Software That Makes Life Easier
January 20, 2010
I was thinking tonight about relatively small programs, which make life easy. I don’t mean games, but utilities. So I thought I’d list some of the programs – not big professional ones ones such as Word, Adobe, Excel etc which I also use a lot – but smaller ones which are my absolute favourites.
1. NoteTab Pro (and NoteTab Light). I use this text editor for absolutely everything. The way it allows you to write your own simple or complex scripts or clips (if you want to), edit text of any kind (including e.g. Thunderbird emails, for example to cut out all the unrequired lines from Paypal, ebay, etc. so you just have the information you want, thus saving LOADS of space). It’s the first thing I open when I start up my computer. I use both the Light and the Registered Pro version. Another brilliant function is the “disc search” and “disc search and replace” with which you can search and replace text on your entire harddisk. This was extremely handy when I needed to add a script to about 50,000 html files for wildwinds.com. See www.notetab.com
2. Handy Backup. What a life-saver ! You can set it to backup incrementally (new or edited files only) or overwrite old files, tell it to back up x times a day at times you want, select files, folders or entire disks and it costs so little, you’d be silly not to pay for it. See www.handybackup.com
3. Mailwasher from Firetrust. I’ve been using it for nearly 10 years now and it is also a life-saver. You view the emails in the Mailwasher window and can delete emails immediately from the server, add people to Friend’s list, addresses or entire domains to a Black List, add your own filters (and e.g. tell Mailwasher that appropriate emails should be deleted without even showing them to you.). Another little program well worth the registration free because you get free updates for life. My best regards to Nick and his team at www.firetrust.com for this and…
4. Cool MP3 Splitter from Yaosoft. www.yaosoft.com. I had the audio book of Suetonius’ “The Twelve Caesars” and the Augustus, Tiberius, etc. chapters were so long that if I fell asleep in bed listening to one, I had to start at the beginning again. I must have heard about Augustus’ childhood three times.. I searched google and found this little program, downloaded it, and tested it. You can select to split MP3 files according to length or time or size, or you can join MP3 files together. It split the Augustus chapter into 15 minute sections in 5 seconds. I immediately clicked on “buy”. It costs under $10 and this little gem is worth it’s weight in gold.
5. Ashampoo Burning Studio. I used to use an old version of Nero but it sometimes told me that the CD was invalid, or burned with errors. I tested the new version but it is soooo huge and bulky, so I deleted that again and decided to try Ashampoo. It is lovely. Extremely easy to use, inexpensive and has more burning and data backup options than you will ever need. I registered that too.
6. For the website I look after, www.wildwinds.com, I often need to make a lot of thumbnails at a time, in the size I want. After trying loads of different programs to do this, I finally came across EZ Thumnails by the same programmer as NoteTab Pro above. It is freeware and is absolutely brilliant. Once your sizes and source folder are set, you don’t need to change them unless you need to. What a brilliant man Mr. Fookes is ! See http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/?Easy%20Thumbnails=3000
7. The last utility I will mention, that I use a lot is originally over 15 years old. It’s called “Text Finder” written by “A1 Soft”. I use the old version 4.03 (2003). It’s simple to use, just write in the text you are looking for, tell it where to look, then click on “search in these files” for further text etc. until you find the file you are looking for.
Scammers
January 20, 2010
We all know about scammers and the way they work. The latest family of scammers have found a new way of hiding themseves without having to register an email address at e.g. yahoo or gmail.
What they do is, they use a company in Holland called PrivacyProtect.org to hide behind. They then have an email address they can use and can begin to find high-end products and write to the shop owners and attempt – usually with stolen credit cards to buy the products.
The emails always have the same format:
- the scammers save time by not actually mentioning the product, they simply write “I have plan to buy several things from your store”.
- They always ask “Do you accept major credit card as the payment ?” They never mention Paypal or a bank transfer
- They usually have an English-sounding name
- Checking the web address (not the email address) at any who-is website always brings up this PrivacyProtect.org as Domain Registrant.
PrivacyProtect.org do not give out any information no matter what reason you have and even if you use their “http://privacyprotect.org/#contact_domain_owner” link. They seem to be happy to earn their money hiding thieves and scammers.
Over the past month or so we have received three such emails. I can’t remember one of the names, but the other two are from
- gutenshop.com (calling himself Michael Otawa in Redondo Beach. CA) but the email name is Asian
- watonmuni.com (calling himself Dave Dann but again with an Asian email name)
Added later: More scammers using this trick:
All emails have almost identical content: asking about unnamed products, wanting to pay by credit card, etc.
I have forwarded all three to the Internet Fraud department of Interpol in Paris as well as the address of this Dutch place who is aware of the criminal behaviour of their clients but who seem to want to do nothing about it.
So: if you or a friend sell high-end products and receive such an email, AlWAYS check the address in the email address on a whois site. It may save you being scammed.
Update: I am also reporting the internet provider to the Dutchj Cybercrime department.
