OSF Mount can mount virtual disks (ISO and other disk image files) to any available drive letter. The program can also be used on a USB disk. Ideal for mouning ISO files as virtual CD�s so you don�t waste plastic and money burning an ISO file. Plus the access speed of a mounted ISO is way faster than any CDROM out there. The application is free.
Did you hear about the joke of the politician who lost his laptop or USB disk and had sensitive data leaked out? Actually that was not a joke but a reality. It happens so often that sensitive data is leaked out through the loss of USB disks and laptops.
Why does this happen so often? Are people too cheap to pay for good encryption? Do people believe they need to hire some expert to have their data protected? Or are people too lazy to even think about all the �trouble� it would take to protect all that data? Do they believe they are incapable of doing it themselves?
Here is the answer; No you do not need to be or hire a genius, you don�t need money, you don�t need special hardware and it�s really easy to do.
TrueCrypt is a free disk / file encryption tool that uses military grade encryption techniques. It offers various types of encryption from simple passwords to large key files that you can store on a usb �key� and thus use a usb storage device like a physical �key�.
You can create encrypted �storage files� that you can mount to a free drive letter like a physical disk. You can have encrypted data on a USB disk and create a �traveler disk setup� that copies TrueCrypt to your USB disk so you can mount your encrypted volume on any Windows computer.
You can even encrypt your entire operating system harddisk and enter a password on boot. The advantage of this is that if you have lost your laptop, people will not be able to read any data from your laptop, even if they pull out your harddisk and try to read it by plugging it in as a USB disk.
Here is a simple tutorial on how to create an encrypted volume file and how to encrypt your entire disk.
Create Encrypted Volume
In TrueCrypt, click on Volumes, then Create New Volume�. Select Create an encrypted file container. In the next screen select Standard TrueCrypt Volume (Hidden TrueCrypt volume will create an encrypted volume within an encrypted volume. It�s like a safe with a secret compartment inside.). Next, select where you want your encrypted volume file to be stored. You can use a USB disk if you want it to be portable. Give the file any name you like with any extension you like. You can even give it an mp3 or avi extension (but you will not be able to play them as video or audio files). This can be useful if you do not want your file to draw attention. You can also leave out the extension, be creative. Next select your encryption method. AES is the default encryption method and is very safe. Next select the volume size. This will be the size of the volume file. Make sure you do not select a file size that is bigger than the amount of disk space you have left on the disk you are creating that file. Think about what you want to put in that volume and make it an appropriate size. For example a 10Gb size would be overkill if you will only put some word documents. Next type in a password. The longer the password, the smaller the chance that your volume file will be �cracked� by password guessing tools. Use a combination of letters, numbers and special characters to beat �dictionary hack attempts�. You can also use keyfiles and have it create a file that is needed to decrypt your volume. You can store this file on another (small) usb disk and keep it safe. Next select the filesystem of the encrypted volume. If you will store files larger than 4Gb then select �NTFS� otherwise keep it in �FAT�. Click on Format when done and wait for it to complete. Then click on Close. Now you have created your encrypted volume, but you need to �mount� it to be able to read and write from it. In TrueCrypt click on �Select File� (lower right) and select the volume file you just created. Next click on a driver letter that you want to mount your volume on in the list above and click on Mount in the lower left corner. Enter the password you chose when you created the volume and select �use keyfiles� if you chose to create those too. When done, your volume should be available on the drive letter you selected. Simply open an Explorer window (Windows key + E) and browse to the volume letter you used for the encrypted volume. To dismount the volume go to TrueCrypt and select the drive letter you wish to dismount and click on Dismount in the lower left corner, or click on Dismount All and it will dismount all drive letters. If you created the encrypted volume on a portable disk, you might also want to include the TrueCrypt files on it so that you don�t have to install TrueCrypt on other computers where you want to use it. Simply go to Tools and click on Traveler Disk Setup. Click on Browse and select the disk where you created your encrypted volume file. Set any other options you desire and click on Create.
