Author: Clif Sipe

[Windows Only] UltraSurf is a tool that hooks your web browsers up with a free anonymous proxy. It hides your true IP address. Why is that important? I found a good answer at about.com:

When connecting to the Internet, your home computer (or network router) is assigned a public IP address. As you visit Web sites or other Internet servers, that public IP address is transmitted and recorded in log files kept on those servers. Access logs leave behind a trail of your Internet activity. If it were possible to somehow hide your public IP address, your Internet activity would become much more difficult to trace.

UltraReach, the group behind the UltraSurf application, talks about a another good reason for their service. Their purpose is as follows:

UltraReach is the first company with a mission that offers Internet technology and service immune to the national Internet censorship in China. The outstanding performance of our service has made UltraReach Internet well known among the users who seek the Internet freedom in the censored country, and at the meantime attracted heavy attacks from Chinese Internet police.

In other words, UltraSurf allows users to get past internet censorship. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I’ve tried UltraSurf and so far I’m impressed with it.

It’s easy to use. Just download it, double click the EXE file to run it, then start surfing.

Once it’s running, you’ll see a simple interface.

It will also launch Internet Explorer and you can start surfing if you want to. If you don’t want to use Internet Explorer, just close it and use your other web browsers. You can also go into the settings and tell UltraSurf not to start Internet Explorer.

If you’d like to, you can check your IP address at whatismyip.com to find out what it is. You’ll see that running UltraSurf changes your address after it starts up.

You can download UltraSurf here.

In the past, the writers here at Techie Buzz have shared some other surfing tips with you. Here are a few:

Are Web Proxy Servers Safe To Enter Passwords?
How To Access Blocked Websites
How To Access Blogspot Blogs From China
Unblock and Access YouTube From China

I’ve also written about two free web browsers that let you surf anonymously.

Xb Browser
OperaTor Browser

Techie Buzz Verdict:

UltraSurf is one of the easiest ways you can find to surf the internet with anonymous freedom. I can’t tell you if it can bridge the great Chinese firewall, but the authors of this program are dedicated to doing that.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

Don’t miss these Related Posts:

• How To Browse Internet Anonymously?
• Surf Webpages Like A Text File Or Document In Firefox and IE 8
• Access Your Address Bar and Internet History Quickly In Internet Explorer
• Add Breadcrumbs to your Address bar with QT Address Bar
• Ego Surf Yourself with Addictomatic

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[Windows Only] ÀxCrypt is a free and open source (FOSS) application that lets you quickly encrypt multiple files with a password. There are many free encryption utilities out there and some of them may be as good or better. However, AxCrypt is sure to be handy even if you don’t use encryption very often, since it comes with a portable version named AxCrypt2Go. You can always use the portable version on any PC without the need to install it.

For those who need to encrypt files often, AxCrypt integrates it’s actions into the Windows right click menus. It also allows you to create self-decrypting executable files (encrypt copy to EXE). The self-decrypting files allow anyone to open them up, as long as they have the correct password. It’s safe to send AxCrypt files using email, since AES-128 encryption is used, and it’s not likely that anyone will be able to crack your files open.

Here are some snapshots and descriptions of AxCrypt:

1. When you start installing AxCrypt, you will first have to agree to the GPL license.

2. You can disable any features you don’t want, using the custom setup screen.

3. One drawback at this point is that I didn’t see any way to tell the app where I wanted it to install at on my hard drive.

4. Once it’s installed, the first thing it shows is a prompt asking for an email address. Don’t worry, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. So far, AxCrypt has over 1,805,250 registered users.

5. Now it nags you if you didn’t supply an email address. Did they learn this trick from Microsoft? I wonder how many software engineers think that this really adds any value to the application.

6. Nothing seems to happen after that, but now whenever you right click on a file or folder, you’ll see that you have more options under the "AxCrypt" menu item. Everything needed to use AxCrypt is in there. As you can see, it has some very nice features and functions.

7. If you select "Encrypt", you’ll be prompted for a password.

8. If you select either of the two check-boxes, AxCrypt will remember your password when it’s encrypting or decrypting files.

9. Here you can see me getting ready to encrypt two music files.

10. Once they are encrypted, the files will have an "AXX" file extension.

11. If you right click on them again and choose "Rename" in the AxCrypt menu, it will rename them so that nobody can figure out what was in those files. When you decrypt those files using AxCrypt, it remembers what the file names were and puts them back the way they were before.

