Re: eikelein' comments, I sympathize entirely! My way around the problem of the "blank stare" is to say,
"Tap on the Windows Key - bottom left between Ctrl & Alt"
"Tap on the T Key - now the E Key - now the A Key, etc., etc." (until TeamViewer or the desired program is completely typed)
"Left-Click on TeamViewer in the displayed results" (or the desired program)
Then starts the fun of getting their username and password
I tried this and could not figure out how to use it. So I tried to uninstall it.... and not only found no uninstall information, but was completely unable to find the program files. What now?
another case of "just what i needed !"
My son emailed me six videos of a walk-around-virtual tour of the interior of his new house. They are about 12 hours drive from here so we won't be able to get there any time soon to see their house.
.... anyways, the videos that he took using hi phone or ipad were all upside down so I've been turning my computer monitor upside down on the desk to view them. LOL
Yeah, I know that it could have been fixed easily but I'm a tad over the hill (LOL again)
This is handy since most people (for some unknown reason) hold their phone vertically when shooting photos and videos instead of horizontal like most wide screen TVs and monitors are oriented.
Have been trying to Rotate with VLC media player. 18 steps and still couldn't get it to take.
Installed Movie Rotator, Open > Rotate > Save. Boom! Done!
Don't know what I'd do without this website. Thanks.
"If you right click on any file and select "Send to mail recipient" then Affixa automatically creates an email in your webmail account drafts folder with the file attached. You can then open that mail and send it whoever you want."
While this is better, it certainly is not the solution I'm looking for. When I right click a file > send to, Ideally a Gmail compose window would open up with the file attached and uploading. That's what I'd really like :\ does anyone know of a solution that can do it this way?
What if you have followed all of these instructions and your USB still shows a boot error? Or rather, the USB is already set to "Active" but still doesn't boot?
And I understand there are other variables, however, what should I try after all else fails?
Thanks! I tried UNetbootin using a downloaded iso file for a Linux boot CD to create a bootable USB flash drive. It worked perfectly on the first try. During bootup I simply pressed F12 to get the boot options screen, selected to boot from the flash drive, and it booted right up. I didn't need to change the BIOS or make the flash drive active. My system is a Dell running Windows 7 Professional.
Gizmo said
"can create bootable drives of all the major Linux distros and other operating systems including Windows as well."
Hi Ian,
Have you or anyone tried making a "live USB" version from a windows install disk
with UNetbootin? I could believe maybe it making the install possible from a USB flash drive. If it actually tricks Windows into not handing off USB control to the OS during the boot process ... where have I been¿
I just tried this out. Seemed pretty slick until I realized it's not playing back a graphical representation of my session. It is actually retracing my mouse movement and clicks. This could be risky if you close windows or move things around before replaying. It could delete content or have some other negative impact. Use with caution.
Love this little app. Simple, uncomplicated. Even a simpleton like me mastered it immediately.
Took note of mrmontgom comment above and will make sure I play back before closing windows or moving anything around although I do not understand his warning and would appreciate some elucidation on it.
Thanks rob.
I think the point that is being made is this isn't recording a video of your actions, it is recording the actual actions. As such, when you play it back, any mouse clicks, keyboard presses happen again on your machine. So if things like applications, files, etc aren't in the same place/state that they were when the recording was made, the playback will likely be different as well and could lead to unintended consequences. I feel the write-up on this is poor in that it does not mention any of this.
It seems this is a bit more than a "screen" recorder, it seems to be a automation of the mouse to me. That is what mrmontgom is saying as well. It is easiest to duplicate this by starting to record then selecting different application windows then playing it back. On playback a screen recorder would just show a vision of what you were doing, but this app actually does what you recorded. So if you made a simple recording for someone that showed them how to delete something in like word, and they did not have word open in the same location etc it could actually delete something in the same location on screen, seems very dangerous to me. Not knocking the app at all, just think people should be aware of its power.
Ah, the light comes on above my head! Yes, I do now understand what you guys are saying. I'll be very careful in using this app but I still love it. Thanks guys
Simple Screen Recorder works pretty well. http://www.maartenbaert.be/simplescreenrecorder/
You can record the whole screen, a window, or an openGL object, plus audio.
It's in most Linux distro repositories, so it's clean.
Good to know. But as this article is about a Windows based application, it should be noted that Simple Screen Recorder is not an alternative given there doesn't appear to be a Windows version of that available - Linux only.
As far as actual screen recording in Windows goes, I found BB Flashback Express a while ago. I'm not sure how well it works for fancy Direct3D applications, but for standard Windows apps it gets the job done nicely. http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack_FreePlayer.aspx
I had been using CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/) but this one looks interesting, especially the ability to personalize your recordings by embedding input from a camera in the recording. I'll have to check it out.
This is definitely a useful app. But, agree with others here: it is NOT a screen recorder... it is a MACRO recorder. Recordings produced by this app can only be "played back" on the computer that they were created-on, even when saved as an executable. Thus, this app is not useful for (and never was intended to be) a tutorial creation tool in the same vein as tools that capture screen activity and save it as a flash or video file. You can't send a screen recording executable file created by TinyTask to a friend and expect him to see a replay of your screen activity on his computer..the executable will not even launch on his computer.
