One of the PCs I use frequently is an old eMachines box with less than stellar performance. Many of the applications that I take for granted on my desktop at home won’t perform well enough to bother with, and some of those that do perform their jobs only grudgingly.

Try as I might, I don’t seem to be able to get happy with the “lightweight” word processors like Abiword, and I despise the Microsoft Works Word Processor for what it obviously is: a makeover of WordPad with just enough real word processing features to frustrate you and cause an upgrade to Office. In short, I always end up back with OpenOffice Writer — which isn’t a bad place to be at all….

Unless you’re on the eMachines I mentioned, which started out badly and has gotten worse as it ages. Try to run Writer on it and, if some background program cranks up and demands enough resources, as often as not the thing will freeze up and require a reboot. If there was no data loss, I’m lucky. (Don’t ask me why I don’t upgrade the thing; it’s a long story, beginning with the fact that it isn’t mine.)

I don’t use desktop word processing very often, preferring Google’s online service, but there are times when you just need the power of a full-fledged program for things like brochures or other projects involving object manipulation. So, when OpenOffice 2.4 arrived and I decided to upgrade, I figured I’d see what I could do about streamlining it a bit.

After downloading and clicking on the OpenOffice installer, there’s a hiatus during which it unpacks the installation files to the desktop, and then it presents you with a choice of a full or “custom” install. Now don’t think a custom install will save you any disc space. As far as I can tell, a custom install has everything there in the program file (about 375 MB worth). However, instead of loading it all up when you invoke, say, Writer, it tends to keep most of it to itself, greatly speeding up the load time and RAM use, and even reducing the processor load a tad.

The big question is what to install, and what you can afford to leave out. Turns out, if all you want is a kick-butt word processor, that’s most of it. So here’s a list the stuff on the menu, what it does, and what you can probably forget about.

Custom Installation

• Calc — Performs calculations, analyzes information and manages lists in spreadsheets — the OpenOffice app compatible with Excel. If you don’t anticipate doing any of those things, you can probably forget about Calc.
• Draw — Creates and edits drawings, flow charts and logos. Ditto for Draw.
• Impress — OpenOffice.org’s equivalent of PowerPoint. If you don’t open those silly .ppt things that people insist on forwarding all over the Web, then you probably don’t need Impress. Even if you do bother to open the things, you can always do it in Gmail as a slide show, or use Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer.
• Base — Creates and edits databases. If you don’t know what a database is, you probably don’t need this, either.
• Math — creates and edits scientific formulas and equations. This is for typing, and importing to documents, equations and other math that can’t be reproduced by a word processor. If, like me, you can’t imagine what you’d use it for…

Optional Components — These are mostly add-ons that work with the applications listed.

• Java Runtime Environment — I have yet to use any portion of OpenOffice that requires Java. The only thing I know of that uses it is the mobile device filters (later). I’ve run Writer with it disabled for years, and the only change I can see is that it loads a lot faster.
• Graphic Filters — For reading non OO graphic formats. If you don’t work with graphics or want to import them into your documents, forget it.
• XSLT Sample Filters — One presumes that, if you know what these are, you know whether or not you want them.
• Python-UNO Bridge — this gives users the ability to automate OpenOffice applications using the Python Scripting Language. Probably not needed for everyday use, would be my guess.
• Online Update — allows OO to check for (you guessed it) updates. I’d keep it, even if you don’t plan to update. It’s good to know what’s happening in that department.
• Mobile Device Filters — These are text and spreadsheet filters for importing and exporting documents from/to Palm and PocketPC devices. I abstained.
• ActiveX Control — Enables Internet Explorer to display OpenOffice documents. Since I don’t use Internet Explorer except on Microsoft websites, and since I can always export documents in another format if I have to, I see no use for it — and ActiveX has enough security problems that I keep it disabled in IE anyway.
• Windows Explorer Extension — Keep this, unless you don’t want to see OpenOffice info, such as thumbnails, in Explorer. (Note: Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer.
• Quickstarter — Pre-loads part of the OpenOffice program into memory and holds it there to help the applications start faster. I find that the stripped-down installation loads plenty fast enough to suit me, but if you’re constantly opening and closing documents and have at least 512 MB of RAM you might want to keep it. You can always disable it, if it seems to cause problems.

So, there it is. The good thing about all this is that, since OpenOffice is free, you can always download a fresh copy and install things you may be missing, or just begin an uninstall, which brings up the option to modify the installation instead.

The new version of QFX Software’s KeyScrambler is out, and even the free version (Personal) has greatly expanded coverage. The browser add-on protects everything you type into a Web page on all Web sites and in all parts of the browser:

• All Web sites: login credentials, credit card numbers, passwords, search terms, and more.
• All parts of the browser: Java, Flash, PDF Forms, including Runescape and many bank logins.
• All Web email: Yahoo! mail, Hotmail, and Gmail.
• Major browsers: IE, Firefox, Flock.

