The wide-screen 16×9 format and resolution is clearly the defacto standard across televisions and computer monitors – you’d be hard pressed to purchase a 4×3 setup nowadays. While the format aligns well with television and movies, for me it really isn’t ideal in the field of computers. If you think about it, how often are you scrolling within an application window horizontally? Almost never right? Instead, almost all scrolling on a computer screen involves the vertical component – something that is a premium on the wide-screen layout.

Consequently, saving any amount of pixels in the vertical resolution is quite advantageous, especially when web browsing. If you are a Firefox user are familiar with the status bar across the bottom of the browser window – it contains feedback centering around the web page loading process. To reclaim some screen real estate you are probably already aware of how to disable the status bar from View->Status Bar.

However doing such, you now miss out on some valuable feed back as you browse around the Internet; such as whether the site you are reading is fully downloaded and displayed for example.

Leveraging the Firefox extension Fission, it’s quite trivial to consolidate the progress bar functionality found in the lower status bar with the address bar found at the top of the browser. Once installed, Fission will paint a user specific color across the address bar window in increments respective of the actual web site loading process.

Browsers such as Safari and Chrome have addressed the vertical real estate problem using similar solutions but until Fission, Firefox lagged behind. The UI tweak is minimalistic but the functionality is actually quite helpful for all users, not just those that wish to utilize every last pixel.

Download Fission

Windows does a pretty decent job at remembering window properties of an application. That is, if your browser window is resized with the window border, closing the browser and relaunching will result in the same size browser window – just as you’ve left it. Decent is the keyword here however – the system isn’t perfect and can quite annoying when it acts up; especially if you always want an application running in it’s maximized state.

For reasons unknown to me, Microsoft Excel seems to be the worst offending application. Excel isn’t nearly as useful if you have to scroll vertically and horizontally to see all the numbers in your TPS Report; therefor I like to keep Excel maximized.

Rather than rely on Windows decent attempts at window state memory it is instead possible to have Excel, or any application for that matter, open maximized directly upon launch. It’s extremely simple yet I find it not used regularly by individuals who would benefit most from the tweak.

Open the application’s shortcut Properties.

In the Shortcut tab locate the drop-down titled Run. Change it to read Maximized and click Apply.

Pretty simple yet not widely used!

This simple tip is also applicable to the minimized window state too.

Windows users are familiar with application windows that are not resizeable – they are displayed in a fixed format, for better or worse. While the behavior is typical for dialog or pop-up windows, it isn’t always isolated to just those. On the surface, it does seem to be an odd restriction to be enforced but nevertheless it exists.

Here is a fixed dialog taken from Internet Explorer and the Internet Options preferences panel. It’s an excellent example of the problems introduced by the window not being resizeable. Not only do you have vertical scrollbars, you also have horizontal scrollbars; reading configuration options involves scrolling up and down and left and right! Not the most pleasant of user interfaces in my mind.

ResizeEnable is a tiny – only 3 files – portable software that applies a nice little hack while running, the ability to resize most any window. With the usual disclaimer that results may vary, ResizeEnable sits in the Windows tray and is essentially silent in it’s operation. You know it’s doing it’s job when you position your mouse cursor around the edges of a previously unresizeable window – you get the familiar double arrow icon and the window can be stretched or shrunk as necessary.

With ResizeEnable I was able to remove the horizontal scrolling component in this dialog window which greatly improves the usability of the preference system in Internet Explorer. These types of situations exist all throughout Windows and if annoys you to know end, ResizeEnable is an excellent companion software for your PC.

Download ResizeEnable

Probably the only thing more annoying than having duplicated music or photos on your hard drive is having duplicated emails or contacts in your email client. Forgiving the slight exaggeration preceding – needless redundancy can be problematic. If you’ve recently migrated your communications for a previous email platform into Microsoft Outlook it can happen that the import/export routine isn’t 100% fail-safe. Quirks and hiccups can introduce duplicate contacts, calendar events, or even emails – all of which make finding a particular item more difficult.

While you could take the time to clean up the resulting mess by hand, it’s a painstaking process that is just as well prone to error as the initial import!

Outlook Duplicate Items Remover is a free Outlook plugin that introduces functionality true to it’s name. Once installed, ODIR can be initiated from within Outlook where it will scan notes, contacts, email, events, etc for any duplication. In my usage, ODIR does an excellent job at highlighting redundancy – it does this by comparing fields that are typically specific for the item in question. It’s quite logical to conclude that if the first and last name as well as email address match two different contacts – they are most likely the same person.

ODIR uncovers other items by comparing:

• Appointment items against:
  subject, location, start date and end date
• Task items against:
  subject, start date, due date and status
• Note items against:
  contents of the note (Body property) and color
• E-mail items against:
  - received emails: the internet message ID
  - sent emails: email subject and the time the email is sent
  - unsent emails: email subject only

Outlook Duplicate Items Remover supports all 32-bit versions of Outlook from 2000 and newer and was tested with Outlook 2007.

