Halloween
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'Bout Computers
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Enthusiasts
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Steve's Ravin' Reviews
~~Steve Mills
Sorry for my absence
the last couple of months. I lost my job and when you’re in your 50s and
employed in the technology arena things look rather glum. The “I would
sure hate to be in your shoes” remarks are less than encouraging, so I
guess I just came to a stop on everything. Now it’s time to get back to it
and proceed with my life. Hopefully, doing things like this will help me
deal with my anger and put some perspective back in.
I believe you’ll enjoy
the selection here. I use everything in this column, as a general rule. This
month MailWasher is an exception, which I’ll explain below.
Your suggestions are welcome and
encouraged. (steve@inil.com)
Take Care…..
Steve
Google Translations
Version: Beta
Author: Google
Web Site:
http://www.google.com/language_tools
Freeware
Rating: 6 Geezers
Technically this isn’t software, it’s a web service, but I
was so impressed that I wanted to make sure all ABC readers were
aware of it.
I went looking for a free translation page on the web
recently when the one my wife was using started supporting itself with porn
pop-up banners. Unfortunately, this is becoming very prevalent as they seem
to be the only thing making money on the web – sad! Anyway, I was unaware
that Google had put their translation service into Beta. These guys are
great. I’m continually amazed at how well they do everything. Their search
engine is so far ahead of everything else it isn’t funny.
Enter your web page on the site and watch how well it
translates it and keeps the formatting.
This is a dynamite service – Try It!
2xExplorer
Version: 1.4.1.12
Author: Nikos Bozinis
Web Site:
http://www.netez.com/2xExplorer
Freeware
Rating: 6 Geezers
This is an update to a program we covered in our first
column. Nikos has continued to improve and stabilize the program and it has
become a classic, in my mind. A strong user group has been built around the
program and the continuing evolution of quality features is outstanding. In
the old DOS days, when computers were powered by rocks, the choice of a file
manager was very personal and the source of frequent arguments by geeks like
me. Since the advent of Windows most of us have accepted Microsoft’s lame
excuse for file management and forgotten about alternatives. Do yourself a
favor and try this program.
The only gripe, and it’s a small one, is there are some
features that can only be adjusted through registry editing. For instance,
there is a limit of 1 meg for pictures which show thumbnails, as shown
below. I thought there was a bug until I found this hack. Be sure to read
the registry information that comes with the download. The new help file
isn’t perfect, as I understand it was built by eager users, but I’ve seen
much worse in expensive commercial endeavors.
At the risk of serious overkill, I’m including a list of
features:
√
Dual pane
layout, with intelligent communication between two independent panes
√ Powerful selection engine,
for easily building up selection patterns for items before file operations
√ File filters, both for
selecting and for displaying files
√ Drivebar navigation, for
accessing quickly all the drives installed on a computer
√ Keyboard shortcuts for nearly
all its commands, for efficient everyday use
√ Complete file date
information, utilizing Creation and LastAccessed information as well as the
normal Modification date.
√ Proper path resolution,
including UNC and relative paths (e.g. "C:" as opposed to "C:\")
√ Printing of folder contents,
find results and other statistics
√ Proper file sorting, based on
extension (alphabetically)
√ Note that all these goodies —
including file synchronization and thumbnail viewers — are available in both
file system and zip folders (where this feature is available, e.g. windows
XP/ME etc).
√ Full drag/drop and shell
context menu support, for integration with the desktop
√ Separable tree view; one can
have both the tree view and the two contents panes visible at the same time
√ Multifunctional address bar,
for specifying folder names and visual filters, plus for running windows or
DOS applications.
√ Dockable Thumbnail bar, for
previewing popular graphics formats (jpg, bmp, gif, etc.) plus HTML and M/S
Office documents.
√ Efficient navigation,
supporting bookmarks, folder history and internet-style back/next folder
navigation
√ Shell namespace browser,
allowing the browsing of non-file system folders like Control Panel etc. If
you install a shell extension for FTP and/or ZIP content browsing,
2xExplorer will integrate with that too (does so already for zipfolders in
winXP & 2000).
√ Autocompletion for paths and
other frequently typed information.
√ Copy pathnames of selected
items and preview bitmaps, simplifying clipboard transfers.
√ Optional single-click
activation schemes for both views and tree, to match your usability
patterns.
√ Text editor/viewer. It offers
whatever Notepad lacks: unlimited file sizes, font/color selection, powerful
search and replace, toolbar, keyboard shortcuts etc. It also features a HEX
and a RTF viewer, plus many useful tools for programmers of all sorts.
√ Folder synchronization.