The Pro and Premium versions protect a wider variety of programs including Word, OpenOffice and StarOffice, along with other types of applications. The free version ONLY protects things happening in the browser, and only in IE, Fx, and Flock.

Keyloggers are the fastest growing form of information theft on the Internet. They invade users’ computers through viruses, worms, and other malware, and silently log keystrokes to steal usernames and passwords. The stolen information is then used to steal money and identity from the victims. Keyloggers are also commonly used by employers and other parties to track what’s happening on specific computers. There are a number of commercial products on the market (many free), not to mention those in use by purveyors of malware.

KeyScrambler works by encrypting keystrokes at the keyboard, before they can be intercepted by keyloggers, and then decrypting them in the browser or other program. Since by their (present) nature keyloggers must reside in the computer’s operating system, the encryption prevents them from picking up useful information.

By having KeyScrambler encrypt everything you type on your computer, you’re protected against both known and unknown keyloggers. (Learn more about KeyScrambler)

Note: As far as I know, KeyScrambler must be installed on the computer in order to function. To my knowledge it cannot be run from portable media such as USB drives, although an installation program could be carried and run on a machine before use. If someone from QFX reads this, perhaps they could elaborate on the practicality of doing so, and any plans to include that feature. (Frankly, I can’t see how it would work, but I’m not a programmer.)

This is a quickie, but a really important quickie if you use FlashGet.

My buddy Steve Bass, in his Tips and Tweaks blog, relates the following:

I just uninstalled FlashGet, my favorite downloading program. It’s got a big, inviting security hole that can — and did — let a nasty Trojan worm its way onto my system. I’m not the only one having to fend off the attack. Users on the FlashGet and Kapersky Labs first raised the flag. [FlashGet’s Security Hole Delivers a Trojan]

For those bloggers who use Firefox, especially those who maintain more than one blog, I can’t keep myself from touting Scribefire one more time. The extension (or add-on, as they’re now called) is being maintained again after a several months’ hiatus, and new functions are being added every few days. The latest are support for tags (all versions), and for changing WordPress post timestamps (Firefox 3 only). Scribefire supports pages and notes, categories, tags, category additions, default to draft status, Technorati tags, and trackback URLS, and has a full rich text editor built in. There is custom HTML support, word-wrap support for image placement, and all the other things you’d expect — or most of them — with more on the way.

There are a million screen capture programs out there. I’ve been using Screen Capture Pro for about a month. It works great, and is now free to register. It sits in my system tray and stays out of the way. When I want to capture, I hit PrtScrn if I want the whole thing, or Alt+PrtScrn if I want only the active window. The image is stored in a folder of my choice, in either .bmp or .jpg (with a choice of image quality). That’s all it does. No pop-ups, no fancy image editors. It just saves screen shots where you want them and goes away. You never even know it was there. Great addition!

Most of the time, when I need a calendar that’s just what I need. No bells and whistles. If I want to make a big deal of it, there’s Google Calendar or Sunbird. When I just want to find out on what day the 27th of the month falls, I use Quickmonth Calendar. Mouse over the systray clock, and it pops up with the current month. I can click backward or forward if I need to. Remove the mouse, and it goes away.

Note: if you’re a sloppy mouser, it can be disconcerting to have it pop up when you accidentally hit the clock with the cursor. It goes away so fast, though, that it’s merely startling, and you get used to it — or you get careful. Either works.

Finally, there’s the program that I recommend every time I do one of these articles: Memorizer eXP from AYLabs. There have been no discernible changes on this application in about four years, and there’s a very good reason: none are needed. It’s just about perfect as it is.

Memorizer is a clipboard manager, and it costs $19.00 US. I know, there are dozens of free clipboard managers out there. I’ve tried at least two dozen of them, because when I set up a system for a friend or family, I like to include one of these highly useful critters. I usually install YankeeClipper3, but I always recommend, and sometimes donate, a copy of Memorizer. The only word to describe it, in comparison to the freebies, is elegant. Download a free trial and see how you like it. Even if you’re a freeware nut like me, I’m betting you’ll buy it.

Disclaimer: I won’t make a penny off it, but I’ll have the satisfaction of having given you a great tip.

I recently wrote in the blog about a problem I had with an online photo and electronics supplier, how I chose to go with B&H Photo Video, and how — based on their service — I would be dealing only with them in the future.

Here’s a good example of why. On the 11th of March I ordered $545.00 worth of accessories from B&H. As an afterthought, I added to the end of the order a $1.95 lens cover leash (a device with a string, a fastener and a sticky tab that allows you to take the cover off and just let it drop, attached to the camera; amazingly handy little item). The stickum on the one I’ve got is getting a little weak, so I figured to get a spare.

