I’m sure you’ve wanted to be a spy before at some point in your life, especially if you love tech as much as I do. You could sneak around with encrypted files that rogue regimes want badly. Then, when you’re captured, you fight to the last breath without giving them your super-secret password and the world is saved. Psych. You’re still in your church office!

As much as we all would love to know about encryption, it is a very scary and cumbersome topic for us common folk. But thanks to one of my favorite programs True Crypt, it’s easy to hide and encrypt any data you want without even being somewhat of an expert on encryption.

I’ve seen many a church accountant backup their Quick Books files on a thumb drive without ever encrypting their data. This could be bad for a company or a church if that data gets into the wrong hands. So, in order to help you protect your files, I’ve put together this simple screencast to show you how to use True Crypt. You’ll be up and running within 5 minutes!

True Crypt runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux! Woo Hoo!

Download True Crypt

Have you ever been frustrated when someone asks you to help them fix their computer over the phone? It becomes a tedious task for them to explain exactly what’s on their screen. ShowMeWhatsWrong.com is a great way to see what’s going on with their computer. It’s super easy to sign up. You enter your name and email, and it generates a unique URL to share with your friend. Your friend then visits the URL and a screen recorder is built right into the website. In a matter of five minutes, they can record their screen (with audio) and it will be posted for you to see on your URL. Go give it a try, it works pretty slick!

Go To ShowMeWhatsWrong.com

If you run a Windows based projection system with one or two extra monitors/screens, this hack might be useful for you. Whenever you play a Flash video full screen, any keystroke or mouse click on another monitor will cause the full screen view to minimize. This could be irritating if you are trying to play an internet video on one screen and push other media to another screen at the same time. Here’s how to safely hack the Flash player.

1. Download the replacement DLL (zip container) here.
2. Open an explorer window and go to C:\windows\system32\Macromed\Flash\
3. Rename the NPSWF32.dll file to NPSWF32.dll.txt to save as a backup in case the hack doesn’t work
4. Copy the new NPSWF32.dll from the zip container to the folder.
5. Restart your browser and viola! It should work beautifully.
6. If for some reason your Flash player breaks, go back to the directory and delete NPSWF32.dll, then rename NPSWF32.dll.txt back to its original file name.

Pressing escape will minimize the Flash player once it’s been hacked.

(via Lifehacker)

Before I begin, let me preface this post by saying that I own an iPod Touch. I’m very familiar with the ins and outs of Apple computers. I’ve worked on a Mac for several years and really enjoyed the experience. However, I’m not a die-hard Apple guy. I tend to see myself as a hybrid user. I really don’t care if it’s a PC (unless it’s Vista) or a Mac.

This Saturday the much anticipated iPad will be released to the public. I have several friends who are cult followers of Apple who plan on standing in line for hours to get their hands on this new digital treasure. The iPad is certainly worthy of buzz, but is it really worth taking an entire day to make one purchase?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the response to the iPad. The day it was revealed, the sun stood still for techies. It was said to be the death sentence for netbooks and a new era of gadgetry. I voiced/tweeted a skeptical opinion and was sharply rebuked by a couple of passionate Apple junkies. Later that day, someone posted that Steve Jobs has a way of creating things we didn’t know we needed. Three things in short happened that day across the US:

1. Mass hysteria over a new toy
2. Rejection of those who didn’t drink the Keynote Koolaid
3. Amenity was cast as necessity

(more…)

This is a great resource for web designers who want to embed nice fonts in their web designs without infringing on the EULA agreements of popular fonts. Font Squirrel provides a list of dozens of free fonts to use on commercial websites. There is a nifty generator that helps you embed the fonts in your site as well. If you’re not a web designer, you can obviously use these fonts on print collateral as well. Enjoy!

Go To Font Squirrel

If you’re an IT person, Look In My PC is a software you need to add to your toolbox. It gives a complete profile of all software, hardware, network connections, windows processes, and much more in one report. You can check out a sample report on their site. Before you start troubleshooting PC problems again, use Look In My PC first.  It’s absolutely free.

Go To Look In My PC

via Lifehacker