Simple Tech Today

Windows Mobile: Twikini Is A Worthwhile Twitter Client

Ellen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:16:31 +0000

As my readers know I have a Samsung Omnia which runs Windows Mobile so I can run applications just like on a computer. I’ve been looking for a Twitter client (for my post about Twitter go here) and have tried quite a few like ceTwit, Twobile, Pocketwit and Tiny Twitter. While I liked ceTwit the best I had problems with my virtual keyboard covering the input box at times and not be able to see my whole tweet. This happened with various Twitter clients and became bothersome.

Then I came across a free trial of Twikini and fell in love with the application. It’s fast, customizable with themes, integrates with Twitpic and Windows Media Player (you can post song you are listening to), url shortening services and best of all post tweets with a full screen editor — that’s what I wanted. Twikini is compatible with Windows Mobile 5, 6, and 6.1

So, if you have Windows Mobile and use Twitter I suggest trying out Twikini for the 14 day trial. If you like it buy it $4.95 or if you are a blogger like me write about it and get it for free.

Do you have a favorite Windows Mobile Twitter client? Did you try out Twikini? What do you think about it?

FatWallet Introduces Select Daily Deals To An Already Useful Shopping Site

Ellen — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:04:39 +0000

I love FatWallet. What can I say, they offer cash back if you buy through their links for over 800 merchants, display deals and coupons for those merchants and have what I think are the best forums around for finding deals, freebies and coupons.

Now, Fat Wallet is using its staff to select daily deals they find their members will want to peruse and hopefully buy. Here is their press release.

FATWALLET.COM UNVEILS TODAY’S TOP DEALS

Rockton, IL, May 7, 2009—At 12:00 p.m. CST, FatWallet.com launches Today’s Top Deals, an at-a-glance listing of handpicked FatWallet.com deals.

A dedicated FatWallet.com deal hunting staff is delivering a selection of browsable deals to online consumers via Today’s Top Deals. The daily list of select deals from various shopping categories includes product images, pertinent coupon and purchase links, as well as staff quick reviews and links to corresponding forum community discussions. A sample of Today’s Top Deals welcomes consumers landing on the FatWallet.com homepage; and the full list of fifty-plus deals can be viewed at www.fatwallet.com/top-deals. This light and consumer-friendly page is one of many money saving resources available to consumers to experience the wealth of economical information to be found on FatWallet.com.

As the preferred shopping resource for over one million savvy consumers, FatWallet.com works closely with over 800 merchant partners like Dell, Travelocity, and Wal-Mart to publish exclusive offers, online coupons, and cash back rebates. The growing FatWallet.com forum represents the pulse of not only FatWallet.com but also an evolving online marketplace where consumers gather to share and learn. FatWallet.com ranks by Quantcast as one of the top 1,000 Internet properties, worldwide. www.fatwallet.com

For more information, please contact Laura Pagles of FatWallet.com, (815) 877-8992. marketing@fatwallet.com

So, go and check out their new feature and let me know what you think. I certainly will be subscribing to this feed to add to my dealnews and The Bargainist.

75 Deal and Coupon Site for the Bargain Hunter

Ellen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:19:23 +0000

Here is a list of 75 sites that will help the shopping enthusiast or even sporadic shopper get the best price through deals and coupons. This list is far from complete but offers an array of sites that you may not have heard of before. I would love to keep this list growing so if you have a site that is not listed here please leave a comment with the website.

