Taskbar Tweaker: Free App to Make your Life Easier (Windows 7 and 8)

http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker

This is a great little app. I use it for two things (but there are many more features):

1. Double click anywhere on the blank part of the taskbar and it shows the desktop (minimizes everything else). No more searching for the bottom right-hand corner spot.

2. Scroll your mouse up and down while hovering over the taskbar - it gives you the volume mixer and you can increase or decrease with your mouse. No more looking for that little volume icon.

These are small things but big annoyances when you do them all day long. 

See the above pic for my settings but do as you like. Works on Win 7 and Win 8.

Windows 8 is practically the same as Win7 but every new OS makes me find new apps to make life productive and easy.

Best Freeware for 2013 (Windows, Mac)

Back in 2009, I compiled a list that I keep updating. With 2013 upon us, now is the time for an updated list of the best freeware for both Windows and Mac. If you have suggestions, please respond in the comment section.  I've tried ten or more programs for each software type and this is my "Best of" list. If you have your own favorites that you think are better, let me know. But at least try the ones here before you say yours is better! (I may have "been there, done that" already!).

Without further ado, here is my list for 2013 (both Word and PDF):

http://sdrv.ms/WNtbV0

Frankly, it is difficult to think of commercial alternatives that are better than these freeware programs (Microsoft Office is a notable exception but the educational price is only $10 for five licenses!). I do pay for some programs, particularly those with lifetime licenses if I think the program is really helpful to me and those I routinely assist. Examples include: Clipcache Pro, Copernic Desktop Search.

That's about it. Everything else I use is free.

Best Freeware for 2012 (Windows, Mac)

Back in 2009, I compiled a list that I keep updating. With 2012 upon us, now is the time for an updated list of the best freeware for both Windows and Mac. If you have suggestions, please respond in the comment section.  I've tried ten or more programs for each software type and this is my "Best of" list. If you have your own favorites that you think are better, let me know. But at least try the ones here before you say yours is better! (I may have "been there, done that" already!).

Without further ado, here is my list for 2012 (both Word and PDF):

https://tinyurl.com/yc3rpzkk

Frankly, it is difficult to think of commercial alternatives that are better than these freeware programs (Microsoft Office is a notable exception but the educational price is only $10 for five licenses!). I do pay for some programs, particularly those with lifetime licenses if I think the program is really helpful to me and those I routinely assist. Examples include: Clipcache Pro, Copernic Desktop Search, Winpatrol.

That's about it. Everything else I use is free.

Virus Proof Windows: Online Armor Free

If you own a PC, you know that  your operating system (OS) is a target for all the malware makers of the world. With a worldwide market share of over 90%, it simply makes sense for those who create malware to target the largest number of computers. Fortunately, there is an easy way to virtually "virus proof" Windows: combine a good anti-virus program with something special--Online Armor Free. 

My favorite antivirus program is Avast 6 (free version). This Czech software protects from all types of malware. Auto update every two hours makes this something you never think about (click “Silent Mode” to turn off the voice and pop-ups announcing updates). Avast is very light on your system – it only consumes 6MB RAM (the cheapest PCs have 4,000MB of RAM!). Get it here: www.filehippo.com Another good choice (with annoying pop-up "buy me" screen): Avira Free http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

Now on to the tool I find especially useful, Online Armor Free. First, go to http://www.online-armor.com/downloads.php and get OA Free. It has many features, including firewall, web shield, and a "Program Guard." Turn off all those settings except for Program Guard. This guard allows you to “Run Safer” any program you choose (you will see a green border around the browser or other program “Run Safer”). If a program appears that is not on the OA "whitelist" of safe programs, then it will be "Run in Safer" mode. 

What does this do? Even if the program becomes infected it cannot make changes to your Windows OS because the program is running as a Limited Account and does not have Administrative Privileges. [For Geeks: This is not a Sandbox with all the downsides of one; it uses the DropMyRights tweak to lower privileges].