For those inclined more towards open source software, when it comes to entrusting passwords, and also not storing in the cloud (the cloud :D), then 2 or the best are:
Password Safe http://pwsafe.org/
Keepass Password Manager http://keepass.info/
Keepass is perhaps slightly more secure, but definitely has more options, configurability for auto-typing login data. But that can make it more complicated for those that don't need a lot of options. But either will handle just entering user name / PW.
PW Safe is a bit simpler, doesn't have the level of extra entropy that Keepass has.
I use PW Safe for forum PWs, etc., & Keepass for banks. In PW Safe, You must click to auto type (or drag / drop). OMG! Click a mouse?!? How lazy are we getting?
Keepass can find the DB entry that matches current web page "title" or other identifiers - so don't have to "search" in the current DB. It also offers "Two-Channel Auto-Type Obfuscation," (see help file or online help file), which attempts to defeat most keyloggers.
Both of these are 1st class programs, are actively maintained, have excellent help forums & bug trackers / feature request reporting. Much better than a lot of commercial software I've used.
I used Roboform (free) some yrs ago. It certainly may've changed since then, but at the time had little if any on Keepass or Password Safe. Plus, some password mgrs are not open source, which for many security experts, is a *drawback* for security / encryption software, etc. I don't think storing PWs is any less important.
I'm sorry, but any personal data that's supposed to be kept from unwanted sources that has to go to a external website then back to my desktop thru 1000 encryptions, 264bit or greater, etc., etc. is still subject to any and all hacking, virus' and malware.
Just give me a stand alone program that stays on my desktop, PERIOD!
That way if I have problems, then, well, it'll have to come from my system and I don't have to worry about someone or some thing external that I can't control to worry about.
Last Pass has been wonderful to use, since I figured it out. The information that you enter does not come from the cloud, it is generated on your computer. One could tweak how many hashes the passwords used, some time ago, but I don't know if that is still the case.
LastPass is great. it is Free, and, for free, it is a super good deal!
I would like to see a review here of Dashlane https://www.dashlane.com/passwordmanager which looks on the surface like it might be a pretty good free PW manager and web form filler.
I agree. Dashlane presents really well - the website looks great and the product is very good. But if you want a review then it would be best to make your request as a comment in the article Best Free Web Form Filler and Password Manager.
The main problem with the free version of Dashlane is that it is limited to one device. That makes it practically useless for many users who want access from their PC and phone, for example. I wouldn't even look at it for this reason but if you only use one computer device then it is a good option.
FWIW, LastPass Free is also Neil Rubenking's top pick at PC Magazine amongst free password managers (2016.07.07; review at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475964,00.asp ). LastPass is now at version 4.1.33 (released 2016.11.18).
http://free-online-ocr.com/ is one I like better because it can convert to rtf. I'm still looking for one that converts to an open format, like odf, instead of Microsoft proprietary DOCX.
Thanks Rob.
Fantastic!
This huge collection of images from 1500 to 1922, shows the magnitude of the information in the cloud, at our disposal.
In this case made possible by the free 1 TB in Flickr.
As these images are copyright free, can they also be used with
modifications of the image. Or can we only use "As Is"
I would like to modify for commercial purposes. I.E. Kindle,
blogs and other.
For me, Flickr's search box seemed to work properly. This was my first visit to Flickr, so I'll be interested to learn more about how to use it, and whether a log-in would provide more features.
After clicking on Rob's link, I clicked on the first image that appeared, which was a Thanksgiving platter of roast turkey, copied from The Saturday Evening Post, according to the meta-data revealed by scrolling down on the photo's own page. Next, I backed-up to the main "Internet Archive Book Images" page (where Rob's link had led me) and typed the word turkey in the search box in the top-right corner; this gave me the drop-down option (which I chose) to limit my search to the current Internet Archive Book Images photos. The search-results page included the option to filter the results by type of license. After choosing "commercial use allowed," I re-opened that filter, chose "modifications allowed," and then saw that both of those filters were active. Subsequent searches from that screen retained the filter settings.
Yes, certainly, there were countless images in the search results. However, this "problem of plenty" doesn't seem all that different from what we have with a Web search of an unfathomably large number of websites. On Flickr, perhaps we don't have the benefit of algorithms designed to push popular results to the top of the search list, and the environment may be less familiar, and we probably have fewer refinement options available. Still, a similar image search through a standard Web search engine gave me a similarly overwhelming number of images.
Having said all that, though, we are not limited to using Flickr's search engine to search Flickr's images. From my image search on Google, for the words Thanksgiving platter roast turkey The Saturday Evening Post, I didn't immediately find that same photo that I'd seen first on Flickr. But, by adding site:Flickr.com to my search string, that image was the first of only 9 images in my search results!
One solution is to use Google search.
Just type the topic that you are interested in, followed by this: site:flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages.
