Eddie and the iPhone…

My friend and fellow technophile, Eddie, has a fantastic post over on his blog, Practically Efficient.

His feelings pretty much sum up my own. Apple has done some amazing things for mobile technology, but for me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to jump full-on into the Apple ecosystem.

Check out this fantastic post in full.

Recuva…

Ladies and gentlemen: A quick reminder to fill out the survey if you haven’t already. If you leave your email address, you will be in the running for one of three $10 Amazon giftcards. And I’ve decided to up the ante: if 50 separate people (no cheating by filling it out multiple times) fill out the survey by 11:59 pm on Friday, I’ll toss in a 4th card valued at $25. Be sure to get your friends to fill out the survey. To share the survey, just pass along this link: http://thedig.in/survey

Occasionally there are things in this world that do something amazing but you have to ask yourself, “Where the heck did they come up with that name?” For me, that one was Recuva. I couldn’t stop pronouncing it re-curve-ah. I didn’t know what it stood for, but then it dawned on me: Recover. Recova’. Recuva. Ahh, I get it now.

But really, that’s neither here nor there. What IS here and there is the fact that Recuva will find and recover files that you have deleted. Let’s talk about how it works first.

Delete? Not quite.

In real life, if you wanted to get rid of information, you can toss it in your trashcan and take it back out if you find that you shouldn’t have thrown it away. On you computer you can do the same thing by throwing files in the recycle bin on your PC. At any time, you can restore things in the recycle bin to the original location.

In real life, if you empty your trashcan into the dumpster out back, you could still get your information back, but it might be incomplete and you would most likely need some special equipment to get it back (rubber gloves, a gas mask, some boots). On your PC, you would need to get Recuva. Although you can’t see any records of your file being there any longer, it is actually still there and will be until that area of your hard disk drive gets over-written.

Recovering? Maybe.

As I said, the information, although not showing up, is still there, but you need a little luck and a little skill to be able to recover it. Some things that will help you be lucky are:

• A large hard drive – having lots of space to write new information means the location of the deleted file is less likely to be over-written.
• Infrequent programs – if you information is in an area used by a program that doesn’t write many files, you will be better off.

If you can manage to have these two things in your favor, Recuva may be able to help you out.

Simple to attempt? Definitely.

Head over to the site and download Recuva. Once again, it is free, but if you use it and recover some files. Please show your gratitude by donating to those who put the time and effort into making such a great program. If you aren’t a fan of the Yahoo! toolbar, be sure to uncheck that box during install.

For most uses, Recuva includes an easy to use wizard that should recover most of the boneheaded deletions that most of us make on a day-to-day basis (mp3s, pictures) as well as the gut-wrenching accidental loss of documents after a crash of Microsoft Office or the formatting of a camera memory card.

The types of files are very well explained in the wizard:

In the next step, you are asked for a location. The main thing this will do is speed up the search and exclude files from areas of your computer that you know you don’t want to look.

The last thing you need to do is determine if you want to do a deep scan or not. It will take longer, but it will also piece together information that may otherwise go unnoticed if you do a regular scan. I would recommend a simple scan followed by the deep scan if you don’t first run through.

Now all that’s left is to see if your files are found.

The scan I ran took less than a minute, but I would imagine deep scan could take many hours. It may also depend on the size of your hard drive and the type of file you are searching for (numerous small files will take longer to scan than few large files).

The standard information given is a preview of the file plus the file name. You may notice the ‘Switch to advanced mode’ button near the top right corner.

When you click it, you are presented with a list view as well as green, yellow, and red circles. These circles are an indicator of recoverability. You can find more information on the to the right side of the window.

From this screen, you can also permanently and securely delete any files which you don’t ever want anyone to be able to recover in the future by right clicking on them. This would be very helpful if you are getting rid of your computer and you have tax documents or other personal data that you would prefer didn’t get passed around.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever accidentally deleted? Ever felt sick to your stomach when all your vacation photos vanished into thin air? Let me know in the comments.

The Digitante's Password System…

After taking my sweet time in implementing some stronger passwords, I wanted to make sure I could develop a system that I would stick with and wouldn’t be so cumbersome that I would want to stab myself in the foot.

