Do I have your attention? Grab some free online storage, generate some strong passwords, and get your Windows Updates! Free yourself from Microsoft Office.


Stay In Sync With Dropbox

Dropbox is a new service that provides off-site storage for your files. But wait, there's more. Install Dropbox on one machine, and you have off-site storage. But install it on more than one machine, and the files on every machine will sync to the latest version. If you're somewhere that you can access a web browser, even if you don't have Dropbox installed on your computer, as long as you can get online, you can get to your stuff. So quit emailing your work stuff to yourself at home!

It's really simple to understand and use. Eventually, there will be a charge for some of the storage space or features. But for now, the Dropbox people are looking for Beta testers. I have a very small number of invitations, so if you want to give it a try, email me at cate@rlis.com, and tell me you want the Dropbox Beta invitation. I'll give them out until they're gone. You can learn more about Dropbox here:

Dropbox

Check out the video on that page, especially the photo organizer and sharing component.

Generate Good Passwords With Password Bird

It's really discouraging to go to a client's house and find a Post-It note on the monitor with the client's email password. It's also almost always true that s/he is using the same password for everything, not just for email. "It's just too hard to remember all those passwords," is the reason I hear most often.

Okay, yes, it is hard to set a strong password that you can remember. But Password Bird will generate a hard-to-guess password from information important to you. The twist is that because it's from information important to you, the password is pretty easy to remember. Password Bird is available here:

Password Bird

If you want to keep track of all these passwords, a very popular way to do that is with the program called RoboForm, available here:

Roboform

Besides managing your passwords, it will fill in forms on the web and even generate secure passwords (maybe not as easy to remember as Password Bird!). The free version will keep track of ten passwords. The paid version has no limit.

My favourite password manager is the free and Open Source program called KeePass. You can store all your passwords in one place, encrypt them, and use just one password to gain access to them. (Just don't forget that password!) KeePass is available here:

KeePass

If you need a really long, impossible to guess and impossible to remember password, this is the place to get it:

Passwords

Ten Big Honking Fixes From Microsoft This Month

Now would be a really good time to make sure your Microsoft Updates are set so that you get either the automatic downloads (if that's the way you want it) or at least the automatic notifications (if that's what you prefer).

Instructions for configuring Microsoft Update on Vista, XP and Windows 2000 are here:

Microsoft Updates

Some older products, notably Office 2000, require you to use Microsoft Office Update, which is here:

Microsoft Office Update

Note the Genuine Office validation procedure. A very fine, free, full-featured alternative to Microsoft Office is OpenOffice, available here:

Openoffice

I've been using it for years. I'm using it now! It is fully compatible with MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access.

Thank you to everyone who sent along comments, questions, suggestions, tips, and words of encouragement. I appreciate all that! Send email to cate@rlis.com. You can also browse the column archives at any time. Point your browser here:

Archives