Newsletter Archive Reviews Archive
May 28, 2006
Hi Everyone. Thanks for reading my newsletter. Each week, I will have freeware reviews, tips, tricks, news, and lots of cool websites for you to check out. I hope you enjoy this week's letter. Be sure to write me for advice or yell at me for messing up. Click here to see if anyone is visiting this newsletter on our Gabbly Chat Box! |
review from ClifNotes, May 2006
My friend and colleague, AllenH, emailed me at work the other day with this cool free tool that works nicely to clean up taskbar clutter. Many of us at work or home find we have so many apps running that the Windows taskbar can't do it's job of easily displaying what you are working on. Trayit! allows you to minimize some of your frequently used applications to the system tray, where they don't take up any space on the taskbar. I tried it, and it has helped me out at times. Thanks Allen!
review from ClifNotes, May 2006
Here is another one of those very handy extensions for the FireFox browser. Clippings allows you to highlight sections of text on a website and save them for easy access when you want to paste them into a text entry area at another website.
quote from addons.mozilla
Saves and manages frequently-entered text for pasting later. Text can be pasted from Clippings into forms and input fields without the hassle of retyping or repetitive copying and pasting. Perfect for forms, web mail, blog entries, wiki editing and forum posts.
try out the Clippings extension
review from Pierre at les trouvailles de pierre, May 2006
Within a Deep Forest is a 2D platform game for Windows. According to comments found on The Daily Click, it would be one of best the freebies of it's kind.
quote from the author
Two attempts has been made to build a bomb, capable of freezing the entire world into ice. The first was a failure, and resulted in a living blue ball. The second attempt was a success. Now the clock is ticking, and the world is in grave danger. That is, unless...
find more cool freebies at Pierre's Lucky Finds
review by ClifNotes, May 2006
Here at home, my wife ran a scan at GRC.com's Shield's Up! page to see if our firewalls were working. Bad news, we had an open port and we spent an hour or two trying to close it up.
We downloaded and ran CurrPorts from NirSoft to see if any malicious programs on our end might be connecting to the internet using that port. So far, everything looks fine.
If you need to find out which programs on your PC are connecting to the internet, you'll have a tough time finding anything that's free and better than CurrPorts.
review from ClifNotes, May 2006
Way back in the old days of Windows 95, I was hooked on a programming tool called Quick Basic. I used to spend days and hours whipping up simple games and little programs. I bought the full version of it, but a free version called Qbasic came with every copy of Windows 95, and it's still available today.
If you ever get the urge to try some simple programming, Qbasic is still a great way to get started. Just remember that it's an old DOS window type of program. You won't be able to use a mouse until you maximize it by hitting the ALT-ENTER keys. Hit ALT-ENTER again to minimize it.
review from Sarah at SarahInTampa.com, May 2006
Pando is a new software app that lets you bypass email file attachment size limits by letting you send large files for free. If you already use a service like YouSendIt for this task, take note, Pando is different ...
read the rest of Sarah's review
preview from Scott at FreewareArena.com
"XP SysPad is a launcher which makes access to Windows system utilities its specialty. All of the prime Windows system info and utilites such as the individual control panel applets, can be launched with the click of one button, which makes it easier than hunting around the explorer pane or waiting for menus to fold out. For convenience, it also can minimize itself to the system tray. It launches over 100 functions in all!
The program is very small with a minute memory footprint, and makes no changes to your system registry whatsoever and comes with uninstaller."
By Jessica Dolcourt at Download.com, May 2006
No matter how you arrive at an unsafe Web site, much can go wrong when you do. Phishers will attempt to coerce you into disclosing sensitive information--such as your address and social security number--and adware engines may sprout pop-ups over your screen like a field of clover. Thankfully, you can learn to avoid trouble before it's too late. Here are nine telltale signs you're headed for dangerous waters, with tips to keep you firmly in the safety zone.
read the rest of Jessica's article at Download.com
reviews from Donationcoder.com
Comments from Clif
I've come to feel that getting all my email online at a service like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or Gmail, is best for me. Despite being dependent on someone else for the service, it's safer for me to view the mail there. If you have a dialup connection or you are more paranoid about privacy, there is no replacement for a good email client. DonationCoder has looked at many of them and here's what they think are the best.