If you need to run a "Limited" program as an administrator simply right-click the program icon and “Run as Administrator.” That's it! Next time it will be running in safe mode. Tip: If you need to install or modify a program, click the "Learning Mode" button to prevent pop-ups while you install. 

This combination of Avast and OA Free (as configured above) = about 20MB RAM. You will hardly notice the hit to your system's performance and you can configure both programs to never bother you unless there really is a problem.  

For screenshots of programs running without OA "Run Safer" (BEFORE) and with it (AFTER), see here:

BEFORE (click to enlarge):

As you can see the privileges don't even fit on the screen (you would need to drag the scroll bar down to see them all. A virus or malware program could hijack any of these to take over your computer. 

AFTER: 

Notice that there is only one privilege enabled and it is to notify you of an attempt to change from Limited to Administrative Privilege.

CONCLUSION: OA “Run Safer” is a simple-yet-genius way to bullet proof your PC because 99.9% of all malware cannot get around the Limited account restrictions. Brilliant! 

A recent test of Avast and OA Free showed that it batted away "zero-day attacks"--malware so new that antivirus companies haven’t had a chance to write an “antidote.” You aren't likely to encounter software created within the past few hours but that kind of testing ought to give you piece of mind. 

POSTSCRIPT: WHAT ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS?

But you probably have friends who infect their computers as they Limewire, torrent or surf porn sites (you don't have friends who did any of that stuff, right?). If a friend needs help cleaning up their computer, download a copy of Malwarebytes to a flash key (www.filehippo.com). Malwarebytes  targets “zero-day attacks”— If something goes wrong with a friend’s computer, run this free version manually as needed. If your friend’s infected computer won’t let Malwarebytes install, I highly recommend running Norton Power Eraser from a flash key (requires no installation but highly effective emergency tool): www.majorgeeks.com  Then tell your friends to get Avast 6 + OA Free!

Zotero: Standalone Version Works with Google Chrome, Safari

I am a big fan of Zotero, the uber-productive software tool that grabs, formats, and stores citations to items found in a multitude of locations: JSTOR, Amazon, Google Scholar or your online library catalog. This is a big time saver (never type complex citations again!). Zotero also takes a "snapshot" link to indicate where and when you retrieved a citation. This is helpful if you are scratching your head wondering "where did I find this book or article?" By clicking on the "snapshot" link attached to each citation, it takes you to where you originally found the item.You can also use a Zotero plug-in for Microsoft Word or Open Office. This plug-in enables you to insert citations either in the text or in footnotes. Simply click which sources you want added and it inserts them for you! For a screencast of the plug-in, click here.

Until now, Zotero only worked as a Firefox add-on. If you are like me, you may have gravitated away from Firefox to Google Chrome. Some of you also use Safari. Good news! Zotero is now available as a stable standalone. Open Zotero standalone and Google Chrome (or Safari) to grab citations from within Chrome.This is also ideal for those (like me) who use both Firefox and Chrome.

Go to http://www.zotero.org/download/  and download.

If you haven't used Zotero, check out this screencast (older version but still accurate description except now you can use other browsers). Double click to open full screen in Youtube.



Many students really love Zotero so encourage them to give it a try.

Blogging for Dummies: Create a Blog in 15 Minutes

The following tutorial shows you how to easily set up a Blog using Google's free Blogger service. It takes only 15 minutes to set up. If you have an email account, you can create a free blog with Blogger (the other main rival is WordPress but Blogger is a lot easier). This blog here was created with Blogger. I have two other Blogger sites:

http://freesiu.blogspot.com/

http://raceandliberty.blogspot.com (to promote my last book. Note that I was able to upload and insert audio files, links to reviews, etc.).

I also have a national blog site via my think tank but they use WordPress (another blog creation tool): http://blog.independent.org/author/jbean/

You can allow comments or not. There are many tutorials on Youtube (also owned by Google!) that teach you in a few minutes. The following tutorial gives you the basics. Ask me for help if you need it but please come to my office so I have a computer handy! Use your blog to post thoughts about classes, get started on writing a paper, keep a diary, whatever pleases you.

