Posts Tagged: ‘Internet’

Finding Free Software – Originally Published November 2015

November 22, 2015 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I was looking back through some of the old newsletters when I saw an article about the annual club software disk.  Tom used to work hard at making all club members a CD with several freeware/shareware programs that were always useful.  Being a frugal computer user, I often got a gem or two from the annual Christmas gift.

I don’t think we should return to the days of an annual disk, but I thought I’d share my methods of obtaining free software.  Keep in mind that nothing is free.  We’ve all heard the saying “when something is free, you are the product.”  Although not necessarily always true, often you pay a price for “free” software by giving up personal data, looking at advertisements, getting fewer features, etc.

No, I’m not making a plea to turn back the clock.  Instead I thought I’d write about where to find useful software for zero or little charge.  Although I’m not going to recommend any software as being “better”, I will mention that I’m writing this article with LibreOffice Writer, a module of the LibreOffice suite.  You can download it for free at LibreOffice – the document foundation.

When looking for free software, a good idea is to load your favorite internet search engine and include the words free or freeware in your search terms.  Refine your results as necessary.  For instance, when I became the newsletter editor, I searched for “best freeware newsletter software”.  Search engine suggestions (usually found near the bottom) soon made me realize that I was really looking for desktop publishing software.  It wasn’t long before I found several programs that I plan to test.

There are many sites that offer lists and reviews of different categories of software.  Almost all of them have a search function.  Those that don’t have menu buttons to easily find what you are looking for.

My favorite is one that I have often talked about.  Gizmo’s Freeware is a community site with several members that curate lists of freeware in different categories.  Recently, they have also added reviews for free to try and paid programs.  I have found this to be one of the best software resources on the internet.

Major Geeks goal is to provide the top one percent of editor tested freeware downloads.  They’ve been on the internet since 2001, so they must be doing something right.  There is also an active user forum.

FileHippo is another site where you can find many popular freeware programs for downloading.  A unique feature of the website is the FileHippo App Manager.  This is a small utility that scans your installed software and notifies you of programs that have an available update.  The app only works for programs that are hosted on the site.

The Giveaway of the Day website offers one free license software title each day.  The programs are available for only twenty four hours.  Software companies do this with the hope that you will like the program enough to purchase it.  Many days the free program isn’t the best, but there is the occasional gem.

A fellow by the name of Nir Sofer has written more than a hundred utilities.  They are mostly small, stand alone programs that are easy to use and solve a specific problem.  Best of all, they are all free.  You can check them out at Nirsoft.

There are many other places to find free software.  Some are good and some are not so reliable.  Watch out for sites that hide their download links.  They may try to fool you by having you click on a big download button for software you don’t want while putting the correct link at the bottom of the page where it is easy to miss.  Before installing unknown software, do an internet search of the program name.  If you use a keyword such as problems, you might find something to change your mind.  The more reviews you read, the better informed you will be.  You will soon get a “feel” whether or not the program is worth trying.

Thanks for reading.

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Why You Should Get Your Own Domain – Originally Published February 2015

February 7, 2015 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I’ve owned my domain name since May 10, 2001.  No, this article isn’t going to be a long plug for my website.  I’m going to try and convince you to register your own domain.  I’ve long believed that everyone should have a presence on the internet.  It’s kind of like having a phone number.

The biggest reason you should probably get a domain name is so that you can easily control your e-mail.  If your e-mail address is YourName@suddenlink.net, you would lose it if you want to change your Internet Service Provider to AT&T or another company.  It would be a real pain in the you know what to have to change your e-mail address with all of your contacts.  For me, it would be even harder to have to make the change on all of the websites I’ve registered with.

If you had your own domain, you could have the e-mail address of YourName@yourdomain.com or .net, or .org, etc.  You would keep that e-mail for as long as you owned the domain.  Never again would you have to change your e-mail address.

Many people avoid those problems by registering their e-mail with Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc.  One of the problems with this method is that you are often limited in your mailbox storage, size of attachments, composition tools, security, etc.  Free e-mail also usually includes free advertisements.

