Tinys World of Technology BS

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

Before reading this article, you must explicitly agree to abide by the following terms and conditions.  If you do not agree, please either close the newsletter or immediately hit the page down key.

“This review can only be perused during daylight hours except on weekends, holidays, a family birthday, or a solar eclipse.  In the event you decide to continue, you agree that you will not disagree with the author unless you are under the care of a state certified psychiatrist.  By continuing, you are granting permission to the newsletter editor to collect your personal information and sell it to other computer clubs.  The author of this article can change it any time without informing the readers.  Information in this article can be true or false without any repercussions to the author.”

If you’re reading this paragraph, you probably realize that the lead in was probably not enforceable.  I have no idea whether or not it is.  All I know is that almost every program I install on my computer(s) make me read and agree to an End User License Agreement (EULA).  They are often full of lots of legal terms and big words.  Many of them are several pages long.  I’m pretty sure that most EULAs were written by lawyers.

There have been several surveys and tests that show that most end users just check the agree box and install the software.  One company put a clause in the EULA telling customers how to claim a $1000 prize.  It was not claimed until after more than 3000 program installs.

Do you, like most computer users, not read the EULA?  So am I.  Don’t be surprised at that statement.  I hardly ever read a EULA.  I let the computer do it for me.

EULAlyzer Personal is a utility that scans user agreements and analyzes them for “key words” or phrases in the EULA.  It is an easy program to use.  When the EULA shows on your monitor (usually in a small window that you can’t re-size), simply select “scan new license agreement” and drag the cursor to the EULA.

EULAyzer then scans the document and searches to see if the software you’re about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, and much more.  Troublesome phrases in the EULA are highlighted so you can easily review the appropriate phrase.

Occasionally, EULAs are found on a web page or some other file.  In this case, you can copy and paste the document into EULAlyzer and analyze it as previously described for potential problems.  You can also review Terms of Service agreements by the same method.

As an added bonus, you can save the EULAs to a file on your computer and read them at you leisure.

EULAlyzer is not the ultimate program and does not offer any advice, but only suggestions.  It is a good utility that I recommend you keep in your junk fighting toolbox.  Did I mention the price?  You can download and install the program for a one time payment of $0.00.

You can download EULAlyzer here.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n.  Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1.  A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2.  An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

This month, I thought I’d take a few minutes and revisit a program I told you about almost two years ago.  It’s the password program that I use every day when I’m computing.  KeePass Password Safe creates strong passwords and keeps them safe.

I use a lot of passwords in my daily computing.  As of this writing, I’ve got 63 e-mail addresses.  I have eighteen passwords that I use to manage them.  I frequent 7 different forums, each with separate password.  Then there are my gaming site passwords.  Five right now.  Did I forget to mention my military and medical passwords?  Eight of them.  Then there are on line shopping passwords and the most important one of all – the one that logs me into the SWLAPCUG web site.  I’ve got more than 50 passwords that I use fairly frequently.

The first week of every month, I change the passwords for websites that keep important data.  It seems that some company or government office is always being compromised and losing important data.  For most web sites, I use hard to break passwords.  Want to see one of my sample passwords?  1+;edYXEQ)-|gvUWxSOZ`B~4ym,x]~U|MV$Hpm&} is a password that I’ve used in the past to gain access to my military retired pay and allotment information.  As you can see, it would be pretty hard for anyone to guess what it is.

The program I use to manage all of those passwords is KeePass Password Safe.  It is a really easy to use utility that helps you to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe.  It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple to use database that is encrypted so that only you can access it.

KeePass Password Safe stores all of your passwords in groups.  That makes it extremely easy to quickly find the one you want.  The program does more than just store the passwords; it also lets you easily copy them onto a Web page or an application.  You can drag and drop them, copy them to the clipboard, or copy them using a hot key.  A great feature that was added since my last review is “Perform Auto Type”.  This feature automatically fills in user names and passwords.

KeePass also features a plugin framework.  Plugins can provide additional functionality, like support of more file formats for import/export, network functionalities, backup features, etc.

One of the best features of KeePass is the random password generator which creates passwords with characteristics that you specify.  That way you can tailor your passwords as needed.  For example, some websites won’t let you create a password with underlines while others might require a specific password length.  KeePass makes it easy to create any password.

The program also includes support for TAN (Transactional Access Numbers) passwords and allows you to create TAN lists which automatically expire a password once it has been used . Other features include auto-lock, database search and import/export.  There are many more features.

Of Course, KeePass also fits in with one of my most demanding prerequisites.  The cost is Zero!  KeePass is open source.  You can read more about the program on the KeePass Password Safe Home Page.  Give it a try.  I don’t think that you’ll be disappointed.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk; a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

Usually, when I take photographs, my procedure is to take about twenty of them at a time.  I figure that I should get one good picture out of that many.  On those rare occasions that I don’t get a keeper, I just edit it like it was a shark jumping at a helicopter.  The program that I use most often for editing is Paint.NET, an open-source, free photo editing software program.  It was originally created as a student project in 2004, funded by Microsoft.  It was designed to replace Microsoft Paint, which was included in Windows.