12. To get the portable version of AxCrypt, I opened up the Program folder and copied the AxCrypt2Go.exe file onto my flash drive. In order to test it, I un-installed AxCrypt from my PC and tried to use AxCrypt2Go to decrypt some files. It worked fine, and now I don’t need to keep AxCrypt installed on my computer. I will simply keep AxCrypt2Go stored away until I need it. It’s only 486k in size.

AxCrypt will work on most PCs running Windows 2000/XP/Vista or later. AxCrypt has built in translations for English, Danish, Swedish, German, Dutch, Hungarian, Spanish, French, Italian and Norwegian.

Download AxCrypt

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I discovered that AxCrypt is very easy to use when it’s installed on your PC. However, the portable version definitely needs work. You can only navigate from the left folder view. If you click on any file or folder in the main (right hand) view, it opens the file or folder in it’s associated program. To encrypt or decrypt, you have to right click on the files. Once you’ve figured that out, I think you’ll find that it’s worth keeping.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

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[Windows Only] Souptoys is a collection of toys that you can play with on your PC desktop. Rather than tell you about it, I’ll show you in a video …

Link to video

As you can see, each type of toy has it’s own physical properties and you can place them on your screen so that they form a Rube Goldberg device. If you’re a kid playing with this, you may not care if you make anything interesting. These toys are simply fun to play with.

Here’s what the home site says:

Designed with players aged 5 to 12 in mind, but enjoyed globally by everyone, this physics sandbox game replicates a child’s wooden toy box full of toys, including basketballs, robots, wooden blocks, snowmen, cannons, flying bees and a pirate ship. With its open-ended design, the possibilities are endless and players are limited only by their imagination.

As you continue to build your own playground, you can save the toy placements as “playset” files. You can also download playsets from the home site or use any of the dozens of playsets that come with the program.

Download Souptoys

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I had fun playing with Souptoys and I can’t wait to show it to my nieces and nephews. The only thing I’d wish for, is that Souptoys was an open source project that everyone could contribute to. I’d bet there’d be an explosion of new toys to play with every day.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

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One of the most recent builds of the Chromium web browser is drawing some criticism. As you may know, Chromium is the open source browser project that Google’s Chrome web browser is based on. In the Chromium version 5.0.375.3, something new showed up. The address bar was not displaying the normal “http://” in front of addresses. It was reported in the issues at Chromium’s code site as a possible bug.

However, it turns out that this is an intentional move, and it’s started a fairly heated debate there. Some of the people posting there do not want to have the http prefix removed. Some people argue that it’s a feature that everyone will eventually want.

Apparently, if you need to copy and paste the address from the Chromium address bar, it will automatically add the “http” prefix, even though you don’t see it. This will need to happen in order to use copied URLs in other applications.

In my opinion, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem as long as the feature works as they say it will. I sometimes wonder why we even need to type the “www” in the address. It’s a waste of time and I’ll be happy if it goes away for good.

What do you think? Be sure to comment below.

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[Windows Only] I don’t have anything against Microsoft Word, except the price. Most businesses will pay the big money that MS wants, but a home user will usually use whatever is already installed on their PC. That does not have to be true. There are several free Word alternatives that will happily do the same job. I found one free replacement that looks great and will even run quickly on older PCs. It’s called “DeVicky Word”.

DeVicky Word not only does many of the things that MS Word does, it has a few unique features that make it worth downloading.

Here’s a list of some of the features:

* Bullets and Numbered Lists – completely customizable
* Character and Paragraph Formatting – full WYSIWYG
* Document Sections – add as many sections as you need
* Headers and Footers
* Hypertext Links – inside and outside links
* Multi-Level Undo / Redo
* Page and Document Settings
* Page Columns – any number of columns
* Printing – what you see is what you get
* Search and Replace
* Spell Checking
* Tables – add tables within tables if needed
* Text Frames – add boxes of text anywhere
* Doc Reader – listen to you docs

Supported File Formats

* Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) Export
* Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) Import
* Adobe Portable Document Format Archive (PDF/A) Export
* Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
* Image Formats – TIFF, WMF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF
* Microsoft Office Open XML (DOCX)
* Microsoft Word (DOC)
* Rich Text Format (RTF)

After using it for a short while, I decided that I liked DeVicky better than the Word alternatives I’ve tried in the past. It seems more responsive and launches much quicker than the full featured apps.