Example: type (without the quotes) in Google search: "indians site:flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages" to view images taken from books regarding indians.
The other solution is this:
Underneath every image you can see the metadata. On the right you can see some tags which include bookid bookyear bookdecate booksubject etc.
If you click on any of these tags you will be searching for this specific tag.
But you can also use these tags to find other subjects.
Example: In flickr search space, type booksubjectindians to see images of books regarding...well...indians.
Same applies for other tags e.g. if you type bookyear1842 you will find images from books from 1842.
Please always clarify what is the privacy policy regarding these websites which ask you to upload photos
Specifically can your photos be used in the development of facial recognition technology software
I trust you do understand the implications of peoples photos being used in this way
This is just one extract from their Privacy Policy.
“None of this information is “personal data” – that is, data we could use to identify a specific person. Some of this information could, however, become personal data because we provide automatically collected anonymous data to third party advertisers to supplement the tracking information described below, and those third parties might be able to combine our anonymous data with other data they have to enable them to identify people.”
Basically this absolves them from everything and anything even when you understand that how privacy rules are implemented varies between countries.
In reality anything you post online is likely to be used by individuals or companies should they attach value to it for their own ends and the only way to prevent this is not to post it. It doesn’t matter how many rules are broken when the servers in question are based in the Ukraine or Vietnam. :)
The great thing about Techsupportalert is that when discussing computer software, reviewers always mention that software has been scanned and it doesn’t contain malware. In other words it probably functions as you expect without uploading data back to developers or coinstalls bad code
Unfortunately when it comes to online sites that upload your personal data (and photos are very personal data) there is no similar warning about how our photos potentially are being used. Online sites in my opinion pose an equal risk as installed software and malware
We have already learned that many sites are harvesting peoples facial photos and selling them to companies that are creating facial recognition software for government, policing and commercial uses.
It’s time we stop uploading our photos to anonymous websites. We have become so permissive to this practice
Even Facebook and Instagram are probably harvesting people’s photos for this reason
In 2019 you would be crazy to be giving strangers your most personal data. Yet everyone does it and we encourage people to do so
And don't forget that, unless you've deleted it, photographs often include GPS data along with time and date stamps. For the average person that probably doesn't mean much, but for those with massive data harvesting and analysis capabilities (Google, etc.) it means being able to know your exact location at a specific time and date. And beyond that, to extrapolate your travels if enough information is available.
No, I'm not really that paranoid. But the data is there along with the capability to analyze it, should someone want to.
Thanks. Proves my point that we are way to permissive with the sharing of our photos. Metadata can track the address the photo was taken !
Techsupportalert was based on providing people with software info that is screened to be safe
Can we not be recommending any more website uploading services that request photos or documents, without making clear the associated risks
So if you recommend a photo upload site, please recommend that personal photos be first stripped of their metadata
This is basic information in 2019
Gizmo’s Freeware always tries to safeguard the interests of members and visitors including download advisory notices for some software but there is a limit to adopting a nanny type of presentation.
Pretty much everything you do in life has security and privacy risks especially using Windows and yet here we are as predominantly a Windows resource site. Also, for years we have published a series of security related articles including the one linked below yet the readership numbers for these are insignificant compared with Best Free Live Wallpapers which pretty much sums up user preferences.
The same applies to Windows security software where 95% of all users never bother to read the vendor’s documentation and thus end up with an incorrectly configured system churning out results they can't understand and most likely ignore.
In all honesty therefore it is the responsibility of computer and web users to educate themselves about best safe practices because there’s a limit to how much sites like ours can help. MC - Site Manager.
Yes. The majority of computer readers these are blasé about security risks. They don’t read security articles. Attention spans have reduced, and all that matters is that you have a good selfie
To inform people, you just need one sentence at the end of reviews:
For software, we need to state that the program has been screened for malware
For photo upload sites, we need to remind people that the Privacy policy may allow developers to onsell your photos, so strip your photo metadata first (and provide the link how to do this)
As I’ve said to Rhiannon, it’s better to find utilities to perform tasks, rather than uploading your data to anonymous websites. Instead we normalise this behaviour
Tech support should always keep people informed, otherwise it becomes part of the problem
We may disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the Terms of Service.
It may be necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities, including without limitation, fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or as otherwise permitted or required by law.
I know this is a 5-year-old article, but just a quick FYI in case anyone cares... The link to the J-Walk Blog posted at the end of this article is dead. It leads to the J-Walk home page, but the blog that it was originally a link to must have been removed from the site.
Things on the web have changed so much and yet, as highlighted, have remained the same in many ways.
Thank you for the insight and dedication to help out so many visitors Rob!
Your insight into the products you review has been so helpful to us who are not so tech-savvy. You will be missed by all of us i am sure. Good luck in the future
Kinda hope this is an april fools joke....no...well then, THANK YOU so very much for all that you have done! It is truly amazing how well you have kept up this site. This is the first site I check every day. I have used the recommendations extensively and recommend Gizmo's as the first goto site to anybody looking for ANY type of software. You will be missed and THANK YOU for such dedication and hard work!
