Help Lost Gadgets Find Their Way Home

Have you ever left something in a taxi, on an airplane, etc. --and never saw it again? Perhaps the person who eventually picked it up wanted to return it, but didn't know how because the gadget had no identification attached.

Enter SendMeHome, a free service that helps reunite people and their stuff. All you do is register an item--any item, really, from electronics to sports equipment to luggage--then print a specially coded label and tape or glue it on.

If someone finds your item, they just visit the SendMeHome site (the URL appears on the label), enter the code, and send you a message. From there it's up to you to arrange the item's return.

That makes SendMeHome a bit different from StuffBak, a similar service that offers a toll-free phone number finders can call, covers their shipping costs, provides a reward (in the form of StuffBak labels), and so on.

Of course, you pay a few bucks (upwards of $30) for all those services, and you have to buy StuffBak's labels. SendMeHome costs nothing to use, though you can order a sheet of eight weather-proof vinyl labels, in varying sizes, for $4.

Obviously there are no guarantees that these labels will help you recover lost items--but at least you know that an honest person can easily return your smartphone, digital camera, and other gadgets.

Source: PC World

Logitech Vid Offers Free and Easy Video Calling

When you think of Logitech Vid (free with some restrictions), think of an easier-to-use version of Skype with superior quality. The most salient reason for the ease of use verdict comes from the simple fact that you choose people to chat with by their e-mail and a photo they take when they sign up, not some potentially obscure screen name. There's also a simple but intuitive onscreen interface.

If you're a Logitech Webcam owner looking for free and easy-to-use video calling software, Logitech Vid is a good bet.

After signing up for a Vid account, the first thing you're asked to do is pose for the aforementioned photo that will accompany your profile. Vid automatically recognizes the Webcams and mics on your computer, though the PC World reviewer had to increase the volume a skosh on the PC. There aren't a huge number of settings to tweak either: automatic answering of calls, noise reduction, devices, and volume settings. That's a good thing as Vid is trying (and succeeding) to make video calling easier. In short, setup is a breeze.

Vid leverages the SightSpeed technology it bought a while back. It doesn't retain the SightSpeed client's ability to conference 9 people, it does preserve SightSpeed's audio/video quality.

Logitech Vid is simple to use, and it's free for anyone who owns a Logitech Webcam of any vintage or has a Logitech Webcam owner on their list. You may also try Vid with another company's WebCam for 30 days, however, after that you'll have to buy a Logitech device or make friends with someone who has one to keep on keepin' on.

Source: Jon L. Jacobi, PC World

10 handy Firefox about:config hacks

If you really want to fine-tune your Firefox functionality, you have to roll up your sleeves and tinker with the about:config page. Jack Wallen shares some simple hacks to make Firefox work the way you want.

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Unless you’re a Firefox power user, you may not be familiar with the about:config page. The Firefox about:config page is not so much a page as it is a somewhat hidden configuration section. It’s hidden because it’s fairly powerful and not nearly as simple to use as the standard Preferences window. In the about:config page, you have to know what you are doing or you can mess things up a bit. In fact, when you attempt to go to that page for the first time, you have to accept an agreement (which is really just a warning) before you can continue.

How this page works is simple. You reach the page by entering about:config in the address bar. There are entries (one per line) that handle various types of configurations. Each entry has a searchable keyword. The entries can be of Boolean, integer, or string value. Entries contain Name, Status, Type, and Value. Typically, you will be modifying only the Value, by double-clicking on it and making the change. With all of that in mind, let’s take a look at 10 of the best ways you can “hack” the about:config page.

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Tip

If Firefox is fubar’d because you accidentally misconfigured about:config, you can fix it in one of two ways:

• Make a backup of your prefs.js file before you start editing. Then, if something goes wrong, you can restore it by copying it over the corrupt file.
• If you can’t restore via a backup prefs.js file, you can exit Firefox and issue the command firefox -safe-mode to bring up the Firefox Safe Mode screen. Then, just select Reset All User Preferences To Firefox Defaults. Note: This will restore all user preferences to their default values.

