Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon
Join Dr. Bill as he examines the wild and wacky world of the web, computers, and all things geeky! Hot Tech Tips, Tech News, and Geek Culture are examined… with plenty of good humor as well!
Postings of software that Dr. Bill finds particularly interesting, geeky, and, as much as possible… FREE!
This week’s Netcast is a Windows 10 specific edition of the Netcast… and there is no Windows specific freeware out yet (that I have found.) There will be… just not yet! But, this makes a good point, Windows 10 IS a new operating system, the world is switching to it, and gearing up for Windows 10-specific needs, and solutions. Not that your old utilities won’t necessarily work on Windows 10, but there just aren’t new ones yet. So… stay tuned!
Do you need to clean up your hard drive?
Dupkiller – Duplicate File Finder
“DupKiller is one of the fastest and the most powerful tools for searching and removing duplicate or similar files on your computer. Complicated algorithms, built in its searching mechanism, perform high results — rapid file search. A lot of options allow to flexibly customizing the search.
The program will find unneeded copies of files in those locations where you even would not consider to search. There is comparison not only by name, last modification date or size. One can compare files by their contents, and what’s more, to set what per cent they must match; one can search different-length files, include or exclude files by mask, etc.
In addition, unlike other programs of this sort, DupKiller performs all operations faster and better, because of complicated algorithms of data processing built in the search mechanism of the program.”
This week’s GSotW is very cool. Cyberduck is not only an FTP client, it is a tool that allows you to access Amazon S3 cloud files as though it were an FTP connection.
Cyberduck – Libre FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, S3 & OpenStack Swift browser for Mac and Windows.
“Connecting to every server. With an easy to use interface, connect to FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer), WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage and Rackspace Cloud Files.
Emerging open cloud software standards
Works with third-party providers using either the S3 or Openstack Swift APIs. You can find connection profiles for HP Cloud Object Storage, Internap, EVault LTS2, Oracle Storage Cloud Service and many others.
Fast FTP Core
A widely tested FTP (File Transfer Protocol) implementation for the best interoperability with support for FTP over secured SSL/TLS connections.
Edit any file with your preferred editor
To edit files, a seamless integration with any external editor application makes it easy to change content quickly. Edit any text or binary file on the server in your preferred application.
Distribute your content in the cloud
Both Amazon CloudFront and Akamai content delivery networks (CDN) can be easily configured to distribute your files worldwide from edge locations. Connect to any server using FTP, SFTP or WebDAV and configure it as the origin of a new Amazon CloudFront CDN distribution.
Amazon CloudFront
Manage custom origin, basic and streaming CloudFront distributions. Toggle deployment, define CNAMEs, distribution access logging and set the default index file.
Google Cloud Storage
With OAuth or interoperable authentication support. Share files securely with an authenticated URL. Configure bucket access logging to get statistics with Qloudstat.
Rackspace Cloud Files
Manage your Rackspace Cloud Files storage including the configuration of Akamai content delivery network (CDN) with support to toggle on access logs for Qloudstat.
Amazon S3 for the rest of us
Browse Amazon Simple Storage Service like your harddisk. Supporting the latest and greatest additions to the S3 storage options. Define website endpoints, enable access logging, configure storage class, encryption and lifecycle (Glacier).
Browse with ease
Browse and move your files quickly in the browser with caching enabled for the best performance. Works with any character encoding for the correct display of Umlaute, Japanese and Chinese.
Transfer anything
Limit the number of concurrent transfers and filter files using a regular expression. Resume both interrupted download and uploads. Recursively transfer directories.
WebDAV Interoperability
Best interoperability with services implementing WebDAV.
Advanced SSH features
No compromise accessing your SFTP servers with all the bells and whistles.
Integration with system technologies
A native citizen of Mac OS X and Windows. Notification center, Gatekeeper and Retina resolution.”
Open Source – Licensed under the GPL.
ChromeOS Built by Hexxen!
“What’s vanilla?
Vanilla builds are bleeding edge. They give you the opportunity to see and use the latest and greatest that Chromium OS has to offer. Requires only a 4GB USB drive (download size is around 250MB)
ChromiumOS is a lightweight, lightning-fast operating system for your netbook, laptop or even desktop. With the familiar environment of Chromium/Chrome, the entire web is at your fingertips in seconds. HTML5 is fully supported, allowing you to enjoy the very best that the web has to offer.”
You know I like Chrome! How about a Linux Distro that is based around Chrome?
“Cr OS Linux (pronounced like Cros Linux) is the free OS built around the revolutionary Chromium browser – a foundation for Google Chrome. We call it the chrome plated OS, because it is stable and shiny.
This open source project provides a lightweight Linux distribution similar to Google Chrome OS for the best web browsing experience on any x86 PC, netbook or notebook.
Download Cr OS Linux Live DVD or USB Disk Image for free and give it a try!