I sincerely appreciate your "finds" and fully understand what you've written about the evolution (or lack of) "free" software. All in all, I think there's a lot more good than bad-- even if the trade-off is a bit of a clean-up afterwards, as long as the program does as it claimed.
Best wishes to you in your new journey-- whatever that may be!
You and your contributions have been an integral part of Gizmo's Freeware. Your articles were always on the spot, interesting and so valuable.
You have given the community so much. We hate to see you go.
Or may we have a little hope for more of you when we read "At least not that frequently"?
Anyway, we wish you all the best for whatever you do next.
Rob, we can't thank you enough for your immense contribution to this site with the Hot Finds. Your contribution will be missed a lot here by all of us.
I can't imagine how you came up with Hot Finds almost everyday... it's just mind boggling for me. How much effort must have gone in by you, to search for these stuff to post everyday for the users. I don't know how you managed to do this.
We wish you good luck for your future, and with everything that you do. May God bless you.
Thanks for those lovely comments. Much appreciated.
The whole IT landscape is changing, and there are definitely some interesting times to come. Despite all the freeware mentioned on this site, I reckon the free program that most of us use most frequently is a web browser. It's certainly true in my case. And when I'm not using a PC and a web browser, I'm using my phone, which uses an operating system called Android. That's also free.
Happy trails Rob, please don't be a stranger, your contributions have been massive and you will be missed muchly, thanks for your part in making this site a Beacon in the Night..
Happy Easter mate. :)
Well, gosh! I think I have commented two times, but, I read these all the time! I have received some great advice!
I'm sad. LOL
May you always be happy!
Su
I wish you well and understand your desire for a queter life. Have been a fan of Gizmo since the sites' inception and have sent may of my readers here for help. Enjoy your well earned rest but know you will be missed.
Thanks George. I might still contribute an occasional entry if I happen to come across something that I find useful.
Until a couple of years ago I actually had 3 "jobs". I worked at a university in the UK, I started an IT security business, and I was writing Hot Finds in my "spare" time! I now want to concentrate on the IT security business with fewer distractions, while also enjoying and exploring Portugal. My wife and I moved here a few months ago from the UK and there's lots to see. And a very difficult language to learn too!
Well good luck with the language. I guess we all have different learning abilities but I moved to Brazil 14 years ago and I can still only string together a few sentences in Portuguese. If it wasn't for my Brazilian wife of 12 years I'd have been consigned to the ex pat dunce's pile years ago. We did in fact almost move back to Europe last year (Portugal - Silves) but too many uncertainties with Brexit, the economic and migrant situation made us decide to stay here. MC - Site Manager.
Many thanks for all of the many useful articles and help you have given me over the years. Good luck in your retirement!
Many thanks also to the rest of the team.
I thank you for all of your years of dedication to finding shareware for all of us strangers all of these years.
You will be missed by all of your com poderes at Gizmo's and everyone have us save thousands of dollars through the decades of your finds.
I wish you a blessed retirement and only ask that you have a wonderful time living it. :)
Thanks for the great work for the site over the years. Truly enjoy Portugal. Went there late 1970s and loved Faro (flowers) on Med coast. Friendly, warm and many Brits then. Was right after the revolution so Ports were still all giddy and positive for the future. It's come long way. Enjoy.
Rob, thank you so much for all that you have done for us through the years! I remember the old days you talk about above and though I never progressed in my computer knowledge to the level that I could be an editor, I have been in the background benefiting from your work (and that of everyone else at Tech Support Alert). I've been around so long that I still have Issue #1 of PC Alert on my computer from 1998! In the government/non-profit world of operating on a shoestring budget, I don't know what I would have done if you all hadn't been there through my career. Many blessings for your WELL-DESERVED retirement!
Thank you for all of your contributions and for writing about things in such a way that this great-grandma understands. Much happiness and have a great retirement.
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Re: eikelein' comments, I sympathize entirely! My way around the problem of the "blank stare" is to say,
"Tap on the Windows Key - bottom left between Ctrl & Alt"
"Tap on the T Key - now the E Key - now the A Key, etc., etc." (until TeamViewer or the desired program is completely typed)
"Left-Click on TeamViewer in the displayed results" (or the desired program)
Then starts the fun of getting their username and password
Looks like Gnome 3 desktop on Linux. Not too many people like it, but to each their own.
yogi22,
we should get together and commiserate jointly. ;-)
A desktop is just, it's for working on stuff on your desk. It shouldn't be for launching programs.
I tried this and could not figure out how to use it. So I tried to uninstall it.... and not only found no uninstall information, but was completely unable to find the program files. What now?
Nice one.
Thanks rob,
another case of "just what i needed !"
My son emailed me six videos of a walk-around-virtual tour of the interior of his new house. They are about 12 hours drive from here so we won't be able to get there any time soon to see their house.
.... anyways, the videos that he took using hi phone or ipad were all upside down so I've been turning my computer monitor upside down on the desk to view them. LOL
Yeah, I know that it could have been fixed easily but I'm a tad over the hill (LOL again)
Your nice freebie did it so well !