Many computer users have a “junk” mail address.  This is one that they only use for message boards, free offers or other sites that you don’t want to have your real e-mail.  With your own domain, you control all your e-mail addresses.  For example, I often create a one time address for sites.  I usually make an e-mail like del0201@tinys-bs.com.  This lets me know that I can delete the mail address on February 1.  One more advantage to having your own e-mail control is that if you give an address to a specific place and all of a sudden you get spammed at that e-mail, you know who compromised you.  You can then delete the address and never deal with them again.

Owning your domain isn’t expensive.  For instance HostGator, the club’s web hosting service, charges $12.95 a year to register SWLAPCUG.org.  Hosting services are $7.16 a month.  If you sign up for three years, the rates drop to $12.98 and $3.96.  If you do a web search you will find many companies and many different pricing plans.

For that low fee, you get unlimited e-mail addresses, disk space and bandwidth.  There are several other hosting features that you may or may not want to use.

E-mail isn’t the only reason you might want to consider having your own domain.  You can easily make a website to show off your hobbies, a family photo album, share recipes, or do like me: just plain BS.

Other things I’ve used my domain name(s) for is to give family members their own e-mail address, host private chat rooms, store files, etc.

That’s all of my thoughts for February.  My mind is empty again.  Thanks for reading.

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Obsolete Technology A to Z – Originally Published January 2015

January 11, 2015 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Over the years, I’ve written many articles on technology terminology.  This is another one of them.  It originally started as a Mind Bender quiz, but soon evolved into a list of obsolete technology, terminology, companies, etc.  I hope you enjoy learning the alphabet from A to Z.

A is for Amiga computers, the last product line of Commodore International.  That was the company that brought us the VIC-20, the Commodore 64 and many other great computers.
B is for Beta Max tapes.  They have become obsolete along with the letter V.
C is for Circuit City.  After the bankruptcy, the brand name was purchased by Systemax and lived for a while on the internet.  Even that is no longer with us.
D is for dial up modems.  I imagine that someone somewhere is still using one.  Can you remember calling someone on the telephone and getting that unique sound?
E is for ENIAC, the first computer.  It was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army.
F is for floppy disks.  They started big and got smaller.  Finally they disappeared.  CDs and DVDs probably won’t be around very long.
G is for Google Reader, which was an RSS aggregator operated by Google.  Although it was still popular, Google discontinued it.
H is for Honeywell computers.  Still in business today, Honeywell International ceased manufacturing computers in 1989.
I is for Infocom.  If you’ve read any of my past articles, you’ll know that I think they produced some of the best games ever.  My all time favorite was Suspended.
J is for the Jupiter Ace.  In 1983, it was advertised as possibly the fastest computer in the universe.  Instead of BASIC or CP/M, the machine’s default operating language was FORTH.
K is for Kinescope, at one time the cutting edge of video technology.
L is for Laserdisc, a video technology that never really made it to the big time.
M is for Mosaic, one of the first graphical web browsers.
N is for Netscape, once the dominant browser for surfing the internet.  The final version was released in February 2008.
O is for Olivetti, once a well known typewriter manufacturer that branched out into making computers.  They are still in business as a subsidiary of an Italian telecommunications company.
P is for Pager.  It used to be the machine that made the noise in movie theaters.  Supposedly, you were important if you carried one.
Q is for Quantum Link which later became America Online.  Q-Link was one of the first on line bulletin boards.
R is for Rolodex.  Does anyone still use these index cards to keep track of their contacts?
S is for Slide Projector.  The only time you hear about slides anymore is when someone wants to know how to digitize them.
T is for typewriters.  There is still a company that makes them, but you won’t see them in use very much.
U is for UNIVAC, the first general purpose computer for commercial use.  It was also the first computer to correctly predict the outcome of a presidential election.
V is for VHS tapes.  They have become obsolete along with the letter B.
W is for Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0 Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows Millennium, Windows 98, etc.
X is for the xD-Picture Card.  These flash memory cards were only used in Olympus and Fujifilm cameras.  They were expensive and replaced by SD cards.
Y is for Y2K which on January 1, 2000 was going to be the end of the world because computers wouldn’t be able to correctly calculate the date.
Z is for Z-DOS, a forked version of MS-DOS designed to run on the Zenith computer.  I was originally going to make Z for Zenith, but they are still around.  LG owns the brand and sells a few items.

