Newsletter Archives

• Freeware Spotlight — Logyx Pack

  Posted on July 26, 2021 at 02:41 CDT by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

  Did you know that Microsoft first introduced Solitaire in Windows 3.0 1990 to teach everyone how to drag and drop with that fancy new mouse? Enjoy a good game of Minesweeper? In 1992, it came along in Windows 3.1 to teach us how to be speedier with our mice (mouses?) and to become more comfortable with left- and right-clicking. Also, that year we got our beloved Hearts game. Hearts originally had network play to help us get used to interconnected workstations. You could even communicate with the person you were playing against on the network! Common now, but it was pretty awesome back then.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.28.0 (2021-07-26).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Games, legacy apps

• Freeware Spotlight — PingStatus

  Posted on November 15, 2020 at 21:15 CST by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums
  

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  In our neck of the woods, high-speed and reliable Internet connections can be a rare commodity.

  It’s not uncommon to report Internet issues to your provider via the phone, only to have a tech show up while everything is running fine.

  If this sounds familiar, then Bakidok’s PingStatus is the tool for you.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.45.0 (2020-11-16).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Network testing, Ping

• Freeware Spotlight — Alternate Password Generator

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:00 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  There’s never an occasion when a simple password is acceptable for an online account.

  The days of “[insert cat name]123” and “[insert kid name][insert birthdate]” are over — especially when applied to more than one online site. It’s likely that any short and easy-to-remember password you can think of has already been added to massive databases — some nefarious, some informational — of stolen credentials.

  OlderGeeks.com hosts several utilities from Alternate Tools, but today we’re looking at Alternate Password Generator (APG). It’s a free program that creates secure passwords.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Brute-force cracking, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Password checking, Password generators

• Freeware Spotlight — A potpourri of anti-malware apps

  Posted on October 25, 2020 at 21:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  You might see a doctor for something simple, but it’s likely she will also check your general health.

  So, too, we never let a computer leave our store without a thorough check for malware: rootkits, Trojans, viruses, spyware, bots, worms, ransomware, keyloggers, crimeware, and so on.

  In past newsletters, various contributors have recommended that you not rely wholly on just one anti-malware utility. Fortunately, there are many good, free products to choose from.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.42.0 (2020-10-26).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware Anti-malware apps, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Full-time AV protection, On-demand scanners

• Freeware Spotlight — SwitchPowerScheme

  Posted on August 16, 2020 at 20:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  If it were up to me, Windows’ desktop context menu — the right-click pop-up menu — would take up two full screens!

  Then I’d have quick access to everything with just a mouse-click! … And that would give birth to a whole new generation of utilities to shrink Deanna’s context menu back to a manageable size.

  That wishful thinking probably explains my excitement at discovering Sordum.org’s SwitchPowerScheme.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.32.0 (2020-08-17).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, context menu, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Power settings

• Freeware Spotlight — Antivirus Removal Tool

  Posted on July 20, 2020 at 01:15 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  One of the lesser-known causes of poor PC performance is the detritus left behind by uninstalled anti-malware programs.

  Our shop regularly receives PCs whose owners have removed antivirus programs properly — but services and processes for those apps are still running!

  As you probably know, I love independent software developers who make things easier for us geeks. One of those talented coders — who goes by the name “Alex C” — has given us the indispensable Windows Repair Toolbox. Now Alex gives us the Antivirus Removal Tool, a free utility that you can also run from a flash drive. It has the 29 most common antivirus-removal tools built into one utility

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.28.0 (2020-07-20).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware Anti-malware removal tools, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, PC performance

• Freeware Spotlight — Jarte Plus

  Posted on July 13, 2020 at 01:00 CDT by Jamie • Comment in the Forums

  FREE SOFTWARE

  Freeware Spotlight — Jarte Plus

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.27.0 (2020-07-013).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight

• Freeware Spotlight — Deanna’s list

  Posted on June 22, 2020 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  You gotta love utilities — those small, free, third-party apps that have for years helped make our Windows experience better.

  There are hundreds of them — most designed to fix a specific computing problem. Many others are handy tools Microsoft neglected to include in Windows. And some are simply fun.

  At OlderGeeks.com, we’ve been reviewing and posting utilities for years. Below is the full list of apps we’ve discussed in Freeware Spotlight. All are free or have both free and paid versions. We ensure they don’t contain spyware, malware, or unwanted tagalong software. Most are portable, meaning they can be run from a flash drive — an ideal way to use utilities on multiple machines without going through the trouble of a formal installation.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.24.0 (2020-06-22).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Open-source utilities, PC maintenance

• Free tax prep?

  Posted on March 9, 2020 at 14:52 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  (USA centric post)

  The other day on the news I heard a story about free tax prep for those who earn under $69,000.

  Sounds great right?

  Well…but… when you look at the IRS web site and the offerings that they have from the various vendors, ALL of them have gotchas.

  Some age discriminate.  (yea, don’t you LOVE that!!)

  Most don’t offer free state tax filing…. or most don’t offer a free tax prep IF you live in a state that has no state tax.  Thus you’ll get a charge for filing your state return.

  Bottom line, like many things my Mom taught me, you get what you pay for and it’s not always free.

  Freeware Patch Lady Posts

• Freeware Spotlight — NirLauncher

  Posted on September 2, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  If you’ve been in the PC-maintenance field for a while, I don’t have to tell you about the impact developer Nir Sofer has had on the freeware utilities community.

  For everyone else, this very talented guy has created hundreds of free apps for tackling nearly any PC problem. You’d be hard pressed to find a system administrator or computer tech who doesn’t keep at least a few of Mr. Sofer’s utilities at hand.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.31.0 (2019-09-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, NirSoft, utilities

• Freeware Spotlight — Quick Access Popup

  Posted on July 29, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  What is freeware really all about? “Sticking it to the man,” you say? “Why pay for something I can get for free?” “Try before you buy?”

  There are many reasons freeware appeals to PC users — but to my way of thinking, the essence of free software is sharing. Many of the best utilities started out as tools to solve a specific problem or, as the old saying goes, to build a better mousetrap — often an enhancement to some stock Windows feature. And once the developer has a solid, working app, they decide that others might also benefit. And, yes, they might make a few bucks for their time and effort.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.28.0 (2019-07-29).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Portable apps, Quick Access Popup

• Freeware Spotlight — System Information Viewer

  Posted on June 24, 2019 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  Best Utilities

  By Deanna McElveen

  They say that information is power, and this holds true with computer diagnostics. The more you know about your system, the more likely you’ll find solutions to problems.

  Windows provides a good amount of system data, but to dive deep you need third-party tools. One of our favorites is Ray Hinchliffe’s System Information Viewer (SIV). It’s not a thing of beauty, but there’s little it can’t reveal about your PC’s stats — whether you’re running Windows 2000 or current versions of Windows 10.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.23.0 (2019-06-24).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, System Information Viewer
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