Here are the tools that I ended up using to get things going:

• KeePass – I wrote about this last night. It is super easy to use and gets praise from all corners of the web.
• KeePass Mobile App – I downloaded the version for my BlackBerry, however, you can get it for the iPhone, PalmOS (should run on the Pre), Android, and there is even a J2ME version which should run on most mobile phones that aren’t smartphones.
• Dropbox – I wrote an initial Dropbox article and then followed it up with some updates including access to Dropbox Mobile. Get a Dropbox now if you don’t have one already.

Get it all setup

The first thing you need to do is when you are setting up KeePass, save your database to your Dropbox. This will allow your KeePass database to be accessible on all computers you have your Dropbox on (the laptop and desktop at my house), as well as via the web and mobile Dropbox (m.dropbox.com).

While that is syncing up, you can install Dropbox and KeePass on any other computers in your household. Additionally you can get your mobile KeePass application installed on your phone. If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, or Android phone, you should be comfortable with installing apps on your phone. If you have a regular flip, slide, or candybar phone, you might not be used to installing applications, but it is fairly quick and painless. Simply navigate to m.keepassmobile.com. Note if you don’t have a data plan, you may get charged for data, but the amount of data will be tiny and it shouldn’t cost more than about 10 or 20 cents.

Finish up

Now that you have Dropbox, KeePass, and KeePass mobile installed, wrapping up consists of loading the database which is in your Dropbox into KeePass. On your mobile phone, you will need to take one extra step and download the database from m.dropbox.com first before loading it into KeePass.

If you ever add a new password to the database, it will automatically show up in any other KeePass instances that are directly linked to your Dropbox. However, you will need to re-download the updated database to your mobile phone and re-load it in KeePass.

The concern

As I was talking with colleagues about this setup, concerns kept coming up about the security of keeping your passwords online.

What you need to realize is that your passwords are already stored online. Every site that you login to has your password stored on their server. They should have it encrypted and the company’s employees should never have access to it, but not all companies follow these rules very closely.

As long as you have a strong password on your Dropbox (layer one) and a different, strong password on your KeePass database (layer two), you should be in good shape.

Using strong passwords and keeping them accessible and safe can be a daunting task. Hopefully this will make things easier on you.

Anybody have any recommendations for making this easier? Anybody want to be the tester and get it working on a regular flip phone? Let me know in the comments if you do.

Top Posts for 2009…

By far, the most popular feature on The Digitante was Friday Night Links. It’s probably my favorite post each week as well.

However, I want to give a run-down of the most popular individual posts at The Digitante. Without further ado, let’s get to the list.

1. Note Taking with Facebook – Getting picked up on Lifehacker certainly helped out on this post as it came in at around 600 visitors. It also stirred a bit of controversy as you can see from the comment section of the Lifehacker post. Mostly there were concerns with how Facebook handles privacy, but read on if you want to know how to deal with the privacy issue.
2. Sprint Store vs. Best Buy – When I initially wrote this post, it was a toss up as to who I would buy my next phone from. After continuing to consider the question and having some person experiences with both, I think I’ve landed firmly on the side of Best Buy. Sprint need to pull their head out of the sand and start offering an instant rebate. There is no way they can keep making people wait 8-10 weeks for their $100 check. People are just too price sensitive.
3. Meet The Digitante – Who would have known that everyone would be so interested in who I was and how I got to be where I am. I certainly would not have known it. I am glad I wrote this post because it gave me a chance to figure out who I am. Alright, inspirational speech time is over.
4. Build a Simple PC for $300 – If there was one thing I could do every day for the rest of my life, it would be to order parts and build computers all day long. The fact that I got to share that with everyone was really cool. I am currently designing a PC for a friend that will be used in a recording studio and another that will be used by me as a media center PC. I can’t wait to document that as well.
5. Empty a Water Bottle Quickly – Another hands-on, doing type of post. I am hoping to do some more instructional videos like this. I need to get a better camera for shooting video though.
6. Gifts for Your Techie – This isn’t necessarily one post, but all the gift guides were a hit. I’m hoping to do a little more on gift giving next year and hopefully start a bit earlier (Pre-Thanksgiving) so you have plenty of time to shop.
7. Facebook Privacy – If you use Facebook, this is a must-read post and I would highly recommend you spend 5-10 minutes and check out your privacy settings. I found some very disturbing things, especially regarding the amount of information that could be shared about me by others. I made sure to disable others’ ability to share vulnerable information of mine.
8. Mr. B Picks Up a Pre – This was actually the second in the In Action! series by The Digitante. Mr B was also kind enough to let you all know how The Digitante did. The first was Mr. G’s New TV, so be sure to read that one as well. If you have a tech need fulfilled and you want to be the next installment of In Action!, be sure to contact me and let me know.
9. A Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch – Apple rubbed me the wrong way for the last time. I’ve spent the last 3 months iTunes free and I’m loving it. I wrote about DoubleTwist which recently added the AmazonMP3 store to its interface. I wasn’t totally happy with DoubleTwist though. I’ve got foobar2000 installed currently and I’ve used it a little, but not enough to write about it. Also, Songbird recently added a slew of new features so I need to check that out as well.
10. Upgrade Your Wireless Router – This was a more technical article, but was perhaps the most doable for some setting up their first wireless router. I can’t recommend Tomato and the WRT54GL enough. If you are in the market for a new wireless router, this is the only way to go.

