DUTraffic Dial-Up Monitor/Statistics

I finally changed my Internet connection from dial-up to ADSL. Not that dial-up was slow for me: I didn’t download music/video/software at home. But the amount included into my plan was too small for me and I had to pay extra every time my 200 MB ran dry. Plus I had to check if there is anything left there. And here I found a great helper in DUTraffic.

DUTraffic is a dial-up Internet connection monitor/statistics application that is perfect. It is a small program that shows statistics for current connection on pointing your mouse cursor at the program’s icon in the system tray. There is also a graph window (transparent and can be always on top or always under all other windows), that I didn’t use. Plus DUTraffic keeps records of all your connection statistics (dates, times, download/upload traffic) for any past period. So I could check how many hours I spent online last August or how much I downloaded last May. The program never crashed and never caused any problem for my computer. Also, in case you installed Windows anew, you could save the backup history files and paste it again after you install Windows (in case you format your hard drive and all programs were lost). Thus, you never lose the records, no matter how many times you lose Internet connection, switch off your computer or refresh the system altogether.

You can get it from here: .

Now that I am on ADSL I wanted the same, but there is no broadband version of DUTraffic. And three other monitors I tried were no good. Netgraph was the best in that it (apparently) showed the right download traffic. Bandwidth monitor crashed on first and subsequent runs. BitMeter showed twice the size traffic in comparison with standard Windows statistics. Besides, neither seemed to provide back history.

So it looks like dial-up users lose in speed and download freedom, but gain a lot in terms of correct and overall statistics/monitoring.

Software Changes

There are some changes in the software section of my computer. They are not quite ordinary changes in application version, or new software installation. The changes are in browser and anti-virus sections.

Firstly, I switched from Maxthon 1 browser (the latest build in version 1) to Maxthon 2 when the browser left the Beta stage of its second version. I hadn’t done it before because it was in Beta and many user reviews said that the Beta wasn’t stable or didn’t work as well as the first version.

I still have to get used to Maxthon2. Firstly I imported plugins from the old Maxthon (and downloaded some newer versions of them). The installation file of Maxthon2 comes without any plugins and with only one default skin. There is no Combo version like it was with older Maxthon (with more skins and plugins already there). So, on the one hand, it is kept to a minimum, and on the other, you can add whatever. But it is not so convenient for novices and those without ability or desire to browse the add-ons site.

As for the plugins I’d recommend Weather, ieSpell, EditPage, enablerightclick, flashsavewithconfig, LookUpWord, o-devart, Policy Manager, View Sourse. There are also Hotmail Tools, Yahoo!Mail, Technorati sidebar, Bloglines, CoComment, Del.icio.us Sidebar, Digg Sidebar, Float Bar, Technorati Sidebar. But to tell you the truth I don’t use any plugins. So maybe the clean version without them is all right for those who just browse the Internet.

As for the skins, I downloaded and installed Safari skin (had it in Maxthon1). It is the best skin of all that are found on Maxthon add-ons site. Though Safari for Maxthon1 is different from Safari to Maxthon2 (in the new version menu buttons are highlighted in blue when you point your mouse at them  like in Apple Mac OS) and I have to get used to wide tabs (at default, but could be altered through Settings), I quite like it.

What I don’t like is that History opens in a new tab, rather than in a Side Panel (as in Maxthon1). In the same way Maxthon Settings menu opens in a separate tab instead of a pop-up window.

As for menus and settings they are done in much the same way as in Maxthon1, except for some, like AdHunter. In the new version AdHunter settings are grouped into several lines in the Settings menu insted of being grouped in one “AdHunter” block. One thing that doesn’t work is RoboForm Bar. I managed RoboForm to work and it displays windows with login info when a site with stored login information is opened, so that you can autofill the login forms. But there is no RoboForm Bar (you can only open it at the bottom of the browser window). Well, maybe I need to get used to more space in my upper bars section.

The rest needs testing, but I don’t think I’ll have to go back to Maxthon1. Maxthon is still the best IE based browser (and for me, simply the best) out there. With Safari skin it is better-looking than Safari browser (and doesn’t have Safari Beta problems in Windows). It is more vivid and less crowded than Opera. It is not as orange and fuzzy as Firefox. It is certainly much nicer and more customisable than Internet Explorer. And remember, it had a working tab interface when IE didn’t even think of having one.

Secondly, I uninstalled Kaspersky anti-virus and switched to Avast.