B&H doesn’t stock the item at their main warehouse. As a result, it couldn’t be included with the main 2-day UPS shipment. They packed and shipped a $1.95 item by 2-day UPS, from the other location, so that it would get here with the rest of the order.

That’s why I like B&H.

Love them or hate them, most folks will say that the one big flaw remaining in Google’s applications is the inability to sync reliably with Microsoft Outlook, still the most-used personal and business schedule management tool.

That obstacle has been made smaller, if not removed entirely, by Google’s announcement on Friday that Google Calendar will now sync with Outlook. At present, Google Calendar Sync will function only with Outlook 2003 and 2007. Users of Outlook Express and plain old Works Calendar will have to do without.

In addition to simply syncing, you can determine the direction of information flow, as well as the sync frequency. However, it’s not possible to sync events on secondary calendars at this time. Google Calendar Sync will only sync events from your primary Google Calendar and your default Microsoft Outlook calendar. Knowing Google, there will be refinements coming soon.

Now, Mountain View, when can we expect to see integration of Gmail, Calendar, and the Google Applications package? Eh?

Google Calendar Help Center

Actual Booster 3.1 is a speed-up-your-PC utility that really works. I read about it on Ian (Gizmo) Richard’s excellent Tech Support Newsletter, and tried it based on his recommendation.

The piece of… ah… cheese much-repaired eMachine at work (not my problem or responsibility) runs much faster. My 3.2 Pentium D at home is quicker with processor-intensive programs like OpenOffice and PhotoShop, and Firefox is snappier.

If you have a Windows machine, it’s worth a look. Here’s part of what Gizmo has to say about it. (By the way, his newsletter is definitely worth subscribing, and the premium edition is even better.)

The program is called Actual Booster 3.1. It works by simply boosting the priority of whatever program is running in the foreground window, that is, the currently active window. Only that program is affected; it does not change the priority of any background program or process.

What that means is that whatever program you are currently using gets a bigger slice of your computers processing power and so will run faster. If you are currently using Word then Word will run faster. If you switch to an Outlook window then Outlook will run faster but Word will slow down. But it doesn’t matter if Word slows down because you are not using it!

It’s a simple and elegant idea. But it’s more than that; it actually works…

When I saw that Actual Booster was from a Russian software company called Loonies software I must admit I was a bit concerned. However, after a lot of testing, I’m happy to say that the product is 100% clean and can be recommended with confidence.

Like a lot of Russian software, it’s intellectually elegant and highly functional, but has a rather basic user interface. The program is just 64KB in size and uses only 2MB of your memory space when running. Just the kind of product I like.

So, there you have it.

• Download from Loonies
• Download from Tucows

I’ve written about Jott at least once before, and I believe someone else has mentioned it on this site, too. I feel as though I ought to tell you about it again, though, since they keep upgrading and adding to the service. If you looked at it before and decided it wasn’t for you (although I can’t see why it wouldn’t be), perhaps you might care to take another look. I’ve been using it for over a year.

In brief, which is the whole point of Jott: “Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments.” All you need is your mobile. You register the number with Jott, and from then on all you have to do is dial/speed dial/voice dial their number and leave yourself a message. It’s transcribed, partially by computer and partially by humans, and sent to wherever you designate: an email address, a SMS, someone else’s email or phone. Later, if you like, you can access the original voice message and transcription online.

What’s it good for? For example, I commute for 35 minutes twice a day on the busiest stretch of Interstate in the country. When you have to leave yourself a note, it’s a helluva lot safer to Jott it than to do it any other way and it’s too bloody dangerous to text when you’re driving — I don’t care how good you think you are.

I don’t recommend using a mobile — even a hands-free — while driving. I’m sure you’re a much better driver than I*, but I know that I don’t drive as well when I’m on the phone. There are lots of other places to use Jott, too, like the mall, when you have nothing to write on, when you don’t have time to send a text in the usual way, etc.

Try Jott. You may like it. Did I mention it’s free? (At least while it’s in beta.)
*I mean, I only taught driving in a police academy. What do I know?

I don’t generally care to post on Windows Fanatics with just a link to another site. It isn’t what you folks come here for. I’m making an exception in this case, however, because of the importance of this particular series of articles. They are provided by the Knight Citizens News Network, and are well worth the time for anyone who writes online in other than a completely personal capacity. (Even then, it pays to be careful of legal tangles.)

Here’s what they have to say by way of introduction:

Internet participation has exploded across blogs, social networks and citizen media sites. At the same time, lawsuits with sometimes scary damages claims are sparking anxiety. Whether you’re a blogger, Facebook member, hyperlocal citizen journalist, or occasional Web site contributor, how can you protect yourself against legal risk?

