Software – Page 19

Crack the Windows Login Password

October 7, 2008 / Software

Recently a Falls Church, Virginia customer called me to help them get into their computer after they forgot their Windows login. They were locked out of their own computer. Luckily for them (and unluckily for most people), the passwords can be found using brute force and dictionary cracking tools.

There are many programs to recover the Windows XP and Windows Vista passwords. My favorite is Ophcrack. Download the Live CD, burn the iso to disk (not as a file but as a disk image), and boot the computer off the disk.

Ophcrack will start automatically and typically take 5-30 minutes to determine all the passwords that it can. The shorter the password, the faster Ophcrack can find it. Unless there is a very long password (over 14 characters), Opencrack will be able to tell you what it is.

Screen Capure Software for PC and Mac

October 4, 2008 / Software

Capturing a screen or part of a screen is often useful. People capture screen images to:

email someone a computer problem or error noticed on the screen
capture an image from a web page
save that amazing game score you got so you can remember it forever
capture something from an application so that others who do not have the application can view it
create a tutorial

There are several ways to capture a screen image.

PC Screen Capture

The only built-in screen capture function in Windows is the PrintScreen button. After you hit PrintScreen, you need to paste the clipboard image of the entire screen into an application such as MS Word. This is clunky and does not produce an image file that you can easily edit.

ScreenHunter 5 is image capture software which comes in Pro, Plus, and Free versions. For most image capturing needs, the free version is all you need (see screen capture of ScreenHunter 5 captured using ScreenHunter 5). It can capture a rectangular area, an active window, or the full screen to a gif picture.

The best print capture software for Windows is SnagIt. It has all the options you could need, but it does cost $49.95.

Mac Screen Capture

Mac OS X has great screen capturing built-in.

To capture the entire screen, press Command+Shift+3.
To capture part of a screen, press Command+Shift+4. This will give you a draggable crosshair to select a rectangular section.

This Macworld Screen Capture article has a video that demonstrates how to better control your Mac screen capture with the shift, option, and space keys.

Synchronize your browser bookmarks

September 30, 2008 / Software

One of the most useful pieces of software for anyone with more than one computer is Foxmarks. Foxmarks is a free plug-in for the Firefox browser that seamlessly synchronizes your Firefox bookmarks and bookmark folders on any computer and any operating system that you are running it on.

This makes your bookmarks all the more valuable. You can find a new site from your home computer, bookmark it, and then see it in your work computer’s bookmarks. Foxmarks will encourage you to organize and better use your bookmarks.

With more and more software moving to the web, bookmark organization is important. Foxmarks makes that easy for all your computers.

Best Instant Messengers

September 29, 2008 / Apple, Electronics, Internet, Mobile, Software

There are many instant messaging options for communicating with your friends and colleagues. In order for instant messengers to work together, they need to use the same protocol. To avoid interoperability issues, consider one of the messengers listed here that supports multiple systems.

Windows and Linux

Pidgin works with all the major IM systems: AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr.

It is also highly customizable with lots of plugins. Lifehacker.com lists their ten favorite plug-ins.

Mac OS X

By default, the Mac comes with iChat which is the best videoconferencing solution for Mac. Unfortunately, iChat only works with Macs. It uses a Jabber transport and connects with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), .Mac, ICQ and XMPP.

For instant messaging and more interoperability on the Mac, Adium is similar to Pidgin and works with all the major IM protocols.

IM + Video + Calling Land Lines

If you also want videoconferencing, Skype is the most popular solution. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even some mobile devices like Windows Mobile PDAs and the Sony PSP (pictured). It also has the paid options of Skype Out (calling a phone) or Skype In (getting a phone number that rings your Skype account). On the downside, Skype is a proprietary protocol that only works with Skype.

PDF software.. not just from Adobe

September 23, 2008 / Software, Windows

PDF, standing for Portable Document Format, is a common format used for sending read-only files. While it was invented by Adobe in 1993, it is now an open standard. So Adobe and others now make some useful PDF tools.

PDF Readers

Of course, you can get the free Acrobat Reader from Adobe.

If you want a smaller and faster reader, try the Sumatra PDF (Windows only).

PDF Writers

A great addition to any computer is a PDF writer, which allows you to create PDF files from other documents. Macs can do this by default as a print option. Windows users can download PDFCreator. It adds PDFCreator as a printer which is handy if you want to make PDFs or just for when you don’t have a real printer around.