247malls.com – quality merchants & special savings Online Coupons, Deals and Special Discounts for over 1.000 stores!
Airfarewatchdog - Compare airfares that are not always part of the bigger travel sites like Southwest and Jetblue. Includes smaller airlines as well. Sign up for free airfare alerts from your local airport.
AntiRebate.com Great Deals, Coupon Codes, Free Stuff, Price Breaks, Save Money, No Rebate Hassles! A source for buying various products at discount prices without the hassles and problems of mail-in rebates. Links to great deals, coupon codes, instant rebates, price breaks, free stuff and other money saving ideas.
BaeBo A shopping site that lets you compare Amazon, eBay and Yahoo all in one place! Monitor Amazon product prices via RSS Feeds! Amazon + eBay + Yahoo + RSS = The best shopping feed EVER!
Ben’s Bargains Lowdown deals!
Booking Buddy Comparison search engine for travel sites. Compare airfare, cruises, hotels, car rentals and vacations from the top travel sites.
Boddit Makes it simple for you to discover deals for what you want by aggregating deals from a huge selection of bargain hunting websites. Searches online for all the latest deals from bargain hunting websites.
Bountii Comparison shopping site showing you the best prices.
Bradsdeals – published by Brad Wilson, finds and filters online shopping deals, online coupons and codes and in-store printable coupons.
Brand Name Coupons A web deals site that combs the Internet to find the best coupons, discounts, and clearances. Has a great Amazon Deal finder tool.
Buxr Shop and save, share and earn.
CheapStingyBargains Your top resource for Dell Coupons, HP Coupons, Coupons, Deals and Freebies.
Combyo Combines hot deals & coupons from top deal sites like Fatwallet, Slickdeals etc. and presents them with real-time price comparison side by side. In case you don’t have the time to look for deals everyday, tell us what you are looking for and the price you are looking for.
Coupon Chief Find and share coupon codes.
Couponmom Blog Nice blog that has deals and coupons, mostly drugstores.
Daves Hot Deals at Daily Tool.com This site posts 2-10 daily deals on cool stuff. Most of these deals and coupons expire quickly. On Fridays this site posts one deal every hour.
DealArmy Aggregates coupons and deals from a variety of sites.
DealBundle Social Shopping for Deal Fanatics! A social shopping community supported by its members. Users submit deals for review then the community rates those deals on quality and popularity which promote them to the main site.
DealCatcher Free Online Coupons Dell, Amazon, Best Buy, Overstock. An online community that helps shoppers save money and make educated purchases. On the site you will find online coupons, products, sales, reviews, and rebates.
Dealhack Deals, Specials, Rebates, Coupons
Dealigg – A social bargain hunting site. A web2.0 community where members find and vote for the latest deals. Popular deals have received seven or more votes.
DealMine.com Save money and time when you shop online! Search stores for discounts, miles, points and other rewards. Compare prices of millions of products at thousands of stores.
dealnews.com Find the lowest prices and coupons on computer hardware, software, digital cameras, iPods, MP3 players, plasma TVs. Great email newsletter sent out daily.
deanNshop Hot deals, freebies, & online coupons for sites like Amazon, Staples, Best Buy and Buy.com.
DealsofAmerica Online deals, coupons, promotions, special offers & deals from popular US stores.
Dealio Online Coupon Codes, Discount Coupons & Online Deals.
dealplumber Find the best deals and coupons & save! A social network for deal savvy consumers to find, save and share deals online.
dealspl.us Hot Deals, Bargains, Coupons, Lowest Prices and Shopping. A great bargain/coupon site to check out
DealPocket Provide the deals and coupons found on internet. Post coupons, discount offers everyday which will help shoppers pocket smiling.
Dealsea Coupon codes and deals.
DealStop They search for truly exceptional deals and bargains each and every day and publish them as soon as they find them. Also, list coupons for popular stores. They write brief stories and reviews about new or lesser known ways to save money.
Deals.com Uncovering the Best Discounts & Deals. User submitted deals and coupons. Community votes on best deals which end up on the front page. Digg-like interface.
DealsVista.com Helps you figure out what is best to buy, why it’s best, and where to buy it at a good price. They sort through all the information and hype on products, and clearly and concisely recommend the best for what you need.
DealTuner Hot deals and listings from deal sites such as FatWallet, SlickDeals, Ben’s Bargains and Deal Catcher. Deals are shown by date posted and categories.
Dealyzer.com Helping you find great deals on the Internet! A search engine that searches many of the popular deal sites on the internet to help you find the best deals. Give it a try.
Digital Deals The Internet source for bargains
eDealinfo Daily deals discount site with coupons.
flippid – Post what you want Flippid lets you name your price for the stuff you’re looking for. Sellers on flippid like it because it doesn’t cost them a thing to see what buyers want. Sellers will even compete with each other just to sell to you!
FatWallet Freeonline coupons, online bargain shopping, price comparison, and forum community. Also offers cashback on purchases made from merchants through their site.
FreeShipping.org Free Shipping Coupons to 1478 Stores.
Frucall An online comparison shopping website for mobile shoppers. Use your mobile phone to find out online prices for items while shopping in stores. Very handy.
GasBuddy.com Find the lowest gas prices in your city.