Encrypt your entire system disk
Make sure you have an empty CD ready and a CD burner.
To encrypt your entire harddisk and prevent people from snooping into your laptop or computer disk when it is lost or stolen, do the following. Click on Volumes, Create New Volume� Select Encrypt the system partition or entire system drive, next select Normal and click Next. If you store all your files on the C: volume only, you can select Encrypt the Windows system partition otherwise select Encrypt the whole drive if you also store files on other internal partitions. Next select �Single-boot� if you have only Windows running on your machine. Next select the encryption (AES is good). Next select a password and / or a keyfile. Next move your mouse around to generate random data that will be used for the encryption. This random data is generated from your random mouse movements. Click on Next and Next again. Now you need to have an empty CD ready to burn a rescue disk. You cannot continue unless you create a rescue disk. This rescue disk is bound to the specific computer and should not be used on other TrueCrypt volumes. If you do not have a CD burner on the system you are encrypting, then copy the ISO file to a USB disk and burn it on a computer that does have a CD writer. If you have no CD writer anywhere, then you can trick it by mounting the ISO file using a tool like OSFMount. Next, insert the CD into the CD drive of the system you want to encrypt and click Next to verify. Click Next. If you already have sensitive data on your system and have lots of time left, then read the description and select a wipe mode, otherwise leave to None and click Next. Click on Test to begin an encryption test. Your system will reboot and you will have to enter the password you chose. When boot is done, continue the wizard and your system will be encrypted while you continue to use your computer.
So now you have no excuse to not have your sensitive data unprotected and you no longer have to worry if it will fall into the wrong hands.
One more word of advice, if you use a laptop and have encrypted your entire disk, make sure you use a password on your Windows account. If you do not have a password on your account and someone finds your laptop while it was running, they can still read all your data because they do not need to boot your computer, as it is in sleep mode and you did not set an account password. Best practice is to always turn off your computer when you are done and have an account password even if you only have one account.
If you have tons of wallpapers, mp3�s and other files where you suspect there are most probably duplicates that are taking up space, then you might want to get rid of those. There are some good duplicate file search tools out there, but AusLogics Diplicate File Finder is the one I found to be most efficient because it is easy to use, has a user friendly interface, is fast, reliable and best of all it is free. The file name is not important as it scans for file signatures (meaning the content of the file). It can automagically select one of the duplicate files for you and tag it for deletion.
Cyber-D's Autodelete can delete old files in a folder (and subfolders) you selected. Simply select the folder you wish to clean (downloads for example), set the rules (older than 30 days since created) and how to delete (move, recycle, secure delete). The cleanup is done on system startup only so it does not stay open in the background or you can run the cleanup manually. Log files are created per clean session and filters can be applied. Cleaning status window, run on startup and log files can be disabled if you wish.
I made autodelete when I wanted to clean up a certain folder and delete all files older than x days or months. I could not find a tool online that could do this for me, so I decided to make one.
Have tons of wallpapers but cannot make up your mind what to put on your dekstop? Do not like to have wallpaper randomizers running in the background and using your computer�s resources? Have irregular sized wallpapers that do not perfectly fit your monitor aspect ratio but rather not see a single color background and rather not crop the image? Then Cyber-D�s Wallpaper Shifter is for you.
I made this program a few years ago when I was facing all these problems. I had tons of wallpapers and wanted to use them all equally, and wanted my wallpaper to fit on my desktop even when the aspect ratio is not the same as my monitor.
Advantages of Cyber-D�s Wallpaper Shifter:
If you have Firefox 4 installed, then make sure you also download the F1 plugin by Mozilla labs. This is a sharing plugin that lets you share the current page in Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and LinkedIn. Easily share directly from your browser without popups.
