Optional)
o Repairs two
important registry keys which are required to set IE as
the
default
browser | |
Cool Websites
Allexperts.com - ask me
anything |
|
If you have a tough question, these
guys are just begging for it.
Ask any question! Allexperts.com is the oldest & largest
free Q&A service on the Internet
Pick a category and click on a volunteer's name to ask a
question!
Thousands of volunteer experts are here to answer all
your questions! |
 Mailinator.com - give
everyone your email address |
Here's a email service that's really
handy when you need it. Need to give someone an email address and
you don't really trust them? Make one up and add "@mailinator.com to
the end. Go to mailinator.com and pick up your mail. It will
automatically be deleted in a few hours and nobody ever got
your real email address. Very similar to another service at http://spam.la but the mail pick up site
is easier on the eyes.
Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam
service. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or
talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Wherever you are,
someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give
it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do
want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give
them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make
it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com -
pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).
Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy.
Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No
signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk
away - an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. Its
an anti-spam solution for everyone. The messages are automatically
deleted for you after a few
hours. |
SingingFish.com -
search for media files on the internet |
Here is a very good search engine just
for audio and video files. I've heard that Google and Yahoo both
plan to do the same thing in the future.
Website - FunnyVideo1 - Quote from
the website
Singingfish audio/video search is a free service that's fast and
easy to use.
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