Top Ten Rules for Limiting Legal Risk

A couple of days ago, I wrote glowingly of a little program called Darkroom, which is a simple text editor that blacks out my screen and gives me a non-distracting interface so that I can concentrate on my writing. Darkroom is an example of what’s coming to be known as “zenware,” an attempt to get us away from the clutter of our desktops and back to using computers as tools, rather than allowing them to control our lives and every thought.

I’ve run across an exception problem in Darkroom that involves the .NET framework and seems to make saving some documents problematic. (It may also have to do with the It’s All Text extension mentioned below.) So far I’ve been unable to work around it, despite removing and replacing the Darkroom program with a fresh download. When I get around to it, I may refresh .NET as well. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I can’t really continue to recommend it since it might be the cause of a data loss.

You can achieve a similar effect in many other editors by reversing the color scheme in the window and going to full screen. I really like the effect, and the removal of distractions. You might give it a try.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that and throw in the link about zenware before getting on to the subject of this column, which is the ever-popular Firefox extensions. (Oh no! Not THAT again!)

I recently uninstalled a whole bunch of the things, because while Firefox was doing its usual exemplary job of browsing and supporting me generally, it was taking waaaay too long to start up and shut down. Even with Google Browser Sync and several other add-ons disabled, it was the same deal — and we’re talking a fast computer with a lot of RAM.

I was brutal: if it wasn’t necessary to my online way of life, or if I used it so seldom that I could occasionally drag out something else, or go to a web page directly to accomplish the same thing, then it was a goner. There were a lot of goners, among those already disabled and those I’d been currently using. Unfortunately, I failed to write them down before I uninstalled, so I can’t tell you what they were. I can, however, tell you the survivors, and why I kept them.

del.iciou.us Bookmarks: Allows me to access my bookmarks online, and download them to Fx, on any computer running Firefox and the extension. That’s cool, but mostly it was because it puts buttons on the menu bar and commands on the context menu so that I can post any link I like with just a click or two.

Flashblock: Gets rid of all those annoying flash objects and replaces the. with a button you can click to view if you like (especially helpful if you have a slow connection — those suckers take forever to load over dialup).

Forecastfox Enhanced: Puts weather, including radar, a mouse-over away in the status bar. Be sure to get the enhanced; there’s also a plain old Forecast fox that has fewer features.

FoxClocks: The handiest multi-zone clock I’ve seen. The adjustments used to be a bit Byzantine, but they’ve improved. Now it even shows cute little country flag icons. The writer gets extra points for resisting the temptation of “FoxClox.”

Gmail Manager: Gmail-wise, the only way to fly.

Google Browser Synch: I use this for bookmarks only, although it will do a lot more. It’s handy when you move between computers, as I do twice a day.

Google Toolbar for Firefox: Get it off the Google site. If you don’t want the full toolbar, my article here explains how to customize your Firefox toolbars to save space and incorporate buttons from GooBar.

ImgLikeOpera Allows me to block images on web pages (see “Flashblock”), speeds surfing, and works extremely well. You can choose no images, cached images only, images native to the site, and all images. Excluded images appear with a click.

It’s All Text: A new one that I’ve only been using a few days. I have trouble imagining how I got along without it. When you’re replying to a blog, commenting, or filling in any text field, you can click on a little icon that appears near the field (or right-click and use the more sophisticated drop-down menu). Either will open the text editor of your choice, so that you can write in comfort instead of trying to compose in one of those dumb little boxes.

When you’re done, you can save to both your hard drive and the text box, or to the text box alone. It’s convenient, fast, makes entering text ever so much more pleasant, and if you save to the HDD it avoids those glitches on websites that cause the hair-tearing at least once a week when you lose your post.

McAfee SiteAdvisor: Available for both Firefox and that other browser. You should have it. Period.

NoScript: Disables JavaScript, Java, and other plugins for all but domains that you trust and approve. Don’t leave your desktop without it.

Notefish: The best online note-saving system I’ve tried. For larger documents I like Google Notebook and Google Documents, but for speed and ease of use, Notefish is da bomb!

Scribefire: Integrated blogging editor and posting agent. Takes care of an easy 95% of my posting, without opening the blog site. Handles most common hosted blogs such as Blogger, WordPress, etc.

Tab Mix Plus: Takes tabbed browsing out of the dark ages and makes it the only way to go. (Several features are in the newer editions of Firefox, and several more will be in Fx 3.0, but for now…)

Tiny Menu: Combined with a lightweight theme, it saves a bunch of browser real estate. Takes all the menu selections from the top bar and combines them into one drop-down, freeing the bar for other customization. See the article on Firefox Real Estate.

