Deleting files in Windows doesn't mean that they are permanently deleted from the hard drive. Windows leaves behind a shadow that later can be restored by a recovery software. If you want to permanently delete such files you can use utilities such as Eraser. Another similar application that is portable and opensource is the FileKiller. It completely removes a file from your disk without leaving any track. It is very fast and overwrites any deleted file with blanks or random data N times - where N is given by the user.
Click the "Select Files" button to select the individual files to delete and then select the overwrite sector method. You can either use random data or blanks to overwrite the original track. Now to start the permanent deletion, hit "Kill Files on Grid" button.
There are times you need to extract audio from a video file. You can do it with a free software called Video 2 MP3. It is a portable app that automatically extract the audio from a video file and make an MP3 of it. Just download the app and unzip the executable file to any accessible place on your computer. Drag any video file and drop it on the executable and you will get the mp3 file in a snap. The MP3 output will be created in the same name and directory as the executable except it extension is MP3.
A click on the EXE file will display the instruction dialog box on how to use it. You can convert video files such as MP4, FLV and AVI. Since its portable, it doesn't require 3rd party dependencies and works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
I just learned recently that my favorite opensource and multi-protocol instant messenger client stores my passwords in plain text. Yeah thats right! once other users got hold with your machine and type the following "%appdata%\.purple\accounts.xml" on the run or search box then say goodbye to your privacy. The xml file where pidgin stores your passwords are not encrypted and can be open as plain text using your favorite text editor as shown below.
What were they (Pidgin developers) thinking? Read here
I therefore conclude that the best way to secure password is not to allow your IM client store your passwords.
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Last Monday, I posted a topic about Using Twitter From the Command Prompt. For my today's post, I will introduced you to another way to use Twitter discretely and this time it is tweeting from your spreadsheet application. SpreadTweet is a Twitter, disguised as a spreadsheet so your boss will think that you're working on an Excel sheet while you are up there tweeting your heart out. With SpreadTweet, you will be able to send and receive updates, replies and manage direct messages inside an app that looks like exactly as Excel 2007.
Most website owners including me uses Google Search to add search capabilities in their websites. With Microsoft Bing catching up to Search competition, you might want to consider adding a Bing Box to one of your site to take advantage of what Bing Search can offer. Bing Box is a search box powered by Bing that can provide fast, customizable search solution for your website or blog. Visitors to your site can search the entire Web, just your site, or any sites that you choose.
Adding Bing Box on your own website is pretty simple and doesn't require learning any actual code. To try it, just go to Bing Box and choose between Basic Search Box and Advanced Search Box.
With the recent release of Firefox 3.6, PortableApps.com also made the newest version of Firefox thumb drive ready. Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition is the popular Firefox web browser bundled with a PortableApps.com Launcher as a portable app, so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you. The Portable version is about 9MB in size.
If your company belongs to no social media category or you simply don't want to give your boss or colleagues an impression that you are a Twitter addict then you can use a free software that can possibly hide your Twitter addiction. One of the best way to trick other people that your not tweeting is by accessing Twitter through the command prompt or DOS window. With Quitter, you can read and reply to tweets, follow/unfollow people or even send and receive direct messages. There's no installation needed and it will run from a thumbdrive. Just download and run the single small EXE file (about 105k).
First time use of the free app will require you to permit the app to interact with your Twitter account. It will open the default browser, login to your Twitter account, click the Allow button and Twitter will give you the PIN which you will have to enter on Quitter. If all are successful, Quitter will connect to your Twitter account and you can start Tweeting!
Quitter runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista and requires Version 2.0 of the Microsoft .NET Framework or higher (version 2.0 was released in 2006; most Windows machines should have version 2.0 or higher).
It is important for webmasters and photographers to add a visual watermark on their images to reserve the copyright of each photo. Previously I have already discussed How to add watermark on photos using Picasa software. For today's article, I will introduce you to another free software that was developed for sole purpose of watermarking. Watermark Image Software is a free app for windows that can add digital Watermarks to all photos with the transparency and watermark location of your choice. The application can also resize the images before the digital watermark is added. You can use either text or a picture as the source of the watermark.
The process starts by selecting the source directory on your computer and then choose the destination directory (by default a different directory is selected to avoid overwriting the original images). Set the your desired output settings such as image size, watermark position, transparency and watermark source. You can preview the expected output by clicking the "Preview first located image" button. If your done, hit the "Start" button to start the watermarking process.
Watermark Image Software is for Windows XP, Windows server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows server 2008, Windows 7 - with .NET framework 2.0 or higher installed.
Deleting files in Windows doesn't mean that they are permanently deleted from the hard drive. Windows leaves behind a shadow that later can be restored by a recovery software. If you want to permanently delete such files you can use utilities such as Eraser. Another similar application that is portable and opensource is the FileKiller. It completely removes a file from your disk without leaving any track. It is very fast and overwrites any deleted file with blanks or random data N times - where N is given by the user.
