Category: ifttt

By Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker – May 18, 2010 at 06:00PM

We’ve shown you one way to turn your wifi router into a repeater, but if your router doesn’t have the firmware or your walls aren’t wireless-friendly, you can get similar results with the addition of a device called a powerline adapter.

Photo by Andy Butkaj.

While we definitely love hacking our routers with new firmware, it does have a few downsides, most notably the fact that it’s a pain to install. Furthermore, you may not be comfortable installing third-party firmware that hacks your device, if your router doesn’t have the required firmware available. Technology blog Tested points out that a couple powerline adapters can help give you the same results by connecting your old router to your network through the power lines already installed in your home.

Essentially, instead of wirelessly “extending” your network, you’ll be turning your old router into an access point and putting it in the dead zone of your house. It’ll still need to be connected to the network, though, which is where the powerline adapters come in. Powerline adapters plug into your A/C outlets and connect to your network. You don’t need any kind of electrical experience to get them working. You could, of course wire it up via Ethernet, but you probably don’t want Ethernet cables running all through your house—so powerline adapters are a pretty awesome way to go.

You’ll need to tweak quite a few settings on your router to make this work, and powerline extenders aren’t super cheap—you could probably pick a few up for the same price of a regular wireless network extender—but if you have a house that isn’t wireless extender-friendly (due to thick walls or a strangely shaped house), this is a great way to get wireless everywhere you need it. Hit the link for the full guide, and let us know your experience with powerline extenders in the comments.

By Tim Lenahan, MakeUseOf – May 18, 2010 at 05:31PM

Did you know that Word documents can hold information that is not visible from within the document?  It is true.  Microsoft tags hidden data to your documents that can give information such as revision logs, identifying information (author, etc.), comments, keywords, hyperlinks, saved dates, edit dates, and much more.  This is called metadata.

Why should we care about the metadata in our Word documents?  Well, there have been news stories about metadata getting people into precarious situations, such as letters supposedly being written by one person but the metadata saying something different. However, even if you are not doing anything wrong, you may want to just be careful with your private information.  There’s nothing wrong with that.

The process you can use to scrub that personal metadata from Word documents is quite simple.  It involves downloading and installing a free program called “Doc Scrubber.”

Just download, install and open Doc Scrubber just like you would any other Windows program.  Once you have it open, I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to run.

As you can see you can also analyze the document’s metadata to see what can be seen.  To do this, just select the “Analyze” button.

Then you will be prompted to browse for the document you want analyzed.

Let’s take a look and see what we can find out about one of my old documents I’ve had lying around.

Well, we know my initials (I hardly ever enter my name for program setups) and apparently I work for Toshiba!  Actually, I never changed that when I bought my laptop a few years back.  You can also see some other interesting things like when the document was created and last saved, edited and printed.

The interesting thing is that I now use Open Office as my Office suite of choice and my documents still end up with some metadata attached.  All the more reason to hit the “Main Menu” button and start some scrubbing.

When you hit the “scrub” button, you are given a few options.

You can save some real time by scrubbing more than one document at a time.  In other words, if you have just learned about this metadata thing, you can catch up and scrub everything you need to in a relatively short amount of time.

Next you’ll be given some more specific options as to what you want scrubbed.

Basically you can choose what information you find sensitive.  You can even reset the revision count and the author/company.  When you hit “next,” the magic begins.

Once the scrubbing is done, run an analysis of the scrubbed document(s) just to see what can still be seen.

As you can see, the document now reads that John Doe who works for Any Company Inc. created the document and the other settings were either reset or cleared, according to what I selected during the scrubbing process.

Like I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be up to no good (like those showing up in the news) to make use of a tool like Doc Scrubber.  As you can see, the process of scrubbing that sensitive data is a simple one. Check out Karl’s article about scrubbing metadata from photos.

Do you scrub the metadata from your Word documents?  If so, what program(s) do you use?

Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

• How To Open, Edit and Print any Text Document File (5 comments)
• How To Open Microsoft Word 2007 docx Files (26 comments)
• Use Microsoft Office As An Offline Google Docs Editor with Offisync [Windows] (18 comments)
• ReadPal Reader – A Tool That Helps You Focus While Reading [Windows] (7 comments)
• Online Word Processor: A Closer Look at Adobe’s Buzzword (10 comments)
• How To Use Drop Caps To Enhance Your Text In Microsoft Word (8 comments)
• How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It (6 comments)
• How to Freeze a Part of a Word Document for Easy Reference (13 comments)
• How To Easily Make An Attractive Cover Page In MS Word 2007 (4 comments)
• How To Do Simple Calculations In Microsoft Word 2003 & 2007 (4 comments)

By Erica Ho, Lifehacker – May 18, 2010 at 05:00PM

Windows: Jalapeno Keyfinder retrieves serial numbers for a variety of programs on your PC—and even for most versions of Windows—so it’s not such a big deal next time you misplace your serial number and need to reinstall.

With so many different serial numbers to keep track of, Jalapeno Keyfinder will find your Windows’ operating system serial number for you in a pinch. In addition, the program retrieves serial numbers from a multitude of programs, from the likes of Microsoft Office, CorelDRAW, WinZip, and more. The application recognizes and extracts license keys from up to 170 different pieces of software, and even has built-in command line support.

Jalapeno Keyfinder is available for Windows at $6.95, but the older, demo version is a free download (and works just fine).

By Adam Frucci, Gizmodo – May 18, 2010 at 12:40PM

Sure, the ghost special effects somehow have gotten worse in the last 20 years, but it’s pretty much impossible to not be charmed by the Ghostbusters returning to the New York Public Library. [Improv Everywhere] More »

By Tina, MakeUseOf – May 18, 2010 at 12:31PM

Having to re-install your Windows operating system is nothing unheard of. Unfortunately, it has to be done at regular intervals. Before you start however, not only make sure all your data is backed up, but also that you have all the serial numbers of programs you would like to reinstall.

Should you find that you have lost the keys for some of your software, chances are you can recover the serial numbers. You could either search the Windows registry, which stores serial numbers, or use a handy tool that will look up all available numbers for you.

Jalapeno Keyfinder

Supported software (selected):

• Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista
• Microsoft Office XP, 2003, 2007
• Microsoft ActiveSync 4.2
• Microsoft Money 12.0 and 14.0
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and 2005
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Basic 2005 Express, Web Developer 2005 Express, C# 2005 Express, Basic 2003
• Microsoft Works 7.0 and 8.0
• Acdsee 6 through 9
• Ahead Nero 7
• Corel DRAW 12 and 13
• Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 through 8
• Norton System Works
• The Sims

Jalapeno Keyfinder is the perfect tool to recover Microsoft serial numbers or registration keys besides other Windows software. It’s a small utility, super fast, and easy to use. As soon as you launch it, it will find compatible software installed on your PC and decrypt the keys for you.

If you go to the developer’s homepage, you’ll find that the latest version 2.0 is no longer free. Version 1.06, however, is available for free through Major Geeks. A full list of supported software can be seen here.

ProduKey

Supported software:

• Microsoft Windows Vista and 7
• Microsoft Office 2003, 2007
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft SQL

When you unzip and run this tool your antivirus program may display an alert. This is a false positive alarm. You can read more about it here.

Obviously, I removed my Product ID and Key information from the above screenshot.

To view the product key information of software installed on another computer or within another operating system, you can use several command line options as outlined on ProduKey’s download page. /remoteall for example will enumerate all computers on your local network.

For more options that may help you recover your serial numbers, have a look at Karl’s posts User LicenseCrawler To Recover Your Lost Software Serial Numbers and Recover Your Lost XP, Vista & Office Serial Numbers. Simon wrote an article on How To Recover Your Lost Video Game Keys (Windows).

Windows Registry

If the tools above fail to retrieve your product key, you may still be able to find it in your registry. Go to > Start > Run, type > regedit and click > OK. Click > [Ctrl] + [F] to launch the search window. Then search the registry for the software in question. Keep hitting > F3 for the next matching entry, until the serial numbers shows up in the data column.

