HARDWARE, SOFTWARE & TECHNICALITIES -- Computer-Ease

20 Things They Don't Want You to Know(October 2005 issue of PC World magazine)   

26 Best-ever Freeware Utilities                                                                                               31 August 2003

602PC Suite 4.0(Widows Operating System)                                                                        19 October 2003
free office suite; word processor, spreadsheet, photo editor, digital photo organizer; MS Office document types; some languages; ( 21.5MB);Win 98+

Adobe Acrobat & PDF at PDFzone.com                                                                               26 September 2001
online authority for Acrobat, PDF & document management professionals: PDF-Basics service by PDFzone.com; Foxit Reader 2.3 for Windows is faster than Acrobat Reader with more options for viewing, printing, & annotating PDFs; use it to fill out PDF forms; See also PDFDatabase.com; LoopApps PDF manipulation: convert, combine & electronically sign documents; FreeMyPDF liberates PDF files from printing & other restrictions: only works for PDFs that you can open & read without 3rd party plugins. PDFs that require password to be viewed cannot be unlocked by this service;

Agent Ransack free                                                                                                               12 October 2004
search file name, text in files including temporary files(cookies & cache copies); supports regular expressions, rule based searches; freeware version of FileLocator Pro for US$24.95  includes built in viewers for PDF, HTML; Requires: Win 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/SP2/2003

ALLCHARS                                                                                                                         15 June 2004
freeware creating accents & special characters on the fly as well as short macros supports Windows 3.11/95/98/ME/NT4.0/2000

Answers that work computer fixes task list                                                                            29 April 2004

AutoHotkey Freeware macro maker; support group                                                               8 September 2005

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5.503                                                                                   22 November 2007 
this release includes real-time protection as files are opened & programs run, along with freevirus updates. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 98,Me, NT, 2000, XP, & Vista;

BCM Diagnostics Pro, version 2.30                                                                                      15 May 2004
Windows-based diagnostic software;
5 components tested to benchmarked standards; DOS-based diagnostic bypasses Windows & tests the physical hardware level reflecting system stability, reliability, & compatibility; System Health Monitor periodically checks free system resources, memory & disk space, & CPU usage; warning if resources are below a desired threshold; download for $26.50;

BlackStump Guides & FAQs                                                                                                4 June 2002

Blue Screen Of Death survival guide decodes your system crash                                             3 May 2009

Bob Cerelli's Windows Site (Windows95/98/ME/2000/XP)                                                  22 March 2005

Bootdisk.com                                                                                                                       9 August 2002
Windows & DOS boot disks; download free; drivers, tweaks, networking, bootable CDs; DOS & Windows guides; diagnostics & troubleshooting; free e- newsletter The BootLIST PC Techletter; links: free support, Mac, utilities, boot disks (Mac System 7.01 & 7.5, DR DOS 7.03, IBM OS/2 Warp 3.0, IBM DOS 4.00, PC DOS 7.00, Red Hat Linux 2.0+ & 6.1, SuSE Linux 6.0); 

Brush Strokes Image Editor                                                                                                  21 July 2005
adjust colors, edit images in graphic formats(GIF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF,  PCX, BMP, TARGA, AVI); create & view GIF animations; photos, apply filters, rotations & transformations; automatic color selection; capture individual  frames from camcorders;

Character Sets & Character Encoding: A Brief Introduction(RLG DigiNews 8(2), 15 April 2004)
256 character ASCII character set; depicting nearly 100000 separate characters (about 70000 of which are Chinese) from 55 writing systems

Classic Computer Magazine Archive                                                                                      30 April 2004
fulltext 70s to early 90s; includes images & adverts; issues from Antic, STart, Hi-Res, Creative Computing, Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games, Compute!, & Tandy Computer Whiz Kids; biographies of Antic & STart writers; Search or browse;.

