Writer's Land: Useful Tools

Useful Tools - PC Protection

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:12:55 GMT

I thought this would be a great next topic for my Useful Tools section. Probably one of the most important considerations for your PC. Without proper and addequate defense against hackers, viruses, spyware, trojans, etc., you may be looking at big problems on your computer.

I've been testing 3 solutions that seem to be highly popular and based on my testing so far appear to live up to the hype, at least for me. The best part about them, they are totally free!

Anti-Virus
AVG Anti-Virus Free

Anti-Spyware
ewido Anti-Spyware Free
Windows Defender

I have this configuration installed on all my comptuers and have been using it for almost 2 months. I use to have Norton Internet Security+NAV. I really like Norton, but I don't like what a resource hog it is. The above 3 take less resources as a sum, then Norton does by itself. The reason I have 2 programs for anti-spyware is that besides just having a double protection, ewido does not have automatic updates for the free version.

I would also recommend upgrading to IE7 and making full use of the phishing filter. This excellent tool will check web sites as you access them and let you know of any fraudulent websites and potential dangers.

Windows Live Alerts

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:10:54 GMT

Ok here is my next installment of useful tools. I really like this one.
Do you have a large reader base, do you have a staggering number of readers as I do...somewhere between 2 and 3? :P As you know as the number of pages you try to keep up with grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep up. Well you can help your readers by letting them now exactly when to check your blog. If you look on the right above my profile, I created a link to subscibe to my very own Windows Live Alert. If you sign up you can be notified whenever I update my space. This way you don't have to check my blog 46 times a day in anticipation of the next chapter. Now you will know that you are coming here to something new every time. Imagine all the time you will save! Now you can do all those things you never had time for before. Below is a walk through of how to set this up.

This is the home page for Windows Live Alerts --> Windows Live Alerts
This is a direct link to the signup form --> Alerts Signup Form

Everything there is self explanitory. The only item I want to give some info on is the field called "Address URL from desired feed:" The syntax for this link is http://yourspacename.spaces.live.com/feed.rss Here is how you get this URL:

Look for your "Visitor tools" module on your blog. This module is there by default so you will have it somewhere on your blog.
Click the first link in that modulle called "Subscribe to RSS feed". Clicking this link will take you to your feed page.
Now look in the address bar, that is your "Address URL from desired feed:". Copy/paste this into the Alerts signup form.
Alternatively you can just use the syntax above and replace "yourspacename" with the name of your space. Probably a good idea to double check the link anyway.

That's pretty much it. After you submit the form you will get a confirmation email. Click the link in that email and they will send you the code snippet to add to your page. Here is the thing, the code they give you requires that you be able to enter custom HTML. If you have already used up your custom HTML you won't be able to add it. Unless of course someone knows how to add more custom HTML. So the way I worked around that was to add a custom list and link it to the sign up URL for my Alert. Just copy/paste the entire http:// path contained within the quotes of the <a href="..."> section.
Here is the html that Microsoft sent me:
<a href="http://signup.alerts.live.com/alerts/login.do?PINID=20994836&returnURL=http://writersland.spaces.live.com"><img src="http://images.alerts.live.com/mcwebsite/graphics/blog/alert_signup_eng.gif" alt="Windows Live Alerts" border="0"></a>
The section I highlighed in BOLD is your link. Well this one is my link, so make sure you use the one they send you. Don't just copy my link and replace the space URL. Each site has a PINID # and without the corresponding # for your blog it won't work.

Useful Tools

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 13:21:46 GMT

I came across a very cool blog tool that lets you create entries from your desktop, it even has a built in spell checker. So I decided that I will add a section for sharing stuff like this that I come across. This first one is called the Windows Live Writer. One of the things that is very appealing to me about this one, is I think I can bypass my photo plug-in problem. You can add images directly into the entry from your computer and it uploads them to your Spaces photo directory. Then I can add the photo module, and I got photos.

Link --> Windows Live Writer