TinyUrl creator: Integrates the TinyUrl URL-shortening tool into the browser. Messes like

http://www.google.com/search?q=zenware& sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8& rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-19,GGGL:en

become: http://tinyurl.com/24yrct

These are extensions that I use every day. The dozen or so that I uninstalled were either used very seldom or, essentially, unnecessary answers to nonexistent problems, as my friend the late Col. Jeff Cooper used to say about unrelated issues. You might want to check out your Add-ons menu. Disable the things you don’t often use, and if you haven’t missed them after a week or so, uninstall. Firefox will load faster and be more responsive.

Extensions for Firefox and other Mozilla products are available here.

Note: a friend who is testing Firefox v. 3 says that it is much faster than 2.x.x and uses fewer resources. That’s a good thing. People are always complaining about Fx being a memory hog, and slow in comparison to Internet Explorer. It’s necessary to remember, in that regard, that IE is a part of Windows; thus, much of its engine is already running when you invoke the browser. Firefox, being a stand-alone program, is slower to load and — yes — uses more RAM, but probably no more than Internet Explorer would if it didn’t have Windows to lean on. When it comes to rendering speed, the servers make far more difference than the browser.

Most of you know that I’m a bull when it comes to online applications like word processors — what’s come to be called “Cloud Computing.” I was an early adopter of Writely (now part of Google Applications), a Beta tester on Zoho, and I’ve tried just about every available Web-based word processor of any renown at all. Each has its good points, and the better ones like GDocs and Zoho rival most of the applications that run on your desktop. They are convenient to use, and have the advantage (to my mind) of residing on someone else’s servers instead of being desktop-dependent. That means that you can move from computer to computer (including from the old one that got stolen to the new one that you couldn’t afford but had to have) without any loss of data. You can even use a machine at the library, or one of the new ultra-miniatures that are tailor-made for this kind of computing.

I have used Google’s offering extensively, and like it for its security: Google’s servers ain’t goin’ nowhere, and if they do there are 300K more of the suckers — at least — for redundancy. While I actually like Zoho’s Writer better for its refinements like margin controls, I have no idea where their data is stored nor how secure or redundant it might be.

Well, all of that was then. Today I looked at Adobe’s “Buzzword” — a Flash-based online word processor — for the first time. Unless it turns out to have an unexpected extra head or something like that, I expect to be looking at it a lot more. I’m not going to bore you with a rundown because (a) I haven’t used it enough yet to do a good critique — although I’m happily typing this thereon — and (b) there’s an excellent walk-through that you can access at the link above, or this one, or the one below.

On dialup, the load time is simply out of the question. We’re talking minutes, many minutes here, folks! Once the download is complete, Buzzword runs fine, communicating with the servers slowly, but not unreasonably so. About the same as Google Apps or Zoho, both of which load much faster since they use AJAX.

Yo! Buzzword folks! Not everyone has broadband, and many who do have low-speed. This app is annoyingly draggy to load over my 6 Mb connection, and it’s useless on dialup. Get on it!

On the up side, Buzzword is pretty much a full-fledged word processor, with margin controls (including indents and hanging margin), a couple of dozen shortcuts, comments, collaboration — in short, most of the bells and whistles you’d expect. I can’t think of anything essential that’s missing, although some features need to be fleshed out, and a beautiful GUI. It’s early days yet, and I’d say that Buzzword, rather than GApps or Zoho, is most likely to bring the virtual office to the masses if they’re able to make it available to the great dialup unwashed. The Flash platform is the fastest-growing medium on the Web, and Adobe are the guys to ram it down M$’s throat. It will be interesting to see what they have to offer in terms of database, spreadsheet and presentation applications, which have to be in the works.

I’m seriously impressed. I’ll continue to use it until it lets me down, and then evaluate it more critically, perhaps. At present I can only find two flaws apart from the massive download: it uses proprietary Adobe fonts that default rather uninterestingly in most browsers and programs other than Buzzword (and double the time of the download), and it won’t save documents in .pdf format — which seems odd, when you think about it. Apart from that, all the shortcuts work in the usual way, the innovative toolbar system is nice and unobtrusive, and the desktop is uncluttered. The basic setup is for 8.5″ (22 cm) stock, so everything looks pretty much like it will when printed or on a Web page.

Images are easy to insert and re-size, and text-wrapping is done automatically depending on the positioning of the object.

You can save in .doc, .rtf, .txt, html (zipped) and Micro$oft’s dumb proprietary XML and “open” formats, and open them as well with some loss of fancy formatting in the Micro$oft documents. No OpenOffice formats yet, but one hopes that’s just around the corner. It will almost have to be, since both Zoho and Google make it available, and they’re the ones to beat. Oh, yes… Adobe’s servers are likely to be around for a while, too.

Check out Buzzword. It’s well-named.

PS: All this, and platform-independent, too. Collaborate with your MacBuddies, or your poor Windower friends. ;)

Back not too long before Christmas, My-wife-the-shrink and I decided to upgrade our phones. Both of us had Sony-Ericsson z520as, and both of us despised them. Well, actually, the phones weren’t bad, but the software was terrible. I suspect it was awful to begin with, and after Cingular added their crippleware to the mix, it was truly execrable.