CompareMyDocs compiles final version based on multiple revisions                                          5 November 2009

Complete PC Maintenance Checklist(Langa Letter Nov. 21, 2005) 

Comprehensive Computer Science                                                                                       26 February 2003
annotated links arranged by category; dictionaries, encyclopaedias, electronic journals, algorithm collections, associations, programming languages, courses

Computer data storage through the Ages - from Punch Cards to Blu-Ray                              20 March 2009

Computer Hardware Chart identifies PC parts                                                                        23 July 2009

Computer repair utility kit you can run from a thumb drive                                                      15 February 2009
free tools to diagnose & repair your Windows machine

Computer Standards - a CompInfo Directory                                                                       7 February 2003
knowledge bases, newsgroups & FAQs, magazines & e-zines, white papers, organizations & user groups, benchmarking, capacity planning, database admin.

Computer User Groups on the Web                                                                                    19 October 2003

Counterpane Labs: Password Safe
free Windows 9x/2000 utility keeps passwords securely encrypted; Safe Combination unlocks all passwords, protects passwords with Blowfish encryption algorithm, a fast, free alternative to DES; free: no license requirements, shareware fees, etc.

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)download                                                                                       7 February 2009
Cleans temporary internet files, cookies, history, recent urls, application MRUs; cleans IE, Firefox, Chome, Opera, Safari, Windows, registry cleaner, 3rd party applications, spyware free; Quick tour;

Create Acrobat PDFs With PDF/TextBox                                                                           6 June 2004
free PDF editor; copy/paste content from Ms Office; editing PDFs; password protection, encryption & document info; free download, no spyware, no ads; 

Create cheap PDF files                                                                                                        6 June 2003
PDFs preserve layout & appearance of original document; Adobe Acrobat reader can be viewed on PCs, Macs, *nix boxes, hand-helds; create PDF with Adobe Acrobat 6; Professional -US$449($100 for students); Standard $299; Mac OS X has PDF functionality - Print Preview from Mac, Save as PDF; free Adobe login; upload up to 5 documents to PDFify; Adobe's PDF Online service is US$9.99/m ($99/year), buy Acrobat, or download a shareware PDF printer driver like pdf995 for PC or PrintToPDF for the Mac; pdf995 is free with a sponsor page in your browser(disable for US$9.95); PrintToPDF is $20 for Mac OS 7, 8,& 9; Another way to create free PDFs is to print as a Postscript file & convert to PDF using GhostScript; see TOURBUS-12 Jun 03

DabbleDB                                                                                                                         27 June 2007
create & share a database & build an application on it without programming skills; innovative simple point-&-click interface; free 1 month trial;

Data Conversion Online  free file converters                                                                       11 June 2004
creating Palm Pilot document from text, XML documents, metric conversions, Excel to CSV, ASCII to EBCDIC, Unix to Dos, Dos to Unix, Mac to Unix, PDF to text, audio converters, delimited text converters; converted file renamed by user & saved 

Delayed Startup & Program Manager                                                                                13 January 2007

Delindex deletes Index.dat files which are never resized & only get bigger                               15 August 2003
web surfing history since they were (re)created; can cause performance issues with browsing; cannot be deleted if IE is running; stand-alone program  requires no installation & no other files to run.

Digital Sticky Notes software                                                                                             9 September 2004

Disabling useless services & speeding up your computer                                                    18 April 2006

Document-summarization software  free/inexpensive category text-extraction program;       27 March 2002
reduce time needed to create abstracts or check search results

Docx files - Download Word 2007 Viewer for DOCX;                                                   24 March 2008

Draac.com's Character Stripper Strip away unwanted characters in emails & codes           4 September 2004

Driver Files free, no registration, no annual fee to download drivers;                                    30 August 2003
keyword search or browse; Driver Magician Lite 3.5 identifies all hardware in system, extracts their associated drivers from the hard disk, & backs them up to a designated location; detects unknown devices; Windows 98+;

DriverGuide.com                                                                                                               3 August 2001
printer drivers, cdrom drivers, modem drivers, sound drivers, mouse drivers, monitor drivers; searchable database of rare or no-longer-supported drivers; member- to-member area - share driver with others seeking same. Free subscription.