Download DeVicky Word:
http://www.devvicky.com/products.php

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I like the full feature set in DeVicky Word, but I mostly enjoy it’s fast launching and quick response while in use. It also has very good built in help files.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

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[Windows Only] Since most applications come with nice icons already embedded in them, I rarely need to create or edit icons. Once in awhile, I do need an icon editor, and I recently discovered that IcoFX is a great tool for that and more. The main reason I decided to try it was that it’s available as a portable app.

I downloaded a zip file containing IcoFX and extracted it into a folder on my flash drive.

I fired up IcoFX, and within 2 minutes I had created my first icon. I was astounded by how easy it was.

The IcoFX interface is easy to use and very stylish. It’s image editing tools include everything you find in Windows Paint, but it also has the tools you need to create gradients, transparency and much more.

In addition to letting you create icons by hand, you can drop images into the editor, and it will walk you through converting the image into an icon.

When you dig into the Tools menu, you’ll find that you can:

* Convert Windows icons to Mac
* Convert Mac icons to Windows
* Extract icons from EXE and DLL files
* Create and manage ICL icon libraries
* Create compressed PNG icons for Vista/Seven
* Change the icons in EXE files

If you need help, there are several tutorials on the home site:
http://icofx.ro/tutorials/tutorial1.html

IcoFX download page: (Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)
http://icofx.ro/downloads.html

If you need some background information on Windows icons, I’ve written a couple of tutorials for you.

How to Change the Icon for a File Extension or File Type
How to Open Up or Edit an ICO file or Icon Library

We’ve also covered several free apps that help you deal with icons.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

IcoFX is a great tool for quickly creating and editing icons. I like the fact that it’s small, portable and completely free. It may not be a “must have” application, but I can definitely recommend it.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

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[Windows Only] How often do you type the word “teh” instead of “the”? If it’s very often, you aren’t alone. “Teh” is so common that it’s become an accepted word on the internet.

Would you like to have most of your misspellings corrected automatically? You can have that, and much more, with a small portable freeware utility named ‘Texter’.

Texter is a text replacement tool from Adam Pash at Lifehacker. It includes a small library of common spelling errors, and it will constantly watch every word you type. When it recognizes a misspelled word, it can automatically change the letters to correct the error. However, the real power it gives you is the ability to create your own letter combinations and replacements. For example, I can set up Texter to automatically replace “imo” with “In my opinion”.

Watch this video if you’d like to see Texter in action:

( link to video )

I use Texter for:
• phrases that I type often
• abbreviations that I like to expand
• addresses I type often
• passwords at websites
• long signatures at the end of letters
• famous quotes at the end of letters
• programming code snippets

Download from Texter Home Page:

If you liked this post, you should take a look at some free copy and paste enhancements and a clipboard manager named Ditto.

Techie Buzz Verdict:
If you aren’t using a text replacement tool already, Texter is good place to start. It’s free, it’s portable and it’s easy to use. Like me, you may find that it’s a ‘must-have’ on your PC and on your portable flash drive. The only thing it’s missing is a local help file describing all of the features.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4.5/5 (almost perfect)

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[Windows Only] “Everything” is a small and portable freeware program that lets you find files in Windows with blazing speed. About two years ago, one of my readers sent me a nice comment about it, and I’ve been using it every since.

Here’s what the main window of Everything looks like after a search:

As you can see in the snapshot here, Everything supports the normal Windows file context menus when you right-click on a file. This is one of my favorite features. That means that you can launch a file, open a folder, copy, move or rename a file without having to leave Everything’s search window.

There are plenty of other features in Everything, such as;

• Small installation file
• Clean and simple user interface
• Quick file indexing
• Quick searching
• Minimal resource usage
• Share files with others easily
• Real-time updating

… and much more.

One of the many features that I have rarely used, is Everything’s ability to broadcast it’s search results across a network or the internet using FTP, ETP or HTTP. That means you can set it up so that anyone on your network can search the computer that Everything is running on. Here’s what the results look like in a web browser.

You can even download the files to another PC using the web browser.

Another of my favorite features in Everything is the fact that it’s portable. When I move it from one PC to another, I only take a single file named “everything.exe”. Once that single file is running, it creates it’s own settings file and it’s own database file in the same folder that it’s running in.

One thing you may notice is that Everything does take a few seconds to scan your drive and while it’s doing that, the search results window is completely blank. Before you get used to this fact, you might be tempted to start typing a search query into the search field. Don’t bother, because nothing will happen until it’s done scanning your drives.

The search results are immediate and update with every character you type into the search field. It does support wild card, boolean and regex searches if you need that type of searching power.

