Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

Amic Email Backup
I was initially very impressed with this program. It’s is a speedy little program that will backup all your emails, whether it be Opera Mail, Eudora mail, Thunderbird, or the ubiquitous Outlook Express. It will backup all your emails and settings with the click of the mouse. It stores the information in a small file and keeps it in the My Documents folder. You can move it to a safe place (like a flash drive separate from your computer’s hard drive) in case of a computer crash or reformat. I love that you can schedule it to backup automatically (I have mine set to every 2 days but you can backup every month or two or three).

When the day comes and you need to restore, you click on your stored file, and Amic begins. The process of restoring your email is another simple click away. IF IT WORKED. It didn’t work for me. The backup process went smoothly, but when I tried to restore, an error notification popped up telling me the file was corrupted.

This could be a great little program. I use Windows Vista, so perhaps this was the problem. I have not tried it on XP yet. If you are looking for a quick little program to save your email, this is free, at least. If it works for you, please let me know!

I caught wind of a wonderful Wordpress plugin that allows you to shows “unconventional” fonts on your website.

Fonts on websites are a curious thing. Your blog posts might look wonderful with the “Brady Bunch” or “Comic Superhero” fonts. Your computer displays them beautifully. But any other person viewing viewing your page still sees the same old Arial, Georgia, Trebuchet, or Times New Roman fonts. Why is that?

It’s because that other computer user doesn’t have the “Brady Bunch” or “Comic Superhero” fonts installed on their computer. Those kinds of fonts are “specialty” fonts. They are not common to most computers. Most computers’ default fonts are the Arial, Georgia, Trebuchet, or Times New Roman.

I’ve lamented many times how boring the typical default fonts are on computers. I like artsy stuff, and I like a variety of fonts. Well, guess what, I caught wind of a wonderful Wordpress plugin that allows you to shows “unconventional” fonts on your website. TTFTitles Plugin for Wordpress users.

This plugin lets you use images to replace the titles of your posts, thus circumventing the problem of guessing what fonts your end-users might have installed.

Nice! I have yet to use it. It looks complicated, so I have to find some quiet time to go over it. But if you have been desiring the same effect for your blog, you might want to look into this plugin. Please come back and comment if you use it, and let me know how it goes.

I love to study the Bible. For a long time, all I had was my very good study Bible. I amassed several study books, like Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, the Interliner Bible with the Hebrew and Greek words, and some Bible dictionaries and commentaries. It was quite the event, studying the Bible! I had to have a lot of space to spread out all those books, and I wrote all my notes by hand in a notebook.

Modern technology has made studying the Bible much faster and easier. I have surfed around a little, looking for Bible study software. Some stuff costs several hundreds of dollars! I could never afford something like that.

A guy named Rick Meyers thought the same thing. So he invented his own program, called E-Sword. It is amazing! And it’s free! E-Sword has the basic King James Bible in the program, with String’s Concordance. From that basic program, you can download a variety of plugins as you want them or need them. Maps, dictionaries, commentaries, tips, books, everything! I am amazed! I have John Wesley’s commentaries on the New Testament, Charles Finney’s Systematic Theology, and Josephus’ works. There is a ton more, too. And Rick offers it all free. It’s a wonderful program, I’ve been using it for almost seven years now.

PDF-XChange Viewer
This is another quality PDF viewer I’ve found. As I have said before, I can’t stand that bloatware Adobe Acrobat. I am very happy with my Foxit Reader. PDF-XChange Viewer claims it is more functional than Foxit, but I really didn’t notice much difference. Nonetheless, it is another alternative PDF viewer, and for that I am glad.

The download was lengthy (for my DSL connection, anyway– I waited almost 10 minutes). The program runs well. Check it out if you are looking to be free from Adobe.

A backup software is the only reasonable solution to the risks associated with online file sharing. Many think of a data recovery group being just as effective. However, the perfect computer backup solution requires the presence of a data recovery software nevertheless.

MetaPad 3.51
Working with html code everyday, I have grown frustrated with Microsoft’s Notepad. It is still so un-functional. Has Microsoft even touched Notepad since 1991?!