I was browsing the new AT&T site and discovered we were qualified for upgrades, so we decided to divest ourselves of the Sonys. We loved our old Nokias, so we settled on Nokia N75s — not free, but close, at $19.95 a pop for Symbian smartphones. Again, Shel didn’t care as long as it sounded good, and the Eldergnomie wanted to play. (We like to have the same phones in case one needs to use the other’s in an emergency.) We briefly considered iPhones, but it was way too much money for phones that aren’t even 3G-capable. Maybe next time.

Although the Nokias seem slightly flimsy in the hinge area, we’re satisfied overall. However, neither of us is enamored of the garbage AT&T (nee Cingular) loaded into them. The software defaults to the provider’s inferior portals, and are locked in to their services, the menu arranged to give prominence to anyplace you can spend money. They even hide the excellent browser built into the Symbian OS in favor of a cludgy one that uses more bandwidth (naturally), is slower, and has a lot of built-in links to online service offers, etc. that just get in the way, sort of like a Dell computer. The Symbian browser is buried in the Applications folder.

After playing around for a month with the data service (and canceling it) I pretty much had a feel for the phone, liked it (The sound and speakerphone are great!), and determined that it was worth the trouble to clean up the mess and turn it into an original-issue Nokia.

The first thing I had to do was request an unlock code from AT&T. Since I’ve been a customer — first of AT&T, then BellSouth, then Cingular, and now AT&T — since 1995, that was no problem. (Their policy is that you must have been a customer for 90 days.) I told them I wanted to travel outside the US and use local carriers, which is true. It took a couple of days to get a call from a nice lady, who then emailed me the code and instructions. Two minutes, and the N75 was unlocked.

Next step was to change the phone ID from AT&T’s to Nokia’s proprietary number, so that I could download an upgrade to the Symbian OS. This was accomplished by downloading the Nemesis Service Suite free application and following the directions. Another 2 minutes. (Be sure the phone is set to PCSynch Mode and, BTW, this should work with just about any AT&T branded Nokia, but don’t email me for instructions. Check out the online forums the way I did. It’s time you learned to use them.)

Next step is to use Nokia PCSuite to back up the phone. Back up everything. The Symbian upgrade will remove AT&T’s modified OS and replace it with the latest from Nokia, but it will format your phone in the process. DON’T FAIL TO DO A BACKUP! You have been warned.

After that, run Nokia Software Updater according to the instructions on the site. It will take 20 or 30 minutes, and you’ll need to use a cable connection. Make sure the phone is in PCSuite mode when you start.

When you’ve completed the above, your phone will be the same as if you’d purchased it at the Nokia store — which is to say, one Bare Nekkid Lady. Make sure it’s in PCSuite mode again, run Nokia PCSuite and restore the data you backed up, and you should be in business. Take a few minutes to look over the new GUI. It’s close to the same functionality as AT&T’s — with some added functions — but not exact, and it looks a bit different. The built-in themes rock!

Note 1: Your backup may not include AT&T’s game package. My games folder is empty, which is fine with me. Leaves more phone memory free. Also, the backup may hang up at about 80 - 90%. Wait about 10 minutes, and if nothing happens it’s finished. Close PCSuite, re-boot the phone, and all should be well. If not, repeat the restore process. DO NOT DISCONNECT THE PHONE WHILE PCSuite IS OPEN!

Note 2: I purposely didn’t go into detail about this process. You can find details on The Goggles Do Nothing, and several other online sources such as HowardForums.

Enjoy!

This may be the newest idea in computing: a simplified, does practically nothing but show you what you’re typing, “word processor.”

I put that in quotes for a simple reason. I’m not sure this thing even qualifies as a word processor. I’m not even sure it’s a text editor, except in a basic sense. It does create text when you type, and it lets you edit it, but it wouldn’t know programmer’s notation from Ariel. You can open new text documents, save them to the folder of your choice, and generally do what you could do with any state-of-the-art program — like Notepad, for instance — and that’s about it.

What this application has that practically nothing else except OS-X’s Tiger, in its cute little WriteRoom editor has, is lack of distractions. I open Darkroom, hit Esc or F11, and my screen turns black. I begin typing, and the letters appear in bright green. I don’t like that, so I right-click, choose Preferences, and change the text to a pale gray. Very restful.

After typing for a bit, I hit Ctrl+S to save the resulting .txt document to the folder of my choice. The “normal” window that pops up against the restful gray on black of the monitor screen is jarring, and a bit distasteful. I hasten to fill in the info and clear the screen again. Writing in Darkroom is a HOOT!