Paint.NET has many advanced features which include blurring, sharpening, the Magic Wand which allows for the selecting of regions of similar color and the Clone Stamp which is used for copying or erasing portions of an image.

Layers are another great feature of Paint.Net.  They allow you to add a layer on top of the background that not only allows you to add new items on top of others, but to edit them independently of the other layers.

The program has a large number of special effects.  These allow you to alter the appearance of your image.  You can use blurs, sepia toning, color level altering, ink sketch transformations, anti red-eye, distortions such as bulging, denting and pixelation.  The software has a huge following of users that are constantly creating and sharing other special effects and plug-ins.

Another great feature is unlimited undo history.  You can make as many changes as want.  If they don’t look good, just undo and do over as often as you like.

There is also an active online community and forum.  They will give you any extra help that you might need.  You can also find several tutorials and guides.

Did I mention Paint.NETs best feature is the cost?  The price is free, although the author will accept any donations.  Give it a try.  You might like it.  You can download Paint.NET here.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, bonus perk; a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

Right now I’m sitting in front of my desktop computer writing this article for the newsletter.  At the same time, I’m using my machine to watch a full screen movie.  I’m also playing a Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament.  I’m also copying some files to  one of my portable machines.  Using more than one monitor makes it a lot easier to do.

One of the bad things about using more than one monitor is also one of my general Windows annoyances.  Sometimes when you temporarily change screen resolution or crash your system, you lose your carefully arranged icon layout on your desktop.  It’s especially aggravating when you get used to clicking on an icon that is always in the same place.  If your screen layout changes after a computer crash, it becomes real easy to accidentally launch the wrong program.

A program that comes to the rescue is DesktopOK, a basic, compact program that lets you save and restore the positions of your desktop icons.  It’s nothing fancy, but if you frequently end up with a desktop full of scrambled icons, this program will be a lifesaver.  This freeware program lets you save and restore icon layouts.  Simply set your icons the way you like them and save the layout.  Just restore it later when they become jumbled.

You’re not limited to one layout.  You can save as many as you want, which is handy if you have more than one user.  There are several save options.  You can enable auto saving at various intervals or when Windows is shut down.

DesktopOK does not have to be installed and can be executed easily from the desktop, a flash drive or any other memory device.  Give it a try. I think you’ll like it.  You can find more information or download the program from the authors website.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, bonus perk; a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

There is a really efficient utility program that I’ve been using for several years now.  FileMenu Tools lets you customize the right click menu of Windows Explorer.  The program adds utilities to perform operations on files and folders and adds customized commands that let you run external applications, copy or move to a specific folder or delete specific file types.

With the built in commands you can:
Run With Parameters – Runs a program with parameters that you input in a dialog box.
Command Line From Here – Opens a command line window.
Copy/Move – No need to cut and paste. You can also use filters in your file selection.
Duplicate Files – Make a copy in the same folder.
Pack to Folder – Moves all the selected elements to new subfolder in the current folder.
Copy Path/Name/Content – Copies the selected item(s) to the clipboard.
Attributes – You can view and change them without opening a properties dialog box.
Find and Replace – Lets you find or replace a text for all the files in a selected folder.
Advanced Rename – With lots of options.
Change Icon – Quickly and easily change folder options.
Advanced Delete – lets you delete specific file types in a folder.
Synchronize Two Folders – Lets you synchronize two folders quickly and easily.
Shred Files – Overwrites several times so it is impossible to recover the file in the future.
Send to Mail Recipient – Lets you send an e-mail with selected elements as attachments.

These are about half of the FileMenu commands you can select from.  In the configuration menu, a simple check box will turn off the commands you don’t want to appear when you right click.  If you can’t find the FileMenu function you need, you can add a customized command to run external applications, copy/move to a specific folder or delete specific file types.

FileMenu Tools lets you configure the “Send to” sub-menu.  You can add new items, change the properties of the existing items or delete them.  You also can disable existing “Send to” items in order to hide them from the menu.

FileMenu Tools will also let you enable/disable the commands which are added to the context menu of the Windows Explorer by other programs.  This is the only function that is not one hundred percent reliable.  When it works, it works well, but it doesn‘t catch all of the programs that add to your right click.

Download FileMenu Tools from the developers website.  Give this program a test.  I’m pretty sure that you’ll like it.  FileMenu Tools is a 7.6 MB download and runs on all Windows platforms.  Did I mention the price?  This program is freeware and costs nothing.  While you’re on the Lopesoft website, you can also download and try LopeEdit Lite.  If you do, you’ll probably never use Windows Notepad again.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, bonus perk; a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

I have written about passwords several times, but I thought I’d take a few minutes and tell you about the Password Program that I use every day when I’m computing.  I did a Google Search for “password manager“ and got 5,260,000 results.  I‘ve carefully researched all of them except for the last four million or so.

