Apparently in its effort to reduce splogs, Google's Blogger service now requires word verification for every new post. Not only does it force legitimate publishers to waste time figuring out and typing those warped letters:


It has also broken Blogger - even after entering the correct letters, the following message appears:

While WinSCP (an open source SFTP client for Windows) has been listed on TinyApps.Org for several years, it is just now that I ran across this neat trick: Keep Remote Directory Up To Date. Essentially it allows you to securely (using SFTP) and automatically sync a local directory on your Windows box with a remote server. May substitute for apps like WebDrive which allow you to map a network drive via SFTP.

Fog Creek Copilot ($9.95 for a day pass) is a remote access and desktop control service very similar to the free SkyFex Remote Assistant. Like SkyFex, Copilot offers easy, encrypted access through firewalls with no installation or configuration. Other solutions in this category include: LogMeIn Rescue (fee), GoToAssist (fee), UltraVNC's NAT2NAT (free), and reverse VNC connections (free).

Microsoft Money 2006 issue resolved, thanks to Paul Petterson's kind assistance (billg, if you're listening, Paul is serious VP material). If anyone else has trouble importing data from previous versions of Microsoft Money, here is what worked for us:

1. Backup data!!! Do not proceed without all of your critical data backed up, including your Microsoft Money data.
2. Relocate My Money.mny to a directory other than My Documents
3. Uninstall any existing MS Money versions
4. Install MS Money 2006
5. After installation, since Money cannot find an .mny file in the My Documents directory, it asks if you want to create a new file, open an existing file, etc. Choose the "Repair" option for the file which you relocated in step 2 and have the resulting file sent to My Documents
6. Launch MS Money 2006 and with any luck, all will be well.

When written out this way, the solution seems trivial. However, the key factor (which is moving the .mny file out of My Documents) was not immediately apparent... the app would simply crash on import, and then upon every startup, without any indication that there was a Repair option available.

While backing up data from an HFS+ (OS X) partition to a FAT32 external firewire drive, I received the following error message:

One or more items can't be copied. Do you want to skip them and copy remaining items?

This error was due to characters in some of the filenames on the HFS+ system which are not allowed under FAT32. Cameron Hayne created a swell Perl script to replace the offending characters, but changing the filenames was not my first choice. Thankfully, silentaccord posted a wonderful solution (look for his April 15, 2005 comment) here: Create HFS+ and FAT32 partitions on one external drive.

CSVed is a powerful CSV file editor that works with any delimiter/seperator (comma, semicolon, tab, pipe, etc). Installer-free version available.

SIW (System Information for Windows) - Freeware utility that displays detailed specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU, devices, memory, video, disk drives, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs, processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network, network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage and network traffic. It displays currently active network connections, passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more. Does not require installation. (See this post for similar apps)

Text Rider is an insanely easy to install weblog system that uses simple text files as its database. Features include: templates, search, archiving, RSS feed, comments, and more.

Using two NAT routers for enhanced security | Configuration Details

MidiMeow is a free MIDI to WAV/MP3/OGG converter.

While not a tiny app, PSPad is a must-have freeware text editor for Windows. Features include: tabbed interface, FTP client (edit files directly on server), macro recorder, powerful regex search and replace, syntax highlighting, HEX editor, spell checker, and much more.

DemoStudio (apparently built on CamStudio), records screen activity and audio to avi or swf. Review

CBT4FREE offers two videos: Linux Web Server (17 minutes 58 seconds) explains how to set up a web server on a GNU/Linux server, and Web Server Config (13 minutes 26 seconds) details the installation and configuration of Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Windows. I ran across two more of their videos on Google Video: Setting up a Windows Workgroup and Setting up a Wireless Network.

Who knew that Microsoft speaks leet? Here's a taste:

• "kewl": A common derivation of "cool."
• "m4d sk1llz" or "mad skills": Refers to one's own talent. "m4d" itself is often used for emphasis.
• "n00b," "noob," "newbie," or "newb": Combinations synonymous with new user. Some leetspeekers view "n00b" as an insult and "newbie" as an affectionate term for new users.
• "w00t" or the smiley character \o/: An acronym that usually means "We Own the Other Team," used to celebrate victory in a video game.
• "roxx0rs" Used in place of "rocks," typically to describe something impressive.
• "d00d": Replaces the greeting or addressing someone as a "dude."
• "joo" and "u": Used instead of "you." This is also commonly written as "j00" or "_|00."
• "ph": often replaces "f," as in "phear" for "fear" (as in "ph34r my l33t skillz") and vice versa, such as spelling "phonetic" as "f0|\|371(."

(via digg)