Let me know if you had any favorite posts from this year. What do you want to see more of in the next year? Toss it in the comments section!

Snipping Tool…

Ever wonder how I get those great screenshots into every post here on The Digitante? Well wonder no more.

The direct route

If it is a simple grab like the capture above of me typing this post, I directly use the Snipping Tool built into Windows Vista and Windows 7. The tool can be found in the Accessories menu in the Start Menu.

Once you click the icon, it dims the screen and turns your cursor to a cross. You can then drag around the area you want to capture to create the screenshot.

There are some basic editing tools including pens to write on the capture and a highlighter for text. You can also choose what format to save in. My favorite is the PNG format because it makes small but high quality images.

The indirect route

If I need to do more comprehensive editing to my captures, I generally do a full screen capture first by pressing the Print Screen button. Then I open Microsoft Paint and paste the Print Screen into MS Paint. I should probably find a better tool than MS Paint, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Once in paint, I can type words on the picture, draw arrows, change the size, or block out personal information. Once I have my added words or symbols, I go back to the initial part of this post and use the Snipping Tool to capture my newly modified MS Paint file, snipping and saving it just as described above.

Art assistants

If you have a picture or screenshot that you think would be useful for The Digitante, either in a current or future blog post, you can feel free to send it to me and I’ll give you full credit on the blog. If you have questions about anything else, feel free to contact The Digitante by email or by phone by using the contact box in the upper left corner of any page.

Windows 7 Upgrade: The Normal and The Weird…

If you are thinking about upgrading to Windows 7, I’ve advocated in the past that you go with a clean install.

A clean install is when you clear your hard drive of all your stuff, including all your programs, operating system files, and everything else on your computer. Obviously, you need to back up all your personal files such as documents, photos, and music to DVDs, an external hard drive, or an online backup service.

The normal

After backing up all your information, you should restart your computer with the Windows installation disc in the drive. You may need to enter the boot menu if you end up back in your operating system. Just pay attention at start up and you should be able to get the installation disc going.

Once you are in, you will click install and after a few click through screens, you will arrive at a screen that looks like this:

This will be followed by a couple of screens where you choose where to install Windows 7. After that, the installation is hands-free and consists of copying files, installing them, and configuring the set up. You might see your computer restart a couple of times and might be required to take the Windows 7 installation disc out of the drive.

Once all the automatic things happen, you will be presented with a couple of screens where you enter your user name and, optionally, a password. The next step is where the weirdness begins.

The weird

When I was doing my installation, I entered the product key provided with my install disc but it kept telling me my product key was invalid. No other information was given. After doing some research, I found that I could go ahead and leave the key blank and enter it later.