That’s all of my thoughts for January. My mind is empty again. Thanks for reading.

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My Thoughts on the Sony Data Hack

December 12, 2014 Posted by Tiny

If you read a newspaper, watch the television, surf the internet or probably even have a casual conversation on the street, you’ve probably heard someone’s opinion about the Sony data breach.  I’ve got my own impression.  Want to hear it?

HO HUM!  What’s new?  I’m not surprised.

In October of 2012, I wrote an article titled “Companies I Dislike a Lot“.  One of the companies I mentioned was Sony.  I haven’t changed my mind since then.  With the exception of watching Jeopardy and a few Sony movies, I haven’t put any of my money into their coffers.

This isn’t Sony’s first data problem.  In 2009, George Hotz (the first person to jailbreak the iPhone) announced that he was going to hack the PlayStation 3.  The following year he did so.  Sony retaliated by suing him.  They went so far as to obtain the IP addresses of everyone that visited Hotz’s website.

In response, the hacker group Anonymous sent this warning to Sony:

“Your corrupt business practices are indicative of a corporate philosophy that would deny consumers the right to use products they have paid for and rightfully own, in the manner of their choosing. Perhaps you should alert your customers to the fact that they are apparently only renting your products? In light of this assault on both rights and free expression, Anonymous, the notoriously handsome rulers of the internet, would like to inform you that you have only been ‘renting’ your web domains. Having trodden upon Anonymous’ rights, you must now be trodden on.”

About two weeks later, Anonymous launched an attack on the PlayStation Network.  They shut the network down for 23 days and obtained the personal details of about 77 million PlayStation customers.  Even with advanced warning, Sony didn’t protect their customers.  Doesn’t that seem like a company that doesn’t care?

In the next several months, there were many attacks on Sony servers.  In June of 2011, the hacker group LulzSec broke in to the Sony Pictures servers and obtained private information including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, etc. of over one million customers.  Why did they do it?  This was their statement.

“Our goal here is not to come across as master hackers, hence what we’re about to reveal: SonyPictures.com was owned by a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now. From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING. Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?“

The hackers said that all of the extremely sensitive data was easy to find and stored in plain text.  Does this sound familiar?  Compare it with the recent hack.  I’ll repeat myself, “HO HUM!  What’s new?  I’m not surprised.”

Why does Sony keep getting hacked?  I think it is for two reasons.  Sony doesn’t care about their customers.  Starting with the DRM rootkit, they have made decisions that are both legally and morally wrong.  Many of these customers are also hackers.  They get upset and retaliate.

Secondly, Sony makes it easy for hackers to hack them.  They obviously have not learned any lessons from previous attacks.  They don’t seem to have done much to fix their security problems.

When I think about the latest Sony hack, my first thought is, “Great.  I still have not forgiven them for putting a root kit on my computers.”  I do feel sorry for all of the Sony employees whose data is readily available for downloading.  They did no wrong.  Too bad that corporate thinks as little of their workers as they do of their customers.

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Are Apple Products Safe? – Originally Published February 2014

September 6, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I did it again.  Sometimes I just can’t keep my mouth shut.  The other day, I was at Best Buy waiting in the Geek Squad line.  Yes I know.  Going to the Geek Squad for a computer repair is kind of like going to Burger King for a steak.  It’s not going to happen.  Anyway, that’s another story.

There were two ladies in front of me in the line.  One of them was carrying a laptop and a copy of Webroot Secure Anywhere.  She was telling the other gal how she had called Best Buy.  They told her to bring her computer in and they would clean the viruses an reset the password.  The second lady told her, “You need to get a Mac.  If you’ve got windows then you have a virus.”