Believe me, Kaspesky worked fine, had a good Russian interface, short and up to the point pop-up menu when clicked on its icon in the quick launch bar next to the system clock. What I didn’t like were its irritating habits. Namely, 10-12 days prior to licence expiration it annoyed me with its pop-ups on every startup reminding me about “x” days till it expires. Also, it is not a free program. I got my licence key every month from computer magazines. But it takes looking for those magazines and buying them every month, or you could buy a box version with a year-long key but paying a lot at once. One more thing that bothered me was that Kaspersky was the only software that had 50-100 undeletable registry items that were identified by my RegCleaner (4.3 by Jouni Vuorio) as old/obsolete/unnecessary. Every time I ran RegCleaner they were there and didn’t disappear. And Kaspersky was always the most fragmented chunk as shown by PerfectDisk.

Now I am with Avast but cannot yet say if it is as good as Kaspersky. Well, I have the Russian-language version with Mac Lover skin (as the default skin is really ugly, though there is a nice KDE skin included in the default set). BUT, there are som many items in the pop-up menu (when I click on the Avast icon in the quick launch bar). Kaspersky had a better menu. There were fewer items and I could open it by clicking the icon. In Avast clicking that icon opens the settings window, not the application itself. And though Avast has the update option there, it is divided into two parts, updating the base and updating the program. Kaspersky had it all together.

If I become irritated by Avast, then this rather fucked-up quick launch menu may become a serious argument in favour of returning to Kaspersky even at a cost of buying magazines every month.

Windows Live Writer 2 (Beta)

Windows Live Writer has been upgraded to Version 2, though still in Beta. If you know what WLW is, you won’t wait and download it from here, or directly from here. If you are a novice to this free software gem, then you should give it a definite try.

WLW is an application that lets you write posts, save drafts, edit drafts, publish posts and drafts in many blog clients (WordPress, Live Journal, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces and many others). You can inserts links, pictures, tags. You can even add new categories without any need to log into your blog dashboard (administrative regime). You can prepare posts, then log on the Internet (if you don’t have a permanent connection) to just click the “Publish” button, wait a few seconds/minutes and have your new posts published online.

The .exe file is 5.4 MB. It is practically ideal and it is FREE.

I’ve just installed it and it says that it is version 1 (but still a much newer version than the one I’ve had). The design though is less appealing with darker blue background of the menu that looks threatening and … dark. Also, it still takes it some 2-5 seconds to open. But the design doesn’t make this application worse. The menu looks twice as big and varied as it used to be. There are other features that I haven’t tried yet. And they say you can configure it further using third-party plugins. One more thing is that it takes more space (more than 8 MB) on my harddrive and installs another, Winows Live folder (1+ MB) for no reason (I’ve disabled all Windows Live options on installation, but … ). Again, all these “buts” don’t even come close to make me think of dropping WLW. I’ll keep on relying on it in my blogging and advise you to join in.

My Screenshot

This is a screenshot of my computer monitor. I’ve had it stylised for Apple Mac computer monitor for more than a year. Only recently I’ve changed the screensaver from traditional blue Mac one to this picture of a corn ear.

The computer is run by Windows XP SP2. The Windows taskbar is not fixed, therefore it is not seen in the screenshot. The taskbar at the bottom of the screen is freeware ObjectDock with icons I found on the net, mostly from Deviant Art. From left to right the icons represent the following applications that go under my personalised [names]: My Computer [iMach], Control Panel [iCon] (Mac dashboard icon), My Documents [iDoc], Picasa [iMage] (variation of iPhoto), Orange CD Player [iMuse] (Mac iTunes icon), Windows Media Player [iMovie] (Mac icon), Maxthon web browser [iSurf] (Mac Safari icon), QIP instant messenger [iChat] (variation of Mac icon), Address Book [iDress] (Mac icon), Recycle Bin (Mac icon), CCleaner [iSweep], ObjectDock clock. The iNet icon (variation of some Mac icon) is clicked to connect to the Internet.

The calendar (with Events and To Do Sections) is freeware Rainlendar 2.

Freeware Series-3

Here is my new post about free audio-video and graphic utilities. They could all be found on freeware sites like Freeware Files and File Hippo, or freeware section of Snap Files. There you can find links to home pages to software authors. I recommend going there to check for various additions, skins, plugins as well as possibly other useful utilities and software gems.