Download Outlook Duplicate Items Remover

A few days ago I spoke on how to export your contacts from Outlook and import them into Gmail. Today, we continue the migration process from the Outlook desktop client to the adventurous Google cloud by detailing a similar task for calendar events.

Within Outlook, switch to your calendar view and select the calendar you wish to export. Right-click on this calendar and choose Save As.

In the Save As dialog window locate and click the More Options .. button.

You’ll want to ensure that you select Whole calendar for the Date Range and Full details for the Detail level. Click OK to return to the traditional Save As dialog.

Name the file something recognizable and verify that the Save as type is iCalendar Format (.ics). Click Save.

From within Google Calendar click the Settings link in the middle left-hand side of the window.

Click on import calendar.

Browse to the .ics file that you exported above. Choose the appropriate Google Calendar should you have more than one – by default you likely just have the one. Then click Import to initiate the process. Depending on the number of items you are importing, the time can very from a few seconds to a minute or so.

Once the process is completed you will be redirected to a results page which will display, ideally, a 100% success rate.

With the likelihood of multiple devices on any given home network ever increasing, most households now contain some form of a router. A router is the simplest manner to allow for multiple network connections to share a single external  connection – like the one to your Internet provider. Routers are protected by a password and if you’ve followed best-practice, you’ve changed it from the default password to something more secure and memorable – hopefully. The problem is, a router is basically an appliance; it sits on the desk or otherwise out-of-sight and does it’s job once it’s been configured. It’s quite possible that after initial setup and changing of the password you never access it again. Now, this becomes a problem because passwords that aren’t used often are more likely to be forgotten. If this is the case, what are you options?

Many routers have a physical device reset switch on the back that will restore the configuration to it’s shipping state from the manufacturer. It’s not a bad last-ditch effort but it will then require configuring of everything again. There is another option however, but it requires a bit of forward thinking.

It’s an excellent idea to backup your router configuration to a file and store somewhere safe on your computer, if your router supports such a feature – most do however. If you have previously made a configuration backup it’s possible that the router password could then be extracted from that backup.

RouterPassView is another fine utility from NirSoft that attempts to uncover information from router backups such as admin passwords or even wireless keys and passwords. As is commonplace for NirSoft, RouterPassView requires no installation and is dead simple to use – just open your router configuration file from within the application. If the software is able to detect and decrypt the file you will quickly be presented with a tabular view of the data it contains. The passwords should be easily identifiable at this point!

As there are probably hundreds of home routers it’s impossible to expect a free application like RouterPasssView to identify and support them all. However, the software continues to be updated with expanded compatibility so if your router isn’t supported today, check back tomorrow.

RouterPassView currently supports:

• Linksys WRT54GL (With original firmware or Tomato firmware), WRT54G (only some of them), WRT160N, and possibly similar models.
• Edimax BR6204WG, and possibly similar models.
• Siemens ADSL SL2-141, and possibly similar models.
• Dynalink RTA1025W, and possibly similar models.
• NETGEAR WGT624, and possibly similar models.
• ASUS WL-520g, WL-600g, and possibly similar models.
• D-Link DIR-655, DIR-300, and possibly similar models.
• Sanex SA 5100, and possibly similar models.
• Sitecom WL-351, and possibly similar models.
• COMTREND 536+ (Only Internet Login)
• US Robotics 9108 ADSL (internet login and admin login)
• D-Link DSL-2540U/BRU/D ADSL2+, DSL-2650U, DSL-520B
• D-Link DVA-G3170i/PT
• TP-Link TD-8810 ADSL Modem/Router.

Download RouterPassView

Have you ever had a situation where you wished you could restrict access to a running program on your computer? If you share a common login with members of your family, you can likely think of a few instances where it would be advantageous to keep prying eyes in your blood line at bay. Microsoft Outlook as the ability to assign a password to the Personal Folders would prevents access to email unless the password is known. But not all email applications have this functionality, and while there exists some workarounds – they aren’t all foolproof which is typically frowned upon when it comes to security. However, email is just one application that may make sense to secure a bit tighter than is normally feasible.

LockThis! is a free windows utility that can provide a layer of security on top of any application. When running, LockThis! can password protect a running application so that when it is minimized it can’t be restored until the password is provided.  The application is extremely easy to use – applications that are minimized while holding down CTRL will be protected from further un-minimizing with a user assigned password. An immediate word of warning – LockThis! defaults to the admin password of LockThis! unless you change it, so be sure to do that upon installation!

Programs can be restricted with a single password or configured on a per-application basis. LockThis! sits in the tray and can be further hidden with a few preference settings. The software cannot be shutdown traditionally without first providing the admin password, however savvy users are able to kill the application through Task Manager – an unfortunate limitation. Additionally, while LockThis! can secure most any application one of which it struggled with was Firefox 3.6 – an issue the developers suggest may be an issue with Firefox’s security model. Know of any other problematic applications?