Gilt Groupe An invitation only site (leave a comment and I will send you invite) that features sales on designers clothes, accessories and home goods.
GottaDeal.com Today’s hottest deals from online forum threads.
Information About Hot Deals: Deals Aggregator Pulls together deals from leading deal and merchant sites. Sites included slickdeals, techbargains, bensbargains, dealsea, dealslist, buy.com, newegg, tigerdirect, amazon and other sites. Deals are updated every hour.
Jellyfish.com Get cash back while shopping online. Also has Smack Shopping which is like a reverse auction. Check it out.
Kaboodle Share and find shopping deals with friends.
mobsaver – SMS price comparison tool Use your cell phone to send text message to get price comparisons while out shopping. checks against amazon and ebay.
my Holiday Shopping List Your online personal shopper, searching the web around the clock to find the best prices available. You’ll receive regular emails with your shopping results, and you’ll be just a click away from the items you want, at the prices you want, directly from t
myTriggers.com All Items. All The Time. A “persistant” shopping search engine where you enter an item you are looking for and the maximum amount you are willing to pay and the application searches over a million merchants, including eBay, and returns relevent results.
NetHaggler A shopping companion toolbar to help you get the best prices. Tag an item at a price you desire. Nag the merchant for a lower price. Haggle as a group for bargain rates.
Passwird Deals and bargains on a variety of items including electronics, gadgets, computers and accessories.
PlanetBargains Find discount clothing, cheap shoes, and deals on dining.
PopDeal The latest tech deals and bargains from around the web. One page aggregator of the latest tech deals on the web including feeds from DealNews, Buy.com, TechBargains, Deal Catcher, ResellerRatings, Ben’s Bargains, XP Bargains, AntiRebate, Woot, SlickDeals, FatWallet and GotApex.
Price Comparisons A web mashup based on Yahoo Shopping, Shopping.com, Amazon, and eBay for comparison shopping. It offers tagging, custom feeds, custom product grouping and pricing history.
Price Protectr – Get your money back! Find the item you bought online, enter the url and your email. If the price drops within the price protection period you will receive an email. Works for Amazon, Backcountry.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Future Shop, Jenson USA, Office Max, Sears.
Printable Coupons – Printable coupons for a variety of stores.
redtagcrazy They sell one hot item from one sought-after label at a time, casual and designer, at deep discounts of 50-80%. Quantities are limited, time is limited, and their attention span is limited – so stay awake.
RetailMeNot Coupon codes and discounts for over 30,000 stores.
SecretPrices.com Deals, Coupons, and Price Comparison Shopping. Unheard of Prices. Primary focus is finding the lowest prices for you. This includes any coupons, rebates, discounts or combination of them. Other shopping comparison sites lack important deal, rebate and co
ShopBIG A comparison shopping search engine providing aggregated user reviews from merchant sites and price alerts.
Shop It To Me: Your free personal shopper for sales on clothing and accessories This site sends you clothing that matches your size and brand preferences as soon as it goes on sale. Select your favorite apparel brands and sizes and you will receive an email with a daily or weekly summary of which new items go on sale in your size.
SlickDeals.net – Your Daily Source for the BEST Deals on the Net!! Find the some of the best deals and coupons for today’s top internet retailers! They also have a comprehensive list of coupons for you to use at online shops.
SmarterTravel.com Free online consumer community helping people save time and money on travel. Offers travel advice, blogs, travel tools, articles on specialty travel and travel deals and bargains.
Snoopr you can find, share, rate, and discuss the hottest deals on the web. You need to participate to get the most out of snoopr.net, so register now (it’s free).
Spoofee Coupons and Deals Find daily deals and coupons. Consumers are informed with the best deals. Users can submit deals on the discussion boards.
sylenotes sister site to dealnews focusing on discounts and coupons on Women’s clothing, apparel, jewelry, accessories and home decor.
TechBargains Bargains, for discounted computer sales, cheap laptops, and cheap digital cameras.
Techdeals.net A guide to technology deals and more.
The Bargainist | Deals, Sales & Coupons Finds the best deals around on just about everything. From gadgets to home furnishings, you’ll always read about the hottest bargains, sales, coupons, and freebies right here.
TheFind.com – Shopping Search Reinvented – What can we find for you? A product search engine that crawls over 500,000 online stores and 150 million products web-wide and ranks results by leading products, brands, stores and styles giving you the most relevent results up front.
Trezr.com: The best sale and discount items, coupon codes, and money-saving tips Links to the best sale and discounted items on the web each day: designer shoes, digital cameras, cashmere sweaters, travel deals and more. You’ll also find coupon codes to stores all over the web and helpful tips for saving money.
Woot : One Day, One Deal An online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. One deal a day is offered until it is sold out. Fun to see what the deal of the day is and whether the price is worth it.
wowcoupons Source for free printable discount coupons for retail and grocery stores, restaurants and travel rebates.
Yugster Daily deals plus as a member special deals are shown. Prices are very good.