So, I’ve had my eyes peeled for a replacement. I’ve tried a few, but they were either too large or still not what I was looking for. I just downloaded a little program called MetaPad that I think will be my Notepad replacement from now on.

It’s more functional, it has more settings, and the word wrap works so much better! I’m pleased with it! It’s tiny, it’s simple, it works, and it’s free!

If you’re looking for a suitable replacement, you might like MetaPad.

I downloaded this last year and had the happiest time with it! It’s Desktop Snow for Windows. It’s a “free trial” program (the program costs $10). It has no limitations but it does have a nag screen. It is customizable– you can have light snow or blizzard snow. You can choose the have the snow build up on the bottom of your desktop, and have the wind blow it away. It really is adorable.

I had it on a computer with barely enough memory, and the program ran OK. But when I had several big programs open (like Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and a media player), the snow stuttered a lot. You can shut it off or turn it on at will. Whoever made this program did a really good job. Fun!

No one can imagine using internet without cable today. Having broadband is as important as having a computers software to keep the system running. An internet phone is of no use if on dialup. A lot of scripts take ages to upload and thus contribute to loss of a number of software patents.

In Desktop Utilities, Part 1, I quickly breezed through some of my favorite programs for everyday computing, and offered a review and a link. In this post, I’m continuing the saga.

1. AdFree 3.2.
This is a teent-tiny little program that takes charge of your HOSTS file. If you go to the website, you’ll see that the creator is not supporting AdFree anymore, because the Firefox browser has some ad-blocking features built in. However, what if you use Internet Explorer? The intrusive and sometimes obscene ads are the main reason I left IE and never went back. However, some of my family members still use IE, and for them I have AdFree.

It downloads on your computer and reconfigures your HOSTS file. Your HOSTS file in your computer is the first thing Windows checks before getting an IP number. If your computer receives information to block (not show) a certain IP number, it won’t. In this way, AdFree (and other such ad-blockers, like AdBlockPlus in the Firefox browser) tell your computer to block certain IP numbers– the IP numbers of ads on a webpage. Most ads on a webpage are “third-party” ads, which means that they are coming from another site, usually an advertising company site. Think of it as Flickr or Photobucket. You insert the IP (in the form of html code) in your own website to enable your reader to see your photo.

The website MVPS has an excellent, if complicated, explanation. This website also offers a free ad-blocker that does the same thing as AdFree. For novices, I recommend AdFree. Since AdFree isn’t being updated anymore, you can add IP numbers yourself. AdFree program gives you this capability. You can even block entire websites.

Ad-blocking is a science, but it’s not rocket science! A little reading around can help you immensely. Check out AdFree and experiment with it. I has made our internet experience much more pleasurable.

2. Pop-Up Stopper
Scroll down the page and look for the “free” version. The name explains it all, sweet and simple. Firefox and Internet Explorer say they get all the popups, but I beg to differ. I get popups when I surf. This is a handy-dandy little program that has protected my kids countless times. It’s very easy to configure. You can set it up as you like. I have it set to “high” to block all popups unless I hold the Shift key down on my keyboard. It’s small, and it will start up when you start up your computer. I’ve had it for many years.

3. PDF995 Creator
Need to create PDFs? Not willing to shell out $200+ for behemoth Adobe? Here’s a free suite of programs that will enable you to do all sorts of things with PDFs. I have all the programs, because I make a lot of my own worksheets. The most popular is the conversion program– this will make your regular documents into PDFs. It does it through the “print” feature of your word processing program, so don’t be alarmed if you see no program icon in your desktop. Think of it as a widget for your word processor.

Note: be sure to download both the “PDF995 Printer Driver” and the “Free Converter” for the following to work:

To use it, let’s say you’ve written a letter to your Aunt Marge and you want to convert that document (.doc, for example) into a .pdf. In your word program, go to File and look for Print. The print popup window gives you a choice of your printer in a drop-down menu. Click the drop-down menu and look for your pdf995. Choose that, go through the “OK” motions, name your document, and you’ll have a .pdf document saved.