Nevertheless, LockThis! is a rather simple and effective way to prevent little Jimmy from accidentally accessing something he shouldn’t.

Download LockThis!

Making the jump from your traditional desktop email client, like Microsoft Outlook, into a webmail based system, like Google Gmail, is not without it’s challenges. One such point of difficulty is how best to go about migrating your address book you’ve collected over the years from Outlook into your fresh and clean Gmail Contacts list.

Thankfully the process is rather straightforward as Outlook is able to export your contacts in a CSV file which can then be used to import the information into Gmail. Here’s how!

Exporting Outlook Contacts

Within Outlook, from the toolbar click File -> Import and Export.

Click Export to a file, and then Next.

Click Comma Separated Values (Windows), and then click Next.

In the folder list, select the Contacts folder, and then click Next.

Browse to the folder where you want to save the contacts as a .csv file and name the file appropriately. Click Next.

Click Finish to initiate the export.

Importing Contacts into Gmail

Log on to Gmail, and then click Contacts from the left navigation panel on the page.

Locate and click Import.

Use Choose File to navigate to the export .csv file created above. You have the option to import the contacts into a new group by selecting the check-box.

Click Import and wait will the process completes – you’ll be redirected to a screen showing the results of the process. The imported contacts should now appear in your My Contacts group if you did not choose a new group from above. If an existing contact already existed in Gmail, the information from Outlook will take precedence!

One of the major features of Firefox that keeps users glued to the browser are it’s vast array of extensions or browser add-ons. Unfortunately, our dependency on those few critical add-ons keep us from aggressively upgrading to the latest Firefox release. Not running the latest and greatest software is generally taboo in the enthusiasts culture. However, if the jump is made too early we are often left with buggy and broken extensions which have yet to be adjusted to function cleanly in the new release. This uncomfortable situation will be forth-coming later this year, when Firefox pushes out version 4.0 – currently in a multi-stage beta release cycle. In a perfect world, all the major extensions will be compatible upon it’s release but that’s often not the case. Worse, for the niche extensions they may never be updated.

Unfortunately, there does not exist a quick and efficient way to ensure what add-ons will break upon the upgrade short of just making the jump and picking up the pieces afterward. Clearly not an ideal situation!

Here are a few of the add-ons installed on one of my Firefox profiles.

Is It Compatible? is a simple Firefox extension that queries the Mozilla add-on repository and returns what version range the extension is compatible with. Notice how it has changed my add-ons window from above to what it is now below:

You can see that Greasemonkey is not yet compatible with the beta releases of Firefox 4 – it shows a range of 1.5-3.6.*. If you rely on just a few key add-ons, then browsing the Mozilla repository directly isn’t much of a burden but any more than a handful, it quickly becomes cumbersome. Is It Compatible? is then a godsend for you.

Should you feel more adventurous, it is possible to force Firefox to run incompatible extensions but the actual results can vary – some add-ons just have a version-check string that prevents them being enabled in Firefox releases it can’t recognize. Others can be much more complicated; for these it will ultimately require the developer to update the extension.

Download Is It Compatible?

Microsoft Spynet is a utility integrated in Microsoft’s Windows Defender and Security Essentials software packages. While not a separate program per say, Spynet is a means for Microsoft to collect information about suspicious activity flagged by both their security products when installed on your local computer. The general premise is, a network of users are likely to identify spyware based on whether they allow or block a particular item from executing on their systems. These items would be anything that Defender or Security Essentials do not yet contain a valid thumb print or signature on – meaning it doesn’t know if they are harmful or not. As an end-user, you are able to leverage Spynet and determine how other users have handled a piece of software that is otherwise suspicious.

Spynet is a rather useful system in my opinion, but users tend to get uneasy about sending any information back to Microsoft without their consent. The reality is – you’ve probably agreed to this behavior without realizing it. Windows Defender is included in Windows 7 and one of the initial setup screens as you installed Windows requested your permission for things of this nature; to Help protect your computer and improve Windows automatically. If you are having second thoughts about the whole agreement it is pretty simple to reverse the process.

Windows Defender

Launch Windows Defender from the search menu with defender.

From Tools->Microsoft SpyNet you can change your membership between three levels – the last of which is opting out of the process entirely.

Security Essentials

The currently released version of Security Essentials does not contain a graphical option to opt-out of SpyNet, strangely enough. This oversight has been corrected in v2.0 of the security suite but it still remains in beta form. Nevertheless, it still is possible to disable SpyNet in v1.0 – it just requires a trip into the Windows Registry.

Launch regedit from the search menu.

Navigate to the key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\SpyNet\ from the left-hand menu.

Change the value of the name SpyNetReporting to 0 to prevent your PC from participating in the SkyNet network. You should reboot your system to fully apply the change however.