That’s when I opened my mouth and asked her why I didn’t have any viruses on any of my four windows computers.  She quickly changed the subject and started talking about how she didn’t have to worry about getting hacked.  I said, “You obviously haven’t heard about Mat Honan.”

She hadn’t, so I briefly explained to her how Mat Honan’s Apple account was fairly easily hacked.  Mat Honan is a writer for Wired magazine.  One of his most widely read articles was about how his digital life was ruined by hackers in less than an hour.  Hackers got the last four numbers of his credit card from Amazon.  (These numbers are available on many web sites.  They then called Apple and asked for a password reset using the same numbers for identity verification.  After that it was simply a matter of changing passwords on all accounts.  Honan then could not access any of his data.

I’m not rehashing this story to trash Apple.  My point is that all computers are vulnerable to viruses and/or hackers.  It’s almost always because of operator error.  I’m knocking on wood as I tell you that I’ve never had any malware problems that shut me down.  Over the years, the worst thing that has happened is the root kit I got from a Sony music CD.  After all these years, I’m still steaming over that incident and refuse to knowingly purchase any Sony products.

The easiest way to clean viruses and malware from you computer is to not let them install in the first place.  It doesn’t make a difference if you’re a Windows or Apple user.  Use a good anti-virus program.  Read EULAs and all carefully check boxes when you install software.  Don’t blindly click on links in e-mail, even if it is from someone you know.  Be wary of clicking links in forum posts, especially if the poster is new to the group.

Keep your web browser updated.  On sites visit often I sometimes click on a ad, not because I’m interested in buying something, but to send a little cash to the web site owner.  Be careful if you do this.  Many of these advertisements lead to bad sites.  I’ll click an ad for a reputable company much faster than one that tells me I can get rich quickly.  It doesn’t really make a difference if you use Windows, Apple, Linux or anything else.  It’s almost always the operator that causes problems.

Thanks for reading.

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TunnelBear VPN – Originally Published March 2014

August 28, 2014 Posted by Tiny

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.

Do you ever download from the internet on unsecured wireless networks?  If you answered “no” to that question, I can say that you are most likely not telling the truth.  The first thing almost everyone does when they come to our monthly meeting is log in to the local WI‑FI.  It is probably safer than the local McDonald’s, Starbucks, or library.  Personally, I’m not willing to bet my personal data on that.

That’s why I use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).  Put simply, a VPN is a group of computers networked together over a public network, namely the internet.  A VPN client is the software that allows you to enter an encrypted network and access the internet.  Anyone intercepting your data will not be able to decipher and read it.

If you search for “free VPN”, “best VPN”, etc. you will find literally thousands of VPN clients.  Of course they will all tell you why they are the best.  I like TunnelBear. I’m not going to tell you it is the best, but I’ll try to convince you that it is pretty good.  The first thing I like about TunnelBear is that it is a Canadian company.  This means that they aren’t subject to a National Security Agency court order.  It’s really not that big a thing, but I know the NSA spies so why make it any easier for them.  TunnelBear has servers in seven different countries.  They create a secure, encrypted connection between your internet device and the host country you are connecting to.

TunnelBear is easy to download and setup.  There is no need for the user to learn about network protocols, IP addresses, encryption levels, etc.  After downloading and installing the program, an account must be created.  The only user information required is name, e-mail address and password.  No need for your phone number, address or Mother’s middle name.

Like all other VPN companies, TunnelBear offers both a free and paid service.  Their free service gives you 500 MB of free data every month.  This should be plenty for the occasional user.  A bonus 1 GB can be obtained by promoting them on Twitter.

TunnelBear is easy to setup and use.  Give it a try and see if you like it.  You can download TunnelBear here.

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

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Funny Stuff On The Internet – Originally Published May 2013

August 16, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

My grandson twisted my arm last month and forced me to take him to CyPhaCon.  When I was younger, I went to a lot of science fiction conventions.  Back then it was mostly Star Trek conventions.  Now that I’m older, I have a hard time remembering if I’m a “Trekkie” or a “Trekker”.  SciFi conventions are a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, they can be pretty dangerous too.  That is why you always see uniformed police officers on duty.  About the only thing that is really safe is the healthy food you can buy.