What sites do you visit for deals and coupons?

Understanding Torrents: The Big Book of BitTorrent

Ellen — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:33:13 +0000

In my last post I said I had trouble explaining what Twitter was. Well, if Twitter is difficult to explain then torrents are even more difficult to describe. Basically, torrents are a faster way of sharing files with other people. In the Big Book Of BitTorent, put out by the Make Use of Blog, Saikat Basu explains that torrents says,

“Most of us are more familiar with more conventional forms of file sharing such as email and
FTP. BitTorrent is just another file sharing protocol (a set of rules on how to do things) we
can use. Email and FTP rely on one computer hosting the file and transmitting it to another
connected computer. BitTorrent introduces a major difference – the hosting and the
downloading is spread out over many computers using a technology called Peer-to-Peer. We
can use BitTorrent to share or download any type of files – .exe, mp3, AVI, Jpeg, and Doc
etc…

Hey, stop the muddles before they come on…it‟s not terribly complicated. Here‟s a likeness
of how BitTorrent works…
There is a book I want to read but I have only one chapter with me. I look around and find a
friend who has a few more chapters. It still isn‟t a complete book, so we search for few more
guys around the block who might have the remaining pages. We find a bunch of guys and
though nobody has the complete book, we share the chapters amongst each other till all of
us get a copy of the complete book one by one.
On the internet the “book‟ becomes our file, which is broken up into little pieces or bits. Each
of us has at least one and we download and share these “bits‟ till we have the entire file.
Each piece one of us downloads is available to all the others for upload. Thus we all share
rather than placing the onus on one computer to host the file and distribute it.”

By sharing files this way the download of a large file becomes quick rather than waiting hours for it to download. BitTorrent can be used for all kinds of files including music and video files. Basu talks about the legality of some torrents like the ability to find the latest movies in the theater on the internet. It’s up to you whether you want to download something you know is illegal or not. I am not sure of the copyright laws regarding television shows but I look at is as a friend taping the show for me to watch on my DVD player later.

The Big Book Of BitTorrent covers many topics to help you understand thoroughly choosing a BitTorrent client, finding torrents, downloading torrents, torrent etiquette and creating your own torrents. The book is in PDF format so give it some time to load.

I use uTorrent as my BitTorrent client. I love it. I also use a few torrent sites to find files to download. I use BTJunkie as a torrent search engine, Mininova, Demonoid (now has open registration, otherwise by invite only) and a site that has British television and radio shows called TheBox which is invite only and I have invites to if you like British television.