Download Everything Search

http://www.voidtools.com

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I use Everything quite often and it’s a must-have utility for all of my PCs. It does almost everything I need but it is missing one thing that other indexed search programs have; it can’t search inside of files for matching results. I rarely need that feature, and I have no problem recommending Everything for everyone.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

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[Windows Only] The other day, I ran into a new listing for a freeware application named Last Recorder. Here’s what the author says about this little tool.

Last Recorder is a small program that can save tracks from Last.fm audio streams into separate tagged mp3 files.

While I can’t confirm that I actually used this program to download music, I can confirm that this program does work. It does download full length mp3 songs from Last.fm while preserving the song titles. Here’s what Last Recorder looks like:

Last Recorder is a single executable file and no installation is needed. When it first launches, it will prompt you to enter your user ID and password. Then you can select a choice of radio stations by using the drop down on the left and these are the options:

Tag
Artist
My Tag
My Radio
My Loved Tracks
My Neighbors
My Recommendations
Custom URL

You will also have to select a download location on the right side drop down box.

Given the fact that this download tool seems to work, the question that many people will have is, “Is this legal?”. I did find an FAQ on the site regarding this question and the answer was “I don’t know for sure.” In my opinion, downloading these songs is about the same as recording music from the radio stations or television. Do I think it’s legal? It may be legal to download the information (music), but you are definitely breaking your agreement with Last.fm’s Terms of Use. Whether or not that agreement is actually binding on you may depend on where you live and which way the courts are swinging that day.

So, I’ll leave it up to you.

Last Recorder Home Page

Techie Buzz Verdict:

This application does what it says and it also portable. While those are both good features, the question of it’s legality leaves me doubting that I will use it.

Techie Buzz Rating: 2.5/5 (Average)

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• Free Sound Recorder

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[Windows only] What is it about moving water with a clear blue sky that soothes and fascinates us? I think it’s built into us like the need to breathe. Today I’ll show you three free and fantastic screensavers that will feel like a breathe of fresh clean air.

1. NFS HD Waterfall 01 – This screensaver shows animated water in the falls and in the pools. There are also some birds flying around. Sounds of nature and music can be controlled in the settings.

Download from Softpedia

2. NFS HD Waterfall 03 – This screensaver shows animated water in the falls and in the pools. Sounds of nature and music can be controlled in the settings. (no birds in this one)

Download from Softpedia

3. NFS Waterfall 01 – This screensaver shows animated water in the waterfalls and in the pools. There are also some birds flying around. Sounds of nature and music can be controlled in the settings.

Download from Softpedia

Kudos to NewFreeScreensavers, the developer of these and many more screensavers. Check them out when you have the time.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

These screensavers are completely free, and there are no nag screens, ads or big trade marks on them. The settings aren’t very complicated but do offer some great options. I found nothing to complain about and I highly recommend them.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

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I deal with PDF files almost every day at work. Unless you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat, making changes to existing PDF files is sometimes a problem. I’ve discovered one program that helps me deal with splitting and merging PDF files. It’s name is ‘Gios PDF Splitter and Merger’ (GiosPSM).

GiosPSM is the result of an open source set of tools for manipulating PDF files. It is a stand-alone program and it’s all contained in a single executable file about 145kb in size. The program is small, mainly because it relies on the .NET Framework v2.0 libraries. Here’s what the main interface looks like:

The feature I like best about GioPSM is the fact that you can drag and drop PDF files into it’s list when you are using it. This is a big time saver when you are merging dozens of PDF files. So far, I haven’t found any other PDF split/merge tools that allowed drag and drop without some other limitations.

GiosPSM also allows you to set page ranges when you are splitting and merging so that you can specify exactly what you need to work with. There is also a command line version of GiosPSM for those who need to automate splitting and merging operations.

The one thing I don’t like about GiosPSM is the fact that it’s a little fussy and will occasionally crash on you. When it happens, no permanent harm is done and it’s only a minor problem.

Download: Gios Home Page (requires .NET Framework 2.0)

Techie Buzz Verdict:

GiosPSM is easy to use, it’s small and it’s portable. This is a great free product that is actively being developed. The additional command line version is a real bonus for those needing to automate PDF operations.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

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[Windows Only] Do you manage or share user accounts on a PC? Are there certain programs that you don’t want someone to use? A tiny stand-alone freeware application named ‘Lockup’ will let you lock programs so they won’t run at all.

Lockup is very easy to use, but you should be very careful with it. If you make one wrong move, you can accidentally lock an entire user account so that it’s difficult to return to a usable state.