I use a lot of passwords in my daily computing.  As of this writing, I’ve got 63 e-mail addresses.  I have eighteen passwords that I use to manage them.  I frequent 7 different forums, each with separate password.  Then there are my gaming site passwords.  Five right now.  Did forget to mention my military and medical passwords?  Eight of them.  Then there is on line shopping passwords and the most important one of all – the one that logs me into the SWLACUG web site.  I’ve got more than 50 passwords that I use fairly frequently.

The first week of every month, I change the passwords for websites that keep important data.  It seems that some company or government office is always being compromised and losing important data.  For most web sites, I use hard to break passwords.  Want to see one of my sample passwords? qyF+,CMqaF;+@x!,SdqyF+,CMqaF;+@x!,Sd is a password that used to open my web site for editing.

The program I use to manage all of those passwords is KeePass Password Safe.  It is a really easy to use utility that helps you to keep track of all your passwords while keeping them safe.  It lets you store all of your passwords in a lightweight, simple to use database that is encrypted so that only you can access it.

KeePass Password Safe stores all of your passwords in groups.  That makes it extremely easy to quickly find the one you want.  The program does more than just store the passwords; it also lets you easily copy them onto a Web page or an application.  You can drag and drop them, copy them to the clipboard, or copy them using a hot key.

One of the best features of KeePass is the random password generator which creates passwords with characteristics that you specify.  That way you can tailor your passwords as needed.  For example, some websites won’t let you create a password with underlines while others might require a specific password length.  KeePass makes it easy to create any password.

The program also includes support for TAN (Transactional Access Numbers) passwords and allows you to create TAN lists which automatically expire a password once it has been used.  Other features include auto-lock, database search, import/export.  There are many more features.

Of Course, KeePass also fits in with one of my most demanding prerequisites.  The cost is Zero!  KeePass is open source, which means that there have been a lot of plug-ins developed.  You can read more about the program on the KeePass Password Safe Home Page.  Give it a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

If you like the program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, bonus perk; a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

Everyone has their favorite image viewer program.  Let me tell you a little bit about mine.  I’ve been using VuePrint as my default viewer for about fifteen years now.  When I first started using the program, it was shareware that sold for ten dollars.  About five years ago, the author quit updating VuePrint and released the program as freeware.  It hasn’t been updated since 2007.

You may wonder why I keep using such an old, outdated program.  The answer is simple.  It is very fast and it still works better that most other image viewers.  It doesn’t have a lot of features, but you can crop images, convert image formats and reduce the size of images for e‑mailing.

The program does one thing very well.  If you’ve got a lot of images, you can browse through them extremely fast.  Just press the space bar for the next image or the backspace key for the previous image.  Press the “t” key to view thumbnails.  It’s easy and fast.

Other minor functions are the typical ones found with most image viewers.  You can flip, rotate, mirror, adjust contrast and brightness, etc.  You can also use the program as a movie viewer, but it’s not the best.

Did I mention that this program is fast?  If you’ve got a lot of pictures on your hard drive, why not download it and give it a try?  I think you might use it regularly.  You can download VuePrint here.

If you like this program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.

Some Lagniappe for You
By Tiny Ruisch

la·gniappe (lnyp, ln-yp)
n. Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi
1. A small gift presented by a store owner to a customer with the customer’s purchase.
2. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. Also called regionally boot.

When you click on a link or a file, do you often get an error message telling you that Windows can’t open it?  Then it goes on to tell you that Windows will be happy to connect to the internet and download a program to open the file?

Often that isn’t the best solution.  You might end up with a program you don’t really want on your computer.  Instead of installing Quick Time, Adobe, or some other program, why not just change the file to something that you can open?

Format Factory is a program that converts video, audio and picture files into different formats.  As I write this, it currently converts video files into thirteen different formats.  There are eleven output formats for audio files.  Picture files can be converted into eight formats.  Additionally, you can convert DVDs and CDs into video, audio and ISO/CSO files.

With Format Factory, you can often repair damaged video and audio files and reduce their sizes.  Although I haven’t personally tested it, the program also includes a video and an audio joiner.

The software is extremely easy to use.  In the left hand pane, select the type of program you want to convert.  A sub-menu will open, allowing you to check which file format you want to convert to.  Next, you have to select the file or files to convert, set any options such as sound levels, subtitle fonts, etc.  There are too many options to list in this article.

Format Factory is free of charge for both commercial and personal use.  It is only available for the Windows Operating System (all versions).  Donations are accepted.  There is an extensive help file that rarely needs to be checked.  The program is very intuitive and easy to use.  Give it a try. I think you’ll like it.  You can find more information and download the program from the website.

If you like this program, just tell everyone that you’ve got a SWLAPCUG extra, a bonus perk, a small gift, a present from the club: a little lagniappe.