I want to thank the people at Make Use Of for offering this book for free (this is a great blog to and I suggest reading it or subscribing to it and Saikat Basu for writing such a clear document that helps the novice understand bittorrents.

So, if you want an invite to TheBox let me know, I have 8 of them please leave a comment and I will send one off to you.

Did the book help you understand BitTorrent? Do you use torrents to download files? Do you have a favorite BitTorrent client? Site or search engine? Please share to let others know.

Random Posts

What is Twitter and the 10 Ways That I Use It

Ellen — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:48:12 +0000

If you watch television news you have probably heard newscasters talk about Twitter or show a Twitter stream of people responding instantly to a question being asks by a newscaster or pundit. Even Oprah has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon.

So, what is Twitter? To tell you the truth I have a hard time explaining it. It is known to be a microblogging service where you have 140 characters to type in “What are you doing?” This information is then shared with your followers on Twitter. When a follower leaves what is called a “tweet” you see it in your timeline. The more followers and people you are following the more interactive Twitter becomes, for some it becomes almost an addiction.

Wikipedia’s definition is:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website.

When you first join Twitter you have no one you are following or who is following you back. How do you get people to follow you? You first follow them. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/infomaniac. Then you can look at my timeline and see who my followers are, the “tweets” they leave and whether you want to follow them. Usually when you follow a person they will follow you back unless they are a big celebrity like Oprah or Larry King … http://twitter.com/oprah and http://twitter.com/kingthings.

You can use Twitter to keep up with friends, just have them sign up for Twitter, follow each other, and you can share what you are doing, where you are and so forth. You can protect your timeline so only people who you approve see your updates. That’s how it becomes a social networking tool for you and your friends.

Or, you can be like me and follow lots of people and have many followers sharing all kinds of information. You can reply to followers in the public timeline or send direct messages that no one else sees except the follower you are communicating with.

The ways I use Twitter are

Share “What are you doing?” updates like getting up in the morning or doing work and being bored to not feeling well that day. People respond either with good morning or concern if I’m not feeling well.
Share links with other followers about new software applications, news and interesting blog posts.
Share photos and videos I have taken, mostly of my cat Jack.
Find links from my followers that lead me to interesting stories, web applications, photos, videos and such. It’s fun to check out other people’s links.
Ask questions to my followers, like what kind of smart phone do you use and do you like it. People respond pretty quickly when you have lots of followers.
Answer questions that people ask, that’s if I have the answer of course.
A couple of times I have had problems with my Comcast service and Comcast monitors “tweets” and responds so quickly it can be daunting. You can also follow http://twitter.com/comcastcares if you are a Comcast subscriber you can opt for that but like I say they monitor anyone talking about Comcast and respond. I am sure there are other companies out there that do the same thing.
Keep up with recent news, either through other follower’s “tweets” or followers like http://twitter.com/foxnews.
Follow interesting people like Oprah and Larry King to see what kind of things they tweet.
I follow http://twitter.com/ricksanchezcnn and watch his show. I never have responded with a tweet but I like to see what people are saying on Twitter.

Another fun thing to do is to watch the full Twitter stream of all the people all Twitter. You might find someone who shares information you like or your kind of opinions.

The only way to find out if Twitter is for you and what it is all about is to go to the site and start playing around. Do you use Twitter? Share your Twitter address in the comments and I will follow you.

Samsung Omnia: Free FingerKeyBoard Offers Great Options

Ellen — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:21:55 +0000

I wrote a post, Smart Phone: Samsung Omnia From Verizon, not long ago where I mentioned Resco Keyboard which costs for $19.95 as the keyboard I chose for my Omnia. Now, it is a great keyboard application giving you lots of customization and different keyboard layouts. But, I now have found a keyboard that really fits my needs and best of all it’s free!

The keyboard is called FingerKeyBoard 2.1 and for the Samsung Omnia you want to download the FingerKeyb-2.1-WQVGA.cab for the Omnia. Being a free keyboard developed by two people it has its quirks and they fix any bugs promptly though I have not found any problems using the keyboard. I LOVE IT!