But, you’re asking, what’s the big deal? I’m not sure I can tell you. All I know is that the uncluttered desktop, the relaxing colors, and the lack of bells and whistles puts me in touch with my writing far more than other word processers have. There are no bars, buttons, scrollbars, little drop-down windows, eleventeen ways to save stuff — none of that. It’s just me and words, the way it used to be with the old Remington Noiseless typewriter that I learned touch-typing on back in the mid-20th Century. I feel, somehow, more like a writer, and when Darkroom is in fullscreen mode, none of the pop-ups, alerts, pokes, IMs or other onscreen distractions exist, until I decide to let them back into my life.

Now if you’re inclined to use a lot of formatting in your writing, this probably won’t be for you. I write almost exclusively for the Web, and when I don’t I use Google Applications 99 times out of a hundred. I can easily code in the occasional italic or underscoring, toss in a hyperlink if I need to, or simply paste the text into Scribefire and do that just before I post. The same is true of GApps: it understands HTML just fine, too.

Here’s a link to a screenshot that gives you an idea of how this all works out. If you’re tired of being separated from your writing by a lot of high-tech, don’t really need it, distracting garbage (and don’t mind learning a few shortcuts, like we had to back in The Day), Darkroom might just be for you.

This little app is the child of a programmer who liked the Apple offering for its relaxing interface, and decided to create the same thing for Windows. You can find his page, and the download link for Darkroom (free), here.

I received this email today (01/07/08). Every link on the page except for the link to view the card is a genuine link to the Hallmark site. The viewing link is to an executable file. I didn’t take it any farther than that. You may also notice that “recieved” is misspelled twice. If you’ve opened this booger, you’d better do some serious scanning. If you can’t read this email at all because your PC crashed, well…

It’s always possible this is some kind of a safe joke. It’s also possible that the Bush twins will be going to Iraq — in uniform.

Some folks don’t mind losing a little screen space. I resent every square centimeter, every lost pixel. It probably goes back to my VGA days…or maybe I’m just stingy in general. Whatever the case, I don’t want my browser’s controls taking up any more room than they have to. If they’re big enough to see and not too small to mouse — that’s big enough. For me, a browser is a workspace where I spend a great deal of time, not a playhouse.

One of the many reasons I don’t like Internet Explorer is because it doesn’t give me this amount of control — or, if it does, I haven’t taken the trouble to find out how to do it, having opened IE precisely once a month for the past several years. It might be possible with a shell extension of some kind. I don’t really care, but if someone wants to write an article about it I’ll think about publishing it here — with credit, of course.

However, I’ve managed to get Firefox down to the point where I feel as though I’m getting my money’s worth, screen-wise. I did that through use of a couple of extensions and themes, and a bit of tweaking. Here’s essentially what I did, but I’m leaving the details up to you.

If you’ll click on the small screenshot, it will take you to a full-size version at 1024×768, to give you an idea of the actual amount of space saved.

First of all, I installed the miniFox theme. That reduced the toolbars and other controls down about as far as you can get them while keeping a useful size. Then I installed the Tiny Menu extension. This handy little number takes the menu that normally occupies the left side of the menu bar and turns it into a drop-down which I positioned at the upper left.

With the menu bar clear, I opened the navigation and Google toolbars, and with Firefox in Customize mode (right-click the top bar) I dragged the tools I wanted to the top bar. Then I cleared all the other stuff off the navigation toolbar by dragging them to the Customize window, and dragged the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder up to the navigation bar. (I keep all my bookmarks in that folder, arranged in sub-folders.)

[You could accomplish the same thing by disappearing the nav bar and using the bookmarks toolbar instead, with one difference: at least when I did it, you couldn’t put any other buttons on the bookmark bar, when by using the nav bar I had that option. That could have changed a few versions back though, since I’ve had this arrangement for a year or so. You could try it out.]

After getting the top and navigation bars the way I wanted them, I right-clicked the top bar again, and closed the Bookmarks and Google toolbars. This left me with the arrangement you see, which works for me. If you’re a screen space freak like me, the same or a similar arrangement may be what you’re looking for. Just think what I’ll be able to do with a widescreen monitor!

If you want your correspondents to bother to read your email, put something useful in the subject line. Folks who receive dozens of emails a day don’t have time to respond to stuff labeled “cute,” “LOL,” and other silliness like that. If you want me to look at what you’ve sent, tell me what it is. If it isn’t important enough for you to label properly, it almost certainly isn’t worth my time to read it.

This is especially true of anything with an attachment. I don’t trust attachments, and if you want me to go to the trouble of downloading one, checking it for viruses and other malware, then running it in a sandbox if it makes me nervous, you’d darned well better make me believe it’s worth my time. Otherwise, you’re liable to end up on my “special” filter list, if you get my drift.

There. I said it, and I’m glad!

Happy New Year!

