Software Gadgets

I posted about Truecrypt back in 2006 on the old version of this blog. A few days ago, Truecrypt version 5.0 was released with a number of nice improvements, including the ability to encrypt the boot drive. From the announcement:

We are pleased to announce that TrueCrypt 5.0 has been released. Among the new features are the ability to encrypt a system partition or entire system drive (i.e. a drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication, pipelined operations increasing read/write speed by up to 100%, Mac OS X version, graphical interface for the Linux version, XTS mode, SHA-512, and more.

Every I said about how nice Truecrypt was back in 2006 is even more true today. The new version makes it even easier to keep your private data private. While the CEOs for some large companies and many governments (including the US government, unfortunately) seem to think no one really needs privacy — everyone both needs and appreciates privacy. Truecrypt can help you protect yours from prying eyes.  Check it out. It’s free and open source.

Operating System: Windows, Linux, MacOS
Price: Free
Web Site: http://www.truecrypt.org/

Tags: truecrypt, windows, linux, freeware, privacy

Microsoft did it again with Word 2007. They changed the file format so that older versions and other Word Processors can’t read it. If you get a Word 2007 .docx file from an associate or client, you no longer need to buy Office 2007 to read it. Docx2rtf is a freeware program that converts .docx files to the much more standard richtext (.rtf) format — preserving as much of the original formating as the .rtf format allows. It will also convert the new “ODF” format used by the latest versions Openoffice, NeoOffice and similar program to standard richtext format. The latest versions of DocX2rtf will also convert to the PDF format and will convert PalmOS Database files (the format used in many Palm ebooks).

Docx2rtf conversion isn’t perfect, but it will let you read and work with the data in a document stored in one of these newer formats without having to buy and/or install a new word processor program.

Operating System: Windows
Price: Free
Web Site: http://www.nativewinds.montana.com/software/docx2rtf.html

Tags: windows, docx, odf, pdf, converter, freeware, Word 2007

Sometimes you just want to open or execute a file in a directory you use a lot. Opening a file manager, browsing to and opening the file and then closing the file manager is a lot of work if you have to do it often enough. The Menu File Browser Applet is an applet for the GNOME Panel. It lets put one or more directories of your choice on the GNOME Panel as menus. You can browse and open files in these directories (and their subdirectories) directly from the panel, without having to open a file manager.

I had tried to use the Menu File Browser applet a few versions ago and found it ugly and somewhat buggy, but version 0.5.4 seems to blend properly with the GNOME Panel and has a property editor that makes it easy to set up a directory as a menu. Best of all, I haven’t ecountered any bugs in several days of use.

The Menu File Browser Applet has a number of nice features:

* Browse and open files in your computer from the panel
* Respects GNOME mime type options and includes mime icon in menu
* Middle clicking in a directory header will open a terminal in that directory
* Smart(er) handling of executable files: left click opens for editing, middle click runs it.
* Configuration options (directories and labels to show, select icon, show/hide icon, show hidden, select terminal)
* Displays message for empty directories or failure to open a directory.

This applet has quickly become one of the most used applets on my panel.

Operating System: Linux (GNOME Desktop Environment)
Price: Free
Web Site: http://code.google.com/p/gnome-menu-file-browser-applet/

Tags: Linux, GNOME applet, Menu File Browser Applet

PlayOnLinux is a frontend that helps to install a number of population Windows games and applications on Linux using WINE. It connects to an online PlayOnLinux script repository for the latest script to automate the installation of a given program. You still have to own a copy of the Windows program you want to install, of course. Currently, automated install scripts are available for 30 or 40 Windows games (including such popular titles as World of Warcraft, Steam, Elder Scrolls 4 and Call of Duty 2). Only about ten applications currently have scripts, but these ten include Office 2003 and Trillian.

This is a fairly specialized tool for Linux users, but if you need to install a Windows game that will work with WINE (Or Office 2003), and are having trouble getting WINE to cooperate, PlayOnLinux might solve your problems.

Operating System: Linux
Price: Free
Web Site: http://www.playonlinux.com/en

Tags: linux, WINE, freeware, PlayOnLinux, Windows

The PDF document format has become an industry standard and many Linux office programs can produce a document in PDF format without any additional software or special printer drivers needed. Editing a PDF document directly, however, has been hard in Linux due to a lack of a well-designed PDF editor (commercial or open source).

The open source PDFedit project is attempting to fill this need. Judging by the current version (0.3.2), they have already succeeded in producing a program that will do the average job of making a minor changes or corrections to a PDF file. Changes can even be scripted in EMCAscript (aka Javascript). PDFedit is easy to use. If you use Linux and need to edit PDF files directly, PDFedit looks like the answer to your problem.

Operating System: Linux (and most other Unix variants)
Price: Free
Web Site: http://pdfedit.petricek.net/pdfedit.index_e

Tags: linux, pdf format, pdf editor, freeware