Featured software in the latest Cr OS Linux:
Have you ever wanted to set up your own, personal audio, photo, and video system for your home? This will do it for you! Kodi, formerly known as XBMC, is very cool, and will find any media you have on your PC, and give you a Tivo like interface for it!
Kodi – A Media Center for your Home!
“Kodi™ (formerly known as XBMC™) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet. Our forums and Wiki are bursting with knowledge and help for the new user right up to the application developer. We also have helpful Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Youtube pages.
Disclaimer: Kodi does not provide any media itself. Users must provide their own content or manually point Kodi to third party online services. The Kodi project does not provide any support for bootleg video content.
Music: Kodi can play all your music including AAC, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WMA formats. It has cue sheet, tagging support, MusicBrainz integration, and smart playlists for ultimate control of your music collection.
Movies: Kodi can do movies too! Supporting all the main video formats and sources, including streamable online media, ISOs, 3D, H.264, HEVC, WEBM. Kodi can import these movies with full posters, fanart, disc-art, actor information, trailers, video extras, and more.
TV Shows: The TV shows library supports episode and season views with posters or banners, watched tags, show descriptions and actors. Video nodes/tags and smart playlists can further organize your library for special interests, making specific screens for sci-fi, anime, etc.
Pictures: Import pictures into a library and browse the different views, start a slideshow, sort or filter them all using your remote control.
PVR: Kodi allows you to watch and record live TV all from the GUI interface. It works with a number of popular backends including MediaPortal, MythTV, NextPVR, Tvheadend, VDR, Windows Media Center, and more.
Add-Ons: Take Kodi to a whole new level with the vast selection of community created add-ons that are available though our repositories. There are add-ons for videos, music, changing Kodi’s behavior, popular web services, adding more artwork, controlling your lights, and much much more.
Skins: Kodi allows you to completely change the whole GUI. Thanks to the highly customizable skinning engine you are able to change every aspect of Kodi. Choose from dozens of community created skins, each with their own set of options, or create your own dream UI.
uPNP: With UPnP compatibility you can stream to and from any other Kodi instances and play to other UPnP compatible devices in your home with ease. Have one UPnP master device and use other Kodi instances as clients which automatic keeps you watched status and library up-to-date. You can also now import from uPnp sources to synchronize your data inside instances of Kodi.
Web Interface: Interact with Kodi using its JSON-RPC based remote interface. This brings loads of possibilities for remote controls, web browsers and 3rd party tools to take Kodi to the next level.
Remote Controls: With support for hundreds of remote controls, CEC-compatible TVs, or one of the new Smartphone and Tablet Apps, Kodi allows you to control your media your way.”
This is a great tool to work with PDF files, and it is Open Source and free!
“PDFsam is a free, open source, platform independent tool released under GPLv2 license and designed to perform split, merge and other manipulations on pdf document. It’s released in 2 versions, basic and enhanced.
Requirements:
Java Runtime Environment 1.6 or higher
pdfsam basic:
A simple tool designed to split and merge pdf files. With it’s simple and intuitive interface you can:
pdfsam enhanced:
This is the enhanced version of pdfsam. In this version you’ll find all the basic features plus:
As my earlier post described, this software allows you to run Android apps on your computer, whether PC (Windows) or Mac!
Bluestacks – Android on Your Computer!
“Gaming on mobile draining your battery? Play and message as long as you want while keeping your phone at 100%.
Save battery. Play on BlueStacks.
For the first time, you can play Castle Clash on a big screen and message on Whatsapp at the same time. You can also share files from your PC and Mac onto mobile, for example posting photos on Instagram from your computer.
Download apps onto to your computer with a single click. Bluestacks merges your Windows or OSX and Android experiences seemlessly. Applications and games can now live behind a single desktop icon.”
ARRRGH! The Gamemaster just let me know that Bluestacks is only free the first day, one day later, it pops up and says that you have to pay $2.00 per month, OR, download and install certain apps… oh well, so this week’s GSotW comes with a caveat!
And, speaking of malware!
SuperAntiSpware – Malware Search and Removal Tool for Your System
This one has spotted and fixed more malware than other malware attack systems that I have used. It is nice!
“SUPERAntiSpyware 6.0 will give customers a superior user experience, with improved scan times and enhanced real-time protection,” said Support.com president and CEO Elizabeth Cholawsky. “Over the last decade we have helped millions of loyal customers keep their computers safe. Their trust underscores that SUPERAntiSpyware 6.0 is among the industry’s best and most powerful defenses against spyware and malware.”
New Features
Advanced Detection and Removal
Real-Time Protection
Do you need to recover passwords that you have saved in your Chrome Browser? Now, you can with Chromepass!
“ChromePass is a small password recovery tool that allows you to view the user names and passwords stored by Google Chrome Web browser. For each password entry, the following information is displayed: Origin URL, Action URL, User Name Field, Password Field, User Name, Password, and Created Time.
You can select one or more items and then save them into text/html/xml file or copy them to the clipboard.”