Last week, I mentioned that I sometimes store files at Gmail. If it's done right, it doesn't violate their terms of service and it's free. This week I'll tell you how I do this. Also here this week are some truly free smilies, a free online calendar service, updates to some programs we've used before, and so much more.
I hope you enjoy this week's letter. Be sure to write me for advice or yell at me for messing up.
I once saw on a message board someone wondering what is the point of having an email storage of 1 Gigabyte...Well, after I found the Gmail drive, I realised that Uncle Google's email is extremely useful!
Notes from Clif
Gmail Drive is an easy way to store files online. Since Zia's find of this utility, Gmail has increased storage to over 2.5 Gigabytes. That makes the Gmail Drive even more valuable for storing your backups or other files.
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GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.
GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to.
Splitter Lite - split large files into smaller pieces
I had a very large file I needed to upload to my Gmail account. The file was 141 megabytes in size and I know that my Gmail will only accept 10 megabyte attachments. I needed to split the file into smaller pieces. I've been using file splitting tools for a long time and I like Splitter Lite. I have a link to Splitter Lite in my Sendto folder. All I did was right click on my large file and Sendto Splitter. Next, I chose the size I wanted. I clicked the split button and a second later I had 16 files, all of which were 9 megabytes in size.
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• Splitter splits files or whole directories (including subdirectories).
• You can select any size of parts you like.
• Splitter is able to handle very large parts (only limited by the operating system).
• No installation necessary, Splitter can run from a floppy disk.
• The date of the original files will be restored.
• Drag & drop from the windows explorer.
• Splitter optionally creates batch files for rejoining.
• Full commandline support.
AI Roboform - fills in web forms and website logins
This program saves me tons of time when I surf the web. I use it every day. Most days I must log in and out of at least three or four websites. How can I remember the login names and passwords? I don't have to because AI Roboform does it for me. Roboform is an Internet Explorer toolbar. As soon as I go to a website that requires me to sign in, Roboform will either pop up to give me the login it remembers or offer to save a new one for me. The current version of Roboform is Liteware (or Trialware). After a 30 day trial it will only remember 10 websites logins. However, I've provided you with a link to an older freeware version that is not crippled after 30 days. Just remember never to update it if it offers to do so.
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RoboForm is a free password manager and one-click web form filler with some serious Artificial Intelligence.
What it does:
AutoSave passwords in browser.
AutoFill passwords to login form.
Click Login button for you.
Fill personal info into online forms.
Save offline passwords & notes.
Generate Secure Random Passwords.
Encrypt passwords and personal data using 3-DES.
All personal info is stored on your computer only.
Take RoboForm with you on USB disk for ultimate portability.
Sync your passwords and notes to Palm or Pocket PC.
Backup & Restore, Print your passwords.
More features: drill down for more.
RoboForm is FREE with some limitations.
It is well-behaved: NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE.
Works under Windows as an add-on to IE-based browsers.
Works with Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox under Windows.
OpenWide - enlarge your open and save dialog boxes
OpenWide is a tiny system tray tool that allows your to resize your open and save dialog boxes for most Windows programs. It fixes a long time annoyance that many people have complained about over the years. I found this cool little utility while I was browsing the latest review of Best Dialog Extenders at DonationCoder.
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This is a test release. Limited testing has shown it to work on a release of
Win2000 Professional and a release of ~WinXP Home.
Features
Set position and size of Open & Save dialogs
Set initial keyboard focus
Set initial view style
Drag & drop folders onto the title bar of an Open/Save dialog box,
I sure see a lot of requests from people who want to use smileys on their website or in their email. If you want free smileys you can have nearly 1800 of them for free at David Pye's website. He's got lots of other cool stuff there too. Here also is a quick tutorial on using smileys in email.