By Respect2Glory, May 2006
This version of SiteAdvisor seems to have a bug (or is it an unbalanced tweak?) Anyway, I didn't like how SiteAdvisor acted, and that it wouldn't shut down when I told it to. See below what I reported to them after I uninstalled SiteAdvisor. This is when SiteAdvisor popsup this webpage... ( http://www.siteadvisor.com/ieuninstall.html?aff_id=0 )
I TRIED TO SHUT DOWN SiteAdvisor: First I turned it off in each browser window I had open. When I saw that SiteAdvisor was still running, I went into Windows Task Manager > highlighted SiteAdvisor > clicked on the End Process button > and I watched SiteAdvisor reappear in the list each time I attempted to stop it from running.
OH, that's a bad thing - to have a program that won't listen to the user. This version of SiteAdvisor is now known as McAfee junk in my book. I may use an older version of SiteAdvisor, while I search for a similar program. One thing is for sure - I won't be a McAfee fan for awhile. I really don't care if SiteAdvisor is running or not, except for when I want to view specific search results. I prefer that only security protection programs run constantly on my old system. There is enough of those these days!
Why did you uninstall?
Thank you for trying SiteAdvisor for Internext Explorer. We would really appreciate any feedback you have about why you uninstalled our software.
■ I saw an error message.
■ It seemed to slow my system down.
□ I didn't find it useful.
□ I'm concerned about privacy.
□ I prefer to use other security products instead.
□ I just temporarily uninstalled; I'm going to reinstall.
■ Other: Error message repeatedly popped up in multiples!
Please feel free to add additional comments:
This error message repeatedly pops-up in multiples:
McAfee SiteAdvisor alert
Data received from McAfee seems to have expired.
Either your computer's clock is incorrect, or
there is a communications problem
review from Zia's CyberGuide, May 2006
O Gizmo, you are a Star! I found this link in his latest newsletter...Want to play a game right now, without fuss and without spending a single penny then head to this site: a great selection of best free games available in cyberspace.
Now, please don't tell me Big Brother Internet is not looking after you! Take your pick from
Action • Adventure/RPG • Arcade • FPS • Puzzle • Shooters • Simulations • Strategy
visit Zia for tech tips and cool websites
website review from Sarah at SarahInTampa.com, May 2006
Scandoo Well, maybe not just for dummies, but for grandmas and grandpas and luddites and more, there comes a new service called Scandoo. The service acts as a front-end ... to protect you from visiting websites that spread viruses or spyware
read the rest of this review at Sarah's blog
comments from ClifNotes, May 2006
I found this website listed at Pierre's Lucky Finds. Tabblo lets you organize a page of photos by placing and resizing them on the page easily. You can add your text and comments to make your photos into a real story.
comments by ClifNotes, May 2006
Recently Dell announced it will install Google software on as many as 100 million new Dell PCs. Yahoo isn't happy, because they lost a bid against Google, and I bet Microsoft is really upset at having lost more control over what PC makers load on their PCs.
comments from ClifNotes, May 2006
It looks like Microsoft may have a winner with a new image format that can give you nearly twice the compression of a JPEG with the same image quality.
see Microsoft shows off JPEG rival from CNET
article at Wired News, May 2006
"Under the partnership between Yahoo, the world's largest internet media company, and eBay, the biggest e-commerce player, Yahoo will be the exclusive provider of graphical, branded advertising throughout eBay's auction site. In return, Yahoo has chosen eBay's online payment system PayPal to allow its own customers to pay for Yahoo services."
You need a Gmail account to access many of the cool features at Google. I'll send you an invitation right away if you write me and say I WANT GMAIL.
Wow! Over 300 people and still growing! 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.
Here's a small look at my frapper map.
review by ClifNotes
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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.
Have fun and surf safely.
Clif
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