Forget the shortcomings of Briefcase. The dual pane layout of 2xExplorer can
be used to compare the contents of any two folders. The synchronisation is
based either on simple date/size information, or on full binary contents
comparison. Complete sub-trees can also be examined using the unique Mirror
Browsing tool.
√ Find files command. This is
more powerful than the standard windows item, allowing more search criteria,
hence files can be located with greater precision. The search results can be
fed to any of the regular panes for further processing.
√ Folder subtree data. Similar
to TreeSize, this feature can generate information about the number of files
and associated storage for a complete sub-tree beneath some folder. The
results are presented intuitively in a tree control.
√ Batch file creation. Using a
command template to be applied on each one of the selected files, 2xExplorer
can automatically generate MS/DOS batch files ("*.bat"). By executing these
scripts complicated operations can be performed on any arbitrary set of
files (e.g. mass renaming of filename extensions, touching date stamp info,
etc.)
√ Advanced file management.
2xExplorer has built-in commands for touching file dates, splitting &
merging large files, shredding for complete file destruction etc. For NTFS
partitions hard links can be created, too.
MailWasher
Version: 1.3.2.9
Author: Nick Bolton
Web Site:
http://mailwasher.net
Freeware
Rating: 5 Geezers
Over the last few weeks I’ve looked at over a dozen programs
which purport to reduce the SPAM in your mail box. I think every Internet
user is disgusted with the daily deluge of this crap – smaller body parts,
larger body parts, better working body parts, sex, raw porn, medical
insurance, life insurance, make money and on and on and on…. I’ve even seen
come commentators suggest that this will be the death of the Internet. Who
knows?
Anyway, there are 2 primary ways a user can fight SPAM (some
ISPs are filtering, but I think this is a REAL BAD idea) – review mail on
the email server at your ISP and then download only the good stuff, or with
a plug-in for your email program which operates on a set of rules and move
suspected SPAM to a separate folder for disposal.
I much prefer the latter, but have yet to find a program that
works well for those of us with LAN style connections, i.e. always on. I had
great hope for Spamnet from Cloudmark, but recent iterations are less stable
and less accurate – not a good combination.
Of the former genre, this program is one of the best, AND
it’s free! The operation is simple and very intuitive. Be careful, when you
delete a mail message it’s G-O-N-E! My main objection to this approach.
√
Bounce back unwanted e-mails so it looks as if your email address is not
valid. This will make the sender think your address is no longer active so
your name can be removed from their list. This unique feature is great for
privacy and it couldn’t be simpler!
√
Delete unwanted e-mails before you download them. You’ll be able to see who
the email is from, the subject, and the attachment. This will enable you to
decide if you want to delete the email or keep it. A great way to stop
viruses or large attachments.
√
Status. MailWasher analyses each email as it arrives and warns you if it is
suspected junk mail or a virus by heuristic checking and filtering. The
standard status categories are - Normal, Virus, Possibly virus, Possibly
spam, Probably spam, Chain letter, Blacklisted, Blacklisted by (ORDB, Spam
Cop etc).
√
Blacklist. Any e-mails you bounce back get their senders details put on the
blacklist for easy removal if they come back. You can even set it to
automatically bounce and delete blacklisted e-mails, or whole domains off
the server. Plus, MailWasher can use external blacklists such as ORDB, Spam
Cop, VISI or you can specify your own.
√
Friends List. Add your friends email addresses to MailWasher and they will
always be recognized. You can even hide your friends from the screen so the
spam is easy to recognize.
√
Preview. You can preview the message in your email to see what the sender
has to say before downloading it. Just double click on the message.
√
Filtering. Effective filtering to automatically spot spam, plus it uses a
customizable list of blacklisted e-mail senders and/or regular expressions
to filter out potential spammer addresses and messages.
myIE2
Version: 0.50.824
Web Site:
http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm
Freeware
Rating: Unknown
This is an unusual listing for me. As I write this, myIE2
Final has been out les than 24 hours. If you like the idea of a tabbed
browser where you keep multiple browser windows open, you might well
consider this program. Prior versions have been encumbered by a Chinese
language web side and unusable documentation. There’s still a way to go, but
the web site is vastly improved, albeit slow at times, and the documentation
is improving.
I’m listing this here for people that like to try new things
and watch a program grow. If you like the idea of a tabbed browser and want
a more mature share product, try
NetCaptor – an excellent alternative and only 30 bucks. For the more
adventurous, try this.
Final Thought:
"A criminal is
a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a
corporation." - Howard Scott
Steve
Mills has been reviewing software in different capacities for many years.
He
has recently left his job with a search engine consulting firm and is
looking for a new adventure.
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Halloween
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