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A tad under 1,800 animated and still smiley gifs. Express your emotions in emails, web pages, letters etc by adding a smiley. There are glad, sad and mad ones - grumpy, jumpy and frumpy ones - happy, rappy and crappy ones - there are even smilies driving cars, flying planes, with hats, talking, crying, sighing and dying. This is in html (web) format and has been set up with an installer, so just click and enjoy!
Startup Inspector - research unknown startup programs
For many of us, the list of programs that start up when our PC boots is a mystery. Ubergeeks may be able to help us when things get crazy by using tools like HijackThis, but here is help for the average joe.
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Startup Inspector for Windows is a Windows™ platform software that helps Windows™ user to manage Windows™ startup applications. On www.windowsstartup.com, there are more than 6000 known programs in the database. Startup Inspector for Windows can thus provide a consultative information on the programs that are running at your Windows startup process. Whether a program is necessary to the system, or is the program a spyware.
Last week I mentioned that I use Gmail to backup some of my critical Windows files. It's easy to do once you get the hang of it. There are two methods I use. When I'm at work, I open up my Gmail account, start a new email and attach a file to it. Finally, I click the Save Now button to save it to my Drafts folder.
The other method I use is the GmailDrive featured in this week's reviews. Once you are logged into the Gmail Drive, you can drag and drop files into it.
Do you want a free 2.5Gb Gmail account?
Email me at the address above and be sure to type "I WANT GMAIL" in the subject line.
Planzo is another free calendar webservice that lets you keep your to-do lists, events, meetings, and other information online at a secure location. They'll send you emails to remind you about birthdays or other events that you don't want to miss. Below is a link to my Planzo calendar.
Did you notice the nice little banner at the top of the newsletter this week? I made that banner and several more at BannerBreak. It was fun and easy. It's also free for non-commercial use.
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What is BannerBreak™?
BannerBreak™ is a free online banner generator!
Are these banners really free?
Yes! The banners on BannerBreak™ are completely free! However, all banners available on BannerBreak™ are exclusive property of BannerBreak™ and are not to be used for commercial purposes without written permission from BannerBreak™. Banners generated by BannerBreak™ are not to be redistributed without written consent from BannerBreak™.
What can I do with these banners?
There alot of things you can do with banners featured on BannerBreak™. You can link them to a forum or a site. These banners can go anywhere you can put HTML code into a page.
I've become so used to seeing ads everywhere that I don't even notice them most of the time. I've never been bothered by Google's ads but some people hate them. Some of these ad haters have put together a spot on the web, called Scroogle, where you can search Google without seeing the Google ads.
If you really enjoy using Scroogle, be sure to donate to their cause.
I hate ads too. There's a Scroogle search box in my SideBar if you ever want to search this wiki for old articles or newsletters. I like it so much I put their search script on my reviews page as well. I've also paid my webhost a few dollars to take their ads away. My Xanga blog sites are another matter. They want too much money to get rid of the banner ads. I've nearly stopped using those Xanga sites.
I hope you enjoy seeing my site without ads. Please thank pbwiki.com by clicking this link and signing up for a free wiki. You'll love it because you can put anything in your wiki homepage that you want to keep online. You can keep it private or let the world see it.
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Public Information Research, Inc., the nonprofit public charity behind www.google-watch.org and www.scroogle.org, has been running a Google proxy for more than two years. On January 3, 2005 we released the source code for our proxy. Our review of the legal situation has convinced us that we are covered by "fair use" under the Copyright Act.
This step that we have taken has implications for all search engines. These engines crawl the public web without asking permission, and cache and reproduce the content without asking permission, and then use this information as a carrier for ads that generate private profit. We are convinced that if citizens scrape Google and strip the ads, and make the scraped results available as a nonprofit public service, that this is legal. This is especially the case if there are public policy concerns behind the scraping.
The award-winning Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy. It's easy to import your favorites and settings and get started. Download Firefox now and get the most out of the Web.