NOTE: Double click on the following video thumbnail to get it in full screen. Hit ESC when you are done. The source is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aze0a4Row58

Ninite: One-Click Batch Install and Update Your Programs!

The new school year is upon us and students will arrive on campus with new PCs. One of the pains of configuring a PC (or Mac, for that matter) is installing all the programs that are not bundled with the computer: Firefox, Google Chrome, Dropbox, and much more.

Ninite solves this problem. Go to http://ninite.com and click on all the programs you want. I selected about 20 programs that I would normally have to download one by one. Click the "Get Installer" green button and a small Ninite file will appear on your PC (a Ninite for Mac version is forthcoming). Click on that one file and it will batch download all 20 programs, eliminate junk toolbars--all without requesting any information from you.

[Click image to enlarge]

Here's the great added feature of Ninite: if you click on the Ninite file you downloaded, it will update to the latest versions. Moreover, Ninite knows whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. If a program has both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors, then Ninite will download the 64-bit program to your 64-bit PC.

This is all free. For $10 you can get it to auto-update or you can simply click that file once a month to update all your programs. NOTE: While many programs auto-update on their own, many do not so this is a great feature. Also, the programs that do update (like Google and Apple products) will install obnoxious update programs in your start-up, thus sucking your memory away until you actually use them. So Ninite can lighten your PC as well.

Ninite does not have all programs in the universe but it does an excellent job of keeping its inventory up-to-date. For a much more expansive alternative, check out http://allmyapps.com which contains about every software known to Windows or Linux (again, Mac version is forthcoming). Problem is Allmyapps store has many outdated programs and will actually "update" to older versions if you are not careful! It has great potential but hasn't been able to keep its thousands of programs up to date.

[Click image to enlarge]

For a short video tutorial, check out this video from Youtube. The one thing the tutorial fails to mention is the update feature of Ninite, either manual one-click (free) or auto-update ($10).

Youtube Trick for Presentations

This is a good trick I found for Youtube. If you are in the classroom (or home) and want to jump to a certain point in your presentation, then do what they say the above hyper-linked article.

It really works: I tried it with several historical clips on Youtube. The alternative is to download, edit or fast forward but this is easier for those “pinch hit” moments in presentations of all kinds.

Billionaires Back Free Textbook Movement

Over at my FreeU blog, I posted an entry on how two tech billionaires are changing the game and pushing the "free textbook" pedal with lots of their own money and tech savvy.

Read here

*HOT PICK*: Skydrive Explorer Manages Cloud Storage With Drag-and-Drop Ease (and no browser!)

Many users find online storage accounts ("cloud" storage) useful to upload documents, music, Powerpoints, etc. so that they -- or others -- can access from anywhere in the world. Such cloud storage also provides an additional form of backup storage (although I would always have a portable backup to the data on your PC.

Problem 1: Cloud storage is expensive. Most sites provide only a few GB for free and then charge you for more (Dropbox costs $120/year!).

Solution: Windows Live Skydrive. For the cost of a Live or Hotmail account (free), you can use that Live username/password to log on and create a Skydrive account with 25GB of free storage per account.

Problem 2: Skydrive allows you to create folders (and subfolders) but uploading is one file at a time with any browser other than Internet Explorer.

Solution: SDExplorer (formerly Skydrive Explorer). SDExplorer is a small but powerful tool that creates a new drive on you Windows Explorer shell (the "tree" you use all day long to copy/cut/paste between folders). On my PC, it appears as a new drive "G" and shows all the folders that I have online -- without having to open a browser!

Here is the productivity boost: open your Windows Explorer and you can simply copy, drag-and-drop, or paste files from your PC to the SDExplorer (online) drive. The changes take effect immediately up in the "cloud." You can also create a new folder on your SDExplorer drive with a simple right-click. And you can delete folders that you have online from your SDExplorer drive.

The Pro version has a few additional features (including no more 50MB cap on single file size uploads). SDExplorer costs $13 for a lifetime license.

