Free Stuff!
By Cate Eales
Appeared April 10, 2008 on castanet.net
Do I have your attention? Grab some free online storage,
generate some strong passwords, and get your Windows Updates! Free
yourself from Microsoft Office.
Stay In Sync With Dropbox
Dropbox is a new service provides off-site storage for your files. But
wait...there's more. Install Dropbox on one machine, and you have off-site
storage. But install it on more than one machine, and the files on every
machine will sync to the latest version. If you're somewhere that you can
access a web browser, even if you don't have Dropbox installed on your
computer, as long as you can get online, you can get to your stuff. So
quit emailing your work stuff to yourself at home!
It's really simple to understand and use. Eventually, there will be a
charge for some of the storage space or features. But for now, the Dropbox
people are looking for Beta testers. I have a very small number of
invitations, so if you want to give it a try, email me at
cate@rlis.com, and tell me you want the Dropbox Beta invitation. I'll
give them out until they're gone. You can
learn more about
Dropbox here. Check out the video on that page, especially the photo
organizer and sharing component.
Generate Good Passwords With Password Bird
It's really discouraging to go to a client's house and find a Post-It note
on the monitor with the client's email password. It's also almost always
true that s/he is using the same password for everything, not just for
email. "It's just too hard to remember all those passwords." is the reason
I hear most often.
OK, yes, it IS hard to set a strong password that you
can remember. But Password Bird will generate a hard-to-guess password
from information important to you. The twist is that because it's from
information important to you, the password is pretty easy to remember.
Password Bird is
available here.
If you want to keep track of all these passwords, a very popular way to do
that is with the program called
RoboForm, available
here. Besides managing your passwords, it will fill in forms on the
web, and even generate secure passwords (maybe not as easy to remember as
Password Bird!). The free version will keep track of ten passwords. The
paid version has no limit
My favourite password manager is the free and Open Source program called
KeePass. You can store all your passwords in one place, encrypt them, and
use just one password to gain access to them. (Just don't forget that
password!) KeePass is
available here.
If you need a really long, impossible to guess AND impossible to remember
password, this
is the place to get it
Ten Big Honking Fixes From Microsoft This Month
Now would be a really good time to make sure your Microsoft Updates are
set so that you get either the automatic downloads (if that's the way you
want it) or at least the automatic notifications (if that's what you
prefer).
Instructions for configuring Microsoft Update on Vista, XP and Windows
2000 are
here. Some older products, notably Office 2000, require you to use
Microsoft Office Update, which is
here. Note the Genuine Office validation procedure. A very fine, free,
full-featured alternative to Microsoft Office is
OpenOffice, available
here. I've been using it for years. I'm using it now! It is fully
compatible with MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access.
Thank you to everyone who sent in questions, comments, tips and tricks.
Please send me yours! My email is
cate@rlis.com. You can also
browse the column archives at any time by pointing your browser here.
If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email,
please visit this link. It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the
RSS Feed, click here.
Links
Dropbox
http://www.getdropbox.com/
Password Bird
http://www.passwordbird.com/
RoboForm
http://www.roboform.com/
KeePass
http://keepass.info/
Ultra High Security Password Generator
https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
Windows Automatic Update Instructions
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/updates/mu.mspx
Microsoft Office Update
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/maincatalog.aspx
OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives
http://rlis.com/column.htm
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http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
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---
Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible
and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric,
and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions,
helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware
eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image
management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management.
Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your
comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit
the Real Life Internet Solutions website at
www.rlis.com.
©
Cate Eales 2008 – All Rights Reserved
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