The screenshot above shows the keyboard in portrait mode. I have found that it is easy to type with my thumb messages and emails. Each key has two functions, first the the regular keyboard keys you see in bold and then the lighter keys you see above the regular keys. A simple press of a key brings up the regular key, a longer press brings up the lighter key.

In portrait mode I use two thumbs. In the screenshot above you can see the characters above the normal keys. You can customize the smiley keys and the j, k and l keys. There are numerous language options and you can select as many as you like. A numeric keyboard is easily accessed.

Other options are:

Press sound – make it click , bloop, typewriter sounds
Press vibrate – control how many seconds or whether you want it to vibrate.
In portrait or landscape mode show the windows bar on the bottom of the screen. This saves space especially in portait mode to turn off the windows bar.
Backspace behavior – you can have the backspace erase an entire word or text when holding the key for a longer time. I love the fact I can erase a word easily because I misspell words all the time.
Text selection, cut, paste, copy – We are already able to do that on the Omnia so I haven’t used this option.
A variety of color schemes for your keyboard.
Navigation arrows, home, end, up, down, left, and right.

There are other options for other screen layouts but don’t exist on the Omnia. Hopefully in the next version they will exist for the Omnia including the ability to have customizable keys to type names, numbers, web addresses, basically anything. I would love that.

Check out this video for more information on the keyboard.

To install and get a feel for the FingerKeyBoard the best thing is to read the FAQs after the introduction to the keyboard and if you are like me and want to know as much as possible read the forum.

Do you have a favorite keyboard you use on your Touch Phone?

Remember Only One Password With LastPass

Ellen — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:42:34 +0000

Does trying to remember passwords you created for websites drive you nuts? Do you use the same password for every site (that’s a big no-no)? Are you using Firefox or Internet Explorer to remember your passwords for your most sensitive sites? Do you forget your passwords on a regular basis (I use to )? If you answered yes to any of these questions there is a better and safer way and it is called LastPass.

The nicest thing about LastPass in you only have to remember one password, yep that’s right, I said one password. You create a master password that logs you into LastPass and let the application do the rest. And, not only does LastPass save your passwords it also fills in forms for you saving your information as well.

If you use Firefox or Internet Explorer on Windows, Mac or Linux, LastPass works as a plugin. If you are using Opera, Google Chrome, Safari or another browser that supports Javascript then you can use a bookmarklet that you can drag to your bookmark/favorites bar. The functionality isn’t as great with the bookmarklet as it is with the plugin but you still get the benefits of LastPass.

So, what does LastPass do? When you first download it the application brings you through steps to import saved passwords you already have in Firefox and Internet Explorer. You can also import passwords from RoboForm, 1Password, KeePass, MyPasswordSafe, Password Agent, Password Safe, Sxipper, PassPack and TurboPasswords.

After importing data you will be asked whether you want to install the plugin in Firefox and Internet Explorer. If you have both browsers on your computer I suggest installing the plugin in both programs. What’s really nice is that LastPass saves your passwords for sites across browsers, it is not browser dependent. So even if you are using the bookmarklet in Safari you will have the same passwords saved as the ones in Firefox.

LastPass features include:

One Master Password – you only have to remember your master password to login to LastPass and let the application do the rest.
One Click Login – Passwords are automatically filled in and you can click login or use the Auto Login option to skip having to press login and go right into the site.
Multiple Password Support – If you have more than one login and password for a site they are listed and you can choose the one you want to use.
Generate Secure Passwords – Stop using the same password or trying to come up with a strong password. Let LastPass do the work for you by generating a secure password. You don’t have to remember the password since you only need your master password to login.
Automatic Form Filling – Create profiles to fill in forms with personal information and credit card info if you want.
Secure Your Data – Your passwords are encrypted on your computer. Only your LastPass password can unlock your data for use.
Group Your Passwords – Create groups for your passwords like Finance, Shopping, Health, etc. The LastPass plugin lets you find sites by group. You could actually use LastPass like a bookmark manager.
Universal Access – You can access your LastPass passwords from any computer by logging into LastPass and viewing your sites in your LastPass vault.
Backup and Restore - Don’t worry about losing your passwords, LastPass creates an encrypted file with your passwords for easy restore.