Free or Pro, this is a useful little tool to have on your PC.

REVIEWS:

http://lifehacker.com/5433481/skydrive-explorer-mounts-your-skydrive-in-windows-explorer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021804606.html

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10/30/access-skydrive-from-windows-explorer-my-computer/

Note: If you tried an early version of this program and it didn't work, the latest versions 2.1+ are very stable and polished).

Job Sites for History Majors

GENERAL ADVICE

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06collegeadvice.html

Cost of living and other vital data (includes small towns like Carbondale!):

http://www.bestplaces.net/

Just looking at cost of living, it costs 2.5X as much to live in San Francisco. Other clicks compare crime, demographics, etc.

Compare Cities: Carbondale, IL - San Francisco, CA

COST OF LIVING Carbondale San Francisco

Overall 79 187
Grocery 97 122.3
Health 94 166
Housing 42 296
Utilities 112 144
Transportation 96 130
Miscellaneous 98 110

TEACHING

Job Bank: http://www.illinoiseducationjobbank.org/pages/

Illinois teacher salaries: http://www.championnews.net/salaries.php

PUBLIC HISTORY

This one is a cool one to get started:

http://www.beyondacademe.com/realjobs.html

http://publichistorian.wordpress.com/job-search/

http://ncph.org/cms/publications-resources/resources/

http://ncph.org/cms/careers-training/jobs/

http://www.museumsusa.org/

http://www.daddezio.com/society/hill/index.html

GRADUATE SCHOOL:

Widely read blog with fascinating data and insights into what grad school really does for (and to) you! (Read older posts -- new site not as good)

http://phdinhistory.blogspot.com/

COLLEGE TEACHING:

Community College Teaching (SIUC has the only certificate in this area!). Contact Marybelle Keim for more information (mkeim@siu.edu)

Read this first:

http://www.oah.org/pubs/commcoll/index.html

http://www.higheredjobs.com/community/default.cfm?type=1#Faculty

Four-year teaching jobs (job market data available upon request -- U.S. market is tough, Asian, Latin American better -- any field that requires languages).

http://chronicle.com/section/Jobs/61/

LITIGATION SUPPORT

A growing and lucrative field:

http://www.historyassociates.com/

http://www.hrltd.org/about_hrl.htm

http://www.morganangel.com/

There are others. See my packet on the topic.

Got recommendations for other sites?

Students! Stop Buying Software at Retail Price!

Living in a college town, I often run into students at the local Wal Mart. When I see them eyeballing software at retail prices, I point out that they can get the same software at a steep discount through our university. The same is true of K-12 students.

If you have an educational affiliation of any sort, start saving money on software and just about everything else. Educational discounts on everything from software to hotels make for the lowest prices possible.

Example: At my university, students may purchase Windows 7 at $80 instead of $199 + $16 tax ($216). That is a savings of $136!

Even better, if a student works for the college (even work study), they may qualify for the best discounts of all: faculty/staff discounts. At my university, staff may purchase a five-license DVD for Windows 7. Cost: $9.97! Same price for Office 2007 (PC) or Office 2008 (Mac).

For software not sold through your school, go to Academic Superstore.com for similar-sized discounts.

Above all, remember that freeware is often equal or superior to commercial software. See my "Best Free Software for Students (and Others)"

University finds free online classes don't hurt enrollment

From my other blog FreeU:

http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/02/university-finds-free-online-classes.html

CaptureFox: Can Firefox Do Everything?

My favorite computer advice site, Lifehacker.com, alerted me to this really cool and useful screencast tool called "CaptureFox":

http://lifehacker.com/5414285/capturefox-adds-screen-capture-capabilities-to-firefox#comments

This tiny (900K) add-on is amazing. It is a high-powered screencast program that runs from within Firefox. It records everything you do to create a tutorial and show your friends how to do something with their PC or Mac. You can minimize Firefox and it records what you do with other programs. Return to Firefox and click “End Record” – Save. What will they think of next?