EasyOffice+PDF Filter 8.0                                                                                                12 March 2005
free version office suite compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, & pdf files; Some programs include dictionary, notepad, calculator, image editor, & diagram creation device; available in languages including Turkish, Spanish, Chinese, & German; Microsoft Windows 98+

Elder Geek on Windows XP                                                                                             18 April 2006

Error Message Resource - Windows 98 & Windows Me                                                   1 August 2001
ERROR MESSAGES explained or researched; common error codes & messages; automate & view an explanation of error codes; download free program MS Windows Error Messages [1/8/2001 - last reviewed 28/3/2001]

Everything USB                                                                                                                  1 April 2006

Exchange Files Transparently Between Macs & PCs                                                           31 July 2003
Wormhole drag-&-drop file transfer utility between any combination of Mac OS X & Windows systems; no configuration necessary on small networks; launch Wormhole on two computers, & they'll find each other & open a connection with zero clicks

Extended Copy & Paste: ClipMate                                                                                  18 February 2005

Fiddling with File Types
By Greg R. Notess                                                                        3 March 2004

File Conversions                                                                                                               16 September 2004
US Patent & Trademark documents TIFF format converted by  pat2pdf into PDF; priced $5+ for a single patent, $125/month for unlimited use; National Library of Medicine's DocMorph service converts files from 50 formats into PDF (& TIFF, text, or synthesized speech.).*free* registration - table of file extensions & descriptions; Data Conversion Online offers free online file converters, such as sort file, search & replace, UNIX to DOS; Search for various file types with Filedigg

File Extensions  See also Pronom below                                                                               3 March 2004

File Formats & How to Deal With Them                                                                               1 July 2003

File Recovery Guide                                                                                                             28 February 2004
file recovery, breakdowns, head crashes, data back ups, formatting; See also (July 2008) Glary Utilities 2.6 system tools & utilities to remove unwanted files, clean up invalid & broken shortcuts, scan, remove, & back up faulty registry entries forWindows 98+;

File sharing platforms                                                                                                      7 September 2006
Grou.ps shares photos, text, locations, bookmarks, videos, blog posts, to-do lists, calendars; specify service providers (e.g. Flickr for photos,del.icio.us for bookmarks); Grou.ps will fetch, re-format & filter your data free; See also FolderShare;    

FindTutorials.com                                                                                                                6 February 2002
free online IT tutorials; entry level texts on using word processors through to advanced techniques in web development/database design & network routing.

FolderShare                                                                                                                       22 September 2005
synchronize critical files across a private P2P network; share files up to 2 GB inside an unlimited file space; no limits on quantity, size or file type; free basic version; synchronise laptop & desktop machines; free with a limited number of folders; USD 2.50 / month;

Form creation online                                                                                                      3 December 2006
Wufoo all types of forms including mailing lists, surveys, invitations, event calendars; Windows 98+

Free2Code                                                                                                                         8 December 2003
tutorials for programming languages, operating systems, computer networking & Web development from members of the Free2Code community; Number Systems, PHP & MySQL, Introduction to Flash MX Design; code archive helps with programmers problems

Free conversion to PDF, RTF or OpenOffice Format for any Microsoft Word file               30 March 2006
web-based service independent of computer or operating system (PC, Mac & Linux); See also Convert PDF to DOC, PDF to XLS, PDF to HTML or Text

Getting The Grunge Out Of Your PC (Langa Letter: Feb. 28, 2005)       

Google Docs & Spreadsheets web-based word-processing & spreadsheet                     14 October 2006
integrates Writely & Google Spreadsheets; create, manage & access
documents & spreadsheets; collaborate online; Export & import a variety of file formats; Share as view-only; Publish to a blog or as an HTML page; Google Spreadsheets Trick: Google Lookup; Collaborating in the Classroom or Library; Pulling Live Data Into Google Spreadsheets(syntax is =GoogleLookup with two variables); .GD&S Upgrade; part 2; (31 March 2008) Google Launches Offline Access for Docs powered by Google Gears API browser extension that allows developers to store application data offline & sync it back up again later when users are reconnected; Google Docs template gallery open to share documents, spreadsheets, presentations & forms, public template gallery: sort & browse templates by category, usage, rating & document type; gallery also available to Google Apps Premier & Education Edition customers;