PDF995 is not free, not exactly. You can pay for it, or you can continue to use it forever with a nag screen everytime you use it. The nag screen is a little irritating, and it opens up an Internet Explorer browser to the website sometimes, but I endure it. I’d rather endure this than the fees, even though the fees are not extravagant at all.

PDFEdit995, another part of the PDF995 suite, enables you to extract individual PDF pages from a big PDF document of many pages. It’s handy of you need a copy of one page in a set of many.

It’s a great bunch of programs.

4. EssentialPIM
This is a wonderful, simple Personal Information Management system. It is fun to use, it looks great, and it can handle your most crammed schedules. You can have To Do lists, it will print your data, and will even encrypt your data. I have tried other organizers, but I like this one the best. It’s colorful, too, so it’s fun to use.

5. FreeRAM XP Pro
This program has received good reviews from CNet, and I have used it on all my computers, too. It’s a great program to beef up your computer and give it a little speed, until you get some real RAM in there. It is customizable, too, but you have to know what you are doing. You can always leave it at the default settings. It made a difference on my computers that didn;t have enough RAM, until I installed more memory.

This is the end of the second series. Stay tuned for Part 3!

This is the first installment in a series of helpful desktop utilities you can find for free. There is a ton of high-quality, good performing free software programs out there. But finding them is not so easy. This is why I am here.

1. Desktop Calendar
I’ve used this free program for many years now (almost 6 years!) and I have been very happy with it. If you click on the link to the homepage, and then choose the “Screenshots” tab, you’ll get an idea of what it looks like.

I’ve tried dozens– yes, dozens– of desktop calendars, both free and trial use. Nothing I’ve found really compares to the Desktop Calendar. It’s simple. It’s customizable. It’s retractable. It’s movable to different places around your desktop. It has automatic reminders when you boot up that day (or you can disable this feature). It can remember events on a yearly basis, too.

The only complaint I really have is that I can’t enlarge the boxes to fill my entire desktop or decrease the font type. Sometimes I have to squeeze in more type than the box can show (although you can type in as much as you want, it will show up in a balloon if you point your cursor at the date). This is only a tiny inconvenience, though. I am very pleased with this calendar program. Mind you, it has no big bells and whistles, no address books, no alarm clocks, no phone books, no kitchen sink. It’s a calendar, plain and simple. It boots up very quickly and doesn’t crash. It’s free– can’t be beat!

2. Accuweather Desktop
I used this faithfully for a year or so. I got rid of it when I wasn’t spending much time on the computer. I am downloading it again to keep track of the wild winter weather storms we seem to be having every other day. It’s a nice program, especially useful for folks who live in areas prone to sudden and severe weather. I liked it better than the Weatherbug, which had spyware in it.

3. Rainlendar
This is another terrific calendar program. It’s extremely small and skinnable (which means you can “dress” it up with different “clothes.” I like it because it has a great “to do” list as part of the set. It’s a tiny calendar, much smaller than the Desktop Calendar I wrote about in #1.

The only complaint I have with it is that the configuration settings can be a little confusing. There are a lot of choices and settings and it can be puzzling. You have to experiment with it to get the feel for it. But it’s a good, solid little calendar. And it’s free!

4. VoluMouse
I have a laptop. If I want to adjust the volume, I either have to use double-keyboard commands (with both hands) or find the toggles on the side of the laptop (not very convenient). Yuo can only guess what happens when I leave the laptop volume up and the next day I try to play a YouTube video without the kids hearing it. :S

I found VoluMouse through word of mouse… er, uh.. mouth that is. It is a little program you install that enables you to control your volume with your mouse’s scroll button. I really like it. I suppose it would be helpful for desktop computers, too, that don’t have volume buttons on the keyboard. It’s customizable, and it’s another free program!

5. ProducKey
Here’s a program that is in my “I’ll get to this soon” list. I know I need to get this program and get my product key BEFORE something happens, just like I need to backup all my data every day and wash behind my ears, right? This free program makes it all so easy for that– heaven forbid– day the computer should die or you lose your Windows key.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of helpful Desktop Utilities!