Accountancy Forum

Guys! how are you.
I will be sending periodic reviews of good software that are handy for nerds and tech-phobic alike. I hope this would atleast liven up this almost quite technology forum.
Being tired of the popups/viruses/trojans/spyware in your computer. You must know the cost of data as we always see how many times there is system/data corruption, wasting valuable time.
As accountants of the new millenium we should embrace technology. So here is a list of some useful freeware/steps that keep your system clean and up and running.

1. WINDOWS UPDATE For those of you who have the facility of fast internet connection, this site is a must visit atleast once a month, preferably weekly. Others may do it once a month if they can afford to keep their internet running overnight )
www.windowsupdate.com
2.GOOGLE TOOLBAR A nice program with very effective popup killer. Its not very fancy but very effective. You can also do websearches directly from the toolbar.
toolbar.google.com
3. SPYBOT SEARCH & DESTROY If you have made a mistake of visting those ..... sites or just clicking banner ads, you would see dialers and other software in your PC, that sometime set your homepage to a website. These are harmful and can/do send private information to their respective servers. This software keeps your system clean of those nasty spyware. Once a week run would do the job.
www.safer-networking.org
4. AVAST ANTIVIRUS It is a good antivirus which is free as well. You need to get registered to obtain the key. It comes with free one year updates. Do a full scan once a week and enable auto updates.
www.avast.com
5. DISK CLEANUP windows has a nice utility called disk cleanup. Use it atleast once a month to delete temp files and internet cache. You can also clean i-cache from IE tools->internet option.
6. DEFRAG There is a general misconception that defrag kills your hard disk. DEFRAG keeps your disk clutter-free and ensures faster access times. Do it once a month. For those of you having windows Me, 98 or 95, run defrag in safe mode as it would speed up the process dramatically. For 2000, NT and XP, defrag works fine in normal mode.
7. TUNEUP UTILITIES 2003 Though its a 30day trial version, its a very effective tool to clean up your system's registry, hard disk etc. Especially when you have done lots of reinstalls and uninstalls.
http//www.tune-up.com/






Edited by - CBPian on Mar 10 2004 111032 AM

would you know any software that would enable me to control the uplink and downlink elements of 2MB line. My requirement is that I need to dedicate 128K downlink and rest to uplink. Can you or somebody help.

Apart from software firewalls, do you know any reasonably priced hardware firewall solutions.

Hi CBPian
long time no see. And yes, i too was feeling that the technology section in the forums was kind of being ignored by the members.

Zubair
I did a search on cnet for hardware firewalls and got the following results. You can check em out by clicking on the link below

http//cnet.search.com/search?timeout=3&q=hardware+firewall

As for your query regarding upload and download bandwidth, i could be wrong, but i dont think that the end user can customize these things, either through hardware or some software solution. The up and down bandwidth ratio is set by the service provider. Maybe you can ask your provider to customize it for u.

Btw, how much does 1 Mb bandwidth cost in the UK? (presuming that u are based in UK)

________________________
Arrrgh... it sure's gonna be mighty rough sailin' today ... mates!

My advice of the day to fellow members of the board <img src=icon_smile.gif border=0 align=middle>

Have atleast two email addresses, one for work and the other for informal use. Never ever give your work address on forums like yahoogroups etc. And try not to use outlook, eudora, incredimail or other similar programs for downloading mails from your informal address, unless you have a pretty good antivirus program and firewall installed.

This is the best way to keep viruses, worms and trojans away from your system.