This is handy since most people (for some unknown reason) hold their phone vertically when shooting photos and videos instead of horizontal like most wide screen TVs and monitors are oriented.
Have been trying to Rotate with VLC media player. 18 steps and still couldn't get it to take.
Installed Movie Rotator, Open > Rotate > Save. Boom! Done!
Don't know what I'd do without this website. Thanks.
"If you right click on any file and select "Send to mail recipient" then Affixa automatically creates an email in your webmail account drafts folder with the file attached. You can then open that mail and send it whoever you want."
While this is better, it certainly is not the solution I'm looking for. When I right click a file > send to, Ideally a Gmail compose window would open up with the file attached and uploading. That's what I'd really like :\ does anyone know of a solution that can do it this way?
Just to clarify, this is for Xbox One. Some of us still use a 360 and there may also be some Xbox users out there as well.
What if you have followed all of these instructions and your USB still shows a boot error? Or rather, the USB is already set to "Active" but still doesn't boot?
And I understand there are other variables, however, what should I try after all else fails?
Thanks! I tried UNetbootin using a downloaded iso file for a Linux boot CD to create a bootable USB flash drive. It worked perfectly on the first try. During bootup I simply pressed F12 to get the boot options screen, selected to boot from the flash drive, and it booted right up. I didn't need to change the BIOS or make the flash drive active. My system is a Dell running Windows 7 Professional.
Gizmo said
"can create bootable drives of all the major Linux distros and other operating systems including Windows as well."
Hi Ian,
Have you or anyone tried making a "live USB" version from a windows install disk
with UNetbootin? I could believe maybe it making the install possible from a USB flash drive. If it actually tricks Windows into not handing off USB control to the OS during the boot process ... where have I been¿
You can't build a windows install disk from an Ubuntu setup. What now?
Thanks. I would add also Yumi-2.x.x. It tool is very easy in use but supports just for Windows.
Thanks for sharing such a great Information! Waiting for more updates like this.
https://www.gologica.com/
I just tried this out. Seemed pretty slick until I realized it's not playing back a graphical representation of my session. It is actually retracing my mouse movement and clicks. This could be risky if you close windows or move things around before replaying. It could delete content or have some other negative impact. Use with caution.
Love this little app. Simple, uncomplicated. Even a simpleton like me mastered it immediately.
Took note of mrmontgom comment above and will make sure I play back before closing windows or moving anything around although I do not understand his warning and would appreciate some elucidation on it.
Thanks rob.
I think the point that is being made is this isn't recording a video of your actions, it is recording the actual actions. As such, when you play it back, any mouse clicks, keyboard presses happen again on your machine. So if things like applications, files, etc aren't in the same place/state that they were when the recording was made, the playback will likely be different as well and could lead to unintended consequences. I feel the write-up on this is poor in that it does not mention any of this.
It seems this is a bit more than a "screen" recorder, it seems to be a automation of the mouse to me. That is what mrmontgom is saying as well. It is easiest to duplicate this by starting to record then selecting different application windows then playing it back. On playback a screen recorder would just show a vision of what you were doing, but this app actually does what you recorded. So if you made a simple recording for someone that showed them how to delete something in like word, and they did not have word open in the same location etc it could actually delete something in the same location on screen, seems very dangerous to me. Not knocking the app at all, just think people should be aware of its power.
Larry
Ah, the light comes on above my head! Yes, I do now understand what you guys are saying. I'll be very careful in using this app but I still love it. Thanks guys
Simple Screen Recorder works pretty well. http://www.maartenbaert.be/simplescreenrecorder/
You can record the whole screen, a window, or an openGL object, plus audio.
It's in most Linux distro repositories, so it's clean.
Good to know. But as this article is about a Windows based application, it should be noted that Simple Screen Recorder is not an alternative given there doesn't appear to be a Windows version of that available - Linux only.
So perhaps this should be described as a "macro" recorder rather than a "screen" recorder? Ahhhhhh, semantics!
As far as actual screen recording in Windows goes, I found BB Flashback Express a while ago. I'm not sure how well it works for fancy Direct3D applications, but for standard Windows apps it gets the job done nicely.
http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack_FreePlayer.aspx
I had been using CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/) but this one looks interesting, especially the ability to personalize your recordings by embedding input from a camera in the recording. I'll have to check it out.
This is definitely a useful app. But, agree with others here: it is NOT a screen recorder... it is a MACRO recorder. Recordings produced by this app can only be "played back" on the computer that they were created-on, even when saved as an executable. Thus, this app is not useful for (and never was intended to be) a tutorial creation tool in the same vein as tools that capture screen activity and save it as a flash or video file. You can't send a screen recording executable file created by TinyTask to a friend and expect him to see a replay of your screen activity on his computer..the executable will not even launch on his computer.
For those inclined more towards open source software, when it comes to entrusting passwords, and also not storing in the cloud (the cloud :D), then 2 or the best are:
Password Safe http://pwsafe.org/
Keepass Password Manager http://keepass.info/
Keepass is perhaps slightly more secure, but definitely has more options, configurability for auto-typing login data. But that can make it more complicated for those that don't need a lot of options. But either will handle just entering user name / PW.