Hard drive  recovery                                                                                                          16 June 2007

Hidden log files eat your disk space                                                                                   22 February 2007

Hide sensitive files with Alternate Data Streams(ADS)                                                        6 December 2007
ADS is supported by drives formatted as NTFS(Microsoft's New Technology File System, Windows NT, 2000, XP+) improvement over FAT-32 file system, data is stored in separate fork or stream of any file or folder making Windows more compatible with Mac operating system files(which consist of a resource fork & data fork); separate stream can also be used to store other things, such as information entered on Summary tab of some files' Properties dialog boxes; data stored in an NTFS stream is invisible to Windows Explorer, text searches, & most routine
Windows' file functions & are sometimes used to harbour malware so make sure your antivirus software can scan ADS;

HotScripts.com PHP, CGI, Perl, JavaScript, ASP script collection & resource portal           1 March 2004

How to fix a dead pixel on your monitor                                                                              25 February 2010

How to make Adobe Reader 7.0 load faster                                                                       27 March 2006

How to permanently delete data from your hard drive                                                         19 November 2008

HyperSnap-DX 4                                                                                                              15 April 2002
screen grabber utility captures images & allows editing, annotation, & manipulation; 20+ formats; free download; $35 to register it & remove a print overlay.

Identifying files on your system                                                                                           11 June 2004
process executables from WinTask Professional utility to clean & manage processes on your system; online search service;

IEEE Computer Society (founded in 1946)                                                                         20 September 2003
publishes 13 magazines, 7 Transactions, conference proceedings & books, IEEE Security & Privacy. Free search; subscribe for fulltext; IEEE Distributed Systems Online promotes awareness of developments, trends, activities, & editorial coverage; online support for Internet Computing & Pervasive Computing; distributed systems community - researchers, students, educators, application developers, & program managers

IrfanView                                                                                                                          12 May 2005
Small, fast; most types of media - images, photos, music, & video; photo editor for red-eye removal, color & gamma tweaks, image resizing, & format conversions, batch operations--renaming files, applying an image change across a set of files

iRows                                                                                                                                27 April 2006
create, store & access spreadsheets from any computer with a browser; upload, edit & save Microsoft Excel, CSV & OpenOffice files; share data; display a spreadsheet on any web page;  free to use with every operating system & web browser;

Journey Inside (Flash, RealPlayer, .pdf)                                                                               15 February 2003
computer & Internet technologies; video demos & stories; Circuits & Switches; Digital Information storage & analysis. Microprocessor basics; free registration

JSTOR Launches XML Gateway                                                                                       1 September 2005
created to better facilitate metasearching/federated searching/cross-database searching

Knowledgebase(Microsoft) articles about Ms products published in 21 languages;                7 November 2002

Learning More About PowerPoint(Law Practice Today)                                                   9 August 2005

Links to Freeware                                                                                                              3 February 2003
1650 links to the better freeware sites; scrutinized & the links are checked weekly & dead links are removed failing twice; newsgroup -  alt.comp.freeware

Local Port Scanner                                                                                                             27 June 2001
free 497 kb file preprogrammed with the most common hacker & trojan ports has five different scan modes with useful information on used ports

LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) technology                                                      28 February 2006
See also
CLOCKSS, LOCKSS, SOCKSS, FROCKSS

Mac Manual free guide supplies tips, tricks & free applications                                            29 October 2011

Memtest+: Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool                                                                  19 August 2005
No restrictions for use, private or commercial exist other than the ones mentioned in the Gnu Public License (GPL)

Microsoft - 4 Ways to Speed Up Your Computer's Performance                                        18 August 2005
 use the tools available in Windows XP  Service Pack 2 (SP2) to more efficiently maintain your computer & safeguard your privacy online;