After completing the last few steps and getting Windows 7 up and going. I went to activate Windows and ran into the same thing again: my product key was invalid. However, this time I got a little more information. It informed me that the installation disc provided was valid for an upgrade only, not a new install. Well, I had previously had Windows Vista (32-bit) provided with my computer when I bought it. I wanted to install Windows 7 (64-bit) and there is no direct path to upgrade so my only choice was to clean install.

This didn’t make any sense so I called Microsoft tech support and here is what they did to fix it for me.

Let me point out before I continue: This little tip is only to be used if you have either Windows Vista or XP already installed and are upgrading, via a clean install, to Windows 7.

That being said, you might try typing in the product key because it worked on one install I did. However, it didn’t work for any of mine.

Also note that this involves messing with the registry. If you follow these instructions, nothing bad will happen. However, if you modify any other settings in the registry, you might end up making your computer unresponsive, unstable, and just generally unhappy. You can back up your registry before starting so you can have a safety net.

The steps to fixing the problem:

1. Open the Start Menu and in the search box, type “regedit” with no quotes around it.
2. Once the registry editor screen is up, you need to navigate through the hierarchy. The path you are going to select is Computer → HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE → SOFTWARE → Microsoft → Windows → CurrentVersion → Setup → OOBE.
3. Once in the OOBE folder, you should see a couple of entries. Double click on the entry entitled “MediaBootInstall”. Change the value data from the default of 1 (one) to the new value of 0 (zero). After you are done, it should look something like this:

   

4. You can now close the registry.
5. Open the Start Menu once again and this time click “All Programs”, find the Accessories folder, and there should be an item called Command Prompt. You need to RIGHT click to bring up a menu. One of the options should have a little shield next to it and say Run as Administrator. Click it.
6. At the command prompt, you are going to type “cscript.exe slmgr.vbs -rearm”. Once again, no quotes around it.

   

7. Now you need to restart your computer.
8. Once restarted, you can go into the Start Menu, Control Panel, and click on System. On the main page near the bottom, you should see a dialog that mentions activating your copy of Windows. You will be asked for your product key. Once entered, your copy of Windows should be fully functional and a logo should pop up informing you are running a copy of genuine Windows.

Note, these instructions will NOT work if you install a copy of Windows with one license on multiple computers. I purchased the family 3-pack so I am able to install on three computers.

Additionally, these instructions are NOT intended to allow the installation of Windows on a computer with another operating system (like Linux or Mac OS) or a new computer that was built or shipped with no operating system.

These instructions are simply to deal with the fact that Windows cannot tell you are upgrading from a prior version of Windows to Windows 7.

Feel free to leave comments if you have had similar problems with your installation of Windows or if you are having other problems you think might be related.

If you are having these problems but don’t think you can handle it on your own, feel free to contact The Digitante.

Another Race…

Once again, I’ve only got a few minutes before the cough medicine kicks in, so bear with me.

I wanted to post a link tonight about a topic which I’ve hit on before and actually touched on last night: security.

The How-To-Geek had a great post over on Lifehacker which touches on various subjects related to security on your Windows computer. I plan on delving into some of the points that he talks about including firewalls and program updaters.

Tomorrow I have a whole day to work on some Digitante related things, so hopefully I can accomplish a few things. Look for me tomorrow! And hopefully I won’t be quite as wacked out from the NyQuil trip as I am right now!

iTunes Alternative #1: DoubleTwist…

A little over a month ago, I went on a bit of a rant about iTunes and the fact that they were pushing some shady updates that #1 weren’t necessary since I don’t have a  corporate iPhone and #2 were billed as an update even though I don’t have the program installed in the first place. Add in the fact that iTunes is hugely bloated and I was wanting to find a nice, svelte replacement for iTunes.

I’ve found two replacements: DoubleTwist and Songbird. Tonight I am going to cover DoubleTwist.

Getting started

This is easy to get going. Download the program from the site and after it installs, simply open it. You will have to sign up for a user ID. Once signed in, you should hopefully see all your music and pictures from your computer.

If your music didn’t show up, you can specify which folder or folders you want to add.