________________________
Arrrgh... it sure's gonna be mighty rough sailin' today ... mates!

if you want refined search only for pakistan then
http://www.google.com.pk is the best one

Yes Guybrush... I was busy with some projects. And it appears there was nothing much happening at the forums.
Goodman, I forgot about firewalls in the essential software posting.
Hardware Firewalls There are many available now and as low as 100 bucks in ADSL routers. e.g netgear DG 834. If your are using office network with VPN then Cisco has many solutions in its PIX 500 series which include HW encryption upto 256 bits as well.
D-Link also offers firewall solution within DSL routers.
See this link as well http//www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopSearch.asp?CategoryID=44&ShopGroupID=11&Alt=Yes
Software Firewalls It is a must as mere being connected to the net can bring you the problems of viruses and trojans. Home users can use Zone Alarm or Sygate Personal Firewall. Both are good and easy to use. Although in certain test I found SPF superior to ZA which was surprising.
Also do not allow server rights to any software unless you are using video streaming or using voice over IP. Server rights give the software administrative control and however benign it may seem, you can never trust these.

As far as the gooodman’s question regarding controlling the uploads and download speeds is concerned, Guybrush is correct. It is always easier and better to get your ISP to do the setting at their end. Its part of the QoS agreement and pricing. Also note that you have to have dedicated bandwidth and not burstable bandwidth to assure the upload/download parameters. Finally, I have something useful for you, so check out below. It supports linux and freebsd. They seem to have hardware based systems as well.
http//www.etinc.com/index.php?page=bw_software.htm

WINZIP 9
For those of us who are paranoid with security, a new version of winzip has been released with AES 128 and 256 bit encryption. Traditionally, the password based encryption of winzip has been considered weak. However, with this release we can have peace of mind. I would also recommend audit guys to recommend this cheap and secure solution to their clients.
Remember winzip 9 has backward compatibility however AES encryption needs same version (Winzip 9)for the receiver to decrypt those files.

Hi CBPian,
can you tell me a software through which i can convert the format of audio files quickly, like wav to mp3, mp3 to audio CD etc.
moreover, can u tell me the name of email service which supports the voice mailing.

Regards

SMR

Well SMR, there are numerous software available for the task that you need. As you might have noted, I am a proponent of freeware and openware software which does not require u to pay a penny<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

So for ripping and conversion (from Audio CD to wave and mp3 etc)I would recommend CDDA Extractor. http//www.sonicspot.com/cddaxtractor/cddaxtractor.html
Its a bit old, however you can find newer version with a little search.

However for CD burning (wave/mp3 to audio cd), you can use windows media player (has inbuilt roxio cd burner)which also allows you to create Audio CD from wav, mp3, wma etc. You can also use realone player as well.

FOR PEOPLE WITH MONEY
Audiograbber, Easy CD ripper are good ripper/encoder
Nero is the best software for CD burning, normally u get it free with your CD-writer. (I prefer nero express which is a real quicky)

PS. I dont think there are email services with voice mail support available out side north america.

Edited by - CBPian on Mar 16 2004 103251 AM

TASKPLUS
Guys... i have had experience of missing appointments/meetings more often than not while doing some work on computers and im sure you too albeit not so often. I am using a free software for more than a year and would like you guys to take a look at this software.
You can set up appointments and even publish your calendar as HTML pages.

http//www.contactplus.com/products/freestuff/task.htm

PDF
.... I cant spend huge money on Adobe Acrobat.. though ive heard they have reduced prices significantly but still too much premium.
I tried various so called pdf printers available but almost all left a watermark or something unless one buys the full version.
CutePdf printer is a good alternative with no limitations/watermark. Just intall the software and use it as a pdf printer-converter.
http//www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

POST-IT NOTES

Currently my favorite small utility. Works just like real post-it notes, except that you stick these notes on your desktop. I find Outlook too cumbersome and a bit too heavy to do simple day-to-day scheduling and since my pc is always turned on, so these notes are always in my sight. The Lite version is available for free from download.com.


________________________
Arrrgh... it sure's gonna be mighty rough sailin' today ... mates!

<b>NET NOTE 5</b>
Dear Guybrush, Post It is a good task scheduler, but sometimes if u have some dead jobs (which may get alive suddenly), your desktop is full of yellow boxes, and it is sometime very difficult to find the note among the list of many notes, I used to use the post it, but till i have found the net note 5, i found it more convinient.

Try the Net Note 5, it works simply like MS Outlook task scheduler.
Free download is available at www.download.com

SMR