Microsoft Knowledge Base                                                                                                18 February 2003
repository of Microsoft's technical support staff's FAQs, bug reports, workarounds

Microsoft  Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program                                                      26 March 2005
Development; Applications; Platforms; Site info; MVP Links

MrExcel message board                                                                                                     2 March 2006

Non commercial databases(a list)  & 25+ Alternative & Open Source Database Engines                16 February 2010
OpenQM - multivalue database available as a fully supported commercial product & open source under General Public Licence; commercial version available on Windows, Linux (Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu), FreeBSD, Mac OS X & Windows Mobile; Redis - advanced key-value store similar to memcached but dataset isnt volatile & values can be strings, exactly like in memcached, but also lists, sets, & ordered sets; All data types can be manipulated with atomic operations to push/pop elements, add/remove elements, perform server side union, intersection, difference between sets; supports different sorting abilities; written in ANSI C, works in most POSIX systems like Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris; free software released under BSD license; compiles & works under WIN32 if compiled with Cygwin but no official support for Windows; Riak - decentralized key-value store, flexible map/reduce engine, HTTP/JSON query interface; Scalien - a startup developing open-source, cutting-edge distributed systems;

Office Converters & Viewers                                                                                             2 September 2003
share Microsoft Office files with people who have different versions of Office programs or people who don't have Office

Old computer, new life: restoring old hardware with Ubuntu                                                 26 August 2011

OpenOffice.org(Sun Microsystems)                                                                                   27 August 2005
free open source package; Writer word processor & desktop publisher, Calc spreadsheet, Math equation & formula creator, Impress multimedia & slide show presenter, Draw graphics, Base database application; PDF creation & HTML export; save to MS Word format; Windows, Linux & OS; ShareOffice launches - open standards based web office suite;

Open Source alternatives                                                                                              27 August 2005
OpenOffice.org lacks calendar, schedule & email program; The Gimp drawing/painting/photo-editing versions for many operating systems(Windows needs v 2.2.8); GTK+2 run-time environment, v 2.6.8;  AVG Free Edition virus package; Sygate Personal Firewall Ad-Aware SE Personal spyware removes cookies, browser hijackers, tracking components, dialers & trojans; Spybot Search & Destroy spyware remover; Metric Converter; OpenSourceWindows & OpenSourceMac - catalogues free & open source software;

Opera Show Generator                                                                                                    30 September 2004
creates presentations without having to download any software & have knowledge of HTML; no charge to access & use; create & view "slide" presentations

Orator 2.0(Macintosh Operating System)                                                                          29 November 2003
convert text into a sound file & read the text aloud in different "voices"; save articles & transfer them to iPod; compatible with systems running Mac OS X

Oriens Enhancer Gold v.2.0                                                                                                 7 March 2003
Free Digital Image Editor - selection tool(freehand selection!), stamp tool & color picker; layers; 40 image formats optimized, compressed & saved in 20 graphic formats; screen-capture, Icon Extractor from application/software files 1) GIF Animator/Frame extractor 2) Thumbnail Browser 3) Screen Saver & Slide Show production 4) Icon & Image Extractor from  EXE/DLL/OCX/FRX/CTX/ DOX/DSX/ICO files 5) Batch Converter of different formats 6) Image Maps generator 7) ASCII to PDF Converter 8) +40 filters for images -  Dilate, Painting, Erode, Invert, Greyscale, Sepiatone, Relief, Edge Enhance, Emboss, Contour, Saturation, Diffuse, Luminousity, Blur, Engrave, Soften, Sharpen, Noise, Mosaic, Talcom Powder 9) +40 effects to enhance images - Halftone, Pixelize, Ccontrast, Brightness, Gamma Correction, Thermique, XBlack, Photoshop Lens, Waves, Bend, Fold, Rotate,Stretch, Tile, Twirl, Grid, Flare, Noise, Scanliness, Under Glass, Under Curtain 10) Image Merging with transparency  from 0-100; 

Partitioning your hard drive  See also Partition Managers                                                    8 November 2008

PC Lube & Tune                                                                                                                   3 February 2003
introductions, tutorials; history & evolution of the graphical user interface; how computers interpret the mouse, toolbars, & menus; HTML & XML

PC Pitstop                                                                                                                            5 August 2001
examines system configuration, benchmark tests, tips for system, memory, disk, video; diagnostics to improve performance; free! 