How to use Lockup:

Here’s a screenshot of one of the two modes of operation, “Only the list” mode.

In the screenshot above, you can see that I’ve added Internet Explorer to the list of executable files that will not run. To add more executables to the list, click the “Browse” button to select an EXE file, then click the little green check-mark icon at the bottom of the Lockup window. After you reboot or log off the PC and log back in, you’ll find that the EXEs you’ve listed will bring up a message telling you that the program is “restricted”.

Below, you can see a screenshot of Lockup in the “All except the list” mode.

This is a fairly risky mode since all executable files will be blocked from running, except those you add to the list. Make sure you don’t remove Lockup from the list or you may have a little trouble getting back access to it. I tried this mode briefly and it works great. All of my autorun (startup) applications failed to load when I logged in, even my antivirus application was blocked. This mode would be perfect for a PC that was used in a public place such as a library, school or cafe.

How does it work?

Occasionally, I run into a little program like this and I have to figure out what it’s doing. I learn lots of neat tricks this way. I suspected that Lockup was only making some changes to the Windows Registry and I was correct. I used an installation monitor to find out what changes it made in the second mode I showed you above.

As you can see in the image above, Lockup made changes to the Current_User policy to achieve the blocking it does. Anyone with the knowledge of these registry keys can do the same thing using the Windows Registry Editor (regedit.exe). Here’s a link to more information on the DisallowRun and RestrictRun registry keys.

Final Tips:

If you do get blocked from using programs or a specific program, you can still launch them using the Windows Run menu (Press Windows key + R) or from the command console (Press Windows key + R / type ‘CMD’ without quotes / press Enter). For example, if I wanted to run Notepad, I could type ‘notepad’ into the Run menu.

You can run Lockup from a USB flash drive if you want to make sure that nobody using the PC has access to the Lockup program. This could also be used for a practical joke if you are feeling mean (not recommended).

Also … here’s how to:

* Password Protect Programs and Files
* Lock and Hide Files and Folders
* Hide Your Secret Files in Zip Folders

Download: Home page for Lockup (requires .NET Framework 3.5)

Techie Buzz Verdict:

If you need to keep people from running specific applications on your PC, this little freeware app could be one of your favorite tools. It’s small, easy to use and it’s free. The only thing missing from this application is a password protection feature.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

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• Manage Your Windows Startup Programs With Startup Inspector

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[Windows Only] Currently there are many different ways to convert one video format to another. You can make use of several video conversion services online. If you’d like to convert video on your PC using software, we’ve written about a few, such as Free Video And Audio Converter and Quick Media Converter.

Today, I tried a converter called ‘Any Video Converter‘, and I’ll show you a some of the features.

Any Video Converter lets you convert between a large number of video formats such as AVI, FLV, MOV, MP4, MPG, M2TS, MTS, RM, RMVB, QT, and WMV. You can manually adjust the settings for each format or use several presets. The program can also trim and crop portions of video and merge multiple video files. Other features include batch conversion, YouTube downloads, video snapshots and more.

I was the most interested in downloading YouTube videos and converting them to files for Windows Media Player. Most YouTube downloaders or rippers will give you FLV or MP4 formats and Windows Media Player is not always able to play them.

First I went to YouTube and copied the URL of a video I wanted. Then I fired up ‘Any Video Converter’ and clicked on the YouTube icon to paste in the address. I also used the pull down menu at the top right to select the WMV profile.

Once I had the YouTube URL listed, I clicked the “Convert” button and the program automatically started downloading and converting the video from YouTube. I ended up with the original MP4 and a new WMV file in the “My Documents/Any Video Converter” folder on my PC. It works fast and does a good job.

Another feature I liked was the ability to take snapshots of a video using the video preview area of ‘Any Video Converter’. All you have to do is start the video playback and click the snapshot button (circled below).

After you are done clicking a few snapshots, you’ll find the PNG image files in the Snapshot folder under “My Documents/Any Video Converter”.

Here’s a snapshot I took of a video named “Kissing Monkeys”. You’d think only a mother could love a face like that. Don’t be so quick to judge … check the video link below.

Click to see the video

Those are the only features I’ve tried so far, but based on that, I’m guessing everything works as advertised. However, this is a free version of a commercial product, and the author does pop up an occasional recommendation to buy the paid version. That’s the only thing I didn’t like very much.

Download ‘Any Video Converter’

Techie Buzz Verdict:
I found ‘Any Video Converter’ to be useful, flexible and unique in some ways. If you need to convert video formats, you’ll find it’s easy to use and does a good job.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

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