PCUGR Shareware SIG -
May 26, 2001
Rawls Frazier,
Facilitator
rfrazier
This month
we dedicated ourselves to catching up with Steve! (Sorry to
say, Steve couldn't be with us - he hurt his foot - but his
"virtual" presence was definitely there. Get better
soon, Steve!) As many of our SIG members know, Steve is
tremendously prolific sending out messages on the PCUGR email
list (pcugr) with interesting
web sites, programs, tips and industry tidbits. Trouble is,
it's hard to keep up! So, not to overlook too many of the
fine items, much of our program was exploring Steve's
goodies.
WinPenguins
First
up was a cute little screen decoration called WinPenguins,
based on UNIX X-Windows XPenguins. Fire this guy up and you
have these little Penguins littering your screen. They fall
from above, walk back and forth on the taskbar, up the screen
sides, "helicopter" across the screen (they are
wearing propeller caps - real nerds) and occasionally tumble
down. You can control the numbers, whether or not the
tumblers explode on impact and even how transparent they are
(other screen icons are visible behind the transparent
icons). You can even put on Santa hats for December :-)
Everything (programs, icons, whatever) still works, you just
have these pesky birds running amok all over the place. All
right you Linux fans, imagine the fun you could have sneaking
these little penguins onto one of your heathen Windows users.
Freeware from http://winpenguins.sourceforge.net/.
Special Keys
Disabler
This next program wasn't one of Steve's tips, but, in
combination with WinPenguins, could really get your co-worker
excited. Special Keys Disabler, by default, runs as a tray
application. Once there you can disable (or enable)
"special" keys - those that are invoked with Ctrl
or Alt - for instance, Ctrl-Alt-Del or Alt-tab. Thus, you can
turn off access to the Task Manager or the ability to restart
the machine with the 3-fingered salute. Also turned off will
be the special Windows keys on the keyboard. Not affected,
however, are the ordinary F-keys. If the keys are disabled
and the program exited, the keys stay
disabled! The author, therefore, has made it possible to run
the program with a command line switch so that those who
really need to disable these keys (e.g., to keep kids from
invoking something you don't want them to), it can be setup
to run at startup and shut the keys off. Freeware from Access Codes Software.
VirtualDR
Next
up was a visit to Virtual
DR,
a web site featuring useful tutorials, tips and discussion
groups on a variety of computer topics (not just Windows). We
explored a few of these before taking a look at our next
program.
Cookie Viewer
This
next free utility comes from the now defunct Windows magazine
- one of the nifty programs that arose out of the monthly
Visual Basic programming column by Karen Kenworthy. What
Cookie Viewer lets you do is browse through your collection
of cookies (Netscape or IE). For each one, you get to see
where it is located on your drive, what server has access to
it, what the cookie contents are (although the contents may
be a bit inscrutable), when it was created and how long it's
supposed to hang around. You can also selectively delete
them. It is rather revealing to see just how many cookies are
put on your computer and who's doing it. In addition to the
program itself, source code is available as well as the text
of the original article that explains how the utility works
and might be used. You can find the program and the other
items at the following site:
http://www.techweb.com/winmag/columns/powertools/ptcookie.htm
Directory
Printer
While
we were looking at Karen's programs, we also took a look at
another utility sorely lacking in Windows Explorer - a way to
print directory/files listings. The program output can go to
your printer or to a file. And there are many options for
what to capture: directories only, files only, or both;
include file sizes; creation, access, modification dates;
file attributes. As an added bonus, you can choose to add the
program to the file/drive right-click context menus. At the
meeting, a sample of output was passed around. Fonts can be
changed and certain files (e.g., .EXE) can be highlighted in
the printout. As before, the source code and explanatory text
is available.
http://www.techweb.com/winmag/columns/powertools/ptdirprn.htm
You can find
a list of all Karen Kenworthy's Power Tools at:
http://www.techweb.com/winmag/columns/powertools/default.htm
Gorilla Design Studio and eDexter
Next
up was a discussion of a "poor man's" way to block
web ads when surfing. The trick involves knowing that a URL
(e.g., http://www.somesite.com/) actually must be translated
into an IP address (e.g., 127.0.0.1). This translation is
ordinarily done by a Domain Name Server (a.k.a., a DNS). Less
well known to most users, if a file called hosts is available
on your local hard disk, it will be searched 1st before the
DNS is checked. And if you happen to have an address
associated with a particular URL, this name will be used no
matter what the DNS says. See where we are going? By
substituting an address of your choosing, when the browser
attempts to go to the banner ad's server, it gets directed to
your selection - not the ad server. So what IP address do you
stick in the file? The general recommendation is 127.0.0.1 -
the so-called "loopback" address, i.e., your own
machine. Thus, when you surf to a site, the banner gets
kaboshed.