PW Safe is a bit simpler, doesn't have the level of extra entropy that Keepass has.
I use PW Safe for forum PWs, etc., & Keepass for banks. In PW Safe, You must click to auto type (or drag / drop). OMG! Click a mouse?!? How lazy are we getting?
Keepass can find the DB entry that matches current web page "title" or other identifiers - so don't have to "search" in the current DB. It also offers "Two-Channel Auto-Type Obfuscation," (see help file or online help file), which attempts to defeat most keyloggers.
Both of these are 1st class programs, are actively maintained, have excellent help forums & bug trackers / feature request reporting. Much better than a lot of commercial software I've used.
I used Roboform (free) some yrs ago. It certainly may've changed since then, but at the time had little if any on Keepass or Password Safe. Plus, some password mgrs are not open source, which for many security experts, is a *drawback* for security / encryption software, etc. I don't think storing PWs is any less important.
I'm sorry, but any personal data that's supposed to be kept from unwanted sources that has to go to a external website then back to my desktop thru 1000 encryptions, 264bit or greater, etc., etc. is still subject to any and all hacking, virus' and malware.
Just give me a stand alone program that stays on my desktop, PERIOD!
That way if I have problems, then, well, it'll have to come from my system and I don't have to worry about someone or some thing external that I can't control to worry about.
Last Pass has been wonderful to use, since I figured it out. The information that you enter does not come from the cloud, it is generated on your computer. One could tweak how many hashes the passwords used, some time ago, but I don't know if that is still the case.
LastPass is great. it is Free, and, for free, it is a super good deal!
I would like to see a review here of Dashlane https://www.dashlane.com/passwordmanager which looks on the surface like it might be a pretty good free PW manager and web form filler.
I agree. Dashlane presents really well - the website looks great and the product is very good. But if you want a review then it would be best to make your request as a comment in the article Best Free Web Form Filler and Password Manager.
The main problem with the free version of Dashlane is that it is limited to one device. That makes it practically useless for many users who want access from their PC and phone, for example. I wouldn't even look at it for this reason but if you only use one computer device then it is a good option.
See the free versus premium comparison at https://www.dashlane.com/premium
FWIW, LastPass Free is also Neil Rubenking's top pick at PC Magazine amongst free password managers (2016.07.07; review at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2475964,00.asp ). LastPass is now at version 4.1.33 (released 2016.11.18).
http://free-online-ocr.com/ is one I like better because it can convert to rtf. I'm still looking for one that converts to an open format, like odf, instead of Microsoft proprietary DOCX.
If you register (Still free), you get:
Adobe PDF
Microsoft Excel 97-2003 (xls)
Microsoft Excel (xlsx)
Microsoft Word 97-2003 (doc)
Microsoft Word (docx)
RTF document (rtf)
Text Plain (txt)
Thanks Rob.
Fantastic!
This huge collection of images from 1500 to 1922, shows the magnitude of the information in the cloud, at our disposal.
In this case made possible by the free 1 TB in Flickr.
Peter
As these images are copyright free, can they also be used with
modifications of the image. Or can we only use "As Is"
I would like to modify for commercial purposes. I.E. Kindle,
blogs and other.
I don't see any way to search. 12 million photos at random will require more than one sandwich.
I can't find any search device. Not useful without.
For me, Flickr's search box seemed to work properly. This was my first visit to Flickr, so I'll be interested to learn more about how to use it, and whether a log-in would provide more features.
After clicking on Rob's link, I clicked on the first image that appeared, which was a Thanksgiving platter of roast turkey, copied from The Saturday Evening Post, according to the meta-data revealed by scrolling down on the photo's own page. Next, I backed-up to the main "Internet Archive Book Images" page (where Rob's link had led me) and typed the word turkey in the search box in the top-right corner; this gave me the drop-down option (which I chose) to limit my search to the current Internet Archive Book Images photos. The search-results page included the option to filter the results by type of license. After choosing "commercial use allowed," I re-opened that filter, chose "modifications allowed," and then saw that both of those filters were active. Subsequent searches from that screen retained the filter settings.
Yes, certainly, there were countless images in the search results. However, this "problem of plenty" doesn't seem all that different from what we have with a Web search of an unfathomably large number of websites. On Flickr, perhaps we don't have the benefit of algorithms designed to push popular results to the top of the search list, and the environment may be less familiar, and we probably have fewer refinement options available. Still, a similar image search through a standard Web search engine gave me a similarly overwhelming number of images.
Having said all that, though, we are not limited to using Flickr's search engine to search Flickr's images. From my image search on Google, for the words Thanksgiving platter roast turkey The Saturday Evening Post, I didn't immediately find that same photo that I'd seen first on Flickr. But, by adding site:Flickr.com to my search string, that image was the first of only 9 images in my search results!
Thanks ichabod!
For your detailed and useful comment.
Peter
One solution is to use Google search.