If you are worried about the security of your passwords with LastPasshere is their security policy.

On windows, LastPass helps find insecure passwords stored on your computer so you can store them securely in LastPass and remove the easy access by malicious software. LastPass uses SSL exclusively for data transfer even though the vast majority of data you’re sending is already encrypted with 256-bit AES and unusable to both LastPass and any party listening in to the network traffic — the amount of data is trivial so the extra encryption doesn’t hurt. Our policy of never receiving private data that you haven’t already locked down with your LastPass master password (which we never receive and will never ask for) radically reduces attack vectors. We use firewalls and best practices to protect the servers and service, but our best line of defense is simply not having access to data even if someone got in. If LastPass can’t access it, hackers can’t either.

I love LastPass. I have tried other password managers and LastPass has been the easiest to use and I love that it generates secure passwords. I change my passwords on my financial accounts frequently and having LastPass generate those passwords is great and I don’t have to try and remember a complicated password that I would have created for those accounts.

A premium version of LastPass is available but for now I am sticking with the basic version since it has all the features I need. The LastPass website has quite a few screencasts you can watch to get a feel for the application to see if it is the right password manager for you – Screencasts & Videos.

Necessary Software I Put On My New Computer

5 Articles to Find Top Free Software Applications

Ellen — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:38:26 +0000

I have paid for a lot of software for my Windows computer but I also download a lot of free applications that also make my computing experience easier and more pleasurable. So, it is always nice to find articles listing free software. Here are 5 that I found that list a wealth of software applications so if you are want to be frugal you could run your computer without paying for one piece of software.

PC World – 101 Undiscovered Freebies: The List: This list starts off with Best Bets which are worth while checking out.
PCMag.com – The Best Free Software of 2009: Some of the applications listed here are for Mac, Linux and Windows.
Lifehacker – Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008: Check out the comments in this article as well for people who share even more software applications.
winAddons – TOP 300 Freeware software!:Easy to read list broken down by category.
Damicon – List of Open Source Software: Also lists software for Linux and Mac systems as well as Windows.

Do you have favorite free software applications that you would like to share?

Random Posts

Necessary Software I Put On My New Computer

Ellen — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:18:19 +0000

I got my Dell Studio XPS 435MT last week and didn’t get it set up till Sunday to start loading software I needed for my computing needs on a daily basis. The system is 64 bit running Windows Vista Home Premium. It was nice to have the dual monitors because I could keep my old computer set up on one monitor and my new computer set up on the second monitor. That way any software I needed to deactivate on one computer I could do and set up right away on the new computer without losing the ability to use an application.

So, here is the software I now have on my new computer. Where I paid for a lot of my software I have offered free alternatives that I know exist.