PDF Creator                                                                                                                         31 July 2003
Open Source tool allowing free creation of PDF files from standard Office applications; Print to PDF in Windows Vista; HTML to PDF Converter      

PDF Editor(CAD-KAS)                                                                                                      21 November 2005
post-edit PDF files & save changes, modify text & images; US$79, free demo version; Viewing PDFs in Firefox;

PDF Text Online (beta)                                                                                                          21 September 2006
free conversion of PDF files, all fonts & languages including CJK; completely web-based; Ajax technology

PDF to Word Converter                                                                                                         31 October 2003
ScanSoft software lets Word users convert PDF files into editable word-processing documents while preserving tables, columns, graphics & other formatting; See also Online PDF Conversion Tools Mini-Guide (May 2007); Convert PDF file to Word version;

Personal Information Managers(PIM); Free Ecco Pro download; PIMS (Part 2)(Naked PC , January 30, 2003)   

Peter’s Online Typing Course                                                                                               8 July 2006

Portico electronic journal archiving service (2005-)                                                              16 March 2006
funded by JSTOR, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ithaka, & The Library of Congress; signed an archiving agreement with Oxford Journals, division of Oxford University Press; formerly the Electronic-Archiving Initiative (JSTOR 2002-);

Port Numbers                                                                                                                      15 October 2003

PrimoPDF Windows desktop tool                                                                                         1 October 2004
create PDF free from any application for screen or print use; output from Word, Excel, PowerPoint printable document types; no ads, spyware, pop-ups;

ProcessLibrary.com                                                                                                               18 October 2004
free online service gives access to an extensive database of detailed process descriptions; figure out what is running on your system; part of WinTasks application

Programming code search engines                                                                                     13 February 2006
See Koders & Krugle (above); Code Snippets public source code repository categorized with tags/keywords;

Pronom  information on 550 file formats, 250 software products, 100 vendors                          13 August 2004

ReaConverter Pro v3.2 (Windows Operating System)                                                              8 November 2003
convert many images at once with a command line utility; process images in console mode; many formats; resize, crop, rotate & mirror images; sharpen tool;  smooth, blur, & contour; Windows 98+

Read DOCX Files in Internet Explorer - No Word 2007 Required                                           22 March 2008

Recover Deleted Files (PC & Mac)                                                                                          7 March 2007 

RefWorks                                                                                                                                3 December 2002
create your own personal database importing references from online databases & use these references in writing papers; automatically format paper & bibliography; web-based for platforms including Windows, Mac, Unix, etc.

Are Registry cleaners worthwhile?                                                                                            2 February 2007

Registry Mechanic Windows crash & error messages                                                           1 November 2003
registry references from software installation or incorrect removal, missing or corrupt hardware drivers, orphaned startup programs; Windows 95/98/NT/2K/XP/ME; scans registry for invalid entries, lists errors, repair item or automatically repair all; change recovery

Remote Access to Your Computer                                                                                         10 November 2005

RSS To PowerPoint                                                                                                               6 June 2004
DataPoint RSS news reader gathers RSS news directly into a Microsoft Access database for use in slides

Save space when using two drives or dual-booting                                                                   28 February 2008

Sayz Me(Text to Speech Free Application )                                                                           10 February 2003
simple, open source(BSD license); read Web pages, e-mails aloud; Alpha test phase uses Microsoft speech engine & synthetic voices; adjust pitch, speed, & volume, voice of your choice, highlight words as spoken; Windows 98, 2000 & XP; requires Microsoft Speech API 4.0  & Microsoft Synthetic Voices  Make sure "spchapi.exe" is installed first followed by  "msttsl.exe"(These files are automatically installed by default by Win2000 installation); find information about Speech setups at the Microsoft Speech website.