Just type the topic that you are interested in, followed by this: site:flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages.
Example: type (without the quotes) in Google search: "indians site:flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages" to view images taken from books regarding indians.
The other solution is this:
Underneath every image you can see the metadata. On the right you can see some tags which include bookid bookyear bookdecate booksubject etc.
If you click on any of these tags you will be searching for this specific tag.
But you can also use these tags to find other subjects.
Example: In flickr search space, type booksubjectindians to see images of books regarding...well...indians.
Same applies for other tags e.g. if you type bookyear1842 you will find images from books from 1842.
Thanks, gem, for those gems of helpful info!
thanks
Nice, easy to use, ads not too instrusive on Android, not sure how much I will retain, but that's my problem!
I'm a bit weary of a language-learning program that spells both its French as its Hebrew version wrongly.
Please always clarify what is the privacy policy regarding these websites which ask you to upload photos
Specifically can your photos be used in the development of facial recognition technology software
I trust you do understand the implications of peoples photos being used in this way
This is just one extract from their Privacy Policy.
“None of this information is “personal data” – that is, data we could use to identify a specific person. Some of this information could, however, become personal data because we provide automatically collected anonymous data to third party advertisers to supplement the tracking information described below, and those third parties might be able to combine our anonymous data with other data they have to enable them to identify people.”
Basically this absolves them from everything and anything even when you understand that how privacy rules are implemented varies between countries.
In reality anything you post online is likely to be used by individuals or companies should they attach value to it for their own ends and the only way to prevent this is not to post it. It doesn’t matter how many rules are broken when the servers in question are based in the Ukraine or Vietnam. :)
MC - Site Manager.
The great thing about Techsupportalert is that when discussing computer software, reviewers always mention that software has been scanned and it doesn’t contain malware. In other words it probably functions as you expect without uploading data back to developers or coinstalls bad code
Unfortunately when it comes to online sites that upload your personal data (and photos are very personal data) there is no similar warning about how our photos potentially are being used. Online sites in my opinion pose an equal risk as installed software and malware
We have already learned that many sites are harvesting peoples facial photos and selling them to companies that are creating facial recognition software for government, policing and commercial uses.
It’s time we stop uploading our photos to anonymous websites. We have become so permissive to this practice
Even Facebook and Instagram are probably harvesting people’s photos for this reason
In 2019 you would be crazy to be giving strangers your most personal data. Yet everyone does it and we encourage people to do so
And don't forget that, unless you've deleted it, photographs often include GPS data along with time and date stamps. For the average person that probably doesn't mean much, but for those with massive data harvesting and analysis capabilities (Google, etc.) it means being able to know your exact location at a specific time and date. And beyond that, to extrapolate your travels if enough information is available.
No, I'm not really that paranoid. But the data is there along with the capability to analyze it, should someone want to.
What information is stored in a smartphone photo’s metadata?
Please see here for some general inforamtion. MC - Site Manager.
https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-can-you-tell-from-photo-exi...
Photo privacy - what no one actually tells you
https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-can-you-tell-from-photo-exif-data/
Thanks. Proves my point that we are way to permissive with the sharing of our photos. Metadata can track the address the photo was taken !
Techsupportalert was based on providing people with software info that is screened to be safe
Can we not be recommending any more website uploading services that request photos or documents, without making clear the associated risks
So if you recommend a photo upload site, please recommend that personal photos be first stripped of their metadata
This is basic information in 2019
Gizmo’s Freeware always tries to safeguard the interests of members and visitors including download advisory notices for some software but there is a limit to adopting a nanny type of presentation.
Pretty much everything you do in life has security and privacy risks especially using Windows and yet here we are as predominantly a Windows resource site. Also, for years we have published a series of security related articles including the one linked below yet the readership numbers for these are insignificant compared with Best Free Live Wallpapers which pretty much sums up user preferences.
https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-stay-safe-while-online.htm
The same applies to Windows security software where 95% of all users never bother to read the vendor’s documentation and thus end up with an incorrectly configured system churning out results they can't understand and most likely ignore.
In all honesty therefore it is the responsibility of computer and web users to educate themselves about best safe practices because there’s a limit to how much sites like ours can help. MC - Site Manager.
Yes. The majority of computer readers these are blasé about security risks. They don’t read security articles. Attention spans have reduced, and all that matters is that you have a good selfie
To inform people, you just need one sentence at the end of reviews:
For software, we need to state that the program has been screened for malware
For photo upload sites, we need to remind people that the Privacy policy may allow developers to onsell your photos, so strip your photo metadata first (and provide the link how to do this)
As I’ve said to Rhiannon, it’s better to find utilities to perform tasks, rather than uploading your data to anonymous websites. Instead we normalise this behaviour
Tech support should always keep people informed, otherwise it becomes part of the problem
This is actually an interesting solution. But I'm not sure that it's actually THAT private.
A free account has only 10 meg of storage, which may be an issue and the free accounts has adverts. I wonder if what is said in these chat rooms is used for their adverts?