Firefox (free)- This was the first piece of software I put on my new computer. I much prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer. Firefox is a free web browser with many add-ons to customize it to make web browsing easier.
IZArc (free)- This is a utility that zips and unzips files in a mutlitute of formats. It is freeware and I like it much better than WinZip.
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro (paid) – I’ve been an Office user for years so I just keep upgrading my version. I am an avid Word, Excel and Outlook user but also use Publisher and Powerpoint. Free Alternative: OpenOffice, a great free option and is compatible with Office formats.
Adobe Acrobat (paid)- I use this program constantly for work. I create and email files to clients using Acrobat and couldn’t live without it. Free Alternative: CutePDF.
Adobe Photoshop (paid) – I use Photoshop to edit photos for my blog and fun. Free Alternative: Gimp
executor (free)- This is a program, folder, file, basically anything you want launching application. I very rarely use the Start button on my computer and I don’t use the Quick Launch toolbar since I have this program on my computer. You just type in the name of the program, site or what you have added to executor and it is launched for you.
Syncing.net (paid)- I use this program to sync my Outlook files between my laptop and my desktop. I was sick of cleaning my email off of both computers and wanted a way to have my Outlook files the same on both computers including email, contacts, calendar and tasks. It works well but is not free. The home edition which runs on 3 computers costs $149. The program also syncs files but I was already using another program to do that so I only use it for the purpose of keeping my Outlook files synced.
Live Mesh (free)- This is the program I use to keep files in sync between computers and online. This is not file sharing per se, more that you have the same files on each computer and when you make a change it is changed on the other computer(s) as well and online. It’s nice that the files are online as well in case I need to access them when I am away from home.
TweetDeck (free) – I love Twitter (a microblogging kind of service I’ll write about soon) and TweetDeck makes it easy to see what others are tweeting, who has responded to me and any direct messages. It also now does status updates for Facebook. In order to run TweetDeck you will need Adobe AIR and will be prompted to download it if it is not on your computer.
Evernote (free and paid versions) – This program is great. It is a wonderful way to keep track of notes on your computer(s) and the web (also your smartphone or iphone). Keep separate notebooks for separate tasks/topics. Clip information from the web and save it to a notebook. There is a desktop client to run on your computer so you don’t have to be online to get your notes but by syncing your notes you have them online and can download them to other computers. A really great notetaking application. Check out this video. A Quick Introduction to Evernote

Skype (free and paid)- I use this for video calling with friends and family. The house I live in with my father is so big we Skype each other all the time. It is free to make calls between other users of Skype, they don’t have to be video calls. It does cost to make calls to non-Skype users but many find it is a great way to make international phone calls.
iTunes (free)- I prefer to use other music players than iTunes but I have an iPod Touch and I need to use iTunes, especially to access the application store. If you don’t need iTunes I suggest you check out Winamp and MediaMonkey as media players which both offer free and paid versions.
Snagit (paid)- This is a screen capture tool. It is great for sending screen shots to people of sites, error messages, your computer desktop and more. This program costs money. Free Alternative: WinSnap.
uTorrent (free) – A bittorrent client to download television shows and such. I use it to download shows from a British torrent site that has BBC shows not shown in the U.S.

There is more software that I will be adding to my computer. But, at this point, my computer is running with what I need. As I add programs I will share them with you.

What software was necessary for you to get your new computer up and running? What software can’t you live without? Are there free programs you know about so we don’t have to shell out so much money to make our computers productive?

I Couldn’t Live Without Dual Monitors

Ellen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:17:32 +0000

Well, I suppose I could live, it’s not a life or death situation but I love having dual monitors on my desktop computer (I wish I had a fold out one for my laptop). Having two 19” monitors while working has increased my productivity. It makes working so much easier and less time consuming.

One of my contract jobs is looking up leads for a client. I put those leads into an Excel spreadsheet. It is great to be able to have my web browser open on one monitor and the Excel spreadsheet opened on the other. I can copy and paste information quickly or type in any information necessary.

Having dual monitors also lets me have my Google Desktop Bar which I love . I use Outlook for my email and have that opened to see my new emails for various accounts. I can also have Tweetdeck or Twhirl (I use both) clients opened to see what is happening on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and Seesmic. I use my second monitor that way when I don’t need it for work.

Now, for some of you I have written about sites and applications you have never heard of. If I were you I would click on the link and see what they are. In future posts I will write about Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and Seesmic as they are part of the social networking web, a way of sharing information with friends in real time.

In order to work with two monitors you do need a graphics card that supports two types of inputs. My Dell supports both VGA and DVI inputs and both my monitors could be hooked up either way.

I have a new Dell desktop coming any day now and that will allow me to keep my dual monitor setup. I would love a larger monitor, even a 24” but I still would keep one of the 19” monitors for any extraneous programs or still for programs I need to increase my productivity. In the case of monitors, the more the better. I would love a setup of four monitors but then I am getting a bit greedy.

Do you work with more than one monitor? Does it increase your productivity or does it distract you with extraneous applications?

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