KeePass [309k] {S}+ Encrypted password safe with groups, drag-n-drop, search, password generator, export to TXT, HTML, XML & CSV.   (via ShellCity)

Mozilla Backup - Easily backup and restore Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird and Netscape profiles, including: email, bookmarks, addresses, settings, etc. (via ShellCity)

Just saw Molly's Revenge Celtic Music Band at St. John's yesterday. You must hear or see them now!

Gigablast is a Google-like search engine with some handy features, including the ability to quickly view cached (via Gigablast) and older (via The Wayback Machine) copies of web pages. Review | Interview

DiamondCS's excellent Console Tools were covered last year. Since then, they have added more great freeware apps including OpenPorts, a CLI port to process mapper for Windows NT/2000/XP. (See 2003.10. 1 and 4 blog entries for similar apps.)

Formatting an External Hard Drive addresses the question: "How to partition an external HDD that is connected via USB? Or to be more precise: How to partition the drive from within Windows 2000 (not DOS) without having to purchase Partition Magic?"

A Breathing Exercise: "How simple attention to breath enhances our awareness and enjoyment of the present moment."

FindHack 4.0.6 [137k] $ Improved find function for Palm OS 3.3 through 5.x. Limit search to current, built-in or custom-defined apps; support for wildcards; save favorite searches; much more. (This new version no longer requires a system extension manager like Hackmaster.)

T-Utils is a small collection of utilities for DOS, including: TDel (powerful DEL replacement), T-Secure (simple file encryption), KeyWord (searches files and directories by keyword), and several more.

 UnRAR for DOS [115k] {S}+ Command line DOS32 UnRAR.  

DirSize.DLL [6k] {S}+ Adds a "Folder Size" column in Windows Explorer. Free registration required to download.   (via Will Stevenson)

 WinAudit v1.2.2 [112k] + System info tool that lists: installed software, license information, peripherals, memory usage, processor model, network settings and more. Reports can be saved in several file formats.   (via Mike Mills)

Richard kindly sent word of Mike's MSDOS Internet Page, which is a tremendous resource for those running any version of DOS. On a related note, Steve Nickolas has put together a one-disk FreeDOS distribution named ODIN 0.6.

Nir Sofer has crafted a number of apps (some of which offer source code), among them:

• StartupRun v1.20 [27k] + A better msconfig.
• FoldersReport v1.10 [22k] + Dislays disk/directory space usage.
• A host of password recovery apps for: Windows, password text boxes, Dial-Up Networking, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Outlook Express, IncrediMail, Eudora, Group Mail Free, Netscape, PCAnywhere, Access, Jet Database Engine, and SQL Server Enterprise Manager.

The greatest hits of the cosmos from MSNBC offers a collection of awe-inspiring space slideshows.

"The Rocketinfo RSS Reader is a free personal news and information tool that allows you to search, subscribe, read and track content from thousands of RSS and Weblog sources." Supports RSS 0.91, 1.0, 2.0 and Atom.

Guy Kirkwood has put together an excellent guide entitled Setting up a Fast, Stable and Tweaked PC. It's focus is on lean, well-made apps. The advice on using XClone for emergency recovery should not be missed.

"The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth hosts the best and most complete online collection of astronaut photographs of the Earth." Especially enjoyed Mt. Fuji.

The Starman has a number of wonderful resources, including: Free Hex Editors, An Introduction to Learning Linux Console Commands using "tomsrtbt" Boot Disk, Learning about Boot Records, FATs and Directories and How to use DISKEDIT.EXE, and much more.

Optimizing Windows 9x/Me is a must-read for those eager to reduce their bootup times. It covers optimizing the BIOS, startup files, TSRs, etc. The test system's boot time (from power on to GUI fully loaded) dropped from 84 seconds to 56.

Comparator 2.20 [508k] File/folder comparison, copy and update utility with easy-to-use GUI. Also functions as a Microsoft Briefcase replacement.  

A little over a year ago, Booting Windows From CD-ROM was covered in the ezine. A new, more detailed guide (Windows 98 on CD) is now available, and it has some unique objectives. Quoting from the website:

This tutorial, and the underlying project, has had numerous objectives, but a few are of prime importance.

1. Produce a system which RUNS Windows98 from a cd. This is not the same as merely booting it. It has to be functional, and without abnormal error messages.
2. A 50MB limit for the CD image. I have aimed to produce a system which, like the KNOPPIX Linux Distro, can be placed on a credit card sized CD. This naturally means that many good tools or other things cannot be added or used, such as Mozilla or Word97. All of my recommended programs are based on size conceerns.
3. It must run on a 128MB machine. The installed files cannot therefore exceed around 110MB.
4. The most freeware/GNU software possible. Why recommend Miranda instead of Trillian? Simple, Miranda is GNU. Size, though, is usually more important than License agreements.
5. As many tools as possible, on a decent looking system. One of my unspoken objectives is a functionality similar to that of Damn Small Linux, but on a system which isn't as ugly as Blackbox with those horrendous Linux fonts. Linux geeks have a good tool in that system; (despite the underlying monopoly) I like Windows and I want a pretty, kewl os cd too!

As Czeslaw Czapla points out in his Confessions of a Latter-Day BeOS Convert (great discussion of it here), BeOS is still an attractive option for older hardware.

A few days ago I installed BeOS Pro 5.0.3 on an old Compaq Presario 1080 laptop (Pentium 166, 48MB RAM) and it worked beautifully, especially after installing Martijn Coenen's Xircom Realport RE-10 driver. The laptop will make a great FTP server, email client, web browser (Firefox 0.8 has been ported!), etc.

For programmers, both Programming the Be Operating System and The Be Book 4.5 are available free online. Others may enjoy these BeOS links.

One of my favorite stories about BeOS comes from dr-dank in this Slashdot post:

BeOS was demonstrated to me during my senior year of college. The guy giving the talk played upwards of two dozen mp3s, a dozen or so movie trailers, the GL teapot thing, etc. simultanously. None of the apps skipped a beat. Then, he pulled out the showstopper.

He yanked the plug on the box.

Within 20 seconds or so of restarting, the machine was chugging away with all of its media files in the place they were when they were halted, as if nothing had happened.

Damn.

Kephyr.com has a number of useful tools, including: Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner, SystemSherlock Lite (great little command line app that analyzes changes made to the registry and file system), and The File Database (user-created database of Windows startup items, similar to Paul Collins' list, but currently not as comprehensive).