Last time I mentioned K-Lite Mega codec pack. It provides every imaginable codec you may need to watch video files and listen to audio ones. My next task was to rip CDs to my hard drive. You can actually do it pretty well with the standard Windows Media Player. The only thing to choose is the format you wish your files saved. I always prefer Windows Media Audio Lossless that rips CD tracks into .wma files that are said to be perfect (lossless) copies of originals. There are options to rip them to WMA files with compression (sort of MP3), or WAV files. I’d prefer WAV, as I rip only tracks that I need to burn on my compilation audio CDs and WAV files are the size of the original CDA file on the CD. But when burnt on an audio CD WAV files do not play on my stereo. So, WMA lossless is my option.

There are many other CD rippers that can be found online. But most of them rip into MP3, WAV, OGG and WMA compressed files. Most modern audio players (or multimedia players) can rip CDs, but again you have to check which output formats you get. Audiograbber is considered one of the most popular rippers (in my experience supports only MP3 and WMA compressed). Most rippers (but not all) have the function of connecting to free Internet databases to get album information. This works when you are online.

Once I got an MP3 collection of tracks that I wanted to convert to WMA lossless and burn onto a CD. That was a big task as it turned out. I used dBpoweramp Music Converter (called “a Swiss Army knife for audio). But I had to download WMA codec pack from their site, otherwise it converted only to MP3 or WAV formats. But with WMA codec for dBpoweramp Music Converter things went better. You can download more codecs from the site to be able to convert into other formats. Only MP3 and WAV conversion is included in the exe file.

The software you will need to rip your DVDs onto your hard drive, then decode and encode into other formats to be stored or burnt further is DVD Decrypter and Gordian Knot. DVD Decrypter lets you rip your DVDs onto the hard drive. Gordian Knot is used to manipulate with what you have ripped. There is a smaller automated version of Gordian Knot. But for better results and ability to intervene into the process the standard Gordian Knot is recommended (it is found on Source Forge).

One more thing is Orange CD player. It is a one-button-in-your-system-tray player of CDs. When you insert a CD into your drive and start Orange CD player it plays your CD and there is just one button in your tray. One click on the button pauses playing, another – resumes it. Right-click of your mouse gets the menu which includes among other things the tracklist with playing time. You can download album info from the Internet and/or edit it manually. There is Orange CD Catalog that lets you see your entire collection and edit the database more easily. But it is shareware and the free trial version functions only for 30 days. Anyway, that was enough to compile a catalogue of my CD collection. There are two big minuses with this software. The quality of audio is a bit poorer than in Windows Media Player and Orange CD Catalog can be opened only with Orange CD Catalog or Orange CD Player.

One more audio player that I found is AIMP Classic, which is said to provide even better quality than a popular WinAmp. Personally I use Orange CD Player or WMP when I want better sound. But AIMP may be a very good option too.

When it comes to burning CDs there is an option to do it using Windows OS without any other software, but it is a longer and less pleasant way. There is always the omnipresent Nero, but it is no longer present on my computer. I use Infra Recorder which does the same job and takes only slightly more than 7 MB of my hard drive space. It can burn data, audio, mixed CDs, data and video DVDs. It has a good interface (nothing shining but everything is there). It can burn onto extra capacity CDs (up to 900 MB) and both 4,38 and 7,96 GB DVDs. There is one more utility that does the job and takes  less than 1 MB of space on your computer: DP_DVD_Burner. Despite the name, it can burn CDs too, but it support only 650 or 700 MB CDs and 4,38 DVDs. So Infra Recorder is a much better option. But for the tasks most of you do (burning onto a 700 MB CD) you can consider that too.

Down to graphic utilities. The one to make me see my pics is Picasa. It is free and allows you to see all (or chosen) graphic files with a pleasant interface. It has the options for working with graphics too. Not anything professional, but if you want to make a colour pic black-and-white or vice versa, change the colour scheme, slightly edit your pics, then it is there. The only drawback is that Picasa keeps thumbnails of the files that it shows and if there are many of these, than the Picasa folder in Documents and Settings can be quite big too (in my case more than 100 MB). But it is a very good software. And it has a better interface and usability than other graphic viewers. But you may prefer something like Irfan View or others.

When you need to resize your pics there is always Microsoft Picture Manager (included in the Office suite), but when you don’t have it there are other utilities to do the job better or worse. One of them is Resize.

For working with graphics there is Paint.NET that is developed as a freeware but much more functional replacement of standard Paint part of the Windows OS. I uninstalled the default Paint and switched to Paint.NET. I guess it can do most of what others do for at least a hundred bucks.

Sometimes we have pics in RAW format (for example from Canon cameras). These cannot be viewed by default in Windows Explorer (unless you download a free RAW Viewer from Microsoft site). They can be viewed in Picasa without problems. But you may use another trick and convert them into .JPEG format by using a free utility called Yarc. It can be found somewhere on the Internet (though the project is already closed) and it requires no installation. All you have to do is drag and drop a RAW file into the Yarc icon on your desktop and you get a .JPEG copy of it.