Firefox 4 is finally out and I am using it myself. I have tried other browsers and even though some browsers were faster than Firefox I still preferred Firefox over them, mainly because of it�s large collection of add-ons. I love customizing and tweaking things to fit my needs. I have found that other browsers have a very modest (compared to Firefox) add-ons collection and miss some vital add-ons that I use to make my browsing experience a lot better.
I am amazed how many people do not know that the computer can do a lot more than just browse the web, read mail and play multimedia content. For example, instead of renaming or cropping hundreds of files one by one manually, one could simply find and download a tool that can do all that for you and save you hours of tedious work. I usually get the response �oh? I did not know that existed��well, did you look? That is why I love using Windows because of it�s diversity of software and Firefox because of it�s diversity of add-ons.
One of my favorite new features of Firefox 4 is the �Pin as App-Tab�. This allows you to put certain websites permanently open in tabs and start with Firefox. The pinned tabs only contain the website icon to save space. This feature is useful when you always have certain websites open like online music, facebook or email.
If you miss the files menu, you can find it by pressing an alt key.
Prey is an anti-theft solution for laptops (running Windows, MacOSX, Ubuntu or Linux) and android phones. Once prey is installed, it can let you know where your device is, you can access it�s camera, desktop, have it make a loud sound or lock it down via the internet or by sending an SMS (in case you protect your android phone).
Want to know what is slowing down your system? With this Top Process Monitor sidebar gadget for Windows Vista / 7, you can instantly see the top 5 processes that take up most of your CPU power. You can also cycle to see the top 5 memory consumers and harddisk throughput.
Why do you want to know this? To effectively work with any computer or life-form, you need to have an interaction or a dialog, not a monolog. If you keep instructing the computer but ignore what the computer has to say to you, then you will get into frustrations when the computer does not perform to your expectations because you do not understand why it does that.
Top Process Monitor, as well as many other sidebar gadgets can help you to establish this dialog with your computer. You tell the computer what to do and the computer can tell you what it is currently doing by showing you what processes are running, what it taking up most of it�s CPU, bandwith, memory, etc� So if you tell it to perform a certain task (for example to start a program) and it does not show a window in 5 seconds, then you can take a look at the top 5 processes to see if that process is there and if the hard disk is currently busy (by looking at your hard disk light on the computer itself or a hard disk monitoring gadget in your sidebar). If all these are true, then you just need to be patient as the computer did receive your instruction and is processing it.
If you have tons of wallpapers and other pictures where you suspect that might have duplicates, but find it too troublesome to check and delete duplicates one by one? Then VisiPics is what you need.
I like to be surprised with a different wallpaper whenever I login to Windows. For that I use my self made Cyber-D�s Wallpaper Shifter. Currently I have over 8500 wallpapers and probably have many duplicates.
Using VisiPics I managed to eliminate at least 30% of my wallpapers because they were duplicate. VisiPics can automagically select all lower quality duplicates and mark them for you to be deleted.
VisiPics actually analyzes the image pixels instead of comparing file size, file name or CRC signatures. This means that it will find the duplicate, no matter it�s name, size and folder location.
Audacity� is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
Audacity may not be as great looking as Free Audio Editor, however it does have some advantages. Because it is fully open source and free, it allows you to save in more formats including mp3. Audacity also has the capability to edit files in batch, for example if you wish to normalize the sound in multiple files without having to open them all one by one and applying the filters. Free Audio Editor can also batch edit and save as MP3, but you will need to purchase the full version. If you are in a hurry or rather not spend money for a tool that you will only use once, then Audacity is the answer. For those who will work with audio on a frequent basis, I would recommend a license for Free Audio Editor, or even better Adobe Audition.
Audacity is also available as a portable app.
Free:ac (formerly known as BonkEnc) is a free/open source audio extracter, encoder, and converter. You can use fre:ac to extract audio files from CDs, encode and reencode audio files to a lower bitrate, and convert audio files to and from various formats, including:
Free:ac also comes in portable flavor.