The internet is a lot like a SciFi convention.  There are so many things to see and do.  You can even read stupid articles written by old men that ramble on about gatherings of SciFi people.  Everyone also knows about the dangers and we all keep our antivirus programs updated. I know that all of the SWLAPCUG club members have recently checked their router firmware for updates and have their firewalls activated to keep the bad guys away.  Since everyone is so safe, I thought that this month I’d talk about some of the fun things to do on the internet.

There’s about 161,000,000 of them.  I know that everyone doesn’t have the same idea of what’s fun, but maybe if I tell you about my favorite sites, you might find something entertaining.

One of the things you can find a lot of on the internet are free games to play.  If you’re looking for games, a good place to start is the Freeware Genius lists of top games.  My personal favorite online game is Texas Hold’em Poker.  There are a lot of places to play, but you’ll usually find me at World Series Poker at games.com.  If you like to play hearts, I recommend you try Bicycle Hearts at the Microsoft Gaming Zone.  The Gaming Zone has been around for quite a while and they have lots of games.

I’ve never been much of a television or movie watcher, but I love to listen to the old time radio shows.  Most evenings I’m listening to The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Jack Benny, or my personal favorite, Fibber McGee & Molly.  My hard drive has about 21 GB of radio program files.  One of the best places to find them is at The Internet Radio Archive.

In December 1995, Bill Watterson retired from cartooning and I lost my daily dose of one of the funniest cartoons ever.  Now, thanks to the internet, I can still read Calvin & Hobbes everyday.  You can probably find a daily comic you’ll like at GOCOMICS, AZ Central, or ArcaMax Publishing.  None of the comics sites require registration.  Make sure you check out Pickles, another one of my favorites.

“The Alphabet has been Updated with 15 Exciting New Letters” is only one of the funny satires you’ll find in The Onion.  The fictional paper was started in 1988.  They have been around more that twenty years, so they must be doing something right.  Their fictionalized news seems so genuine that it has occasionally been cited as real news.  I’ve got to warn you though.  There is often adult language used in the paper.  Another funny satire site is the Bongo News.

Another web site that never fails to make me laugh is Geezer Planet, a senior citizen humor site.  If you like senior citizen humor, you also might like to check out Geezer Guff.

The Darwin Awards is a chronicle of enterprising demises honoring those who improve the species…by accidentally removing themselves from it!

Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but I think some of the videos on You Tube are extremely funny.  I also visit the College Humor website almost every day.

Sometimes when I’m really bored, I click the Random Link Generator 40 or 50 times and end up finding an interesting web site to browse.

As you might or might not know, I’m a transplanted Northerner.  When I talk with my brother and sisters on Facebook, I usually translate into Southern for them.  Everybody gets a few laughs.  Translating into a dialect is easy when you use The Dialectizer.  As I write this you can convert into eight different dialects.  It hardly ever fails to make me laugh.

Here is a sample:
As y’all might o’ might not know, I’m a transplanted No’therner.  When ah talk wif mah brother an’ sisters on Facebook, ah usually translate into Southern fo’ them, dawgone it.  Ev’rybody gits a few laughs.  Translatin’ into a dialeck is easy when yo’ use Th’ Dialeckizer.  As ah write this hyar yo’ kin cornvaht into eight diffrunt dialecks.  It hardly evah fails t’make me laugh.

That’s just a few of the things I like to do on the internet for fun.  I hope you enjoyed them too and maybe found a new site you’ll visit often.  Do you have a favorite place you think everyone should know about?  Why not take a minute right now and go to the club website.  Log in, go to the forums and post the link so we can all check it out.

Oh, by the way, the grandson is already making plans for a costume for next years CyPhaCon.  I suspect it might be one that is also suitable for Contraband Days.

Thanks for reading.