One more thing is working with icons. I once changed my Windows OS interface adapting it to the one of an Apple computer (Apple screen and ObjectDoc are the examples of how to do it). Then I decided to change most icons. Not a big deal. You can find icons and icon packs for free somewhere like Deviant Art. But sometimes you need to slightly change an icon or convert a .png image into an .ico one. IcoFX is of help here. 

Freeware Series-2

This time I’d like to move from office to entertainment. This is another set of software present on any PC in the world. Collecting, sorting, viewing/listening to, editing of pictures, music and video is what this is all for. Well, the minimum requirements include watching pics, video and listening to music (either on a CD or stored on a computer).

The default media player for Windows OS users is Windows Media Player, now in it 11th version. I’ve used the 10th for three years and was quite content until I reinstalled Windows and decided to give the 11th a try. I should say it has a nice interface (not that the 10th didn’t) and can still be minimised to the system tray with all the necessary controls there (this is actually the feature that makes me use Windows MP over any other media player). But unlike ASUS Power DVD player, WMP doesn’t let you choose whether to play a DVD from the beginning or from the point you stopped watching it last time this DVD was in your DVD-drive. This was a very convenient feature in ASUS Power DVD Player (which I got for free bundled with some hardware, used without any problem for three years but had to uninstall due to some problems recently). Back to WMP. It allows you to listen to CDs, rip them, sort your media collection and download CD info from the Internet. But that is possible with a few other media players which are also available for free. The only difference is that before you can install WMP your Windows will be validated. In case you don’t have an Internet connection or have a pirate version, the installation of WMP won’t start.

There are other media players over there, some of which are as free as Windows Media Player, only they do not require any validation. I tried JetAudio Basic (the full version is unfortunately not free) and Quintessential Player. All of them could be found on any freeware collection site, like Freeware Files or File Hippo. But I didn’t quite like them. Unlike WMP they don’t have the ability to be minimised to the system tray with the major control buttons there. JetAudio, instead, can be minimised to a strip of controls as wide as your monitor, sort of a second system tray, which is nice-looking and functionally rich, but doesn’t save any vertical space on your monitor at all. But JetAudio has at least a nice standard interface. Quintessential Player has an ugly standard interface, though more nicer ones can be downloaded from the site. Both JetAudio and Quintessential Player allow you to watch DVDs, but unlike ASUS Power DVD Player, or (though differently) Windows Media Player, they freeze when you try to rewind or fast forward the movies using the tiny vertical bar (don’t know the name for it) under the screen moving with the progress of the film.

One more player comes with K-Lite Codec Pack or can be downloaded separately. It is Media Player Classic. This has a very simplistic interface a-la older versions of WMP, but the functionality is totally up-to-date, with lots of formats supported and DVD playback without the need for any separate DVD codecs (like WMP sometimes requires). But again, it would freeze when I try to move the little bar fast forwarding the movie. So, I use it only for playing rare (to me) files, like .ogg. Well, you can play those with WMP oк other players. If they don’t support some types of files initially, all you need is a codec pack.

I personally use K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. K-Lite comes in several versions, from basic to full. But Mega version includes it all (though you are free to install only what you need, or think you need, at the installation). Mega Pack even includes Real Alternative and QuickTime Alternative (available separately as well), so that you can play Real Media files and QuickTime media files without the need to install Real Player and QuickTime Player (they are both free but use lots of space on your harddrive, plus mess up your start menu with additional players’ icons).

Next time, I’ll tell you about various audio-video utilities and freeware to work with graphic files.

Freeware Series-1

I decided to start writing about numerous freeware programs that I have ever tried to use or am still using on my home computer. The world of freeware is gigantic, but even in this ocean there are sharks and small fish. Not all sharks are great, and not every small fish is small. Most PC users have at least a few free programs installed on their computers; most sharks of freeware are known to the multitude of PC users. So, the following series is just my personal experience.

I’ll start with some preface. My computer (desktop model) is more than three years old, but I haven’t ever upgraded it since the time of purchase, because that was my plan. Before buying a computer I studied special literature and wrote down the parts I wanted to have inside that big thick sheet and heavy tower (chosen specially too) of iWin model. When I was asked what I was going to use my computer for I said, ‘Most probably just as a typewriter and for Internet connection.’ That’s what I’ve been mostly using it in fact, as do most average PC users out there. I am not a gamer and deleted even the games built in Windows OS. I am not a programmer. And I am not a guy who installs absolutely everything just to have it on. Neither am I a guy who strips his computer of everything except the barest necessities.