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1: Speed up Firefox

This hack requires a few steps. Search for pipelining in the filter and you should see:

network.http.pipelining: Change this to true.

network.http.proxy.pipelining: Change this to true.

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: Change this to 8.

Now search for max-connections and you should see:

network.http.max-connections: Change this to 96.

network.http.max-connections-per-server: Change this to 32.

2: Disable antivirus scanning

This is only for the Windows version. If you’re downloading large files, this scanning can seriously slow things down. And since you will most likely scan the downloaded file anyway, you’ll probably want to disable this. Of course, if you are uber paranoid (not a bad trait for computing), you might want to leave this entry alone.

To disable antivirus scanning, search for scanWhenDone and you should see:

browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone: Change this to false.

3: Open Javascript popups as tabs

If a popup window lacks the features of a browser window, Firefox will handle it like a popup. If you would prefer to open all windows, including popups, as new tabs, you need to tell Firefox in about:config. Search for newwindow and you will see three entries. Of those three entries, you will want to modify:

browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction: Change this to 0.

4: Spell checking in all fields

By default, Firefox checks spelling only in multiple-line text boxes. You can set it to check spelling in all text boxes. Search for spellcheckdefault and you should see:

layout.spellcheckDefault: Change this to 2.

5: Open search bar results in new tab

When you use the search bar, the results display in the current tab. This can be a nuisance because you will navigate out of the page you are currently in. To make sure Firefox always opens search results in a new tab, search for openintab and you should see:

browser.search.openintab: Change this to true.

6: Auto export bookmarks

In Firefox 3, bookmarks are automatically saved and exported for you. The only problem is that by default, they’re saved as places.sqlite instead of the more convenient bookmarks.html. To change this setting so that they can be easily re-imported, search for autoExportHTML and you should see:

browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML: Change this to true.

7: Disable extension install delay

One of the few gripes I have with Firefox is the silly countdown you must endure every time you want to install an extension. Fortunately, this can be disabled. Search for enable_delay and you should see:

security.dialog_enable_delay: Change this to 0.

8: View source code in an external editor

When you need to view the source of a page, it opens up in browser popup. Most developers would probably like to have that opened in their favorite editor instead of having to cut and paset. To do this, there are two entries to modify. Search for view_source.editor and you will see:

view_source.editor.external: Change this to true.

view_source.editor.path: Change this to the explicit path to your editor of choice.

9: Get more add-on search results

When you do a search in the Add-on window, you’ll see just five results. You might find it more efficient to increase this number. Search for getAddons and you should see:

extension.getAddons.maxResults: Change this to 10 (or higher, if you want to see even more).

10: Redefine the Backspace button

Did you know you can configure Firefox to use the backspace button to either go back a page or go up a page? This keeps power users from having to go back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. Search for backspace and you will see:

browser.backspace_action: Change this to 0 for previous page and 1 for page up.

Source: Jack Wallen, Techrepublic.com

Fake e-mails to patch Outlook lead to malware

All Windows users need to be aware that Microsoft never links to downloads in its e-mail messages, but always requires a visit to a security bulletin landing page to download a patch.

If you receive an e-mail containing a link promising to upgrade Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, you should simply delete the message to avoid being nailed by a Trojan horse.

These fake Outlook patch alerts have affected PC users worldwide. As the Sophos blog explains, if you follow the instructions in the bogus message, it results in your running nasty hacker code.

Actual security bulletin notices from Microsoft are quite dull. They never include direct links to the downloadable patch. Instead, they require you to go to a bulletin landing page. Most importantly, they're always signed with a PGP signature. (See Figure 1.)


Figure 1. Microsoft's security-bulletin e-mails are always identified as PGP SIGNED.

When in doubt, always download patches directly from the Microsoft Update site. Even considering the recent problems with update notifications that don't always appear in Windows as expected — see this week's Top Story for details — you should always download updates for Windows and other Microsoft software only from Microsoft servers.

Source: Windows Secrets