Scopeware Vision                                                                                                                   7 June 2003
keyword search html web pages, document file types(Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat), Outlook e-mail boxes on your hard drive; truncation, Boolean, & meta tag searching; 30 day trial; personal product $29.95; robust version $79.95; free version (with adware).

ScreenHunter                                                                                                                        27 June 2001
capture any rectangular or round area of screen,windows, menus, & desktop; multi-document viewer & versatile imaging editor in V.3.0;

Screensaver generators                                                                                                        2 January 2012
Create photo screensavers with Multi Photo Quotes Builder(MpqBuilder);                                               

Scrub Your Hard Disk Clean, Pt 1Scrub Your Hard Disk Clean, Pt.2                                5 August 2001
Are old cookies, TIF files, & orphan files clogging up disk space? clean up includes Cookie sweeping & Registry compacting!

See what’s behind a window with a keystroke                                                                        7 February 2010
When moving a window in Windows, if you move the window, keep your finger held down on the mouse & press Esc to put it back where you got it from; Works for Win XP+; cf Windows 7 AeroPeek feature;

SketchUp create, view, modify 3D models quickly & easily                                                   7 August 2005

Slashdot                                                                                                                               16 January 2003
constantly-updated online community that offers the latest news, reviews, & commentary about technology in general & information technology in specific.

SnagIt Screen Capture                                                                                                           9 January 2005
Capture screen images, text & printer output from your Windows PC & enhance with the in-line editor; US$39.95, 30 day trial

Solving USB Boot Problems
                                                                                                18 June 2005

Spreadsheet Errors                                                                                                               6 January 2006
"Spreadsheets create an illusion of orderliness, accuracy, & integrity. The tidy rows & columns of data, instant calculations, eerily invisible updating, & other features of these ubiquitous instruments contribute to this soothing impression. At the same time, faulty spreadsheets & poor spreadsheet practices have been implicated in a wide variety of business & financial problems."

Style Formatting in Word ( PC Magazine, 13 July 2004) 
tip on using styles in Word 2002 or Word 2003 to combat Word template feature of propagating format changes throughout

Take your PC’s temperature — for free! By Fred Langa                                                         13 October 2011
Overheating in PCs can cause unexpected hangs & shutdowns, shorten the life of your computer; SpeedFan free multipurpose program monitors system’s temperatures, fan speeds, & internal voltages. If hard drives are S.M.A.R.T. compliant,  it can show hard-drive temperatures; MobileMeter monitors CPU temperature, CPU clock speed, battery charge/discharge rate, & HDD temperature; Core Temp monitors CPU temperature but it’s distributed via a very aggressive co-marketing installer package. Read download dialog boxes carefully to decline unwanted software; Intel Active Monitor monitors CPU temperature, motherboard temperature, voltage & fan speed. Compatible with most newer Intel motherboards. See also related Intel Desktop Utilities(free); Hmonitor monitors voltage, CPU temperature, motherboard temperature, & fan RPM. (14 days free, then US$25+);

Task Orchestrator (PCMagazine freeware)                                                                            22 December 2005
execute a series of tasks to occur while you are away from your computer; design tasks for specific dates/times, including downloading, moving, copying or deleting files; play media files, shut down/log off or open/close an application; free download;

Tech Support Alert sites reviewed & rated, by category; practical how-to guides                    19 September 2003

TestMySpeed.com                                                                                                                 1 August 2001
Modem Speed Test Sites; Bandwidth speed test Cable DSL; test speed of connection, performance & configuration, cached or non-cached data, & the accessed server's location & configuration.