Summary: It will capture everything streaming video and audio through your computer (you can add a microphone if you want to do a voice over).

For most people, this is a free way to screencast. The leading program for PC/Mac (Camtasia) costs $299 (nonstudents) or $179 for students. A Mac favorite, Snapx Pro, is cheaper but still costs $69. While those two commercial programs have some added features, most people don't need them.

I'm suprised how browser-based my life has become: I've junked a dozen programs because Firefox (with add-ons) can do what they did before. The result is a cleaner computer and easy access to everything I need (since I use portable Firefox on all of my PCs, I simply synchronize them and can always copy to a flash key to carry all my programs with me. Students heading home for vacation might want to copy their portable Firefox on a flash key to use on their parents' computer without messing with their settings).

WARNING: This is the type of add-on you will use on an "as needed" basis. Add-ons slow down Firefox so I highly recommend you disable those you use "as needed." To disable/enable, you open Firefox, then click Tools -- Add-ons -- Disable or Enable.

OfficeTab: Tabbed Interface in Word, Powerpoint, Excel

A Chinese software developer has developed one of the most useful freeware programs: OfficeTab. I work with multiple documents at once and hate having to go to the minimize tray and search for the document I need. OfficeTab enables me to see them all at once and simply click-Tab to the one I want. Cool and productive!

Check it out here.

If you don't read Chinese, check out the translated page to download.

Video Tutorials: "Can I see that again?"

[NOTE: Since 2009, Google Chrome has become my primary go-to browser. Extension development has slowed for Firefox. Nevertheless, these tools below still have no adequate substitute on Chrome (Downthemall, Outwit Images, Video Downloadhelper. The latter grabs from nearly every site - protected or not - I have ever come across, which is not the case with Chrome alternatives, such as Youtube Downloader or Freemake). Long story, short: I use Chrome day-to-day but keep Firefox for specialty uses]

One of the reasons I set up this site was to answer questions more efficiently. After all, there is a reason why some computer geeks wear t-shirts that say "No, I will NOT help you with your computer!"

I might give a short tutorial on how to use a time-saving teaching/learning digital tool but users really need a resource to "see it again" on their own.

Enter the "podcast" tutorial. Many software developers offer video podcasts (also known as "screencasts") to show how their program works. For example, yesterday I had 45 minutes to run through a variety of Firefox add-ons that students and teachers will find useful. But how much of this will people retain?

Here are some podcast tutorials of Firefox add-ons that I discussed in a rush. Elsewhere on this web site, you will find my discussions of how to use various tools. If a podcast tutorial is not available on the Internet, then the second-best thing is a FAQ list (Frequently Asked Questions), such as this one for Firefox extension "Downthemall!"

Selected podcast tutorials:


For more Zotero tutorials going into greater detail, click here

Outwit Images



Video Downloadhelper

Top Secret! Declassified Documents for Cheap

There are two commercial sites that sell CD's and DVD's of historical media, including scans of top-secret documents that have been declassified. In most cases, each DVD or CD costs only $10! I have built a huge collection of

MULTIMEDIA: from Earthstation1.com Much of it is pop culture but when teaching the Great Depression, where else can I get

*DVDs full of political cartoons on Hoover, FDR, Huey Long, etc. for $10?
*Audio of Hitler, FDR, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill
*Radio shows
*Film reels: propaganda on all sides, Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons showing the racist side of America at the time.

PRINT SOURCES (declassified documents): Paperlessarchives.com

Paperlessarchives takes some searching but there are FBI and CIA files on just about any significant individual or event (even Eleanor Roosevelt's FBI file!). Do search for Martin Luther King, Jr. and you get over 3,000 pages:

http://www.paperlessarchives.com/mlk.html

Steal this Book: Students and Textbooks

One of my favorite technology sites, http://lifehacker.com has an article on "how to save money on textbooks." The comments are more illuminating than the article. Students discuss how they scan (and share) textbooks, download them via torrent sites, and so on. Apparently this doesn't work too well with high school students because the illegal e-book crowd gets busted when the teacher asks to see their textbook. Oops.