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Selling It Emails – Originally Published February 2013

August 6, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

Would you believe that it has taken me a whole year to write this column?  That may sound like braggadocio, but it’s almost true.  I’ve spent the whole year of 2012 gathering data for this article.

As you may or may not know, one of the reasons I’ve kept my internet domain name is so that I can have a whole lot of email addresses.  I usually use one email address for each site that requires registration.  If I start getting a lot of spam, I can easily tell who probably sold my address.  If I would start getting spam on my club email, I could assume that one of our members may have gotten hacked.

During the holidays of 2011, I noticed that emails from sites trying to sell me stuff seemed to increase.  I got curious and on January 1, 2012, I changed my e-mail filters to automatically forward sales mail to a special folder.  For an entire year, I saved the e-mails from the following sites:

AARP
Amazon
Best Buy
Books A Million
HP
Zinio

The only e-mails I saved were the ones that I didn’t expect.  For instance mail confirming purchases went into their normal folders.  Mail from Amazon asking me to rate products were not saved.

Which site do you think was the worst mailer?  You may be surprised.  I was.

I received 268 unrequested communications from Books A Million.  In fairness, I must tell you that a portion of them were due to an error by me.  I originally signed up with the company when I purchased a discount membership card at the local store.  In October, I made an online purchase and accidentally used the wrong mail address (books instead of book).  You guessed it.  I started getting email from them two at a time.  I used their unsubscribe link on one address, but it didn’t work.  These days, Books A Million is getting a return to sender error message.

The 111 emails I got from AARP didn’t really surprise me.  After all, their monthly magazine usually has about 30 advertising inserts.  These emails are all definitely from sales of my address.  I’ve changed my filter.  If AARP ever sends me something important, I won’t see it because it goes right to the deleted folder.

The 100 emails from Amazon were suggestions of products that I might like.  I’ll never know if I like any of them, because I didn’t read any.

I was surprised that Best Buy only sent me 30 emails.  That was even less that the 65 sent by HP.  Go figure!

Zinio is a magazine subscription service that tried 27 times to sell me a new magazine subscription.  I don’t spend nearly that much time in the bathroom.

I didn’t check monthly totals, but I noticed a marked increase between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wonder why?  If you do a lot of online buying, consider your email setup, there are several places on the internet where you can get a free email address.  Don’t clutter your inbox with mail you don’t really want.

That’s all for this month.  Thanks for reading.

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Web Design Reminiscing – Originally Published June 2012

July 31, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I was browsing the internet the other day when I stumbled across the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.  Of course, I couldn’t resist typing in my web address and looking back at what I used to have published online.  They had a snapshot of my web site as far back as 2001.  That would have been right after I bought my domain name and moved it from the web hosting at AOL.  Back then, if you paid AOL a bunch of money each month, you could get “free” web space.  I started my web site in 1995.  At one time, I had two web sites and averaged about 200 visitors a day.

Things have changed a lot since then.  Flash was still in its infancy and many internet surfers refused to visit sites that used flash.  Of course, this was before it was Adobe Flash.  Originally, it was Future Flash and then became Macromedia Flash.  I blocked Flash way back then.  Today, I use the flash blocker plug in and don’t often let flash run in my browser.

Web sites didn’t have many graphics in those day.  Broadband had yet to be invented.  It could take several minutes to download a simple picture.  Internet surfers didn’t waste their time looking at a cute picture of a dog.  If you did include a media file on your site, it was good manners to let visitors know the file size before they downloaded it.  I remember the first time I uploaded my BS to the internet.  It took almost two hours for a relatively small site.

Another thing I remember is that almost all sites had a guest book.  Visitors would fill in what information they wanted to disclose and click the submit button.  Anybody else that visited the site could view all the guest book entries.  The Netscape browser introduced us to cookies.  The original “magic cookie” just checked to see if it was your first visit to the web site.

I remember when I made my first foray onto the internet.  The first decision was what browser to buy.  I decided to use the Netscape Navigator because they had a free trial period.  Almost the whole web was nothing but text.