One note: I had to completely quit out of DoubleTwist after installing before I could get it to recognize my music. I don’t know whether this was a fluke, a bug, or some other reason, but it was no big deal.

When you play music, it opens the player in a separate window. I’m not sure how I feel about this and it doesn’t look like you can change this behavior. You can drag additional songs from the media manager to the player window which is nice.

The big win

The biggest thing DoubleTwist has going for it is the fact that it is compatible with almost any media toting device: iPods, cell phones, even PlayStation Portable. From the DoubleTwist website:

Our vision is simple: to create a unifying media platform that connects consumers with all their media and all their devices, regardless of whether they are online or offline.

We feel that just like you don’t use a different browser for every web site you visit (Firefox to read the NY Times, IE to stream Hulu, Chrome to browse YouTube, etc) you shouldn’t have to use iTunes for Apple products, Nokia software for Nokia phones, Sony software for Sony products, etc. The typical household today has many such devices and there is a need for a simple and powerful software that connects them.

iTunes on the other hand only syncs with Apple products like the iPhone and iPod. Being a BlackBerry user, this has always been an issue so between mobile Dropbox and DoubleTwist, I should have all the music I need all the time.

Huge upcoming feature

The big feature that DoubleTwist has coming up that should be the stake in the heart of iTunes is Amazon MP3 store integration. You will soon be able to choose from almost 10 million high quality songs via the integrated Amazon MP3 store. Songs range from $.69-1.29 and you can find almost everything there. I’ve been using Amazon MP3 for a couple of years now and I love it.

What’s missing?

I was using DoubleTwist about 2-3 years ago and it had an amazing feature that allowed you to “liberate” your iTunes songs that were locked to your iPod with digital rights management (DRM). It looks like this feature is missing from the current generation of product, most likely because of legal issues with removing DRM. If you want to hear me rant a little about DRM, feel free to read this.

All in all, DoubleTwist seems ok and the main draw is the fact that you can sync your music to almost an device. If the liberate option were still there, this would be my go-to media player. Instead, I’ll have to do some more testing with Songbird.

If you have questions about this, leave a comment below or use the contact information found on any page to get in touch with The Digitante.

Friday Night Links (10/23/2009)…

Man, I gotta get through these links. My copy of Windows 7 arrived and I am chomping at the bit. Let’s get to it!

• Dishwasher Detergent Soak (http://thedig.in/4a) – I’ve always tossed some liquid dishsoap (eg Dawn, Joy) and water into my baked on pots and pans. Even with that, it seemed that I still ended up running through my industrial-sized bottle of elbow grease. Turns out I was taking the wrong approach. Turns out that dishwasher detergent (eg Cascade, Electrisol) was the better route to take. Apparently, it melts away the stuck-on food. I haven’t had a chance to test it out, but I have cooking duty next week, so I’ll have to give it a go.
• Facebook Security (http://thedig.in/4b) – Just today, a buddy of mine had his Facebook account hacked. Its a scary thing to know that someone is defiling something that is yours. This article doesn’t really touch on protecting yourself from being hacked (a comprehensive password would do that). This article will help protect you from people spying on your information. It is fun to share your life, your photos, your connections with other, however, you need to be sure it is people you can trust.
• Update Checker (http://thedig.in/4c) – Ever wish your programs had all the updated features at all times? FileHippo’s update checker keeps most major programs updated at all times. You will get the latest features and up-to-date security without much work.
• Dropresize (http://thedig.in/4d) – A major caveat: this program is currently very beta (testing phase) and has a number of bugs. First, this program watches a specified folder and whenever a .jpg file shows up there, it is automatically resized based on chosen parameters. Second, unfortunately the big bug currently is the fact that occasionally, the original file being resized gets lost. You can pretty easily avoid that issue by copying and pasting the file in the folder and leaving the original outside the resizing folder.

In Action!: Build a Simple PC for $300…

A new Digitante In Action! post is available tonight. I built a nice little computer for a client and documented the entire process. Get over there and check it out.

Build a Simple PC for $300…

If you want a little computer like this, you can feel free to use the Google Voice widget over to the right to contact me or you can email me by heading to the About page.