corewerkz

With the recent $5 increase in the price of 1Password, many people are wondering if it’s worth the cost. To help you decide, consider the following features 1Password provides that you don’t get with Safari, Firefox, Opera, or any other browser:

• Fill/save multiple identities – Good for forum/online store/blog registrations; keep fake/real identities and different e-mail addresses

• Save credit card information - Including multiple credit card numbers, checking accounts, payment methods, and shipping addresses

• iPhone/Palm password syncing (and a slick autofill feature for the iPhone, not sure about Palm)

• Create auto-login bookmarks and aliases (read corewerkz article)

• View password histories – See all usernames/passwords you’ve ever saved – Good for forgotten/mistyped passwords

• Decide on a per-webpage-basis when to autosave and autofill user’s information

• Multiple user accounts per website – Good, for example, if you have multiple G-Mail accounts

• Online syncing with “my1password” servers – Access your passwords from any web browser anywhere

• Export usernames/passwords – As a web page or text file; easily print all passwords for hardcopy backup

• Anti-Phishing protection - Using the OpenDNS PhishTank anti-phishing service

• All password information and identities available within all web browsers – Crucial if you use multiple web browsers

• Better, more sophisticated, form filling and password saving – For example, Safari won’t store password information on certain sites (like some online banking websites)

• Import password data from other web browsers (and keychain) into 1password – Create a master list of all your saved passwords

• Easily create super-strong password from within web browser – Using 1Password’s “Strong Password Generator” which now includes the ability to generate pronounceable and hash-based passwords

• User adjustable “lock after X minutes of inactivity” - Or choose to keep unlocked after first 1Password login

Popularity: 3% [?]

The name isn’t too thrilling, it’s slow to load, sometimes it only shows a black screen; but Surveillancesaver is now my second favorite screen saver (behind RandomWeb).

Watch more than 400 (don’t quote me) surveillance camera video feeds from around the world – updated in real-time. This is simply a Quartz Composer file (like the RSS feeds screen saver) that you install by dragging to Library: Screen Savers. There are NO options, NO preferences, NO tweaking (besides within Quartz Composer).

It takes a while to get up and running, especially the first time you try. But when it’s been active for a while it really starts moving, switching cameras about every 15-30 seconds. The time between cameras seems to vary, perhaps depending on the speed of the video feeds and availability of cameras.

More screen shots from Surveillancesaver on next page…

Read more…

Popularity: 3% [?]

Paranoid? Try Tor (free!), it bounces all your Internet activity around a network of thousands of other servers/proxies (people like you), making it impossible to track your location or activity.

Tor works on Tiger and Leopard, but it’s best if you’re using Firefox (because Tor includes a one-click enabler plug-in for Firefox). Tor installation is a breeze as the installer package actually installs and configures four smaller programs:

1) Vidalia – GUI for Tor
2) Tor – a system for using the Internet anonymously
3) Privoxy – a filtering web proxy that integrates well with Tor
4) Torbutton – a 1-click way for Firefox users to enable or disable the browser’s use of Tor

I tried both the Stable and Unstable Mac versions and they both installed correctly. According to the instructions, I should have been good to go (except they forget to tell you to “Open Vidalia”). I opened Vidalia, opened Firefox, enabled Tor within Firefox, and I was anonymous.

Read more…

Popularity: 5% [?]

Last week I mentioned Miro, the free and open-source Internet video downloader. I’ve been using it for about a week on my Mac Mini (connected to my TV). Here are my thoughts so far:

Miro + Torrents could equal a convenient and free alternative to PAYING for cable TV.

In fact, they are superior to typical cable TV in many ways:

• Free (besides Internet charges)
• Watch ANYTHING (just about every movie, TV show, video podcast)
• NO commercials!
• More choices; tons of Tech, Mac, Science and other esoteric categories of shows/videos you can’t find on TV
• No need to pay for a DVR or TIVO service

It also has a couple disadvantages:

• Lower Quality (in some cases)
• Miro’s interface is still buggy
• Takes time to download videos, so you need to manually search and/or setup automatic downloading (pretty easy with TVShows and Miro)

With Miro, I can also watch Bill Maher’s Overtime (the 10 minutes after the show ends on HBO) before it’s on HBO.com!

Miro also has an HD category! The quality looks GREAT on my Maxent MX-42HP from the Mini (especially after I FINALLY got SwitchResX tweaked out to perfection). There is a large range of HD channels with really interesting content.

Conclusion: I may be saving my money and ditching cable TV soon… Peace Charter!

Popularity: 3% [?]