Which gets you to the issue of privacy, which is also questionable. They do not allow secret accounts, how well they police that I am not sure, but they do keep a full history of everything, and they do not even demand a court order to release this information. If you follow the links below even civil matters like copyright infringements, they are likely to police. Put it this way, if I was a solicitor or someone who needs privacy, I am looking for something else. https://campfirenow.com/privacy
DISCLOSURE
This is a great find, Vic. Thank you for sharing it!
I love Jv16 Powertools and that feature is awesome but you rightfully tell us to BE CAREFULL with it. It will do EXACTLY what you tell it to do
Thanks
I know this is a 5-year-old article, but just a quick FYI in case anyone cares... The link to the J-Walk Blog posted at the end of this article is dead. It leads to the J-Walk home page, but the blog that it was originally a link to must have been removed from the site.
Things on the web have changed so much and yet, as highlighted, have remained the same in many ways.
Thank you for the insight and dedication to help out so many visitors Rob!
Thank you!
Fair winds and Following Seas
Your insight into the products you review has been so helpful to us who are not so tech-savvy. You will be missed by all of us i am sure. Good luck in the future
Kinda hope this is an april fools joke....no...well then, THANK YOU so very much for all that you have done! It is truly amazing how well you have kept up this site. This is the first site I check every day. I have used the recommendations extensively and recommend Gizmo's as the first goto site to anybody looking for ANY type of software. You will be missed and THANK YOU for such dedication and hard work!
You will be missed!
It's been an honor Robert. Thank you for everything. I'll miss you.
Wow. Although we've never met, I feel like I'm losing a good friend.
All the best in your future endeavours, sir.
Dear Rob,
Thank you for all of your hard work & dedication.
I sincerely appreciate your "finds" and fully understand what you've written about the evolution (or lack of) "free" software. All in all, I think there's a lot more good than bad-- even if the trade-off is a bit of a clean-up afterwards, as long as the program does as it claimed.
Best wishes to you in your new journey-- whatever that may be!
~G
Thanks Rob,One of my favorite goto sites of all time Thank you, Thank you Thank you. Best wishes for your future endeavours.
Dear Rob,
what will we do without you?
You and your contributions have been an integral part of Gizmo's Freeware. Your articles were always on the spot, interesting and so valuable.
You have given the community so much. We hate to see you go.
Or may we have a little hope for more of you when we read "At least not that frequently"?
Anyway, we wish you all the best for whatever you do next.
Thank you so much!
Best regards,
George
Rob, we can't thank you enough for your immense contribution to this site with the Hot Finds. Your contribution will be missed a lot here by all of us.
I can't imagine how you came up with Hot Finds almost everyday... it's just mind boggling for me. How much effort must have gone in by you, to search for these stuff to post everyday for the users. I don't know how you managed to do this.
We wish you good luck for your future, and with everything that you do. May God bless you.
Been a long run rob. Appreciate all the goodies you found for us. Peace, Prosperity and Health to you.
Happy trails Rob, please don't be a stranger, your contributions have been massive and you will be missed muchly, thanks for your part in making this site a Beacon in the Night..
Happy Easter mate. :)
Well, gosh! I think I have commented two times, but, I read these all the time! I have received some great advice!
I'm sad. LOL
May you always be happy!
Su
Too much changes too quickly on the web, you've offered us stability for some considerable time. Many thanks for everything.
I wish you well and understand your desire for a queter life. Have been a fan of Gizmo since the sites' inception and have sent may of my readers here for help. Enjoy your well earned rest but know you will be missed.
Many thanks Rob. It was pleasure to read news from you.
Rob good luck in your new endeavor.I hope that the quality does continue, I really enjoyed receiving the daily info.
John
Many thanks for all of the many useful articles and help you have given me over the years. Good luck in your retirement!
Many thanks also to the rest of the team.
You will be missed. God be with you.
Robert,
I thank you for all of your years of dedication to finding shareware for all of us strangers all of these years.
You will be missed by all of your com poderes at Gizmo's and everyone have us save thousands of dollars through the decades of your finds.
I wish you a blessed retirement and only ask that you have a wonderful time living it. :)
Ken
Thanks for the great work for the site over the years. Truly enjoy Portugal. Went there late 1970s and loved Faro (flowers) on Med coast. Friendly, warm and many Brits then. Was right after the revolution so Ports were still all giddy and positive for the future. It's come long way. Enjoy.
Rob, thank you so much for all that you have done for us through the years! I remember the old days you talk about above and though I never progressed in my computer knowledge to the level that I could be an editor, I have been in the background benefiting from your work (and that of everyone else at Tech Support Alert). I've been around so long that I still have Issue #1 of PC Alert on my computer from 1998! In the government/non-profit world of operating on a shoestring budget, I don't know what I would have done if you all hadn't been there through my career. Many blessings for your WELL-DESERVED retirement!
Rob, thanks and you will be missed. May God continue to watch over you in your new ventures.
All the best Rob. You will be missed.
Thank you for all of your contributions and for writing about things in such a way that this great-grandma understands. Much happiness and have a great retirement.
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