TextDiff compares documents & files for changes                                                                     23 July 2009

ThinkFree Office 3 MS Office-compatible suite  downloadable free 30-day trial                      10 November 2005
word processing, spreadsheet & presentation programs, platform-independent & works on Windows, Mac or Linux; free application requires no downloads, provides up to 30 MB of storage, & allows users to insert live documents into blog postings; US$49.95 to buy;

Undelete Plus 2.92                                                                                                                 29 September 2007
retrieve accidentally deleted files from recycle bin, network drive, & DOS window; screenshots & FAQ; Windows 95+

UNESCO Free Software Portal   Free software technology resources                                    3 February 2003

Use Control-Space To Clear Formatting In Word  (Clear rogue formatting MSN Video)     20 March 2009
select text and type Control-Space to strip any Word text back to default formatting (video demo); also works in Outlook & PowerPoint, in Excel, Control-Space chooses the current column;

Web2Text HTML to plain text converter                                                                                7 June 2003
Ms Office & IE do this but spoil layout; some structure of the HTML document can be retained after conversion, e.g. paragraphs, header emphasis, URLs; mark italicised words with an * & bold with an underscore.

Web Eyes                                                                                                                             6 May 2004
text-enhancing software controls size of font & layout of the page even if the owner uses a fixed-size code; display a Web site in columns;  works with Internet Explorer 5.5 (& higher). It is not free, but comes with a 15-day trial.

Web Search Guides: Tutorials - IE 5.0 - 5.5(Win)                                                                 25 March 2005

Woody's Office Watch                                                                                                           1 October 2002
Woody's Watch, Office Watch, Windows Watch, Access Watch, Project Watch, Woody's Office for Mere Mortals, Palm Watch, Windows XP, TRAVELLERS's Watch &  Woody's TRAVELLERS's Watch - Australian extra ;  advice, tips, fixit options & hints

Word Most Valuable Professionals FAQ                                                                              26 March 2005
repository for Microsoft Word maintained by the Microsoft Word MVPs; MVPs support areas central location of FAQs, tutorials, samples, etc; 8 handy tools in Microsoft Word;

Workshare Trace                                                                                                                  17 February 2005
Free tool identifies hidden data in Office docs( metadata); easy-to-understand risk reports; Workshare Protect 4 costs between $30 & $50, depending on your PC's software configuration; compare KKL Software's $20 EZClean & Esquire Innovations' $250 iScrub.

Writely edit & publish in collaboration, or publicly on Internet                                               18 November 2005
create/edit HTML documents, upload Word, HTML or image files; open access or via emailed password; Automatically post to blogs supporting Blogger, metaWeblog or MovableType APIs; free registration; unlimited storage space for individuals; documents up to 500 KB, embedded images up to 2MB; document tagging, "star" important documents; FAQ, Help Center; + IE 5.5+ (Windows), Mozilla 1.4 (Mac & Windows), Firefox 1.0.6 (Mac & Windows - except for 1.5b1 on the Mac!); disable pop-up blockers to work with Writely; Asynchronous JavaScript Technology & XML(AJAX) technology that powers Flickr, GMail & Google Maps; See Google Docs & Spreadsheets above; 

Xcellery                                                                                                                               16 August 2006
free; view & edit spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel or the browser- based Xcellery Editor; collaborate & share workbooks with them; changes automatically consolidated; work online or offline; "Edit in Excel" mode;

Your PC Hardware: Inside and Out: Part 2; Part 1                                                                 20 January 2011                                                   
Part 2: What to look for in a hard drive; difference between Solid State Drives & conventional drives; What RAM does, & why you might need more; role of CPU; Intel & AMD compared; What stats in graphics card marketing mean; nVidia & ATI compared;

YouSendIt emails files up to 1 Gb in size                                                                              21 October 2004
free service automatically sends files up to 1 Gb in size & notifies recipient; file deleted after 7 days; No passwords, no software to install, no subscription;  Dropload maximum file size is 100MB

Zoho Writer online word processor; industry-standard MS Word toolbars; WYSIWYG editor 14 January 2006
import documents in Word format & export back to Word .pdf & HTML formats; publish to a blog; supports other languages & alphabets; save documents to secure servers; spell-check, autosave; documents created collaboratively & enabled for public viewing; supports revision control(aka versioning) so there is no need to keep multiple copies of a document; free registration;