George wrote me: I have decided to hold off installing it because it makes many extensions stop working. I read a possible fix on this site, but decided to hold off installing 1.5 for a month or 2 until the extensions I like are fixed.
The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.
For more information, see George's review of K-Lite Codec Pack here.
FREEWARE ADVENTURE
Last week I challenged you all to try out the freeware program called Naomi. Unfortunately nobody was interested. Let's try a different one this week.
KeyWallet - free webform filler and password manager
I tried this tool once, a long time ago. At the time, I didn't like it. Since then, they've improved it and added more features. Maybe someone here might want to try it out. This program may soon be going to shareware, so grab it now, just in case.
Write your own review
I get many of the reviews in the newsletter from the readers. You don't have to be a genius or computer guru. Just answer a few questions and send me a review. I'll probably put you in the newsletter.
FEEDBACK AND OTHER STUFF
Frapper - you guys live all over the map
Over one hundred readers have put their location down in my Frapper map. If you haven't seen this, take a look.
I've got readers in the Middle East and Eastern Europe I'd like to see here. Where are you at?
I invite all of you to record your locations on this map. You can include as little or as much information as you wish. I think you'll enjoy seeing yourself there.
Clif's map as of December 4th, 2005
Can't remember what PC memory you need?
From Byron
Clif, do you know of an online site that can test my Prsario laptop to determine if I can uprgrade from 256mb to 512mb of RAM? I have an open slot, but I vaguely remember running an online test and the results said the machine was not capbale of being upgraded.
No need to run software, go to Crucial and they'll tell you what you can add to it.
Love your newsletters and your informative writing style. One question though: When I make a comment on a piece of software do you publish my email address?
Never, although I might put up a link to your website, if you have one.
Disk Cleaner is a free tool to quickly and easily free disk space that is used by temporary files like those in the system temporary folder, the Internet Explorer Cache and Cookies folder, and the Recycle Bin.
From the author's site, With Disk Cleaner you can easily clean up disk space that is now used by temporary files like those in the system temporary folder, the Internet Explorer Cache and Cookies folder, and the Recycle Bin. Disk Cleaner was inspired by one of the system tools that can be found in Windows 98. As I was running Windows 95 myself those days, and upgrading my machine to 98 was not an option, I decided to write such a tool myself. However, Windows 98+ users may find that Disk Cleaner is smaller and faster, and one of its virtues is the ability to run quietly, i.e. on startup. This means that you can clear the cache every time you boot Windows.
I value Scott's reviews and picks. He tests each program himself.
Can't connect using clifnotes.tk address
From Robert
I have tried to connect using Foxfire and IE no results. Am I the only one? Thanks for your great newsletter. I love the reviews you have on such a wide assortment of applications. Keep up the good work.
Hi Robert,
It's possible that dot tk addresses might be blocked by a security program. I'll post a second link in the email notices.
It notifies you when you get new emails by taskbar icon notification...never had a problem with it except in configuring gmail, which requires a plugin. I decided to leave gmail off because the only time I use it is when someone ask me a question about it.
I get all my email in the browser, so no plug ins or extra apps needed. The only one that requires secure connection is Google and there is a page for configuring it.
I came accross the program SpyCatcher from http://www.tenebril.com . I would be interested in any comments you have about this program. I ran it and it certainly picked up a lot of junk on my computers.
Hi Eddie, This is a good one. SpywareWarrior recommends three scanners, including this one.
I tried to set IE as default to open GIFs...it would only open them as a still. Actually, WMP is an option for opening them. I did follow follow your instructions to set a default viewer for GIF using WMP, and it's all good now. Clif, you're doing such a good thing regarding freeware & you seem to be such a truly nice guy, I wish there was something I could do to repay you. If there ever is, just let me know...
IE (Internet Explorer) does act funky sometimes. I didn't know WMP (Windows Media Player) was a good viewer for GIFs. My reward? Have some fun out there, in real life, and on the web. Then share it with others. It'll get back to me eventually.
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