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been playing with Interclue, a browser helper that gives me previews of links on the pages I visit. There are a number of similar programs (Snap and the now-defunct Browster comes to mind), but none implemented as well or usefully, in my opinion. Most of them create more disturbance and give less control of the experience than I care to deal with, opening pop-ups and other distractions without a by-your-leave. Interclue is far more civilized.

In a nutshell, Interclue creates a little icon next to a link when I mouse over it. I can control how long it takes it to appear, so that it and its brethren (sistren?) don’t bug me too much. If I want to see what the link’s about, I just mouse over the icon, and a synopsis of the page with beaucoup options too numerous to mention appears in a separate window. I can cruise the window, click on links therein, open the original page or, by simply removing my cursor, cause it to go away — or, if I want, I can “pin” the window where I want it (it’s resizeable, of course) and all further mouse-overs will open there.

Interclue resides in my status bar to whatever degree I desire. I’ve found that the options button and a couple of others are all I want there, or need. My Firefox status bar is stuffed with tools I use every day, such as Foxclocks, Google Notebooks, SiteAdvisor, the Daily Dilbert, and so forth. I don’t have room to spare, and Interclue is highly solicitous of my workspace.

The degree to which this application can be customized is astounding! I’ve got it the way I like it, and haven’t even begun to explore all the possibilities. I tend to be a sort of default guy when it comes to this sort of thing, figuring the folks who wrote the code have a better idea of what works best than I’m likely to. I do plan to experiment more as time passes, though, since I can envision myself using this tool more and more as I find out more about its features.

Interclue is available only for Firefox, at present. Those of you who are hampered by Internet Explorer will have to do without for the time being. I don’t know if the Kiwis who developed it will be able to monetize it and keep going (I plan to send ‘em a few bucks), but even if they don’t get rich I hope they’ll keep up with the Fx version updates, because I envision myself using Interclue for a long time to come.

Some folks I know have had problems with their iPhones locking up, usually (but not always) when trying to multi-task. While I’m not an iPhone guru (and won’t be for a while — I have a Nokia N75 on contract) I did find some tips on the Apple site while trying to help. Since it is possible this could happen when you’re not near a computer, it might not hurt to read the basics.

Phone not charged: If you see a screen that says “Charging. Please wait…”, keep iPhone connected so it continues charging.

Try restarting iPhone. To turn it off, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the red slider appears. Slide your finger across the slider to turn off iPhone.

To turn iPhone on, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears.

Does iPhone appear frozen or stuck? Try pressing and holding the Home button for 6 seconds to close a frozen application. Then try restarting iPhone again.

To reset iPhone, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time until you see the Apple logo.

If iPhone is not working as expected, it may be due to some of the content synced to it. Try selectively removing certain content that may be causing unexpected behavior such as contacts, calendars, songs, photos, videos, or podcasts.

To remove content, connect iPhone via USB and use iTunes to change the sync settings. Click on iPhone in the Source list, and select each tab to change what content is synced then click apply.

Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings

[Note: This will reset all settings. No data or media will be deleted.]

Any further solutions could involve losing data, and you won’t hear them from me. You can go to the source.

Other troubleshooting topics.

iPhone support page.

…for all my faithful, culture-loving readers. Be sure to have the sound on.

Scrooge.

Steve Bass, over at PC World, mentioned in a newsletter some favorite software of his that’s available free for the asking. I’m not going to steal Steve’s material, but it made me think of some favorite freebies of my own, available from Serif Software.

Serif are British manufacturers of image and graphics software. As is beginning to be the case with a number of providers, they offer older versions of their current software for free, with upgrades to current offerings at reduced prices.

For example: Serif PhotoPlus, an excellent image manipulation application roughly similar to early versions of PhotoShop Elements, is available in v. 6 for free. Now v. 6 is a quite capable program, but for ten bucks they’ll upgrade you to v. 8, which is about all anyone needs for amateur photo tweaking. It includes cloning tools, layer support, and a number of other bells and whistles that IrfanView and FastStone don’t provide. (PhotoFiltre falls in between, with rudimentary cloning capability, but still doesn’t offer support for layers.)

I used v. 8 for quite some time before I was given a copy of PhotoShop Elements 5, and I don’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I keep a copy on a flash drive just in case I need a photo editing program when I’m away from home.

Other offerings from Serif include PagePlus, a desktop publishing application, WebPlus, for building websites without HTML experience, DrawPlus, a graphics program, and 3DPlus, for adding pizazz to your graphics and web pages. All are free.

These are commercial-grade programs, folks — just what you need for tweaking all those holiday pics — and the price is right. You get nag screens if you don’t register, but registration costs nothing and they send you offers for upgrades that are hard to resist — with opt-outs from mailings if you wish. Cruise over to FreeSerifSoftware.com and have a look.