As for me, I'm adopting a free e-book developed by the University of Houston. The site is rich and a PDF reprinting is a lot easier than stealing books or waiting to see if the prof is really going to use it. I make it a point to assign questions from the textbook, along with questions from lecture material and supplemental readings. If I were a student (I'm on the evil teacher side), I'd be teed after buying a $150 book that the professor didn't use.

Email Grabber: A Tool with Lots of Potential

http://www.emailgrabber.net/

This $17 program is a great resource for people who are trying to compile lists of addresses from web pages (directories, databases, etc.). Student groups, authors, others may find this very useful.

For example:

I went to http://policyexperts.org/us_experts/us_experts_issues.cfm and clicked "American History" box. A list of all policy experts in "American History" popped up (including me!). I copied that web address to Email Grabber 2 and -- presto! -- all the email addresses appeared in a preview pane. You then have the option of exporting to text, CSV, and options to separate by line, semi-colon or comma.

NOTE: If you use the trial version, it will grab all the emails but scramble the part before the @ symbol. That is a trial limitation. I can attest that the $17 full version does cough up unscrambled email addresses!

(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Kindle DX Reader: Not Ready for Prime Time

My university purchased me a Kindle DX Reader ($500) to assess this mode of book distribution. Amazon, the maker of Kindle, is targeting the textbook market with this third-generation model.

More generally, there is growing interest among publishers in e-books but no reader yet to make the choice truly palatable. The first Kindle Readers were "gee-whiz" show-off devices with severe limitations. Was the Kindle DX different? Here is my experience and review:

The product started burning images into the screen by day 3 and then just froze (I returned it). But here is my assessment:

STRENGTHS:

*9.7" screen (diagonal) is right for a tradebook

*Rotation of page: rotate to landscape and it adjusts accordingly

*Highlighting and note taking ability

*Reads well in sunshine

*Wireless works on regular wi-fi

WEAKNESSES:

*Price

*Limited selection of titles

*Slow loading of pages

*No color (black, white, gray)

*Clumsy 5-way controller -- a single button the size of a small ant is used for almost all commands. It drove me crazy trying to navigate, highlight, etc. One tiny slip and off you are to some other category.



*Notetaking and highlighting: I downloaded a book and loaded it. I then highlighted (very difficult) and took notes (a bit less difficult). HOWEVER, the closed-system model makes it difficult to get the notes ("My Clippings") to a computer or flash key. It converts to plain .TXT -- can you imagine?? Zotero in Firefox is far, far superior (see zotero.org). You can carry over the highlighted book but can only read it on the Kindle.

*No touch screen function: THIS is essential for the way people interact with books. What I really want is a tablet PC reduced to this size and thinness with ability to touch screen and make notes. Like a very large iPhone or Tablet PC with electronic ink. (Why doesn't some computer company do it? I hear Fujitsu has a $1,000 model that is much better but only available in Japan).

*File conversion: I planned on using Kindle to read all sorts of documents. It uploads PDFs easily from a PC but any other format must be emailed to your kindle address and then converted FOR A FEE!! A simple .doc might cost you several bucks.

*Complexity: The quick start guide wasn't enough. I had to download the 100 page manual to really understand how to get around.

*Audiobooks: ONLY available from -- you got it -- an Amazon site named Audible.com with a proprietary format (AAX).

*Search function: you can search across all of your stored items BUT ONLY THE META DATA (author, title, ISBN). Useless. With advanced desktop search engines, I was very disappointed in being able to locate content.

BOTTOM LINE:

Amazon is attempting a "closed" eco-system much like Apple products. That is one reason why I never became a Mac user--too many restrictions. However, Amazon's Kindle makes Mac look open-source friendly and Apple's design is far superior. No wonder people are speculating that Apple, not Amazon, will deliver on the promise of a worthwhile e-book reader (even though Steve Jobs infamously mocked books by saying that "people don't read anymore"). Let's hope that someone delivers on that promise because the technology is available.

GRADE: F