At the SIG
meeting, we demonstrated this by making a copy of the file
hosts.sam (located in the Windows folder), renaming it to
hosts, and editing it (it's just an ordinary text file; also,
the Windows folder is the proper location for this file to
work) to redirect the site www.microsoft.com to our local
machine. Bingo! This address no longer worked. We also noted
that this technique only really works for banner ads that are
on a different site than the main page visited. If the ads
are locally served, using the hosts file would have to block
the whole page. In other words, it's not a total solution.
One tiny
problem remained to use this technique: putting in all those
ad addresses. But, no fear, the web has an answer for
everything, this included. We just hopped on over to Gorilla Design Studio
Presents: Using the Hosts File which explains all this in
even more detail, provides a link with a pre-done, maintained
hosts file with a huge collection of ad URLs already
redirected, and a handy little local web server, eDexter, which lets you
substitute your own graphic for the missing banner ad
graphic. Pretty good "poor man's" solution.
Tiny Personal
Firewall
Another find from Steve was yet another free for personal use
firewall called Tiny Personal Firewall. This software
firewall uses technology certified by ICSA Labs to provide intrusion
protection while out on the net. This firewall operates as a
"stateful" packet inspector utilizing rules to
decide what to pass or block. Blocked packets are simply
dropped, providing what GRC refers to as
"stealth". The program has three basic security
settings: Minimal (basically wideexcept for rules you
explicitly create - any packets not covered by a rule is let
in), Medium (apply existing rules or prompt via a wizard to
create a new rule if one doesn't exist) and Maximum (apply
existing rules or drop any packet that doesn't have a rule).
In general, most users would use Medium security and develop
a set of rules as they went. Both incoming and outgoing
packets are inspected. Overall, this program provides much of
the same functionality as the other free firewall, Zone
Alarm. Zone Alarm's presentation is more colorful and, in our
opinion, somewhat more friendly so it probably remains the
first choice for most users. On the other hand, Tiny Personal
Firewall appears to let one get into the guts of the rules a
bit more and, as such, may appeal to the more technically
oriented user. It also comes with a 37 page .PDF manual. You
can find Tiny Personal Firewall at http://www.tinysoftware.com/pwall.php. The home page of
Tiny Software has other computer security applications, as
well.
Microsoft DLL
Help Database and
Easy Files
Next up from Steve's goodies was a Microsoft site that gives
a complete listing of .DLLs for there applications, the Microsoft
DLL Help Database. Although this site provides
detailed information about what application uses what support
file, it does not provide the files! But, once you have the
information in hand, you can go out to Easy Files and download it.
After all
this serious stuff, it was time to take a break and have some
fun!
For some of
us, the mindless pastime of popping bubble wrap is most
relaxing. Now you can do it online at Virtual Bubble Wrap. While many people
who got this link from Steve may have taken a try popping the
bubbles, we bet many didn't click on the link
"useless". If you did, you were treated to even
more time wasters. We looked at a nifty variation of the old
Space Invaders game UFO Attack - only this time moving the
mouse guided the missile! Your facilitator proceeded
to demonstrate what a lousy aim he was, guided or not.
Another fun game there was "Brick a Brand", a redo
of the classic Breakout only this time the ball was a brick
and the targets were corporate logos such as Shell oil,
McDonald's and Nike. (Your facilitator was better at smashing
these :-) And there was lots more, but time was marching on,
so, with the bricks in mind we turned next to...
Brick for
Windows
Yep, this was a "Screensmasher". A tool to preserve
sanity in the face of GPFs and BSODs. Left click and toss a
brick at the screen. Crash! And there is a broken spot on the
screen. Move the mouse to put a little English on your toss.