It may be difficult to spot the correct value. Additionally, many programs decrypt the keys stored in the registry, for example Windows itself. In that case it will be impossible to retrieve the numbers.

In case you’re desperately seeking to recover a serial number that you lost and can’t retrieve with the tools above because you can no longer access that computer, try Find Serial Number. To be used in emergencies only!

Did you have luck finding your keys?

Image credits: srbichara

Similar MakeUseOf Articles

• How To Speed Up The Shutdown Of Your Windows (15 comments)
• Don’t Click Delete – 10 Tips For The Recycle Bin (Windows XP) (14 comments)
• Windows Registry Tweaks (Part 2) (9 comments)
• Virtualization-Free In-Windows Linux Installation (17 comments)
• Three Quick Registry Tweaks to Customize Windows Like a Pro (13 comments)
• Some non-Registry Windows tweaks (7 comments)
• Scared of the Windows registry? WinSecret makes tweaking easy! (11 comments)
• Registry Tweaks to give your Windows an ooomph! (2 comments)
• Recover Your Windows XP Administrator Password With The Installation Disk (24 comments)
• Recover Your Lost XP, Vista & Office Serial Numbers (22 comments)

By Rich Whittle, Business Opportunities Weblog – May 18, 2010 at 11:35AM

According to KillerStartUps.com, the objective of the Edistorm website is to let people engage in brainstorming sessions over the WWW. This is achieved by applying sticky notes to the online equivalent to a boardroom wall.

Such a process is made very simple by the use of colored sticky notes, and the presence of a series of “idea bots” make everything flow along more organically. For example, these idea bots can look up related concepts, synonyms and even words that rhyme with any term that has been used.

And this service also has the added advantage of permanence. That is, in the physical world, the only way to capture what went down it the boardroom wall is by photographing it. Conversely, a service like Editstorm turns the brainstorming session into something that is accessible for posterity. Anybody can revise what went down as long as he has access to a web-enabled computer.

Both free and paid versions of Edistorm are available. The main difference arises from the fact that a free storm is public and can be joined by anybody, while the paid incarnation of the service is the one that makes for private sessions (or “private storms”) that can be joined by invitation only.

Photo by Edistorm.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

By Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo – May 17, 2010 at 05:40PM

These are the first photos of two F-35 Lighting II jet fighters flying in formation, just cleared for distribution by the Pentagon. They are so crispy and detailed you can even see the demon helmets inside the cockpit. More »

By Adam Pash, Lifehacker – May 17, 2010 at 05:30PM

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (they’re the good folks on the digital frontier fighting for our digital rights) conducted a study of the uniquely identifiable information your browser regularly sends out in the open and found that “an overwhelming majority of web browsers have unique signatures — creating identifiable “fingerprints” that could be used to track you as you surf the Internet.” That information includes things like operating system, browser, and common plug-ins, and you can test your own browser here. [EFF]

By Mark Wilson, Gizmodo – May 17, 2010 at 02:03PM

For this week’s Shooting Challenge, I asked you to shoot whatever you wanted. As the 116 photos that follow prove, this was a great decision. More »





Photography – Challenge Shoot – Business – Arts and Entertainment – Photographers

By Erica Ho, Lifehacker – May 17, 2010 at 02:00PM

Most people take precautions to wipe data off their computers’ hard drives before getting rid of them, but take note: Most copy machines store a digital image of every document scanned or copied.

As explained by a CBS investigation (see video above) and highlighted by tech blog Digital Inspiration, the built-in hard drive of most photocopiers contains and stores this information to improve overall performance. The catch is that it allows anyone access to anything ever scanned if they know how to, which turns into a huge security risk if you decide to get rid of the machine without wiping out the hard drive:

If a fraudster manages to pull out the disk from the photocopier, it can be a real “goldmine,” as he’ll probably find everything there from employee credit card numbers to resumes to faxes and much more.

Fortunately, most manufacturers provide exact instructions on how to clear this data, so check your machine’s manual before you get rid of it.