I have an AMD chipset, ASUS motherboard and videocard, Seagate harddrive (the first one was Maxtor, if I remember it right, but it turned out to be a faulty one and had to be replaced after 6 months), there are several coolers in the tower (front and back of the tower, power cooler, harddrive cooler, chipset cooler and maybe even a videocard cooler). Add to that a Samsung LCD panel, a ZyXel dial-up modem, plus other big gadgets (like HP LaserJet printer and HP scanner) and you are almost done with the hardware. But hardware is not the point of this writing. So, let’s move on to software.

I bought an OEM Windows XP OS to have it installed on my computer. The option was to have a pirate version installed at the store for free. But I opted for a licensed OS to have the major thing proper and a CD always available. More than a year ago I received a free CD from Microsoft with Service Pack 2 (I pre-registered on their site and waited for the Russian Version). I’ve read in some blog that now those CDs are shipped for some fee. Lucky me! Actually there are two things here to be mentioned. Firstly, I don’t think Microsoft should charge for the CD or delay SP 3 release and make users spend tons of traffic on downloading patches. If there is some fault in the product it should be dealt with by the manufacturer at no cost to consumers. At least that’s what consumer laws say in most countries. I’d suppose they should equally apply to Microsoft and its products. Secondly, I understand why most people in my country just go to the so-called ‘book markets’ and buy pirate versions of Windows (or any other software) with all the SPs already in and without downloading anything. And you know, the pirate versions work none the worse that the licensed ones.

Having said that, I still wanted the core software to be ‘clean’. But I had no money left and bought a pirate Office Suite (XP), which I switched later for a pirate Office 2003. It works and I could even download some updates to it through Microsoft site with their genuine validation thingy.

Now comes the saga of freeware. If I started with office programs, let’s consider OpenOffice suite. I tried it, but uninstalled and will eagerly wait for some more time. Well, I didn’t go deep down into the presentation making part, which is said to be still lagging behind Microsoft PowerPoint. I just checked the Writer (which is an equivalent of Word+FrontPage). As a wordprocessor it is OK, only some menu items are not so conveniently available as in Word. But as an HTML editor it made me discard the whole OpenOffice Suite at once: it showed a completely distorted view of the pages I prepared in FrontPage. So, when they change something here I might reconsider OO, which takes less space on my harddrive too. If you cannot wait any longer or need a free office suite right now, you can find it at Open Office Homepage.

Every now and then we need to read PDF documents online or those stored on our computers. Adobe Reader is what most of people have. Foxit Reader is what I have. Its installer is somewhere less than 2MB (compared to 20+MBs of Adobe Reader 7). It takes only 3.7 MBs of space on my harddrive, while AR used to take between 20 and 50 MBs while doing absolutely the same. Foxit Reader opens PDF documents faster than AR and without any opening screens. It gives the same options (as far as I am concerned, and I am concerned only with reading PDF). Well, as Adobe Reader is also free, the thing you gain using Foxit Reader is harddrive space. I know that harddrives are big now, but still why not use the space you can save for more music, videos or…PDF files?

Another operation we quite regularly perform is unzipping the zipped packages (zipping/unzipping is still zipping/unzipping even а the package comes in some other format, rather than .zip). WinZIP and WinRAR, plus maybe 7-Zip are the most popular programs. But the first two are actually shareware (unless you get them at the ‘book market’). IZArc is my choice. Again, it takes just 6.6 MBs of my harddrive space (while WinZIP installer is more than 10 MBs), does absolutely the same job (unzipping packages for me, but can zip if you need it too) with a few dozen formats including .zip, .rar, .7zip, .jar, etc. You will have to look hard to find a format it cannot deal with. And a new version 3.6 comes with nice icons for every format (icons indicate the type of format too, if you want to know what kind of file that is).

Windows Live Writer (Beta)

I am writing this post using Windows Live Writer (Beta), a freeware offer from Microsoft. It looks nice and seems to be handy. At least I didn’t have that notorious message that I am attempting to do something harmful to my computer by opening my WordPress account. I hope this also works faster than WordPress site. Anyway, I am giving it a try and spreading the word about the program.

It allows you to write posts in WYSIWYG mode, change fonts (if you don’t like the standard font), do lots of other things through a menu, which seems to be richer in options than the standard website menu. It also has a spell checker.