I can’t tell you that Google was the greatest search engine in those days.  Google hadn’t been invented then.  There wasn’t a real index of internet web sites.  The first attempt to index FTP sites was called Archie.  Gopher was one of the first “point and click” search engines and was created by students at the University of Minnesota.

Twenty years ago, if you wanted a web site you had to at least learn the basics of HTML coding.  In the modern world, there are hundreds of programs you can use to create a website for free.  All you really need to know how to do is enter your content.

That’s enough reminiscing.  Personal websites are both easy and cheap.  Why don’t you make one for your family and friends?

Thanks for reading.

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Finding Free Software – Originally Published November 2011

July 23, 2014 Posted by Tiny

A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch

I’ve been thinking about buying a program for my computer.  Wait!  Don’t call the medics!  I haven’t lost my mind yet.  My money is still in my pocket.  I’m not in a hurry to decide if I really need it.

People who know me can tell you that I don’t normally spend my dollars for stuff I can get for free.  I guess it’s my Dutch heritage.  With three exceptions, all of the software on my computers is freeware.  Part of the purchase price of a computer is used to pay for the operating system.  I’m fairly certain that if that wasn’t so, I would be an avid Linux user today.  After all, that penguin is kind of cute.

My most recent software purchase was about a year and a half ago.  I had used Outlook for several years but replaced it instead of paying that huge upgrade fee.  Then one day, I was visiting Fort Polk and I found a copy of Microsoft Outlook 2007 for $50.  It was marked down to make room for Outlook 2010.  In a moment of weakness, I parted with some cash.  It isn’t likely that I’ll ever be upgrading the program.

My final program that I paid for was originally a shareware that I purchased for ten dollars if I remember correctly.  VuePrint is an image viewer that can also do minor editing.  I originally purchased it because I liked how fast you could view and print images.  About three years ago, the author quit updating the software and released it as freeware.  It’s still my default image viewer.  If you want to try it, you can download it here: VuePrint – Free Image Viewer

I’m getting to be a little older and kind of turning into a curmudgeon.  I don’t often look for new software, but when I do, the first place I look is Gizmo’s Freeware.  On this site you can search by software categories, do a search for a topic or you can read various lists such as all of the free software from Microsoft.  Another great feature of this web site is the Security Wizard.  By answering a few questions, you get a recommendation of which free anti-virus and other protection software is best for your computer.

Another great place to find no cost software is the Freeware Genius.  The motto of this website is “Someday all software will be free”.  Besides the free software, this site also features a list of free magazines.  Most of them are technical, but the list is extensive.  Check it out.  You might find something useful.

You can find, create and publish open source software for free at SourceForge.  Sometimes I go to this site just to check the statistics at the top of the home page.  As I write this article, SourceForge has 317,952 projects listed.  That is a lot of programs.  (I wonder if they make a hard drive big enough to hold them all?)  I’ve found that the real computer geeks hang out on this site.

A few other places to find freeware are Donation Coder, the Freeware Geeks and NirSoft.  Nirsoft is unique because it has more than a hundred programs, all written by one person.  Many of them are small utilities that are really useful.

Free software is really nice but you should remember that free lunches are pretty good too.  Neither is really free.  They just require a different kind of payment.  Some programs are scaled down versions that entice you to buy the full program.  Some require personal information.  Many of these programs are written with the hope that users will like them so much they will make a payment to the author.  I’ve done just that for some of the indispensable software I use.

If you start downloading and installing free software, be extra careful.  I recommend doing a Google search with the software name and the word “problems” or “reviews”.  If there are a lot of hits, be suspicious.  There is a lot of free stuff that comes with a free Virus or Trojan.  Download only from a trusted page.  Before you install, scan with your anti-virus program.

One last link that you can check to find some good free software links is our Club Website.  Log in and check the posts.  You can also review the older club newsletters.  A lot of freeware has been reviewed in the past.

If you’ve got a favorite free program, why not take a few minutes and let the rest of the club members know about it?  Write a short review and post it on the club’s website or send it to the Newsletter Editor.  Remember our club motto?  It is “Users Helping Users”.

Thanks for reading.

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