Press Esc, clean the screen and get back to the grind. Great
fun! Find it here: http://www.andrewgray.com/i_brick.htm.
Of course,
maybe a brick toss isn't your cup of tea. What you need is a
"Screenshooter". A gun to blow holes in the screen.
OK. We took a look at a few.
Gun
First there was gun (a.k.a., 45magnum, postal, shoot-holes).
Just fire this up (sorry about that!), your cursor becomes a
cross-hair sight and blow holes all over the screen. Complete
with gun sound effects. Here's a place to find it: http://www.idg.co.nz/magazine/pcworld/jul97/julsoft.htm
X-Shooter
Another screenshooter, X-Shooter has the interesting
distinction of running with the applictions in use.
That is, left clicking gives a bang, puts a hole on the
screen (but not as dramaticaly as gun) and still does
whatever function the left click was supposed to do. What
this means is that you can still continue to do your work,
you'll just blast everything on screen in your wake as well.
What's more, even if the program is stopped, the holes remain
until the system is restarted. How diabolical. Freeware from
Xteq Systems.
Bang!
Last up on our shooting spree was Bang!. The authors of this
one really went all out. There is even Help. (Actually, I
must say the Help alone is worth a look for laughs. A real
hoot.) Starting this program up innocuously puts a little
skull and crossed bones icon in the tray. You might even miss
it, except the eyes flash when the cursor passes over the
icon. Double click this icon and the "Death to
Mickysoft" screen pops up (you can turn this off). Your
cursor is now cross hair. Left click and you have a machine
gun blasting holes rapid fire all over the place and making a
terrible racket. You can almost feel the recoils. If that
isn't enough, right click, launch a grenade and blow a jagged
hole in the screen. When you've had your fill, press Esc and
Arnold bids you "Hasta la vista, baby" as the
program exits. The program is completely configurable -
change the sound files, how fast the gun fires, etc (these
guys must have had too much time on their hands :-). It even
keeps statistics!
For a more
peaceful interlude, we visited some other web sites, most
courtesy, again, from our master surfer, Steve.
We looked at
the Mauna Lani site for nice wallpaper and a web cam. Next, we took a
look at one of our own PCUGR member sites, that belonging to Nancy
Harrison. (Hey, Nancy! If you are
reading this - nice site!). Next up, we took a look-see at Gas Price Watch to see what stations
had the cheapest gas prices in the area. It even found
Costco! From there, we jumped over to PCForrest's Tweak
UI Guide, the manual to Tweak UI
Microsoft didn't write. For those thinking about networking
their boxes, there was O'Donnell's
Home Networking. While there, we tried to
link up to his radio program, but evidently you can't do the
currently broadcast real time. From there it was a visit to
NEC's advertisement for it's Versa
DayLite portables - they claim you
can read the screen's in bright sunlight. Then for fans of Nick
Park's
claymation ("Chicken
Run"
and the Wallace
and Gromit series), we dropped in on
Atom Films for a preview look at his "documentary"
of animals in the zoo who give humorous interviews about
their life in captivity, Creature
Comforts. Last up, in our web
interlude, was ePrompter, a free email
retrieval and notification program for up to 8 email-boxes.
This application can check your POP3 accounts (e.g., your
email at Sonic), AOL and web based domains to give you a
one-stop announcement when new mail has arrived and a way to
fetch them. No more logging into accounts all over the place.
Lots of positive reviews, including one on Kim
Komando's site which has a special
thanks to "Steve, Online Komando 17" - could this
be our Steve??
CSDiff
Getting
to the end of our time, we took a quick look at Component
Software's free CSDiff, a handy program to
check two files (or even two folders) and determine if they
are the same, or, if different, where and how they differ. It
features a straightforward dialog to select the two
files/folders to compare and a nice, colorful display of the
results. Great for checking just what changes were made to
those drafts of your next novel or best selling computer
"Dummies" book.
Thanks again
to Steve for all the fine sites and programs he finds and
shares. Thanks to Bob for making the coffee and brining
doughnuts! Finally, thanks, as always, to Bernie Stepan for
the meeting room, Internet connection and coffee supplies at
RE/MAX Marina, Petaluma.
RE/MAX Marina
775 Baywood Dr. #100
Petaluma, CA
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